More Than Just Scribbles…..maybe, an investment in the creative tomorrow

The University Union Gallery at Sac State has a remarkable exhibition currently on display.  Aptly titled More than Just Scribbles, the show features artwork created by children artists from around the local area, some just 1-2 years old.  There are all kinds of different creations on display--from paintings, to collages, to sculpture and mini installations-- and it was great to see it all!  

I was particularly intrigued by the self portrait drawings.  They reminded me a lot of Basquiat’s work—proportions were wrong; areas were scribbled in; color was patchy—but overall, they were such great images.  There was a uniqueness and a rawness to the drawings that spoke to the individuality of the creators.  The artist visions of these kids is so incredible! 

I also enjoyed the mixed media work.  They looked like giant messes of just about every material the young artists had at their disposal.   I often wonder what it would be like to hear the thoughts of kids as they create.  What is it they think about and to what extent when they are creating? 

Overall, this has been one of my most favorite exhibitions to review.  As an artist and a supporter of the arts, I believe it is important to encourage art from an early age, so it was great to see what some of the local programs in Sacramento are doing.  Regardless, though, of whether these kids grow up to become artists, I believe that it is important to start cultivating greater creativity in our culture.  The last time I reviewed the Common Core Standards (roughly a year ago, so things might have since been updated), there was no mention of the arts; it promotes math, science, and english.  Though these are important subjects for the next generation to study, ultimately, people are not robots, and they will need to know how to apply creativity to these topics to push research forward, hopefully leading to new discoveries and greater understandings of our world.  We are entering into the age of the creative tomorrow, and art is such a good vehicle to use for understanding the creative process and learning how to be creative.  Hopefully, the younger generation adopts elements of art, or elements from art, as catalysts for furthering our cultures.

Art Street

Located in an old warehouse downtown, M5 Arts (the organization responsible for Art Street, and last years Art Hotel) was able to secure this old building before it was to be demolished, and turn it into a maze filled with contemporary art.  Though many of the artists I did not recognize, there were several with ties to Sac State’s art program, including current professors, which was great to see.

Most of the artwork at Art Street were installation pieces and many were interactive, which created quite an immersive experience for viewers.  One of the works that I found interesting was an installation of slender mirror panels (roughly 4 inches wide), all hung in a row.  When standing in front of the mirrors, one’s reflection was echoed and repeated numerous times, creating the sense of infinity.  Though using mirrors in this way to suggest the infinite is not original, what I found powerful about this piece was that the artist used many mirror panels, all suspended and free moving, which created a fracturing effect, therein creating the power driving the work.  In other words, it created— both literally and metaphorically— a fractured reality, which I find to relate appropriately to today’s current state of affairs.

There was another suspended installation piece that I found intriguing.  Hanging in the center of the warehouse were giant rectangular, black and white boxes.  Something about the simplicity of these made me really appreciate the work.  The lack of ornamentation on the individual boxes allowed me to focus on the rhythm that the whole work created— from the repetition of the forms, to the varying heights they were suspended above the viewer, to the repeated black and white color changes.  The work reminded me of the minimalist movement of the late 60’s and early 70’s.   Scale was also a major part of this installation, as the work was large in scale and very expansive—the individual boxes were at least human size and the work as a whole took up at least fifty feet in both direction—which dwarfed me as a viewer.  Lastly, there was a feeling of heaviness and weightiness to the work—like these forms were fighting against gravity and hovering in the air, but at any moment could come crashing back down to earth.

Overall, Art Street is an amazing experience.  It is encouraging to see something happening in the Sacramento art scene.  I think the main factor of why something such as this is so incredible, is because it is non-profit.  These artists are making and experimenting with their ideas and materials without the threat of a gallery wanting to sell their work, which in turn, I feel allows for more creative freedom; these artists make art that they feel they need to make, in order to express what they feel they need to express.  Unfortunately, I did not submit an application this time to Art Street, but hopefully I can participate with my own work in the future.

The courtyard of Art Street; before you enter the actual building--ART EVERYWHERE!

Art Street Installation

Mustafa Shaheen checking out one of the video installations

This installation had a video feed; Sean Hong was in the room while I took this picture from the outside of the video screen.

Same installation as above, this time Mustafa Shaheen was in the installation room.

Morse's Thoughts by Rene Steinke

Installation by Trent Dean

Courtyard of Art Street, view of downtown Sacramento in the distance

DON'T TOUCH THE ARTWORK! I should know better...However, this was one of the works created by Sac State's own Bailey Anderson.

Meditating on art, while being surrounded by art

Crossing Sublime (After After Nature) Work by Valerie Constantino

On display in the Else Gallery at Sacramento State is a solo exhibition of artwork by artist and Sac State art faculty member Valerie Constantino.  Constantino received her BFA from the University of the Arts in Philadelphia, PA and her MFA from the Art Institute of Chicago.  Her background is mostly in textiles, yet she maintains an interdisciplinary practice.

Her current exhibition fills the gallery space with many small scale works.  These works create an amazing intimacy with the viewer due to the small scale and intricate assemblage, photo manipulation, writing, and audio recordings.  I imagine working that small and with fabric would be difficult and cumbersome, yet the works speak of elegance and simplicity.  Despite my usual visual interest in busy and visually complex artwork, the visual quietness of Constantino’s work seemed to resonate with me and speak well to her content of nature and the sublime.  Her work was very intellectually stimulating—which I loved— and I believe the quietness of the visual elements of the work allowed the viewers mind to process her ideas without distraction.  

As for the art, my personal favorite is entitled After After Nature 2 (Bird and Boat).  The stitching in the Bird and Boat piece is subtle and hardly noticeable, yet this component of the work comes across as extremely delicate and hugely important to the content of the work.  The loose threads that dangle from it seem to suggest an unfinished thought or an open ended question, remark or statement.  The direction of the thread guides my eye down to the boat form, which again, for being made of fabric, carries such a huge visual and emotional weight in the work.  Visually, by placing this boat to the right of the dangling thread seems to suggest a type of journey, either to the thread and the open idea it represents, or away from the thread, as if the boat had already made it to its destination, and now is on its way.  Interestingly, the shelf underneath these other components—which typically is used as a type of support— functions as a metaphorical support of the above idea or thought that Valerie is communicating, since the boat and the bird are not actually resting on the shelf but rather hung on the wall.

After After Nature 2 (Bird and Boat) on right

Overall, the work was very engaging and thought provoking, though, as a viewer, you have to seek out that engagement, since the art didn’t shout it to you.   Seeing the power of small scale art in a huge gallery was very beneficial to me as an artist.  

Valerie Constantino Artist Lecture

Sac State art faculty professor Valerie Constantino gave an artist lecture to accompany her solo exhibition at the Else Gallery at Sac State.  She briefly explained her past work before diving into the driving motivation behind her current show, Crossing Sublime (After After Nature).

Constantino works mostly with textiles, which to her, eventually became a metaphor to describe the material being.  She is interested in the position one holds relative to the land, or, the position of oneself—both as a material and physical being—in space.  She is also interested in reductive abstraction and simplifying experiences.  When working with her materials, she says she likes to listen to them, and to challenge their use. 

Transitioning into the ideas behind her current body of work, Contastino said she drew inspiration from a book by W.G. Sebald called After Nature.  In sum, the writing follows the story of three men connected by their questioning of humankind’s place in the natural world.  The first character is an artist, the second is an enlightened botanist explorer, and the third was the author himself.  So, in using this model of three characters, Valerie Constantino assumed the identity of two other women from history that she found inspiring.  Her idea was to produce work in the persona of these other people.  The two women she chose were artist Anne Ryan and Russian astronaut Valentina Tereshkova. 

One of the themes that Constantino wanted to address in her current body of work was the idea of working internally instead of using an expansive gesture.  This lead to her decision to work in a small scale, which she said, at times, was difficult and clumsy, as the materials that she worked with did not always cooperate.

Overall, the art came out great, and this lecture accompanied the exhibition well, as it provided greater depth to the artworks. (see following post for review of exhibition)

Valerie Constantino's website: http://www.valerieconstantino.net

Group of Sac State art students taking a photo with Professor Valerie Constantino