The other day I drove by a telephone pole that had about a dozen signs advertising yard sales stapled on it — and that was just one pole. These days, when you go to take your cast-offs to the thrift store, they often have a sign out saying they are not accepting drop-off donations; you […]
Art Beat
Artists, galleries, museums, arts nights and shows around the county.
Posted inArts + Scene
Form Meets Function
When I got an e-mail from Steven Vander Meer about the Life Drawing show at Good Relations in Eureka, it occurred to me that I haven’t written much about one of the most popular of artist’s subjects: the human form. On the surface, the reasons for painting the figure are pretty obvious. We like to […]
Posted inArts + Scene
Rock On
“The majestic rocks off Northern California’s coast dominate the shore, slightly beyond the physical reach, but not the imagination, of humans.” So says Annie Reid, curator of an exhibit at the Westhaven Center for the Arts titled "Sea Stack Survey of the North Coast." The display running until the end of August showcases the work […]
Posted inArts + Scene
Luminous Color
I’d recognize Joan Gold anywhere — her paintings that is. I only met her for the first time last week to interview her for this article, but I have been looking at her paintings for more than 10 years now, and they are very distinctive. Mostly it’s the colors. Some artists have a particular “palette,” […]
Posted inArts + Scene
Keeping the Faith
I first became aware of Brian Tripp when my College of the Redwoods art class met at his apartment in downtown Eureka. It was a trip. He lived in a second floor loft apartment, one big room, and every inch of the floor (less a narrow pathway) was covered with boulders and hunks of wood. […]
Posted inArts + Scene
More Than Driftwood, Rocks
You know you’re getting close to Philip Burgess’s place when you start to see bicycles hanging from the trees. Old rusty ones. A road sign informs you that you are approaching the “brain check area.” You slow down to take in all of these unusual road signs and see more and more sculpture, rocks that […]
Posted inArts + Scene
Marshlands: Another Interpretation
I hadn’t planned it this way, but I find myself writing once again about an artist whose work interprets our local marshes. This artist, Ellen Land-Weber, has focused on a specific place — the Arcata Marsh. It’s fascinating to see how different two artists’ approaches are when the inspiration is the same. The work that […]
Posted inArts + Scene
What the Brits Are Up To
At the moment I’m on holiday, as they say here in Jolly Old England. We’re here visiting relatives, but I thought I mightas well take the opportunity to suss out the British art scene. This, of course, is an impossible task for a three-week visit, but I’ll tell you about a few interesting things I’ve […]
Posted inArts + Scene
Capturing the Birds
It’s easy to forget in this modern time full of bewildering and exotic grist for the artistic mill, that it was wild nature that first compelled human beings to put pen to paper. The wonder that we feel watching the birds in the sky or the colors of a sunset have inspired the artist in […]
Posted inArts + Scene
Inside the Brain of Carl Muecke
Carl Muecke likes his artwork, and that’s refreshing. He’s not arrogant or obnoxious about it, but he really likes what he does, as all artists should. He likes the bright colors, the ideas and the uniqueness of his work. Looking around on the Internet and talking to other artists, he says he’s never found anything […]
Posted inArts + Scene
Pollution as Art
Walking into the Foyer Gallery on the HSU campus yesterday, I was overwhelmed with a feeling of oppression. The installation piece there consists of a net of plastic garbage, glued, stapled and tied together and suspended from the ceiling. The idea is to give the viewer a feel for what it might be like in […]
Posted inArts + Scene
Photographic Alchemy
Call it alchemy. It isn’t, really, but there is a certain degree of sorcery involved in the creation of a fine photo using the old-school method. You know, the kind of print made back in the day, when photographers used film and did their post-shoot work in a darkroom, not at a computer screen. More […]