A showcase of local Native art, Recalling from the Source at Cal Poly Humboldt’s Goudi’ni Native American Arts Gallery features a mix of traditional and contemporary art practices, materials, symbols and themes, and includes Native artists at all levels of experience. The exhibition includes more than 30 artists with objects as diverse as delicately beaded […]
Art Beat
Artists, galleries, museums, arts nights and shows around the county.
Posted inArts + Scene
Where the Party’s At
In our third hour at Toni’s restaurant the other night, I told my three friends, each visiting the North Coast for the first time from a different city, about the art show we were going to see the next day. “The work depicts a kind of psychedelic homelessness,” I said. My comrades all laughed at […]
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Tamar Atik’s Arcata Spectacle
If you have spent any time in Arcata lately, you will have noticed a lot of changes, many of which cause no shortage of griping among the citizenry. I’m talking about new construction and roadwork, and one of my own private gripes: address plaques with numerical fonts that summon visions of tony SoCal neighborhoods, here […]
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Ingrid Nickelsen’s Legacy at Morris Graves
Ingrid Nickelsen was not originally from Humboldt County but her legacy here is strong in her landscape paintings capturing the raw beauty of rivers, creeks and wilderness areas both familiar and remote. It is also alive in the estate Nickelsen bequeathed to help nurture local women artists after her death in 2005. Since 2007, the […]
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Art Outside-in on the Bluff
It was raining lightly and a little windy when I arrived with a friend at Outer Roominations for the third and final day of this year’s site-specific installation and performance festival on the Bluff in Loleta. The weather didn’t detract from the playful and enthusiastic atmosphere of the event, for which more than 30 local […]
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Butch Cornelius’ Surf Art History
You may never have heard his name but if you are a surfer — particularly a surfer of a certain age — you have surely seen Butch Cornelius’ work. Raised alongside elite surfers and surf artists of his day, he brushed against fame yet never really had it. Still, the aesthetic of the former graphic […]
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Art for an Another Life
Deep in the COVID weirdness of the fall of 2020, Blue Lake artist and Cal Poly Humboldt lecturer Gina Tuzzi got a call from a friend about contributing to a “small indie film.” Tuzzi didn’t find out until later, but the film was the locally filmed A24 and Apple TV+ production The Sky is Everywhere, […]
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Analog Wisdom, Analog Weight
Walking into Bernadette Vielbig’s ANALOG at the Morris Graves Museum, the wooden yoke suspended along the gallery’s back wall doesn’t demand immediate attention among the careful arrangement of found-object sculptures. Yet this piece, minimal in its color and construction, embodies several themes of the show, which include reflection on balance, explorations of certain dualities, transformation […]
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Dealing the Art Community In
If you’re in the market for unique $30 gifts this season, you can bypass the typical options and pick up one-of-a-kind artworks at Epitome Gallery’s exhibition The Card Show, supporting local artists in the process. Even if you aren’t shopping, this accessible and inclusive community art event, with its wildly diverse showcase of Humboldt makers […]
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Reimagining the Paint
Last month, during a week of the sort of mid-September sunshine that Humboldt County residents dream of, a bright and colorful attraction took form at the edge of Shay Park in Arcata. Specifically, in the basketball court next to the Twin Parks apartments, a dazzling mural crept over the halfcourt’s cement and up onto the […]
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Louis Marak’s Visual Riddles
Louis Marak’s illusionistic ceramics stretch the capacities of clay in unexpected ways. Fired ceramic slabs become surfaces to draw and paint upon. Images are full of illogical juxtapositions. Even when this is not the case, the way the pieces play at being both objects and images yields surreal results. Glazed bowls, reliefs and ceramic slabs […]
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No Spectators at Outer Roominations
Outer Roominations, Humboldt’s first outdoor, time- and site-sensitive art festival, took place on a Memorial Day that started out cool and shadowless. By midmorning, Table Bluff remained overcast in shades of gray and green, foliage draped in dewdrops. On a hillside meadow, people who’d made the drive wandered in pairs and small groups. Apart from […]