It is easy to be enchanted by the calligraphic grace with which Morris Graves captures the nuance of a bird’s posture. Looking at the print or drawing that results, you discover not just how the feathers are patterned but also how that creature scampers, waddles, barges or hops through the world. In “Hibernation I,” Graves […]
Art Beat
Artists, galleries, museums, arts nights and shows around the county.
Posted inArts + Scene
Denatured
In Nancy Tobin’s new installation, an archipelago assembled from wobbly towers of thrift-store flotsam at once defines and obscures the space. Colored light bounces off pool floaties and Barbie parts. Viewers ricochet off art as they chart their course from one assemblage island to the next. Be forewarned: You may get glitter on your shoes. […]
Posted inArts + Scene
Gimme Shelter
Lori Goodman’s new installation centers on two large, contoured forms that protrude from the wall. These vaguely tent-like structures are spaced so that they almost touch at their shared boundary. Their rugged surfaces are fashioned from handmade, hand-dyed paper dressed over flexible armatures, the material Goodman has long favored for her constructions. Scale lends these […]
Posted inArts + Scene
Speed Round
This month Arts! Arcata plays it forward. Sights on the north side of the bay include a number of intriguing shows with opening receptions on Friday, Nov. 10, so wear walking shoes. Lineage: Living Traditions of Line, Shape and Design, opening at Humboldt State University’s Gou’dini Native American Arts Gallery (Humboldt State University campus, Behavioral, […]
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Three Native Artists Carry the Weight
What They Bring, What They Carry brings together artworks by Brian Tripp, Brittany Britton and Robert Benson — artists of Karuk, Hupa and Tsnungwe descent, respectively, who grew up in and around reservations in the Hoopa and Two Rivers regions. Tripp and Benson, who have exhibited regionally and nationally for decades, use process to articulate […]
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Paul Rickard’s Plein Air Progress
This month, watercolorist Paul Rickard is staging the last of three successive month-long shows at the Trinidad Coastal Land Trust’s Simmons Gallery. The first focused on the land trust’s properties, while the second presented views from Trinidad. This third exhibition brings together an eclectic assortment of plein-air subjects, all painted on the spot: coastal views […]
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Water Seekers and Pretty Ones
There was so so much going on my life, I had a desire to straighten everything up,” Teresa Stanley said. Until recently, Stanley had been showing abstract paintings based on botanical imagery. The works in her new exhibition at Humboldt State University’s Third Street Gallery leave those organic forms behind. This new body of work […]
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Seven Plus Plus
I went to Arcata’s Creamery District on foot before the heat wave broke to lay eyes on the new work of public installation art I’d heard about. It turned out to be easy enough to find. On L Street between Eighth and Ninth streets, you could see from far off that the chain link fence […]
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Looking at a Statue Looking at the Stars
In John Hylton’s art installations, ravens lend a hand. Wooden pythons whiplash across the night sky. Rough-hewn wooden figures get lost in contemplation of a painted cosmos. This is a humanist cosmos, one that’s accessed via the gazing eye — no tech necessary beyond the retina. Scenarios mark intersections where understandings of the natural world […]
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Seeds and Surfing
This past Sunday festivalgoers at Reggae on the River reveled in good vibes, positive sounds and gorgeous summer weather. Any storm clouds that might be gathering in Babylon were far from the collective consciousness of this happy crowd. Coot Wyman, the affable frontman of the Chico reggae fusion band Mystic Roots, exhorted us to smile […]
Posted inArts + Scene
The Faraway Nearby
Old Town Eureka twanged with the shock of the new last week when street artist Dan Kitchener unveiled an enormous new mural in its midst, the first to grace the city in several years. “Electric-City” is executed entirely in freehand spray paint on the east side of the Buhne Building at the corner of G […]
Posted inArts + Scene
Rediscovering Phillips House
Arcata’s Phillips House is the oldest building standing in Arcata and it has lasted longer than is likely for any structure in a culture that prioritizes change. Built between 1850 and 1855, it stands today as both outlier and relic, having outlived all of its local contemporaries. It was placed on the National Register of […]