Art Show: The Power of 10

New exhibit at art center examines issues of scale|

“David Best says he can’t drop off his pieces today, and wants to know if he can do it first thing in the morning tomorrow.”

So says Debbie Hourigan, operations manager of the Petaluma Arts Center, holding the call from artist Best as she informs Executive Director Delfin Vigil and Exhibitions Manager Kim Chigi of the slight change in plans.

On a nearby wall is a piece of paper with the cryptic words, “11 x 17, black construction paper, approximately 12-20 kids.” Across the gallery is a stack of furniture, soon to be placed on pedestals, and a number of art pieces here and there, waiting to be installed - all while a small parade of board members and artists stop by to see if there is anything they can do to help.

“Welcome to Grand Central Station,” says Vigil.

It’s “drop-off day” at the Petaluma Arts Center, the facility clearly abuzz with energy as art pieces are delivered throughout the afternoon. This is step one in the creation of the center’s newest exhibition, its first show of 2018, the first under the leadership of Vigil - who just took the post a few weeks ago - and the first in what is PAC’s 20th anniversary year, and its 10th year inside a former storage house at the onetime Petaluma train depot. The waiting platform of the new SMART train station is just outside the window. Adding to the hustle and bustle are the occasional train passengers sticking their heads in to inquire what’s going on.

“Grand Central station has many meanings for us right now,” jokes Vigil.

The new exhibit, opening Jan. 20, is titled ‘Power of 10: Scaling Up.’ Curated by artist Llisa Demetrios, currently at work in the larger of two galleries at the center, the show features 10 artists, all examining issues of scale and perspective through the mediums of painting, sculpture, architecture, photography and film. Demetrios is the granddaughter of Charles and Ray Eames, the influential American artists and designers whose 1977 short film ‘The Power of Ten,’ is a partial inspiration for the show. Throughout the exhibit’s 2-month run, a number of events and workshops will expand the themes of the show.

The aforementioned note taped to the wall refers to an as-yet-not-created exhibit of works by children, who will participate in a workshop at the center, and will be encouraged to create paper replicas inspired the Bay Bridge Light Project, which added colorful nighttime lights to the Bay Bridge.

“We will have a scale model of the bridge here as part of the workshop,” explains Chigi. “The workshop is a way to get kids to work with ideas of spatial relations, and light and dark, and scale.” Artist Amy Critchett, Executive Producer of Leo Villareal Studios, will lead the workshop and contribute to the creation of the art piece to be installed at the center in mid-February.

The 10 artists whose work appears in the show comprise a wide range of approaches to the central question of scale. Along with the contributions of Critchett, the aforementioned David Best, known for the enormous structures he’s created for Burning Man, will display blueprints of his works, amongst other works. David Alan Boyd will show pieces from his Windowpane series, exploring the impact of human consumption on the landscape. Warren Bellows will looks at the concept of scale through his “Alice in Wonderland”-inspired Quantum Worlds series, including a mysterious magnification of a few brush strokes, that when enlarged appears to be some sort of cosmic space cloud.

Mary Dooley and Chris Lynch, who designed the current Petaluma Arts Center, will present examples of their work as designers of residential spaces, and Douglas Gayeton, of Lexicon Sustainability, will display some of his “information artworks” examining sustainability choices. Other works by Ned Kahn, Patricia McShane and Erik Adigard, and examples of designs from Tiny Houses for Humanity will also be on display.

There will also be example of the Eames’ designs on display, including several chairs and other pieces of furniture they created, which will be exhibited as modern sculpture.

“The furniture speaks to the issue of scale in that my grandparents would build the first hundred of a piece themselves,” says Demetrios, “then they’d take it to the office and make a thousand, then ship them to Herman Miller who’d make a thousand or ten thousand at a time.”

Asked how many separate pieces will be in the show, Demetrios laughs.

“Well, along with my grandparents’ work, and some prototypes, there are at least two pieces from each artist, and some artists have more,” she estimates. Pointing to a number of drawers containing various bits and pieces that inspired toys the Eames’ designed, she adds, “If you’d like to count all of the little objects in those drawers, be our guest. My grandparents collected an abundance of ‘source material’ for the things they created, so that will be pretty interesting to show people.”

Across the room is an enormous blue art piece with myriad small pieces, all connected together with chains reminiscent of the lines used to show molecules connected together.

“This is Cobalt Blue,” says Demetrios, naming the piece, by artist Christopher Evans. “He wanted to show where the paint, Cobalt Blue, comes from. The piece includes pictures of the mines where the blue dye originates, and all the positives and negatives, and all the ways that connect that miner in the ground to all these other things and all these other people. We also have a piece by Christopher showing where the gasoline in his tank comes from.”

It’s the kind of artwork you could stand in front of for an hour, just to capture everything going on in it.

“And that’s fine,” says Vigil, “That’s what we want. The goal of this exhibit is to change the way we look at the world around us, and the way we see ourselves in it.”

(Contact David at david.templeton@arguscourier.com)

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