Petaluma gallery’s new show celebrates animals and the humans who love them

“What a cool monkey!”

A visitor at Alchemia Gallery and Studios, having spied a large, blue mural by artists NamSun Sin and Tony Scagliola, stops in his tracks to take a closer look.

The mural is a happy explosion of vivid color and enticing imagery, and is easily one of the larger art pieces on display in Alchemia’s current show, “Kindred III.” As the numerals suggest, the exhibit is Alchemia’s third in an ongoing series, each show celebrating the deep connection between animals and humans. The piece currently being studied - simply titled “Flower Mural” - is a three-dimensional jungle of glued-on flowers and shiny crystals, within which are numerous animals and insects, all scampering about, twisting and dancing, grinning and waving.

One of them - rocking a beard and a crown of flowers - is the visitor’s “monkey.”

“Actually,” interjects Liz Jahren, Alchemia’s Artistic Director, whose brainchild the Kindred series is, “I think it might be kangaroo. It has a very kangaroo-ish look to me.”

“I’m pretty sure it’s a cat, don’t you think?” suggests Linda Fisher, the guest curator of the current exhibit. To make her point, Fisher acknowledges another nearby painting, titled “Four Cats,” which was also painted by NamSun Sin. “See the similarity between the cats in this and this animal in ‘Flower Mural’?” Fisher says. “It must be a cat.”

“It’s a panda bear,” says Sin, the artist herself. She’s been watching from a few feet away. With a patient smile she explains, “No cat. A panda bear. And this animal,” she continues, pointing to a different creature, “this is a dog.”

The dog, it would seem, is cradling a large green frog.

“That’s a bug,” says Sin, smiling again, the hint of an eye-roll playing over her face. “Tony painted that bug. I painted the animals, and then he painted all the bugs. Except for the bees. I did the bees. Then we both put on the flowers, and the jewels. I had fun doing this one. I like making bees. I wanted them to be waving hello. They are all waving, all the bees. They are very nice. They like people.”

Alchemia is a North Bay nonprofit created to give adults with developmental disabilities an array of opportunities to express themselves artistically. In addition to the Petaluma gallery, which also serves as a studio in which a number of artists work on a daily basis, there is another gallery in Novato, and a two larger facilities where performing arts - music, video, puppetry, singing, dancing and acting - are a major part of the program. For Alchemia, the Petaluma gallery is the most public face of the organization. According to Jahren, many of its artists have developed their own fan bases of collectors interested in their work.

Sin, of Petaluma, is one of the creators whose work has become particularly popular.

In addition to the large mural, a number of her other animal paintings are on display, along with a pair of whimsical sculptures - a dog covered in strawberries, a chicken rocking a Mohawk. The full show, running through the end of September, includes similarly animal-friendly works by Michael Cheney, James Dushkind, and Tim Shorten, plus a smattering of works by other Alchemia artists.

A clever additional touch this year is the opportunity for local pet owners to have their own animals be immortalized, Kindred-style, by commissioning a pet portrait from one of the featured artists. According to Jahren, commissions can be arranged at the gallery throughout the run of the show, and beyond, with prices depending on size of the desired work and the medium chosen.

“I so love this show,” says Jahren. “And I love that NamSun has such a major role in it. The early parts of her life had a lot of hardship. But just look at her now. There’s so much love in everything she does. She has such a bright, optimistic, kind of kitschy view of the world, and it fits in really well in the “Kindred” shows, the whole idea of this connection between humans and animals - whether those animals are real or imaginary.”

To make “Kindred III” happen, Fisher spent hours looking at dozens and dozens of works by the four featured artists, some of it created in past years, some designed specifically with “Kindred III” in mind.

”I’ve always been a fan of what I call ‘raw art,’” Fisher says, “works that come from a truly honest place, with no ego, just all heart and vision. I find it enchanting and moving. One of the things I look for is artwork that immediately touches me, that makes me smile without knowing I’m smiling. That’s what these artists do so well.”

(Contact Community Editor David Templeton at david.templeton@argus.courier.com or call 707-776-8462)