Spirit of the Horse

Hi Folks, Another great exhibition coming to PV Art Center. The Spirit of the Horse, we have two exhibitions, an invitational and a juried show. I am co-curating along with Peggy Zask the invitational and Marshall Astor from Angles Gate is the juror for the juried show. So if you love horses come on by from June 6 - July 6, 2008. See ya soon Pictured above is Elissa Klein, one of the artists in the show.

SPIRIT OF THE HORSE (Essay from Catalogue)
Long before the invention of the wheel, horses played an essential role in the life of man. From agriculture to transportation to warfare, all major civilizations for which we have written records depended upon this magnificent animal. Throughout history., artists have painted, illustrated, photographed and sculpted these wonderful creatures, from the Altamira caves in Cantabria, Spain, and those at Lascaux in southwestern France, to Rosa Bonheur’s exceptional painting The Horse Fair, created in 1853–1855. Contemporary artists such as American sculptor Deborah Butterfiled launched amazing three-dimensional works depicting graceful horses.

Over the history of art, man has created some of his finest masterpieces using the horse as the main subject. In her book The Horse, Tamsin Pickeral describes this relationship: Between horse and man is one of the longest love affairs to traverse history, and it is an affair that has been catalogued by the hand of the artist.

In this exhibition, Spirit of the Horse, each artist captures the very essence of this great and wonderful creature. In these two exhibitions, the Palos Verdes Art Center and the Portuguese Bend Pony Club join together to share with our community various artistic interpretations of the Spirit of the Horse. This is the first such collaboration between these two groups. In the Beckstrand Gallery, Peggy Zask and I have curated an invitational exhibition highlighting five artists who share a love of the horse: Gunnar Ahmer, Kireilyn Barber, Cinthia Joyce, Elissa Kline and Michael Stutz.

In the Norris Gallery the Portuguese Bend Pony Club holds it third annual juried exhibition of equine-themed art. The juror is Marshall Astor, visual artist and visual art director, Angels Gate Cultural Center. This exhibition features some exciting work by both professionals and high school and elementary students. The Portuguese Bend Pony Club is a registered club of the United States Pony Club, Inc. (USPC). The USPC’s mission is to provide a program for youth which teaches riding, mounted sports and the care of horses and ponies, thereby developing responsibility, moral judgment, leadership and self-confidence. The Portuguese Bend Pony Club seeks to carry out this mission by providing its members with quality instruction, "hands on" horse care and management and the opportunity to participate in competitive equestrian events in the disciplines of dressage, cross-country and show jumping. Portuguese Bend Pony Club is a non-profit corporation and relies on its membership and fund-raising activities to accomplish its goals and the mission of the USPC.

Congratulations to all who entered this juried exhibit which helps support the Portuguese Bend Pony Club. It is a fine organization focused on education and training in the fine art of equestrian events. I would like to thank our Juror Marshall Astor, Visual Artist and Visual Art Director, Angel’s Gate Cultural Art Center for making the selections for the Juried portion of this exhibition. Special thanks to Peggy Zask for co-curating the invitational exhibition and helping with the juried exhibition. Also to Sylvia Miller, District Commissioner, Portuguese Bend Pony Club, for joining with the Palos Verdes Art Center to participate in this worthwhile event; to Laurie Frank, Franks Gallery in Bergamot Station, Santa Monica, in connecting us connect Gunnar Ahmer, and to friends of Portuguese Bend Pony Club for their generous support of this catalogue.

Finally, the exhibitions program thanks members of the Palos Verdes Art Center Board of Trustees for their dedication in helping the arts to flourish on the Palos Verdes Peninsula; Robert Yassin, the Art Center’s chief executive officer and executive director; the volunteers of the Palos Verdes Art Center Exhibitions Committee for their continued commitment to the visual arts; graphic designer Christine Barnicki for her creative design on the invitation and catalogue,
and the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors, through the Los Angeles County Arts Commission, which has sponsored, in part, our entire exhibition program for several years.


Scott Canty
Exhibitions Director
Palos Verdes Art Center

THE WOVEN IMAGE

THE WOVEN IMAGE
Scott Canty, Curator

Each year the Palos Verdes Art Center exhibition committee holds its annual exhibition review for members and non-members to submit their work for future exhibitions at the center. The committee looks for diversity and challenging work that will bring a different view point to the art center’s exhibition program as well as to our audience. As Director of Exhibitions here at the center, I look for artists’ works that work together both intellectually and physically, here in this exhibition The Woven Image brings together three different artists from different backgrounds and different techniques, but all have a common tread of unity in the presentation of their creative masterpieces.

To contrast with our Sixth Biennial International wearable expressions exhibition, The Woven Images in our Norris Gallery examines three artists that explore woven imagery in metal sculpture, painting and quilting.

Susan McGhee is fascinated with the variety of materials and techniques that provide her creative avenues to explore. Weaving metal and using traditional weaving techniques, McGhee creates contemporary wall hangings and sculptural forms some of which are inspired by Japanese Kimonos. McGhee enjoys surprising her audience in discovering the juxtaposition of non-traditional materials with traditional weaving traditions and textures.

Working with oils and canvas, Hiroko Momii creates paintings that are generated from her memories, dreams and experiences. Her abstract forms are also about the synthesis of the opposites: day/ night, mind/body, universal/personal, they also explore the microcosm and macrocosm of this world. In this body of work we see paintings that take a close look to images that could be under a microscope moving into the worlds of textures and energy sources.

“Art is a way of thinking,” says Susan Willen. Working in fiber allows her to look at the world around her and re-interpret it in a graphic form. For the past fifteen years she has worked in fabric. Using color, shape and line give Willen a key to her creative force much like a painter. Using swatches of fabric to make a gesture create a line or to examine textures and different surfaces next to each other these quilts have movement and flowing textures.

WEARABLE Expressions

In art, the hand can never execute anything higher than the heart can imagine. Ralph Waldo Emerson


This is the Palos Verdes Art Center’s sixth biennial international Wearable Expressions exhibition, a celebration of the creative spirit as expressed in unusual, dynamic and most creative works of fiber and jewelry art. Each exhibition in this long-running series has been bigger and better than the ones before. Each one brings us new artists from around the United States and the world. And this year, we added an international flavor to the jurying as well, working with jurors on three continents.

This year we have the privilege of exhibiting fantastic pieces of wearable art from Australia, Canada, Finland, Germany, Iceland, Israel, Italy, Japan, Korea, Lithuania, New Zealand, Northern Ireland, Scotland, Slovenia, Sweden, Turkey, and United Kingdom. As well as pieces from the United States: Arizona, California, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Iowa, Illinois, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Massachusetts, Maryland, Missouri, Minnesota, Michigan, Minnesota, Montana, North Carolina, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia, Washington, and Wisconsin . These represent only 46% of 540 entries received, 250 works were accepted.
We would like to thank all the artists who entered this competition, shared their work with us and created these wonderful examples of wearable art. Their work speaks volumes of the creative spirit that lives in each of us. Congratulations on a job well done!

Special thanks are due to our jurors, who had the difficult job of selecting the best from an excellent pool of entries. The fiber jurors are: Glenys Mann from Australia, president of TAFTA and writer for Textile Fibre Forum magazine; Sunita Patterson from the United States, editor of FiberARTS magazine, and Beatrijs Sterk from Germany, publisher of Textile Forum magazine and secretary general and initiator of the European Textile Network. The jewelry jurors are: Arline Fisch from the United States, teacher, lecturer, professor emeritus at San Diego State University and author of Textile Techniques in Metal; Charles Lewton-Brain of Canada, distinguished fellow of the Society of North American Goldsmiths and fellow of the Gemological Association of Great Britain, and Rebecca Brown-Thompson of New Zealand, botanical illustrator, bead artist and co-author of Rebellious Beads. Thank you for sharing your wisdom and expertise.

The driving force behind our Wearable Expressions program from the very beginning is Gabrielle, curator of this year’s exhibition and manager of The Artists’ Studio, a cooperative gift shop here at the Palos Verdes Art Center. Wearable art is her passion. Gabrielle not only set the vision for this year’s exhibition (and the previous five) but also labored long hours for several months logging in entries, orchestrating images for the jurors, coordinating their work and generally keeping the entire program on track and on deadline. She also secured a wonderful intern: Ingrid Peek from Nelson, New Zealand who has worked behind the scenes for the past six weeks. Ingrid left a corporate career to return to school and is midway through a degree majoring in Costume Design at the Nelson Marlborough Institute of Technology. As a successful past entrant into New Zealand ’s World of Wearable Art competition, Ingrid is thrilled to be able to be involved with this year’s Wearable Expression at PVAC.

An exhibition of this magnitude requires the assistance of many dedicated volunteers, who have given untold hours and energy : Jacqueline Marks, curator Wearable Expressions 2006 and Joanell Connolly, fine artists in their own right, have helped with both the selection process and actual staging of the exhibition. To the Wearable Expressions Advisory Committee: Joanell Connolly, Gay Durward, Lila Finlay-Gutierrez and Jackee Marks. To our wonderful Volunteer Committee for Wearable Expressions: Lyn-Rae Ashley, Judith Baer, Olivia Batchelder, Suzi Click, Karla Schmidt Commins, Joy Gonzalez, Norma Greene, Karen Krajzynski, Trish Lange, Carrie Lieb, Pam Reid, Anne Sheikh, Judith Solomon and Julie Watrous. Thank you.
Finally, the exhibitions program thanks members of the Palos Verdes Art Center Board of Trustees for their dedication in helping the arts to flourish on the Palos Verdes Peninsula; Robert Yassin, the Art Center’s chief executive officer and executive director, to his vision in guiding the Art Center to an even greater future; the committed volunteers of the Palos Verdes Art Center Exhibitions Committee for their continued commitment to the visual arts, and the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors, through the Los Angeles County Arts Commission, which has sponsored, in part, our entire exhibition program.


Scott Canty
Exhibitions Director
Palos Verdes Art Center

Circus Comes to Town

The Circus Comes to Town

The circus is thought to have had its origin in ancient Rome. There the circus was an open-air stadium where chariot and horse races and other public exhibitions were held.

We all have childhood memories of going to the circus. As a young boy, I remember getting all excited to see on the news that the Ringling Brothers and Barnum and Bailey Circus was coming to town. I remember the following day there was a wonderful parade with elephants, clowns, trapeze artists and lion tamers all heading to the Los Angles Convention Center right near Exposition Park. It was exciting for a young kid. The thought of traveling with a circus sounded like an adventure. Going into the big tent and smelling the popcorn, hearing the roars of lions and tigers, seeing the large elephants, walking on straw, the lights and the sounds was the magic.

In the book The Big Show—A History of the Circus by Felix Sutton, we see how the circus developed in the United States and trace the thread of its history into our present day circuses which are enjoyed by millions.

As early as 1785, when our country was in its infancy, there was a circus performance in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The show included horse tricks, clowns, rope walking, and juggling. In order to attract audiences and change its reputation from something frivolous and sinful (remember our Puritan beginnings), the circus added educational pageants: performers dressed as ancient Egyptians and acted out Bible stories and historical dramas. A man named John William Ricketts opened one of our country’s first circuses in 1793, and the Ricketts Circus was a big success. George Washington was one of Ricketts’s biggest fans and became a close friend, attending many of his circus shows.

In the mid-1800s P.T. Barnum, an amazing businessman, opened his first circus. Eventually, another circus owner named James A. Bailey joined him, and their business became known as “Barnum and Bailey, The Greatest Show on Earth.” One of their circus’s features was the sideshow, which became very popular around this time. People came to gawk at the fattest man on earth, giants, midgets, Siamese twins, and the oldest woman in the world, a (supposed) mermaid, and more. At the turn of the century, other prominent circus owners, the Ringling Brothers, bought Barnum and Bailey, The Greatest Show on Earth to form the enormous circus we know today.

In Europe, the circus is seen as a dignified art, and troupes travel worldwide—today’s version of yesteryear’s itinerant entertainers—performing very imaginative acts that combine dance, mime, acrobatics, juggling, and more. Cirque du Soleil and Cirque Éloize are two examples of creative, European-style circus troupes performing for people around the world. Audiences can also enjoy elaborate three-ring spectacles, such as the Ringling Brothers and Barnum and Bailey Circus. Whether you enjoy spectacular animal acts and sequined tightrope walker spectacle or more theatrical productions, join the people who for millennia have appreciated circus acts around the world![1]

The Palos Verdes Art Center presents “The Circus Comes to Town,” a collection of images that were inspired by the magic of the circus. While on my quest to find the most interesting images by contemporary artists, I found some to be haunting, while others are filled with the magic of the circus. I would like to thank the wonderful artists who have traveled far and near for this exhibition:
Bill Concannon, Allan Conrad, Alan Cook’s International Puppets Collection, Jorg Dubin, Meg Escude, Carolyn Fernandez, Jim Jenkins, Phil Joanou, Steve Krynicki, Dorothy Magallon, Jackee Marks, Ralph Massey,Tom Miller, Grant Olsen, Pam Reid, Mayuka Thais and Lawrence Wallin.

The exhibition program would like to thank the Palos Verdes Art Center Board of Directors, Art Center members and the Exhibitions Committee for their continued vision and commitment to the arts in Southern California and graphic designer Christine Barnicki for her creative design on the invitation and catalogue.


Scott Canty
Director of Exhibitions
Palos Verdes Art Center



[1] The Big Show—A History of the Circus by Felix Sutton, Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1971