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Maureen Davidson: First Friday tour offered up a vivid sampling of local art
The Santa Cruz Institute of Contemporary Arts orchestrated a new level of drumroll and spotlight on Santa Cruz downtown visual arts at the April First Friday Art Tour. It was a distinctly uptown feeling that brought hundreds of people downtown last Friday to graze and converse from gallery to gallery looking at and reputedly buying art, snacking and priming their glasses with gallery hospitality on a balmy spring evening.
I started at the new Dead Cow Gallery, a raw, clean, well-lit space carved out of the old administrative offices of the Tannery Arts Complex, showing intriguing drawings in "Emotional Landscapes" by Pauline Wood. Jaywalking to the Michaelangelo Gallery across lower River Street, it was delightful to see that gallery look so polished and the exhibition of "Animal Portraits" by Penny Brozda just spread the smile wider. The artist and entourage were dressed in formal evening wear, presided over by a well-turned-out elder gentleman in tuxedo and trimmings, making it all the more fun. Brozda's paintings are lively and highly individual impressionistic portraits, full of appreciation for her subjects.
From the "NoWay" district North of Highway 1, the enterprising ICA provided a bus shuttle to several hubs downtown, but my party found it a short and colorful walk to the new art wing of Lulu Carpenter's coffeehouse at the Octagon Gallery, exhibiting small photographs by the Great Morgani. The streets buzzed from there to Felix Kulpa and the other side of town, where the Hide Gallery showed lush portraits of Telopa, who used basically the same composition to achieve very different effect by changing the nuances of tone around the face and bosom of the young woman adored in his central images.
I made a return visit to The Attic after the tour. Here, recent woodblock prints by Bridget Henry are exhibited very simply. Her large-size, small-edition multi-impression prints are poetic and highly charged illustrations that use the weight of symbolism from mythology or tarot to spin mysteries. She uses bold and often opposing colors that vibrate against each other to deliver the maximum impact with limited colors and to activate viewers' innate recognition that each small line is made by carving away what surrounds it.
"The Wind" is mounted on a panel, with a series of black/brown tree trunks marching across the horizon, rising from the grassy bristle of lines in orange and chartreuse against a background of brown. A wedge of blackbird sits on tree branches where jagged chartreuse wedges of leaves quiver against the rose-madder sky. In the foreground, a hunched man walks while the long hair on the top of his head whips in a black-brown frenzy.
The next First Friday Art Tour is May 4, when more galleries, more buses and a Museum of Art and History opening promise an even more rich art experience.
Maureen Davidson is a Sentinel columnist and arts writer. She can be reached at mo.Davidson@sbcglobal.net.
Posted by Wallace Baine on April 17th, 2007 · Add a Comment
Last Friday, I was among a handful of Santa Cruzans to take place in the First Friday Art Tour sponsored by the Santa Cruz Institute of Contemporary Arts. It used to be called the Art Walk, but this time, there was a bus, which went the rounds. For $5, you get to ride the bus from gallery to gallery — from the Tannery at Highway 9, down all the way to the Hide Gallery on the far southern end of downtown, and a few stops in between.
It was a fun event, with the side effect of bringing folks downtown who might not come down on their own. It should be attended even better next time (First Friday every month; next one May 4). Would love to hear from those who rode the bus and saw the art. A lot of fun for a five-spot, I say.
| Contact: Christina Glynn, Communications Director/Film Commissioner |
Phone: 831-429-7281, ext. 112, email: cglynn@santacruz.org
July 31, 2004
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
GALLERY WALKS EXPOSE SANTA CRUZ ART SCENE IN SoWat DISTRICT
SANTA CRUZ COUNTY, CAAre you an art lover who needs some exercise? Or a gym fiend who needs a little culture? Whatever reason motivates you, First Friday Gallery Walks hosted by the Santa Cruz Institute for Contemporary Art (SCICA) are a do-it-yourself way to expose yourself to the ubiquitous downtown Santa Cruz art scene.
The first Friday of each month from 5:00 – 8:00 p.m., many of the 30 galleries, art venues and special installations in the SoWat district (south of Water Street) open their doors, offering a collective way for locals and visitors to admire fine and performing arts and artists. Following a Gallery Walk map, you may find yourself at a locally-owned art gallery facing a giant “oil on canvas”, a temporary studio where performance artists are interpreting a social message, or a quaint café displaying provocative photography. The SoWat District is located south of Water between Chestnut and Laurel Streets and stretches east from Center Street to the San Lorenzo River. SoWat is already successfully colonized by boutiques, cafes, shops and bistros so the ground was fertile for a new infusion of culture.
SoWat is a term coined by the Santa Cruz Institute for Contemporary Arts, a nonprofit organization which connects the public with the local cutting-edge art scene and its artists.
“The arts community in Santa Cruz encourages experimentation and that idea is appealing to many artists,” said Chip (no last name), Director of Performing Arts at SCICA. “Santa Cruz’s reputation as a community that supports the arts attracts both artists and admirers. First Friday Gallery Walks are a great way for the public to have access to the abundance of local talent,” he said.
The result is a diverse collection of downtown artwork destinations, including the Louden Nelson Center, the “?” Gallery, the Vault, Museum of Art & History, Full Support Gallery and Café Pergolesi, among others. Even the local Santa Cruz County Bank has joined the mix with their own art exhibit in the Soquel branch location. Exhibits are refreshed on a regular basis, but some of the area’s permanent installations, like E.A. Chase’s “Collateral Damage” sculpture, Gary Dwyer's “Cube”, and Ross Eric Gibson's “1989 Loma Prieta Earthquake Memorial” are also stationed along the walk. |
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