my pacific coast muse

Category: prints

Scenic Overlook

copepodilia-fix
The Fix and Copepodilia in Scenic Overlook at Patricia Sweetow Gallery

Back in May, I had an exhibit at Patricia Sweetow Gallery in San Francisco. A few of the projects already discussed here were part of the exhibit:  The Fix, Copepodilia, Pacific Falls, and Collision. I also showed three new selections from a series of videos called “In the Time of…” which were inspired by Pool The works were all about the small yet essential creatures easily overlooked in a vast landscape.

These little videos are about the experience of gazing into a tide pool, and the timelessness of that experience. Maybe timelessness isn’t the right word…  Anyhow, In the Time of… led to another video work called Eclipse and that has led to a new idea for a larger video installation. More on all of this later, but in the meantime:

In the time of Anemones

I wonder, sometimes, if this obsession with tide pools is foolish. Has everyone done this as a kid, laid on their bellies and stared into a rocky little pool filled with strange life forms? This past weekend I was talking with two adults in their 70s. One was an architect and designer, the other a french scholar, both professors for many years in Montreal. My granddaughter came over to talk with us, and I mentioned that I was taking her to the tide pools later that day. They asked, “What’s a tide pool?”  I stuttered. How to describe these universal worlds…? My granddaughter offered that there are lots of starfish in tide pools and they said that they’d never seen a living star fish, only photos – not even video!

In the time of Stars (hermits scuttle over baby starfish)

Our oceans are vast and take up most of the planet, but we’re small in comparison, and need to make our way to the edges to experience the saltwater shoreline. With privatization, industry, ports, pollution, highways, etc. it’s not easy to experience the shore even when one lives close to an ocean. And many shorelines have marshes and other intertidal ecosystems, but no tide pools to speak of. So I guess there’s relevance in attempting to share this experience. It’s a big part of what art does, right? It takes us to places (both physical and not) and give us experiences that we will otherwise never have? And then, hopefully, tap into our capacity for empathy? Cause us to stop, slow down, muse, maybe have a revelation?

In the time of Hermits

Cerulean Blues

June and July and nearly August…

As I listed these months, counting the time since my last post, a cover of “Fly Like an Eagle” by Tony Crown started playing in the background. It was a slow ghostly version of the old Steve Miller Band song, never heard this version before. Perfect synchronicity. Time keeps on slipping…

But I haven’t been sleeping by the sea. Gabriel Harrison chose a number of works during a studio visit in early spring, most of them recent, for a solo exhibit at Stanford called Cerulean Blues. He put together a beautiful installation, especially for Copepodilia: 64 images varying in size from 10″ x 8″ to 50″ x 40″. It was up for much of July and just closed yesterday.

One work was unresolvable – the photographs of collisions along the coast. I’ll figure it out eventually, but for now, I pared it down to just one image, same title as the show: Cerulean Blues.

cerulean.jpg
Cerulean Blues   pigment print on Arches Aquarelle   40″ x 60″   2017
Cerulean Installation 1
most of Copepodilia 2017, with Pool 2017 in the foreground
sandbox
Sandbox   sorted sand on birch boxes   33″ x 103″   2017
Blues Sand Pool
Cerulean Blues 2017, Sandbox 2017, and Pool 2017 in the foreground
Wind Pool Cope
Homage to the Wind 2012, Pool 2017, and a bit of Copepodilia 2017

Copepodilia’s virtual debut

I’ve just heard from Julia Krolik that our conversation about Copepodilia is now online:
Julia is one of the curators of the blog Art the Science, from a fascinating Canadian organization of the same name. Lots of great art to be found there; I’m honored to be included.

Copepodilia at Stanford Art GalleryI mentioned these prints in an earlier post, but they’ve now grown even bigger, 30″ x 20″ on Arches rag. They still look crazily 3-d, with so much textural detail. I’m surprised they don’t smell like the sea.

Copepodilia 62

 

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