Reading between the lines of festival art

BOBBIE ALLEN

A ticket to the Pageant of the Masters always comes with a great perk

for art lovers: free admittance to the Festival of the Arts all

season long. If you go during the day, during the week, you can avoid

the crowds and wander at will. At night, you can often chat with the

artists.

It’s worth a special return trip, because amidst the countless

(but no doubt bestselling) California landscapes and (unaccountably)

numerous animal prints, there’s a chance to stroll through an

eclectic collection of artistic styles.

I have a taste for the unusual. This doesn’t necessarily mean

weird -- I loved photographer Dianne Reardon’s booth, for instance.

Reardon actually uses good old fashioned Kodak chemicals and makes

the prints herself. How marvelous! Her shots are simple, sometimes

haunting, even grainy. They stand out amid all that digital

hyper-perfection.

A few doors down from Reardon’s booth, you’ll find the mixed media

constructions of Pat Sparkuhl. These pieces are not to be missed

(although all the pointed and intelligent social commentary may give

you whiplash). “Missing Link” is a fascinating composition comprised

of bullet casings and a cut out of the iconic 1968 photo of the

execution of a Viet Cong officer. (Sparkuhl bravely posts an anti-war

statement with the work.) “Mind Over Matter” has a title that says it

all: it’s an 83-inch-high stack of those “free,” green-covered New

Testaments with a brain perched at the pinnacle. Fascinating, and a

little chilling.

If you go to Laurie Meinke’s booth of prints you can see the

difference between a photo etching, an etching on chine colle, a

linocut, a reductive linocut (“Tango las Ramblas -- very nice), and a

viscosity etching. Here is someone who studies her craft and isn’t

afraid to experiment.

If you like prints, there’s also Dirk Hagner, an artists whose

subject matter alone is enough to make him exemplary. It takes a lot

of guts to work words into art, because they have a tendency to

overwhelm the image. (You wouldn’t think this was true, but we’ll

read the words first and repeatedly, because we’re better mentally

equipped to interpret words as opposed to images.) Don’t miss

Hagner’s “Bertolt Brecht.” It’s a hand-painted woodcut of the poet

and playwright, written over in German. Hager’s work is masculine and

powerful -- focusing on appropriate subjects for his skill, like

Charles Bukowski. But my favorite in the booth is “Written

Landscape,” a small, hand-printed letterpress piece, where the word

“land” is repeated and closely knotted in cursive, and a

block-lettered “Me” floats above it, an ego on an island.

Donna Day Westerman also has some lovely prints, along with a

variety of other media, in her booth. “Anis/Back Bay” is a delicate,

large-scale study in how to use cross hatching to create soft lines.

But most interesting is Westerman’s use of tempura. Yes, that same

smelly egg-based paint you used in art class in junior high.

Westerman grinds her own pigments, and a work like “Young Elderberry”

makes use of the unusual colors that can result.

If you like portraiture, Bradford J. Salamon does frank, bright

studies of faces and figures that are brilliantly colored and full of

individuality. Lu Campbell does a very similar thing in the very

difficult medium of watercolor. Campbell’s portraits are highly

detailed, expertly done, and radiate warmth. Check out “Solving

Important Issues,” where two gray-haired gentlemen are deep in

conversation.

Paige Columbia Oden has a mixed media booth, but I was most

impressed by her unusual choice of oil on cast bronze in her

sculptures. “Gesturing in the Round” is a nude female torso with

strange texture and coloration, a very interesting interpretation of

an ancient subject.

Gerard Basil’s bronzes are also full of presence. “Totem” is a

collection three folded towers of patinaed metal. “Est ne Spes”

(which may be interpreted, in my rusty Latin, as questioning the

existence of hope) is a haunting piece of bronze. A chair sits in an

open wall, mounted off-center in concrete. The words of the title

appear in molten bronze, hovering over emptiness.

And finally, ceramics. Don’t miss Walter Reiss’s witty,

provocative, and occasionally blasphemous surreal teapots. My

favorite: “Faith-Based Teapot,” a white, unglazed pot that is topped

with three crosses and comes with the emblem, “There is no evidence

it can pour, but faith says it does.”

All this variety can be a bit overwhelming. Don’t be afraid to

stop and stare, to “read” the piece you’re looking at slowly and

carefully. True art always has a surprise waiting for you to find it.