Publication Date: Friday, January 13, 2006
Small world
Small world
(January 13, 2006) Artists find power, intimacy and new creative eyes in working on a different scale
by Rebecca Wallace
There's something compelling about objects in miniature.
Whether they take the form of a winter world in a snow globe, a silver ice skate swinging from a charm bracelet, or a Mini Cooper road-tripping across a desk, tiny things beckon us to look closer.
In art, pint-sized paintings bring out details we never would have noticed, and small sculptures can feel more accessible, something you could hold in your hand, something you could perhaps create yourself.
"True miniatures are so seductive," says artist Martha Castillo, looking down at a cluster of doll-sized clay vases on exhibit at Gallery House in Palo Alto. Created by artist Swanica Ligtenberg, they're as glossy and scarlet as the lipstick of a 1940s movie star.
The vases are in good company this month. They're part of "Small is the New Big," a group show by sculptors, painters, photographers and other member artists at the California Avenue gallery. Over in downtown Palo Alto, the Pacific Art League is hosting its annual "Small Works" show, which also shows petite creations in various media by a slew of member artists.
In December, the downtown Stellar Somerset Gallery was also captivated by modest-sized art, putting on a group exhibition called "The Art of the Small Painting."
What's the appeal of small works? Sometimes it's practical: pieces can be more affordable for the art collector -- particularly in January.
"It's post-holiday, and people either have a little bit of Christmas money to spend or no money," Castillo said good-naturedly. Ligtenberg's most minute vases, for example, are priced at $10 to $20.
The theme also allows smaller galleries to display a greater variety of pieces. In addition, it gives a creative challenge to artists accustomed to sweeping scales, said Deb Killeen, director of gallery and promotions at the Pacific Art League.
Sculptor Pola Harrel, who creates in a variety of sizes, is showing the diminutive "Julie," a bronze work of a sitting woman in a pale turquoise dress, at Gallery House.
The size proved appealing to Harrel, who also led a visitor to a back gallery shelf to point out other small sculptures of women she had created. "It speaks to me more," she said. "Everything you see at once: the movement, the feelings on the face."
And small can be sensible, as Harrel works in glass, bronze, clay and stone: "It's heavy material."
Walking through the galleries, a visitor is struck by what power can be conveyed without a broad brush. In Gallery House, Romain C. Agostini's photographs tell a novel in the space of a postcard. In "Rice Field Workers," for instance, a crouching worker blazes against the green fields in a brilliant red hat and shirt.
At the Pacific Art League exhibit, Carol Mead has captured the most miniscule watercolor flower petals and bird wings in "Summer in Provence," even continuing onto the sides of the 5-by-5-inch canvas. And Mike Wang's 11-by-14-inch oil painting "Portrait of Harmony," done last summer in France, finds serenity and promise in a young model's face.
In "Working Glove," East Palo Alto sculptor Oleg Lobykin used power and hand tools to find the everyman weave and heft of a thick glove in a small block of Texas limestone. He has often worked on a small scale, but his portfolio also includes massive architectural and cathedral endeavors.
"Small projects can be more spontaneous, like Expressionists, and I enjoy doing works that can be done in one to two days instead of weeks and months," he said. "Working on small projects, I felt like a welder who is doing jewelry."
The piece chosen for first place in the Pacific Art League exhibit, the mixed-media collage "Milagro Plea: No Recurrence" by Teresa Eaton, peals with poignancy even if you don't know its story. The rich, layered piece includes what looks like a name on a hospital record and an X-ray.
In fact, the X-ray is Eaton's bone scan taken at the Palo Alto Medical Foundation a few months ago. The artist had breast cancer five years ago, and her doctor was concerned about a recurrence, Eaton said. More tests are planned.
Eaton, a full-time artist, finds her work good therapy. Creations include box collages she makes annually to celebrate another year since the cancer. The first one included some of her hair that her mother cut off when she started chemotherapy.
"Milagro" also includes handwriting from Eaton's diary and a quilted bed of tea bag papers lying beneath the bone scan. (Eaton drinks green tea every day for her health.) There's also a silver milagro ("miracle") charm that a friend brought her back from Austin.
"I felt that would be sort of a shrine to getting well," Eaton said of the collage.
Eaton creates her collages in many sizes; the smaller "Milagro" is 11 by 14 inches, but probably only 6 by 8 without the frame, she said. The size allowed her to connect intimately with the collage by hand-stitching its layers together, something that would have been impractical with a larger piece.
"I sat there for hours stitching these pieces together," she said. "I pretty much didn't use any glue."
Back at Gallery House, Palo Alto artist Martha Castillo has also discovered that the exhibit's small theme allowed her to look at her larger works with new eyes.
Her pieces may sometimes resemble a print on paper, but they're actually clay monotypes made from a 34-by-46-inch print slab of unfired flat stoneware clay. She paints layers of pigmented clay on the slab and then rolls a page of finely spun polyester onto the slab with a pizza roller. When the page comes off it has a thin layer of pigmented clay affixed to it.
The results have layers of strong color, color that looks thick and substantial from the clay. A close look reveals the woven texture of the polyester, but the monotype feels surprisingly smooth.
Printing from the entire slab creates a large monotype, but Castillo can also choose to print from smaller areas of it. In fact, two of the works she chose for the show are fragments pulled from what was originally one large monotype. They represent the earth tones and sky and thunderstorms she saw during a workshop in Taos, New Mexico.
"It really makes you think about what you're doing in a different way," she said of the exhibit's theme. "It's fun to discover that you can make these little jewels instead of these large statements."
What: "Small is the New Big" at Gallery House and "Small Works" at the Pacific Art League, art exhibitions including paintings, sculpture, monotypes, prints and photography.
Where: Gallery House is at 320 California Ave. in Palo Alto; the Pacific Art League is at 668 Ramona St. in Palo Alto.
When: The Gallery House exhibit runs through Feb. 4; the Pacific Art League one runs through Jan. 25.
Cost: Free
Info: Call Gallery House at (650) 326-1668, or go to www.galleryhouse2.com. Call the Pacific Art League at (650) 321-3891, or go to www.pacificartleague.org.
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