Damn Everything but the Circus

Paintings and prints by Deborah Spanton
Prints by Gene Flores



Damn everything but the circus!

...damn everything that is grim, dull,
motionless, unrisking, inward turning,
damn everything that won't get into the
circle, that won't enjoy, that won't throw
its heart into the tension, surprise, fear
and delight of the circus, the round
world, the full existence...

— e.e. cummings

The circus has always been a source of fascination and fear, and these two artists present the humor and the dark side in their paintings and prints. They portray the facade and magic that is involved and the need for an audience to be entertained, thrilled and perhaps fooled.

Deborah Spanton has enjoyed being an artist in many media for her entire life. She grew up in northern California and attended the San Francisco Art Institute where she studied painting. For 15 years she created fantastical original art dolls. Her work has been shown in galleries and shows in New Mexico, California, Oregon and London. In the last ten years she has again focused on painting and now printmaking has been added to the mix. She is inspired by the ironies of the real world and by the fantasies we create to manage these ironies. Deborah lives, works and gardens in southwest Portland.

Gene Flores was born and raised in El Paso, Texas. He received his BFA from the University of Texas at El Paso (UTEP) and his MA and MFA from the University of Iowa with an emphasis in Printmaking. He began his teaching career at UTEP in 1996 where he taught basic drawing courses part-time. He was hired full-time in 1997 as Gallery Director for the Department of Art and continued to teach drawing courses. He was Director for three years and then decided to move back to Iowa City, Iowa, where he taught life-drawing part-time for a semester at the University of Iowa and also worked at the Cedar Rapids Museum of Art as a Preparator. He currently lives in La Center, Washington and teaches drawing, printmaking and life-drawing courses at Portland Community College in Portland, OR. He continues to exhibit his works at various galleries throughout the country.


April 29-May 25, 2010
Opening and artists' reception: April 29, 6-9 PM
Gallery hours: Tuesday-Saturday, 11-6, Sunday 12-4

Violeta Parra's Visual Art

Today I found out about another aspect of Violeta Parra's art. This seems to make the connection to our show even stronger.

Violeta color
By Rosario Mena

Since 1954, the most important of our folk singers started developing her extraordinary talent in craftsmanship and visual arts. Violeta Parra would end up making paintings, ceramics, sculptures and masks, but her most famous work is the one she did over colorful tapestries, full of shapes and colors connected to specific feelings. These creations are now part of what soon will become the first Violeta Parra Museum.

The weaving of life
In the year 1958, Violeta Parra suffered from hepatitis that sent her to bed for several months. There, in her house of La Reina, she started with the work of the "arpilleras". This was an art that she developed having no previous formal lessons, and that grew spontaneously, like her songs. One time, she explained this natural talent like this:

"Things are simple. I do not know how to design, so I invent everything. Anyone can do it. I do not know how to draw, and I make no drawing before starting with my embroidery. I just go little by little, seeing what could fit. I fill the spaces… it's the same with my paintings: they're all in my head, just like my songs. When I see that there is a sensitive person who gets some kind of feeling with what I do, then I feel at peace. I just make things in which I can put an emotion".

Familiar and historical events, popular costumes and beliefs, her passion for music; all these were the topics for her textiles. "I make an effort to show in my artwork Chile's songs, legends, people's lives. The ideas I have seem to me indispensable to express", she said.

The children funeral ceremony known in Latin America as "the angel's wake", was part of her artwork as well, the same as the struggle of Chile's peasants, who are shown in desolate laid shapes, just about to fall. Her admiration of Chilean Navy captain Arturo Prat is registered in two textiles focused on Iquique's Combat.

The several colors she used expressed each one of her feelings. There's an arpillera entitled "Against the war", of which Violeta said: "In my country there's always some kind of political turmoil, and I don't like that. In this textile you find all the people that love peace. The first one is me, in violet color, since that is the color of my name".

Her textile "The circus", for instance, recreates a scene of Violeta singing and playing guitar in a circus, with just eleven years of age (a remembrance of her own childhood). Her figure is in light green, and not violet, as usual. "This goes to express that I felt so happy singing", she explained.


"Sometimes I have the color of my name, or the green color, of happiness, or red if I'm mad and I want to make a denounce. I always use the Arauco colors as a base: yellow, black, violet, red and pink from the copihue flower".

Another one of her creations is "The man". "This one is green because of hope. His soul is music, but it tries endlessly to escape, just like a bird".

But it's not just colors which involve some kind of meaning in Violeta Parra's textiles. They are also full of symbols. Late writer Waldemar Verdugo once said that "it's surprising how Violeta uses two symbols again and again: the search for God and men. The former is represented by the repeated image of Jesus Christ, and the latter by the embroidery of eyes that can be seen in several places".

This may be the spying eyes that are also in her paintings. Violeta gave some kind of explanation, even though enigmatic: "I take advantage of the moment when I can make eyes, because it would be a complete different thing for me to jump from the head to the feet. I concentrate on eyes, and leave the feet for another time".

An autonomous artist
It was the year 1964 and Violeta Parra was living in Paris with two of her children. One morning, she gathered all her tapestries and took them to the Louvre Museum, hoping to speak with its director to propose him an exhibition of her plastic work (all handmade and self-taught). This drive was typical of Violeta, and almost always brought good results. Violeta became the first Latin-American artist to exhibit individually at the Louvre. At the time, visitors were able to see 26 paintings, 22 tapestries, some small sculptures made of wire and masks covered with grains of rice, lentils and seeds, as in a mosaic. The exhibit was announced by a poster made by Violeta herself, who embroidered over a black cloth a big eye and the letters with the information.

Only in two previous occasions, 1959 and 1960 (in an Arts fair in Santiago's Parque Forestal), had the artist shown publicly her naive, colorful and expressive plastic work. After Paris, these same pieces traveled to Switzerland, Cuba, and the Louvre again. Then came Madrid, Naples, Stockholm, The Hague, several Argentinean cities and Washington D.C. Despite such an impressive tour and the exhibit of her work in Chile, Violeta was never truly valued as a plastic artist in her native country. Or not until 1992, when, for the first time, a retrospective of her work was exhibited in a massive show of her paintings and textiles in Santiago. In the year 2000, Chile's Fine Arts Museum exhibited her paintings.

Gracias a la vida (Thanks to Life)

Paintings, drawings, textile and mixed media inspired by Violeta Parra's iconic song
Participating artists: Cristina Acosta, Reetika Agarwal, Mabel Astarloa Haley, Heidi Marie Balmaceda, Serena Barton, Marisa Bevington, Alli Bratt, Sidonie Caron, Sofia Chimaras, Gretchen Echols, Anne John, Meg Kaczyk, Rogene Mañas, Angelina Marino, Deborah Spanton, Elaine Spence, Maite Tobon, Nancy Watterson Scharf




For the first show after the Vernal Equinox, we have invited a group of women artists to respond to the lyrics of Chilean singer/songwriter Violeta Parra's "Gracias a la vida" (see text below). The song has inspired vocal artists such as Joan Baez and Placido Domingo for nearly 50 years, and most particularly Mercedes Sosa, beloved Argentinian singer who died last October. The interpretations by the visual artists are equally personal and moving. Sidonie Caron, for example is " . . . a European and a Holocaust Surivor so this poem resonates rather profoundly for me." The recent Chilean earthquake has made these expressions even more timely and poignant.




Gracias a La Vida (Thanks to Life)

Poem by Violeta Parra

Thanks to life, which has given me so much.
It gave me two bright eyes, that when opened,
Can perfectly distinguish black from white
And in the sky above, her starry backdrop,
From the multitude, the man I love.

Thanks to life, which has given me so much.
It gave me an ear that, in all of its breadth
Records— night and day—crickets and canaries,
Hammers and turbines and bricks and storms,
And the tender voice of my beloved.

Thanks to life, which has given me so much.
It gave me sound and the alphabet.
With them the words that I think and declare:
“Mother,” “Friend,” “Brother” and the light which illuminates
The path of the soul I love.

Thanks to life, which has given me so much.
It gave me the ability to walk with my tired feet.
With them I have traversed cities and puddles
Valleys and deserts, mountains and plains.
And your house, your street and your patio.

Thanks to life, which has given me so much.
It gave me a heart, that causes my frame to shudder,
When I see the fruit of the human brain,
When I look into the depths of your blue eyes…

Thanks to life, which has given me so much.
It gave me laughter and it gave me tears.
With them I distinguish happiness and pain—
The two materials from which my songs are formed,
And your song, as well, which is the same song.
And everyone’s song, which is my own song.



March 25-April 27, 2010
Opening and artists' reception: March 25, 6-9 PM
Gallery hours: Tuesday-Saturday, 11-6, Sunday 12-4

Latino cultural intersection

Last week a woman came into the gallery and was looking at the current show of paintings by Blanca Santander. She pointed to one which had a depiction of the Cordillera de los Andes. I asked if she'd spent time in that part of the world and she said mainly in Santiago de Chile. When I mentioned that I had just been playing music by Inti-Illimani, she said that she was completing her dissertation on "La nueva canción chilena". I asked where she was doing her work and she replied UC Davis. "That's interesting," I said. "About four years ago I was in Santiago and, taking the shuttle to the airport, I talked to a woman who was researching the same topic. In fact, she recommended the musical group Illapu which has became one of my favorites after I bought a CD of their music at the Santiago airport." "That was probably me," she said.

Metal and canvas

Metal sculptures by J.D. Bump
Acrylic on canvas paintings by Blanca Santander



J.D. Bump was born in Portand in 1968, and grew up on a farm in Tigard. He received his first art commission at age fourteen when he was chosen to create a series of illustrated panels for a local library. His interest in art waxed throughout his years at Lake Oswego High School and he was eventually awarded a scholarship through the L.O. Country Club which was used at the University of Oregon. During his freshman year there he was admitted into graduate level art classes, and soon after began sculpting in ceramic and bronze. His last year in college was spent studying art in France where he realized how necessary traveling was in order to broaden his understanding of culture and society. Since then he's made it a goal to travel often and considers it an important way to continue his education in the arts. As an artist he strives to create multicultural sculpture with universal appeal and a timeless quality.


Bull with Human Figures - bronze sculpture by J.D. Bump

In 2004 Bump was asked to exhibit his work in the United States Embassy in Rabat, Morocco. In 2006 his bronze sculpture "Bull with Human Figures" was awarded "Best of Show" at the Lake Oswego Festival of the Arts. In 2007 he was commissioned to recreate an historic 40 foot mural for the athletic department at Portland Community College (Sylvania Campus). His work has been displayed at both the Portland Art Museum (R/S Gallery) and at the Oregon Museum of Contemporary Crafts. JD is currently busy creating in a studio close to Multnomah Village.


Originally from Lima, Peru, Blanca Santander has lived in Seattle since 1996. She received a Master of Fine Arts in painting and engraving from the Catholic University of Peru. For the last twenty years, she has worked as a freelance artist, illustrator and photographer and has exhibited her work in galleries in Washington and New Mexico. This is her first show in Portland.

Acrylic painting on canvas by Blanca Santander

February 25-March 23, 2010
Opening and artists' reception: February 25, 6-9 PM
Gallery hours: Tuesday-Saturday, 11-6, Sunday 12-4

Bubblelism - paintings by Marcio Diaz

The first Portland show of art work by Marcio Díaz, Nicaraguan contemporary artist living in Seattle, features paintings which you have to see to believe.

The technique he uses is his unique version of pointilism which he calls bubblelism. Each small pool of color is formed by concentric circles in carefully selected tones which eventually help form the larger image of the painting. That this technique is used in large scale pieces makes the achievement even more impressive.



For background on Marcio Díaz, here is his Artist Statement:

"I was born in a small farming community in northern Nicaragua. I received a Bachelor’s degree in Architecture and studied painting at the National Institute of Fine Arts in Managua, Nicaragua. I now devote my time entirely to painting. My art represents the country life; the people, nature, and culture of my country as well as the places I have lived and visited.

My experiences as a child growing up in a rural environment gave me an awareness of its natural beauty and lifestyles that I continue to cultivate today through my art. I am passionate about using bold, vibrant, rich colors in my paintings. . . . I am constantly studying art from around the world and I like to experiment with new techniques and textures.

My dream is to one day build an art school for underprivileged youth in my country as well as to promote culture and strengthen and nurture friendship and collaboration thought art everywhere I go."



January 28-February 23, 2010
Opening and artist's reception: January 28, 6-9 PM

LightSpell

Paintings and pastels by Angelina Marino
Metal sculpture by Angelina Marino and Joel Heidel
January 2-26, 2010

Start the year with a blast of light. Angelina Marino’s paintings and oil pastels that celebrate dance, mysticism, flamenco and love and will be shown with her sculptural work in collaboration with Joel Heidel.



Some of the sculptures were created from Marino’s drawings and translated into three dimensions by Heidel who welded two-dimensional shapes into three dimensional images. Other sculptures were “found” in left over pieces and took life in the collaborative process.

Because of the angles that are made possible by using thin gauged metal, elements of the sculptures appear suspended. Working under the stars on Sauvie’s Island, the artists were struck by the serendipitous effect the light had on their work. The physicality of the sculpture, though striking and solidly engaging, had an evocative counterpart - the incredible lucidity of a cast shadow.