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Art Studies in metal
[Photo: The Arts Center]
The Pursesellers of Florence, cloisonne enamel on copper at the Arts Center, by Mary Klein. |
By LENNIE BENNETT
© St. Petersburg Times
published January 16, 2003
From wire mesh to metal teapots to cloisonne jewelry, several new exhibits at the Arts Center in St. Petersburg focus on metal.
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ST. PETERSBURG -- Metal, that ancient element associated with dark foundries and sooty forges, is parlayed into lightness and delicacy in "Reconstructed Meanings," a new show at the Arts Center with work by Claire Jeanine Satin that is both visceral and cerebral. And challenging.
Books are ideas to be explored rather than objects to be used, a main theme in Satin's work. She deconstructs them in wire mesh, threads and indecipherable metallic script, or turns them inside out as three-dimensional sculptures.
Informing much of this exhibition is a deep admiration for the composer John Cage, whose belief that the banal and random had artistic merit influenced several generations of artists in all disciplines. One piece in the show, Big Cage, one of several homages to the composer, is a large mesh "drum," a book in the round, containing layers of more mesh -- the pages -- bound by brass filings and metal rods.
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A pendant of metals with rubies at Florida Craftsmen, by Dan Trebesch.
[Photo: Florida Craftsmen]
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Satin also references painter Jasper Johns, who translated Cage's aesthetic into visual form. Ode to JJ I and Ode to JJ II, metallic inks on paper, are intricate patterns of free-form lines with stenciled letters randomly placed among them and framed by painted plastic utensils.
Displayed on platforms are Pentimentos, with metal covers and rippling acetate pages, some shaped like hands in neon pink and turquoise, covered in what looks like automatic writing books that are tactile and visually stunning, all surface pleasure with any deeper meanings hidden within their pages.
The Arts Center has four more shows concurrent with "Reconstructed Meanings," the most ambitious schedule in its history, and three of them are metal-related.
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JCMCJJ Dancers on a Plane Bookwork XIII, mixed media at the Arts Center, by Claire Jeanine Satin.
[Photo: The Arts Center]
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Billie Jean Thiede, like Satin, translates everyday items into mostly nonfunctional metal vessels in a collection titled "Archive." You'd never dream of trying to pour from her metal and patina teapots that look like sleek sculptural ships.
Mary Klein's precious cloisonne jewelry and ornaments have been favorites in these parts for several decades, but her (comparatively) larger genre works are on display, landscapes and interiors in jewel-toned enamels, and a row of 12 small reliquaries devoted to "apostles of nonviolence." They are juxtaposed with Laura Militzer Bryant's textiles, woven with optical-illusion density and set into velvet and copper. Metal is an important but secondary element to these artists -- part of Klein's process and something to enhance in Bryant's fiber art. Putting them together sets up interesting comparisons between the hard and soft of their mediums. Even better is the way Klein softens unforgiving materials such as metal and enamel while Bryant creates rigid geometry with her pliant threads.
Another local favorite, Paul Eppling, brings his fantastical metal creatures to this show, loaded with egglike glass spheres. They're all witty, but the octopus, with its bulging, transparent stomach of glass that looks like a bubble about to be burst by the animal's coiling tentacles, is a standout.
Culled from Valerie Scott Knaust's popular adult ceramics classes at the center is a look through five years of work, on display in the community room. She and her students have created mosaic stepping stones, fountains, decorative objects and pots, usually inspired by a show or an artist at St. Petersburg's Museum of Fine Arts. So there are biomorphic forms that channel Georgia O'Keeffe's poppies, stepping stones inspired by Matisse and Monet with mosaics and tiles with majolica and palissy glazes. It'll make you want to sign up for the next session.
Also at the Arts Center is "Let Freedom Ring," words and images by Pinellas County elementary students that interpret freedom, an Arts in Education Partnership project.
At Florida Craftsmen
That's a lot of art and craft to take in, but catch your breath and stroll two blocks east to Florida Craftsmen Gallery to see "Paper to Gold."
It celebrates the organization's 50th anniversary by inviting fine craftsmen and artists to create works using a material from each anniversary year. It roams between traditional and modern choices -- did you know that for the fourth year of marriage you can now give appliances instead of flowers? (Oh, please.)
But for the purposes of this exhibition, Year Four is a Rocky Bridges assemblage of washer and dryer parts that would be a far more original anniversary gift than either a vacuum cleaner or roses. Among the more than 50 interpretations are an ethereal construction by Akkiko Sigiyama of rice paper for Year One, a giant aluminum fishing fly by Alex Klahm for Year 10, a small box containing old objects made of ivory for Year 14 and a scabard-shaped pendant encrusted with rubies for Year 40.
REVIEW
At Florida Craftsmen Gallery, 501 Central Ave., St. Petersburg, through March 29: "Paper to Gold: Anniversaries Redefined." The gallery is open 10 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. Monday through Saturday. Admission is free. (727) 821-7391
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