Arts:

The Harrison Studio: On Mixing, Mapping and Territory — The Sesnon Gallery presents a new exhibit and series of lectures celebrating the work of renowned professors Newton Harrison and Helen Mayer Harrison. The team is credited with pioneering the environmental art movement, using maps as chronicles to monitor climate change.

Feb. 6 – March 15 at the Sesnon Art Gallery. 4:30 – 6 p.m. Free.

Entertainment:

The Crêpe Place Movie Nite — Showing of “The Artist,” the Academy Award Winning silent film, reminds audiences of the magic of film without even speaking a word. Be sure to dress warm and get cozy. The screening will be held in the Crêpe Place’s quaint backyard garden.

Feb. 11 at the Crêpe Place. 8 p.m. Free.

Jake Shimabukuro — Soothe your souls, lovers. Ukulele by the ocean on Valentine’s Day is totally romantic. $32 plus fees.

Feb. 14 at the Cocoanut Grove. 8 p.m. 21+

Events:

PechaKucha Night — “PechaKucha” comes from the Japanese term for chit-chat. This style of fast-paced and informal lecture makes for a creative and personal interaction with presenters from various walks of life, including architecture, sports and ethnomusicology, among others. Plus live music, wine and beer.

Feb. 8 at the Santa Cruz Museum of Art & History. 6 p.m. Free.

Natural Bridges Migration Festival — Forget about your midterms for a bit and just go play outside. Seriously, do it. Head to Natural Bridges for a full day of celebrating the wildlife that migrates through Santa Cruz, as well as arts, crafts and picnics. If you feel really guilty about procrastinating, justify it by telling yourself this is an educational event. You’re still learning something about nature.

Feb. 9 at Natural Bridges. 11 a.m. – 4 p.m. Free.

E Cooper Housing Project Central City 2005, 2006. Photo courtesy of Lewis Watts

Years after enduring a natural disaster, the city of New Orleans remains full of hope and culture. UC Santa Cruz photography professor Lewis Watts revisits the city before and after Hurricane Katrina in his exhibit “New Orleans Suite,” which opened Oct. 3 at the Sesnon Gallery at Porter College.

Watts said he aimed to capture the richness of culture as well as the enduring spirit of New Orleans residents. He said the preservation of the city culture has been the job of musicians and New Orleans natives.

“[They’ve] actually been kind of responsible for something that’s more genuine,” Watts said. “Trying to keep those cultures alive has been one of the signature marks of recovery in New Orleans.”

Watts received his undergraduate degree at UC Berkeley, where he would later return to teach for 23 years. During graduate school, Watts discovered his interest in photography after working at a photo lab. Even though photography was not in his original plans, within two weeks of taking his first class, Watts knew that photography was his passion.

Originally an architecture major, Watts is captivated by the endurance of the people, the buildings and structures that decorate New Orleans.

Several photos depict faces of buildings that are covered in spray painted phrases that say “one occupant” and other similar phrases.

His photograph, “To the Ancestors,” displays two older women pouring out liquid. Dressed in black and white, the people in the photograph are paying respects to the deceased, a tradition kept alive by families in New Orleans.

Norman Locks, another photography professor at UCSC, attended the gallery opening and admired the scale of the photographs.

“When they’re small, you recognize people. When they’re large, you recognize the community,” Locks said.

All of Watts’s photographs were captured in black and white film, an aspect that director and curator of the Sesnon Gallery, Shelby Graham, said she hopes to spotlight in “New Orleans Suite.”

“Lewis brings back that tradition of photography, and yet I can still call this contemporary because he is photographing a historically provocative subject,” Graham said.

Photo courtesy of Lewis Watts

The photograph titled “Raising the Casket, Funeral Procession Through the Tremè,” captures several hands carrying a casket in a funeral procession. During the procession, a jazz band would lead with somber music, followed by the second line band, which played after the body was buried. Watts said this was to “represent that they no longer carried the burden of life.”

Watts ties together emotional content with traditional technique, said gallery manager and assistant curator Mark Shunney.

“[Watts] related to the early American photographer, that used black and white to document the social struggles of what this country is trying to find itself in,” Shunney said.

As his photographs of jazz musicians were debuted at the Sesnon on Oct. 3, New Orleans-style bands “2nd Line Jazz” band and “MJ’s Brass Boppers” brought jazz culture to life.

In addition to “New Orleans Suite,” “New Work from Cuba” will also be displayed in the Watts’s exhibition. A smaller room of the Sesnon Gallery has photographs from Cuba that demonstrate the vibrant atmosphere of a country that is “undergoing rapid and constant change.”

In “New Work from Cuba,” snapshots of Cubans’ everyday lives are accentuated by Cuban music playing in the background. A piece titled “Religious Procession Old Havana 2010” shows a man kneeling in the middle of a busy walkway displaying printed religious imagery on a figure of a saint.

Watts said the richness in culture makes Cuba and New Orleans very similar.

Both New Orleans Suite and New Work from Cuba will be displayed at the Porter College Sesnon Gallery until Nov. 21. 

Ari Finkelstein, one of the Irwin Scholars, sets up his art installation in the Sesnon Gallery. Photo by Sarah Manley.

For 26 years, 12 talented Irwin scholars — selected from a faculty-nominated pool of over 30 — have been awarded $2,500 and encouraged to make art. After all these years, the Irwin Scholarship is still ground zero for finding inspired new talent at UC Santa Cruz.

“This is a chance for UCSC students to see their peers who are launching their art career. For some, it might be their first show at a professional gallery. From here on, we help them get future shows,” said Sesnon Gallery director Shelby Graham. “It’s great for UCSC students from all disciplines, from the sciences to the arts, to see what students are doing.”

The Sesnon Gallery’s largest annual show, the Irwin Scholarship Award Exhibition, is made possible by the William Hyde and Susan Benteen Irwin Scholarship. The scholarships are given to students who demonstrate exceptional promise in a particular medium, ranging from interdisciplinary works to figure painting, new media and found-object installations.

Kristen Gautier-Downes, a fourth-year art major, channeled the traumatic experience of losing her Santa Barbara home to wildfire four years ago into her environmentally focused fiber-paste and butcher-paper installation.

“I’m interested in that personal experience as a way of examining environmental degradation and human impact on the environment: oil spills, our reliance on oil, our comfort in using oil although it has this toxic element to it, too,” Gautier-Downes said.

The installation depicts the moment of an oil-spill explosion.

“It’s this fiery experience, so it has kind of undulating clouds rising from it. You’re looking at the explosion and the timeline,” Gautier-Downes said. “It’s supposed to be kind of shocking — it’s supposed to make you think about it.”

Fourth-year arts major Ari Finkelstein said his work reflects a more traditional western method.

“I’m responding to something that’s directly in front of me,” he said of his pieces to be shown at the gallery.

Finkelstein’s works to be exhibited will showcase still-lifes as well as figure-painting.

“My concern when I’m painting a still-life is really the characteristics of light and dark and the way that I handle the paint,” he said.

By using the traditional medium of oil paints, Finkelstein hopes to find his role in the art.

“It puts my work in conversation with traditional figure painters,” he said.

This year’s exhibition is hosting a variety of unique works that embody vastly different artistic interpretation. While Finkelstein and Gautier-Downes use more classic media, fourth-year art major and City on a Hill Press contributing illustrator Louise Leong built a sculpture from the ground up, requiring hours of woodwork and metal-welding.

“I’m building a skee-ball machine,” she said, describing the arcade area installation she has constructed for the exhibition.

Following a similar theme to Leong’s past showcased prints, this “game room” aims to be more than static art.

“There’s a narrative of mischief and play,” Leong said. “I really like this expression of gameplay and I like having an audience interact with art rather than just looking at it — that’s really fun to me.”

More than simply an opportunity for students to get their work in the public sphere, the Irwin Scholarship builds production and management skills.

“What’s really great is that it’s given me more experience to put together a show and all the little things that go into it, like putting together press releases and getting together all of [the] written materials,” Leong said.

This year, Sesnon Gallery director Graham and the Irwin Scholarship organizers have tried to make the exhibition production a more engaging process for the award recipients.

“[For] this show, we asked the students to get involved. They made the postcard, they made the catalogue, they’re designing the wall texts — you’ll see every decision is a group decision,” Graham said. “I think this group has been really, really cohesive.”

Overall, Graham said the intent is to bring in students from all different corners of the UCSC campus.

“We would really like to see more students from Stevenson or Cowell or Merrill, from the other side of campus, to come over and see what’s happening at Porter College,” Graham said. “It’s a good time to see what’s happening in the art department.”

Opening reception on May 23 from 5–7 p.m., exhibit runs through June 17.

Courtesy of Joshua Carrenca

Once a month, art aficionados flock to Santa Cruz for the monthly First Friday Art Tour. This Friday, they will do so for the 100th time.

Any venue in town can choose to display artists on First Friday. This year’s venues range from the Felix Kulpa Gallery downtown to the Chimera Tattoo Studio and Gallery on the Westside.

“Whatever your criteria is for art, you’ll be able to find it here in Santa Cruz County,” said Chip, executive director of the Downtown Association and co-director of First Fridays. “We have an extraordinary wealth of talented artists in all realms of creativity.”

Among the more than 60 local artists participating are a number of UC Santa Cruz students.

In conjunction with artist and UCSC alumna Katerina Lanfranco’s “Natural Selection” show in the Porter College Sesnon Gallery, her team of student assistants are displaying their own works as part of UCSC’s Pop Up Art Project. The pieces displayed were inspired by their collaboration with Lanfranco and are executed in her paper-cutting style. Students designed their own square panels of Tyvek paper, which will be showcased in the storefront of the Rittenhouse Building on Pacific Avenue.

“[The squares] form a diverse group of works that share the basic technique of cutting paper, and carry an interesting narrative when read together,” said Sesnon Gallery manager Mark Shunney.

Shunney said that this kind of collaboration is an important step for connecting the UCSC artist base to the wider Santa Cruz art scene.

“Now that we have space in the Rittenhouse Building, we can be part of the downtown buzz for First Friday,” she said.

One of the Pop Up Art Project’s artists, Kresge fourth-year art major Dmitri Zurita, said that as a bilingual artist, much of his inspiration was drawn from defining words to describe human emotions as they are expressed in a public space.

In this way art in the city can “invite the viewer to question many things about the experiential aspects of life,” Zurita said.

His piece for the Rittenhouse exhibition is comprised of three bands of text cut into the words: “The shared look between two people reluctant to initiate something they both desire.”

Cruzioworks will display work from student artists alongside that of downtown locals. Community events organizer Krissie Olson said Cruzioworks’ goal is to connect students and the larger public with this show.

“We really want people to feel as though they are part of a greater community,” Olson said.

The theme, “Perpetual Movement with Students and Fish,” lends itself to varying inspirations for Cruzioworks student artists.

Fourth-year Katelynn Mills said her art strives to find the meaning in meaninglessness. Mills’ paintings are pieces of darkness and turmoil, with light splatters contrasted over dark strokes.

“For me, the art making process is a mission to save myself from the chaos and destruction posed by today’s society on a physical, mental, political and environmental level,” Mills said.

Porter College fourth-year art major Joshua Carrenca, another UCSC student whose work will be featured at Cruzioworks, said his inspiration for “Electronic Sentinel” came from a dream — which he says is the best inspiration for surreal art. The painting depicts a rigid figure with a robot body, his floating human head in a television screen. He guards stolidly over a barren wasteland with an unattached computer mouse in hand.

“Each artist has a voice and vision that is plainly theirs, and that’s what makes the show here so fun and interesting to organize,” said Cruzioworks events organizer Olson, pointing out the value of unique pieces being displayed together.

First Friday co-director Chip hopes the event’s fan base will continue to grow.

“The focus for me,” he said, “is really celebrating and illuminating the incredible creative talent that we have in this community.”

Additional Information:

With 57 venues hosting art displays across the county, the 100th annual First Friday will be giving away a $100 prize for the purchase of art. Participants post a favorite memory from any First Friday event to the Facebook event page in order to be eligible. There will also be a reception at the Museum of Art and History at 6 p.m. with a mayoral proclamation.

First Friday enthusiasts can access artist biographies, showcase information and venue location on the First Friday Santa Cruz application for the iPhone.

The Pop Up student artists will also be available to discuss their work in the Sesnon Gallery on Friday from 2-4 p.m. and again later from 5-9 p.m.

First Friday will commence at 12 p.m. and end at 9 p.m. An interactive map of First Friday venues can be found here. The Rittenhouse Pop Up Art Project will be displayed until May 4 and Cruzioworks will keep their student art open to the public until June 1.

Curator Shelby Graham watches as gallery manager Leah Hanson prepares to arrange a Picasso illustration on mat board. Volunteer Carly McGaugh said, “I never really thought about how things are packaged and transported.” The careful creation of an exhibit is itself a learning experience for students. Photo by Prescott Watson.

Four decades, endless boundaries of creative expression. The Sesnon Gallery at UC Santa Cruz celebrates its 40th anniversary this month with an art exhibition, Time Lapse. To commemorate the event, the gallery will exhibit its vast collection of art pieces to the students of UCSC. The show began April 5 and runs through May 7, showcasing a range of artists from Ansel Adams to Jack Zajac. Decades of art are celebrated as the gallery takes its viewers through years of its selection.

The operation of Porter College’s Sesnon Gallery is a joint effort between volunteer students and Shelby Graham, the curator and director of the gallery. Because it is an anniversary show, the selection for this exhibition is compiled from a list of artists who are familiar to the gallery, and the pieces are never-before-seen.

Graham spoke about the careful selection and curation process.

“I like it when artworks have a dialogue with each work, and it’s because they are curated together. Together they tell a story,” she said. “Anytime you curate a show, it’s a new composition. Works have a dialogue with each other when they’re in a gallery. And that’s the beauty of a curated exhibition.”

Designed in chronological order, the pieces range from the 1970s curated works of the gallery’s first director, Philip Brookman, to the present. With the rapid advancement of technology in the past four decades, the Sesnon has evolved as well.

“The biggest changes have been theoretical, with the spark of postmodern thinking blowing apart the tenets of modernism that we were taught to embrace in the early 1970s,” Brookman said in an email. “And the shifting importance of the photographic, technological image — along with the exponential growth of digital media — has introduced entirely new definitions of art.”

While art majors are more familiar with the Sesnon Gallery and its exhibitions than other students are, Graham emphasized that the gallery invites students of all majors to stop and reflect for a minute.

“A goal of any art gallery or museum is to interrupt your day and remind you to either reflect, take a break, analyze or shift your thinking, because art can do that for you,” Graham said. “It might make you appreciate something, to understand something to a different level, or just reflect on who you are.”

The gallery challenges definitions and meanings of art as it displays a range of pieces, from conceptual work all the way to paintings done by elephants.

“We can learn from history. Just because there’s new technology out there doesn’t mean it’s the end of the road,” Graham said. “Art can really push your boundaries and make you figure out what your stereotypes are, or your judgment when you define ‘What is art?’”

Like many campus resources, the gallery has not been immune to UC budget cuts. Losing internship and work-study programs posed a challenge in curating the event.

“Budget cuts happened, and then I made it as best as I could,” Graham said. “So that’s where I felt like I could have done a lot more, but I did the perfect amount considering the space and time and budget that we had.”

While the curation of the gallery now depends on student volunteers due to budget cuts, Graham has used the situation as a learning experience for students interested in curation.

“I never really thought about how things are packaged and transported. There’s a lot of bubble wrap, lots of tape,” said fourth-year volunteer Carly McGaugh. “I think [the gallery] helps students to be more aware of art.”

Brookman stressed the importance of the Sesnon Gallery in the Santa Cruz community.

“It’s so connected to the fabric of the university, and the Sesnon Gallery is one of the only places in Santa Cruz that students can have a firsthand experience with exceptional works of art,” said Brookman, who is not only the first director of the gallery but also a UCSC alumnus. “That’s so important in learning about how to experience art and art history.”

The exhibit will be on display until Saturday, May 7. Directions to Sesnon Gallery are posted on UCSC’s online campus map.

Shelby Graham, the woman behind “Human Conditions,” discusses the art pieces with interested visitors. The exhibit combines different techniques and media, ranging from massive prints to a photograph wrapped around a coffee can. Photo by Nick Paris.

A combination of prints, pictures and paintings from the private collection of UC Santa Cruz’s Dean of Arts David Yager awaits art enthusiasts at the Mary Porter Sesnon Art Gallery. The gallery’s current show, entitled “Human Conditions,” features a variety of artists — among them Ansel Adams, Diane Arbus and Robert Mapplethorpe — and showcases different portrayals of human experiences.

Among the works on display are humorous Reagan-era references, eye-catching experimental pieces and a portrait drawn entirely with an artist’s thumbprints. Each work of art is also accompanied by a summary written by a member of the UCSC art department.

Yager accumulated his vast collection of artwork during his time working at the University of South Florida and at the University of Maryland.

Angelica Alamo, a Sesnon Gallery employee, said that the exhibit has received plenty of supportive feedback.

“A lot of people have had a positive response to the show,” Alamo said. “There are a wide variety of themes present in all of the pieces. My favorites are the photographs by Diane Arbus.”

Fourth-year art major Amanda Nazzal described the show as random.

“But that’s what the human condition is,” she said. “It’s random.”

Gallery curator Shelby Graham spoke enthusiastically about Yager’s accumulation of such a vast and diverse collection of artwork.

“This is really an incredible collection,” she said, pointing out images in which cadavers were used as models, and a pop-up book done entirely in silhouettes.

Graham discussed the wide selection of mixed media pieces represented in the art show, including etchings, photographs and lithographs.

“This is an opportunity for people to see a variety of examples of mixed media, and this collection is truly impressive,” Graham said.

The Sesnon Gallery also hosts panel discussions to encourage community involvement in events and to draw attention to the importance of the arts in the UCSC community. One discussion was held on Oct. 19 on the topic of art collecting. The next will focus on master print-makers and will be held Nov. 10.

The discussion panels facilitate knowledge of the arts, and the gallery employees hope to shed light on the printmaking process and what it entails.

“An exciting aspect of this exhibition involves the artistic process of image making and collaborations with limited edition prints,” Graham said.

Taking into account the overall positive response of gallery visitors, Sesnon employee Alamo said that “Human Conditions” may have set a new campus standard.

“People have commented on how this is one of the best exhibits they’ve seen at UCSC,” she said.

Human Conditions will be on display at the Sesnon Gallery through Nov. 20.

The power of the printed word is revamped in the Porter exhibit. Photo by Devika Agarwal.

When people think of art, the word “bookmaking” might not pop into their heads. But as the Porter Sesnon Gallery will show in the new “Book as Medium: Holding/Withholding Text” exhibit, opening on Jan. 27, every aspect of bookmaking is an art.

Technology like Amazon’s “Kindle” has already begun pushing print to the sidelines, with the electronic book reader currently being shipped to over 100 countries, and 300,000 books available to download.

“We are hoping to encourage writers, poets, and self-publishers to rekindle — no pun intended — the art of bookmaking,” said Shelby Graham, gallery director and co-curator of the exhibit. “The digital age can help make these beautiful books.”

Graham explained all the steps that go into making a book — from the binding to the printing to the cover art. “Each phase of a book has its own history,” she said. “Rarely is a book made by one person.”

The “Book as Medium” exhibit will be showcasing work from about 25 artists from different parts of the country and even the world. It culminates with a bookmaking demonstration at the Cowell Press by UCSC instructor Gary Young on March 5, before the exhibit closes on March 6.

Young, who teaches bookmaking classes on campus, replaced Professor George Kane after his passing in 2009. The exhibit is dedicated to Kane, who taught the class for 27 years.

Although Santa Cruz is a well-known bookmaking hotspot, there will also be work from artists in Canada and France.

Felicia Rice — a local book artist, UCSC alumna and the co-curator of this exhibit — was the mastermind behind the campus show.

Rice has earned many honors in her work. Most recent among them was the Rydell Visual Arts Fellowship, wherein four local artists are chosen, out of 46 candidates, to receive a $20,000 grant.

She worked carefully to choose the artists featured in this exhibit.

“It’s really a step-by-step process, working with the artists,” Rice said.

After artists accepted the invitation, Graham and Rice had to work closely with them to figure out how they wanted their art displayed.

Some artists had to send two copies of their books: one to display open, and one to show closed. Some of the books can be touched and played with, some must be touched carefully with gloves, while others are too delicate to touch.

“Books are a special type of art that don’t necessarily hang on a wall,” Graham said. “They are often interactive, intimate and one-on-one.”

The book art for this show ranges from a traditional bound book with print inside, to a book that is a box and opens up like a puzzle to reveal the pages. One book is a string of frames, in which the page of the book is suspended in the frame using thread.

“All of the artists could find a cheaper or more mechanical way to make these books, but it’s not about that,” Graham said. “This exhibit gives us the chance to look at books in a different manner.”

There are many steps that go into the making of these books that most people never suspect.

“Every component is handmade,” said Leslie Fellows, manager of the Sesnon Gallery.

It even gets tricky when figuring out whom to credit for some of the work, because the pieces are often collaborations.

“We want the gallery to become a forum to discuss ideas, and start a dialogue about the future of books,” Graham said.

College students come into contact with books every day, but not always in the ways that the “Book as Medium” exhibit will show.

“It’s important to have a show like this at a university,” Graham said. “It’s important to learn that a book can be many things.”

The full Disclosure exhibit includes a variety of interactive pieces that bridge the arts and sciences and rouse questions in viewers. Photo by Nita Evans.

New exhibit at Mary Porter Sesnon Gallery explores themes of failure and experimentation

Melissa Gwyn was an art professor creating molecular structures using fruits.

Scott Lokey was a chemistry professor.

When the two met, a labor of love commenced between the arts and sciences that would ultimately give way to the most recent exhibit at Porter College’s Sesnon Gallery.

“Full Disclosure,” which opened at the Sesnon Oct. 7, features a collaboration between UC Santa Cruz art professors and science professors. It explores the common themes of failure and experimentation in both disciplines.

“This exhibit shows interesting parallels between the process of an artist and a scientist,” said Lokey, an Assistant Professor of chemistry at UCSC and one of the organizers and curators of the show.

The idea first came about in 2002, when Gwyn — an Assistant Professor of art at UCSC and the co-curator of the exhibit — met Lokey at a new faculty dinner.

“We started to think, ‘wouldn’t it be interesting to combine science and the arts?’ and the idea started to percolate,” Lokey said of the initial concept.

Lokey and Gwyn’s primary motivation was to bring together people from different disciplines and observe what they would create. They contacted artists, chemists, mathematicians, biologists and more.

The artists wrote in-depth proposals for their project ideas. Lokey then reviewed and assessed the proposals. He suggested particular scientists that would be relevant and helpful to each artist’s proposal.

One of the artists participating in the exhibit, art professor Elliot Anderson, proposed a project that looked at landscapes and industrial sights. Lokey put Anderson in contact with Rus Flegal, a professor of environmental toxicology.

“We saw that [Anderson and Flegal] seemed to speak different dialects of the same language,” Lokey said.

After their first meeting, Anderson and Flegal were both eager to see what would eventually come out of the collaboration.

As various other faculty collaborations fell into place, both Lokey and Gwyn began to see a theme emerge: the ideas of failure and experimentation that are ever-present in both disciplines.

“Failure in science — and art—is an unfortunate component necessary for progress, [and] it is unavoidable when experimenting,” Lokey said.

Both Gwyn and Lokey noted that artists and scientists alike must continue in spite of failure, which often leads to an end result that is greater than anyone could have originally anticipated.

“Failure is a starting point, a place of entry, not a final summation,” Gwyn said.

Shelby Graham, the director of the Sesnon Gallery, said that she hopes the exhibit will allow people to see the not-so-subtle connections between the two disciplines and create a conversation surrounding them.

“Artists use the word intention, but sometimes when you don’t get to the first intention, you must be open to what it’s leading to,” Graham said of the pieces in the exhibit. “We want to raise more questions than answers, to spark curiosity and critical thought in the viewer. And we hope the dialogue continues outside of the gallery.”