January 18, 2005

An e-magazine published by the Society of Local Artists.

  Letter from the Editor

  FROM LIMO TO LIMELIGHT: INSTALLATION ARTIST MICHELE PRED

Michele Pred is an artistic success story. Galleries around the world display her groundbreaking installation artworks, which have attracted much attention. However, Pred will be the first to tell you her path was not an easy one. Her achievements are due not only to talent and creativity, but also a great deal of curiosity, hard work and risk taking.

  COLLECTING ART: WHY ONE WOMAN DOES IT

Alexia Gilmore bounds down the steps into the afternoon sunlight, every bit the energetic, vibrant chatelaine. She's wearing jeans, and her gray-blonde hair swings free. She's about to show the art she's gathered in the spacious house behind her, and in the process, she will demonstrate what makes a collector tick. As Gilmore describes the collector's urge, it is "an expression of the Zeitgeist."

  WHEN LIGHTNING AND LANDFILLS REPLACE PAINTBRUSH AND CANVAS

How a poem means is often more important than what a poem means. How the metronome of language brings together content, structure and sound is the primary difference between Shakespeare's love sonnets and just another junior high romantic's work. Likewise, what an installation artwork means is seldom as important as when it means.

  ARCHING FRAMES FOR ANOTHER DIMENSION, by Susan Kraft, Art21 Gallery & Framing

I've recently noticed an increased use of arched frames by artists who are deciding to add another dimension to their paintings. As a framer, I know how custom framing can change an artwork's look and feel. Arched frames can provide an interesting element for artwork by setting the piece apart from the rest of the show or, conversely, by helping to integrate it into a room.

  Art Business Tips

We'll be adding a new monthly column on art business tips. To kick things off, SOLA Director Kerri Lawnsby has a few suggestions for local artists.

Archives

Letter from the Editor

By AVITAL BINSHTOCK

2005's fresh beginning brings with it positive changes here at In the Studio Magazine, including some additions to the editorial staff. I am truly honored to have been chosen as managing editor for SOLA's magazine and am also honored that Katie Vaughn was picked as my co-editor. I immensely enjoyed Katie's writing and company while we were journalism graduate students together at Stanford, so I'm glad that we have the opportunity to work together again.

SOLA is an amazing organization that coordinates wonderful events and encourages our supportive community to become involved in the visual arts. Art is simultaneously a mystical force and a practical aspect of life. For many of us, it puts food on our plates. For all of us, it puts unity into our hearts and inspiration into our minds. For these reasons and others, it is with great excitement that we bring to you the January issue of In the Studio Magazine.

This issue brings together several talented writers who have used their skills to tell us stories of art and local artists. Michele Pred, an inspiring artist whose success will arouse even the least motivated among us, was a limo driver not long ago. Now, her artworks are featured on CNN and in the New York Times beside the works of Andy Warhol. How did she do it? Let's just say 9/11 happened. This month's featured local collector, Alexia Gilmore, brings a discerning eye to the way she decorates her home, and we lucky readers get an inside look into her intuitive selection process. We'll top it all off with a philosophical history of installation art's evolution as well as a first-person rendition of how a framer married the ancient with the modern by carefully creating an arched frame.

In this new year, we at In the Studio are looking forward to continuing to bring you, our valued subscribers, in-depth coverage of the arts in your community.

Here's to an inspired and productive 2005.

Avital Binshtock
Managing Editor, In the Studio Magazine

FROM LIMO TO LIMELIGHT: INSTALLATION ARTIST MICHELE PRED

By KATIE VAUGHN

Michele Pred is an artistic success story. Galleries around the world display her groundbreaking installation artworks, which have attracted much attention. However, Pred will be the first to tell you her path was not an easy one. Her achievements are due not only to talent and creativity, but also a great deal of curiosity, hard work and risk taking.

Pred has long been interested in using found objects in her artwork and is best known for the installations she began creating after September 11, 2001.

"I just think it's interesting to work with things with loaded meanings embellished in them," she said.

Before becoming well-acknowledged, Pred supported herself and supplemented her budding art career by working as a Bay Area limo driver. She had just completed school at San Francisco State University and France's University of Paris-Sorbonne, and enjoyed the driving job because it was flexible and offered her time to work on her art.

"I could really balance them," she said. "It's sort of a different version of being a waitress."

Indirectly, the limo job led her to her most well-known installation materials. Although she took clients to the San Francisco International Airport on a daily basis, her conversations with them changed after the terrorist attacks. Pred began talking with them about their experiences at airports, the issue of national security and their feelings about flying.

"It was almost therapeutic for them to talk about it before flying," she said.

After hearing about the extensive post-9/11 airport security, Pred's inherent curiosity kicked in and she became interested in what airport officials were confiscating from passengers. She soon wanted to see the items for herself and started asking airport employees for permission. Naturally, they didn't readily agree. But Pred was persistent. She began dropping in at obscure offices around SFO grounds, eventually persuading officials to let her see the items.

"It took me about four months to convince them to let me look at them," she said. "But I was even more inspired after seeing them."

Pred then wanted to keep the confiscated pocket knives, lighters, matchboxes and other everyday items now deemed dangerous. She wanted to use them in her art, especially as she thought about what these once-mundane objects had come to represent.

"Seeing these ordinary objects, most of them so seemingly harmless, as imbued with the potential for danger may make us laugh, as well as make us angry," Pred said. "The complexity of our response echoes the objects themselves: each small tool, like each of us, bears some of the weight of a changed world."

But Pred faced even more difficulties in this task, as no one wanted to take responsibility for giving them away. Pred embarked on a series of legal steps, and was eventually allowed to take the objects. She said airport staff treated her well but didn't seem to understand why she wanted the items. After many of the security officers watched a CNN report about Pred and her idea to create installation art out of the objects, however, they took her more seriously.

"They treated me totally differently afterward," she said. "It somehow made me more legitimate."

And CNN wasn't the only news organization that noticed Pred's work. The San Francisco Chronicle's art critic, Kenneth Baker, devoted an entire column to her work. And this fall, the New York Times featured one of Pred's pieces in a feature that also covered one of Andy Warhol's works.

Pred's installations have been showcased in galleries throughout California, New York and Sweden. In addition, a handful of prominent collectors such as Rene di Rosa of Napa have bought her work.

And she's not stopping now. Pred's longstanding interest in incorporating found objects into her art will continue in the form of more confiscated item installations, as well as works featuring varied objects such as cell phone chargers and Petri dishes. In all of her works, Pred's goal is to provoke people.

"Definitely I want to probe people to think and react," she said. "I think about what's happening politically in our society, but I try not to make my work overt."

Despite her success, Pred said that getting to this point in her artistic career took as much work as gaining access to the confiscated objects. Seeking to gain entrance into the public art world, Pred struggled to get her work into galleries. As an alternative, she began searching for empty spaces to create her own solo show, which she did in 2002. "That's when things really took off," she said.

Pred armed herself for the task by enrolling in "Taking the Leap," an business school for artists. After that, she simply took the risk of putting on her own show. She now teaches a course similar to the one she took. In it, she encourages others to make the same jump she did.

"No one's going to do it for you," she said of getting started as an artist. "A lot of people are doing great work in their studios, but that doesn't matter if no one sees it."

COLLECTING ART: WHY ONE WOMAN DOES IT

By HELEN VANDERBERG

Alexia Gilmore bounds down the steps into the afternoon sunlight, every bit the energetic, vibrant chatelaine. She's wearing jeans, and her gray-blonde hair swings free. She's about to show the art she's gathered in the spacious house behind her, and in the process, she will demonstrate what makes a collector tick. As Gilmore describes the collector's urge, it is "an expression of the Zeitgeist."

The place looks like a gallery: hardwood floors, white walls and wonderful sweeping views that go up and up. And out. And along. Art is everywhere but in such a measured and considered way that it becomes clear that an educated palate is at work.

The surprise is that, no, Gilmore doesn't have an art history degree. Rather, she majored in biology at UC Riverside. There have been various art classes over the years, and figure drawing fascinates her, although not many of the pieces she and her husband Colin own are of that persuasion. ("Nobody teaches drawing any more," she notes.) So how did Gilmore, a woman more inclined to study science than art, become interested in collecting?

First, there's the middle-class environment in which she grew up. Perfectly ordinary, she insists, though her father was an illustrator. She displays two of his works upstairs, not at all evocative of his work for Disney. Her mother trained as a pianist, but like most women of the 1950s, ultimately devoted herself to family matters. Gilmore's love of art was always there, erupting in random efforts --- illustrations for a woman's newspaper, works in stained glass. Most recently, she's become absorbed in writing and editing for the technology world, a world she's no stranger to.

Gilmore and her husband started four companies, three of which they still own. One of their businesses produces hardware and software for high-performance workstations in the field of bio-informatics. The offices, which Gilmore is slated to decorate, will feature purple and orange; Gilmore is gleefully aware of the startle value.

But the art that greets the visitor in the Gilmore house gives no hint of in-your-face. It's subtle, considered and sophisticated. Just inside the foyer, a fragile three-dimensional wall-hanging casts a network of mutating shadowy shapes that tremble fleetingly as one passes. This Dutch piece, spun from horsehair strands, resembles a drawing traced in air. Several of these works came from the now-defunct Europa Gallery, and exemplify an understated and distinctive European taste.

The star of the Gilmore collection, the first piece the couple bought, is a grand and expertly textured bas-relief painting in umbers and sienna by Russian artist Oleg Drobitko, who now works in Munich. The painting, entitled "Human," embodies the just-recognizable shape of a human head. It evokes a looming presence, like a third person in the room. The embossed, sculptured surface is something Alexia seems drawn to. A bold assemblage of multiple bas-reliefs also by Drobitko marches across the dining-room wall, with similar mysterious darkly bronzed inscriptions, like messages from the past.

These pieces' large scales demand space. Gilmore explains that the scope of this house gave her the latitude to begin seriously collecting art about four years ago. The couple, who have two daughters, previously lived in one of those too-familiar Palo Alto houses consisting principally of doors and windows. No wall space for art to speak of. When they spread out into their present Atherton mansion, it had the effect of creating a limitless playground. With all that space to fill, Alexia selected the art that gave her pleasure. However, if Colin said, "I can't live with that," the piece would be exchanged for something else.

Gilmore clearly delights in the art she's chosen; each piece speaks to her in an intimate and dramatic way. She shows a clear affinity for drawings, etchings and photographs of stellar quality, as well as sculptural forms. An etching by a Russian artist depicts a stolid street vendor so humorous it evokes Thomas Rowlandson's London drawings. The quality of the collection is further enhanced by Greek vases, one the familiar red and black seen in museums in Athens, another far older and more weathered. On the table stands a Buddha head of enviable quality, and above the mantle an assemblage Gilmore herself put together. This capacity for gathering pieces that augment each other is clearly Gilmore's forte.

"It wasn't all that intentional," she said. "I simply wanted to enliven the space, to put things in that are dramatic." The paintings, dynamic drawings, rich pastels and colored etchings are judiciously placed throughout the rooms. A famous name is not her main focus; Gilmore brings home only pieces that enchant her.

Her penchant is for sculptural forms, hence the bas-reliefs. A wildly mod constructivist sculpture enlivens the spacious office. It is a painted welded metal large-striding figure, with a clear-sided box containing what appear to be rolls of coins. Alexia calls this "The Venture Capitalist" --- a name that is very tongue-in-cheek, considering where she lives.

She insists, "Everyone has a certain amount of artistic talent" and speaks of watching people doodle at meetings. She once brainstormed taking these office-meeting doodles, manipulating them, and creating an assemblage, partly to encourage the doodlers to plumb their own talents. Of course, as a collector, that idea is also an expression of her own discerning eye.

The glorious afternoon draws the visitor outside. There, peering from the hedge beneath a towering evergreen tree stands a giant sculptural cicada whose thorax lights up at night. It certainly surprises the neighbors. Gilmore laughs, plainly enchanted with the whole experience of collecting art.

WHEN LIGHTNING AND LANDFILLS REPLACE PAINTBRUSH AND CANVAS

By Mark P. Lawley

How a poem means is often more important than what a poem means. How the metronome of language brings together content, structure and sound is the primary difference between Shakespeare's love sonnets and just another junior high romantic's work. Likewise, what an installation artwork means is seldom as important as when it means. When is a location more than a location? When during an artist's work do the an environment's objects conspire to become art? Without asking this question, chasing after the history of installation art would be a marathon without meaning.

If by installation art we mean unrestricted arrangements, often with site-specific components, then we are talking about an art form whose roots go back at least to Marcel Duchamp, the influential Dadaist. In 1913, Duchamp began using found objects, such as a bicycle wheel and stool, in his works. By using everyday objects in place of materials traditionally employed as art's building blocks, Duchamp relied on context to define what -- and when -- art is. It was not the commonplace objects themselves but their context that imbued them with significance. Future generations of artists would be inspired to use context in similar and more extreme ways to elicit the same unconventional response.

Duchamp's influence set the scene for conceptual art's emergence in the mid-1960s. The power of a conceptual artwork comes not from traditional notions of visual merit, but from the often-theoretical idea that unifies the work's disparate elements and provides the key that we need in order to see the underlying principle in their arrangement. Often, the concept rests on cleverly questioning when art takes place. Such questioning is seen in an artwork like Duchamp's "Fountain," which is a signed urinal. When the urinal is on the wall, it is clearly not art. When it is given a signature, it is still clearly not art. But when that urinal is taken off the wall, signed and put in the middle of an art gallery....

Duchamp also paved the way for earth art, which uses materials of the land (sticks, rocks, etc.) to form artistic arrangements. With earth art, sometimes the question of when is followed by the question of for how long, as when environmental artists turn a sandy beach into an installation the waves will inevitably destroy. These two artistic movements, the importance they place on the artist's intent and ideas and their focus on when an artwork's art-ness takes place encouraged the creative direction of three of America's most prominent installation artists: Walter De Maria, Nancy Holt and Mary Miss.

One of the most ambitious and widely acclaimed installations is De Maria's "Lightning Field," created in 1977. This massive grid of 400 20-foot-tall stainless steel poles placed 220 feet from one another is located near Quemado, New Mexico. The idea of site-specificity influenced De Maria while making this piece; photographing "Lightning Field" is prohibited because the viewer is supposed to go experience the site firsthand. There is a cabin near the piece for overnight accommodations, but only six may go at a time (it is De Maria's wish that "Lightning Field" be experienced in small, isolated groups). In this requirement, we see installation art's historical focus on the artist's intentions. Duchamp's "Fountain" was art when Duchamp intended it to be art. Maria's "Lightning Field" is art when he imposed large-scale construction and viewer rules to experience that construction. Indeed, if a large group of intrepid hikers were to break the rule, they would not be experiencing "Lightning Field," but something outside the artist's original intent.

The influence of earth art on installation art is especially found in Holt's "Sky Mound," a 57-acre landfill-cum-park in New Jersey whose construction was halted in 1991. "Sky Mound" was to feature metal posts designed to mark the solstices and equinoxes, the methane gas produced beneath the landfill was to be reused as an alternative source of energy and the landfill was to be converted into an observatory and park. Holt's piece, though uncompleted, is a particularly prominent crossroad of earth and conceptual arts. Without an understanding of its contextual concept, "Sky Mound" would signify little more than a huge heap of dirt.

Site-specificity is taken to far emotional ends in Miss' concept for "Moving Perimeter," which (if allowed) will be a sky-blue fence around New York's Ground Zero that, in its final stage, would temporarily direct passersby into a living, infinity-shaped wreath around the site.

But what art does not feature a triumph of concept over physical materials? In many ways, installation art is nothing new. It has been around since living things imposed will over their habitats. The fact that this phenomenon has fallen under the label of 'art' suggests a fluctuation in language rather than a fluctuation of what has happened all around us from the beginning.

ARCHING FRAMES FOR ANOTHER DIMENSION

By Susan Kraft, Art21 Gallery & Framing

I've recently noticed an increased use of arched frames by artists who are deciding to add another dimension to their paintings. As a framer, I know how custom framing can change an artwork's look and feel. Arched frames can provide an interesting element for artwork by setting the piece apart from the rest of the show or, conversely, by helping to integrate it into a room.

A client had the latter goal in mind when she asked me to design a wall hanging solution for a small sculpture she had recently inherited. The piece was a neoclassical muscular male figure, carved with obvious unabashed delight in the human form from a grayish-blue brownstone. She had always loved it, but it didn't fit her style. Her scheme, consisting of primary and secondary colors and a collection of modern and pop art, was incorporated into every element of her house. She needed me to design something to help shift the piece into something more contemporary to coordinate with her collection's other pieces. My solution had to incorporate the elements of both the sculpture and her collection. An arched frame with a ledge came to mind.

Because my client's palette was a strong presence in her home, I decided to use a limited set of bright colors in the frame, blending from a cream into a bright yellow with an under-painting of primary blue. The last touch would be a mirror in the archway to visually support the piece and prevent the framing from overwhelming the installation's true focus.

Since I like to design and build a prototype first, I decided this piece would be 12 inches wide, 14 inches high and eight inches deep. After sketching the basic frame segments required to create the vertical frame's arch, I had to determine in what angles the pieces would need to be cut. Fortunately, I had previously designed and constructed an arched frame, so I was familiar with the calculations. For the equation to work, however, I had to cut the pieces at precisely the right length, which meant recreating a jig for my table saw to give a precise, repeatable segment. I used small strips of hardboard to be sure of my calculations and after I worked the prototype out, I cut the molding for the frame.

To build the arched frame, I decided on a one-inch-wide Louis XVI-style profile because of its simplicity. For the pedestal base I used a 1½-inch-wide Florentine-style molding. The two different moldings added to the interest of the design, yet were similar enough to complement each other.

When designing the pedestal, I first applied acanthus leaf-shaped composition ornaments around the base's two front corners. The pedestal, along with the rest of the framing, would be treated to the same style of blue under-painting, but would also have an extra protective coat to prevent the sculpture from scratching it.

I turned the Florentine-style molding used for the pedestal upside-down and positioned the back profile at the top to serve as the baseboard's support. I steamed the composition ornaments until they were pliable and applied them to the pedestal's corners. I then prepared the ornament for the under-painting with the rest of the frame. Since the frames were to be painted, I had ordered pre-gessoed molding to expedite the process.

After joining the segments with glue, I filled the gaps with bits of spackle, and then proceeded with a light sanding. From there, I applied the first of five layers of clay with light sanding between each layer. As the coats built up, the arch's small angles arch became softer and the whole piece appeared smoother.

Next, I laid down my first coat of acrylic paint rather quickly. The point here was similar to that of under-painting a canvas: to create a flat and streakless color to only glow through subsequent glazings. For the top layers, I used a medium paint to slow drying time to ensure the look remained in my control as I dabbed into corners and moved around the frame's rim and body. As I applied the creamy second layer, I immediately used a sea sponge to move the paint in a non-linear way, smudging and swirling to create interesting patterns. These patterns set up small ridges into which the next layers of thinned bright yellow and blue settled.

But the most challenging part of this project was yet to come: how was I to attach the vertical frame to the horizontal base without visual disruption? I had the idea of cutting a 1/8-inch-thick wood backing to cover the frame's back all the way down to the bottom of the base. This worked beautifully. It was minimally visible, yet created a solid surface for hangers without stressing the seams. I fastened the backing board with wood glue, then attached four metal right angle brackets with screws to the backboard and the bottom of the base. The mirror extended down slightly below the back edge of the base by about 1/8 inch to achieve a clean reflected edge. I screwed two D-rigs low onto the back at the exact point at which gravity would keep it hanging straight down.

My client was thrilled at the result as her childhood sculpture met up with her modern taste through an arched wall-hanging pedestal, painted to blend with her home's other objects d'art.

Susan Kraft is co-owner of Art 21 Gallery and Framing in Palo Alto, and also an artist. Her website is www.art21.org.

Art Business Tips: Consider Collaboration

By Kerri Lawnsby, Director of SOLA

Over the past several years working in the art world of Silicon Valley, I've noticed some interesting perceptions that many artists (and arts organizations) share. One in particular is the subject of this column: "Mine"

My collectors. My list. My venue. My business.

But does this philosophy enhance your business results? I venture a guess--it does not. In my experience hearing from various artists in our Open Studios programs, the artists that do the best during our weekends in May are those that share their contacts and collectors, and work together to put on a great open studio.

Consider this---will your collector Sally Smith really fill her entire house with only your art? Probably not. Wouldn't it be better to share your lists with other artists so that all of the artists gain exposure to more collectors? (You don't need to hand over labels, but you can send the mailing yourself to promote an event shared with other artists.) Overall, my bet is that you'll all do better at developing collectors and making sales if you work collaboratively.

Same goes for arts organizations. I'd like to see our fragmented arts scene pull together and collaborate across organizational boundaries with a free-spirited attitude that puts artists and art FIRST. Working together, I believe we can surmount the issues we all face and inspire love of art to a much wider circle within our Silicon Valley community--by working TOGETHER.

Competition only exists if you have a "Mine" mentality. Try changing your mind to foster collaboration with other artists, and other arts groups. When you do, watch your own opportunities grow.