| 2018
marks the 60th year since the founding of the Art Guild of Pacifica,
an achievement that AGP members can proudly celebrate. The AGP began
when Postmistress Juanita Lombardi became aware of how many talented
artists lived in the newly incorporated City of Pacifica, and decided
to bring them together. In September 1958, twenty-two artists became
charter members of the Art Guild of Pacifica, electing Juanita Lombardi
as their first president. Through the years, Guild members kept
the faith and worked to nurture their vision of a community of artists
dedicated not only to their own art, but also to bringing art and
art education to Pacifica and the coastal region. With the creation
of Sanchez Art Center in 1996, the AGP at last had a place to call
home, and Sanchez Art Center is delighted to host the 60th Annual
Members Show this fall.
The 60th Annual
Members Show opens Friday, Oct 12, with a reception from 7
to 9 pm, with music provided by Jamey Brzezinski in the West Gallery,
and musical duo Vivacé in the East Gallery, with Rob Hughes (flute)
and Alan Lee (piano). While Art Guild members display their work
in the East and West Galleries, the previous year's award winners
exhibit in the Main Gallery. The 59th Annual Awards Artists,
Laura Lee Green, Alice Kelmon, Andrew Leone, and Rick Lucia, were
selected by Tiffany Schmierer, artist and art professor at Skyline
College, who also curated their exhibit. Both the 60th Annual
Members Show and the 59th Annual Awards Artists will
run through Nov 18.
Laura Lee Green is
a mixed media artist who works with the old, the threadbare, the
flotsam and jetsam of discarded things. Each work is like a story
that develops from some object she finds herself attracted to, a
story "in the language of things." Her "stories,"
however, are not pretty fairytales. Instead they present us with
realities that we might prefer not to face. Says Green, "I
like to make harsh art. Maybe things that are unpleasant or hard
to look at. I like the boldness, in your face, screaming truth of
things." The artist describes her process as an unplanned journey
of inspiration into the heart of wherever her chosen materials are
taking her, ultimately reaching a new relationship with the truths
of life by, in her own words, "embracing my fears, hopes, and
everything in between."
Alice Kelmon is drawn
to line, color, and fluidity. Her primary subject is our fragile
and troubled relationship with nature. Wetlands are a frequent theme
in her work. She says, "We need it and love it, yet we encroach,
pollute, and put it in danger." For this exhibition, curator
Tiffany Schmierer has selected Kelmon’s watercolors, a medium at
which she excels. Says the artist, "I love the translucency,
immediacy and sense of impermanence of watercolor." Her images
are abstract but informed by nature. The artist muses, "While
painting I frequently think about uncultivated, wild habitats."
Kelmon loves to see “the hand of the artist” in artworks, and her
own work is graced by her gestural, expressive, and experimental
approach to working with her materials.
Andrew Leone is showing
a group of works under the rubric "Unearthed," a grouping
that includes oil paintings and mixed media. Leone has delved into
and reworked a number of his older artworks, a process he likens
to an archeological dig, as he uncovered hints of past images and
layers of his earlier artistic life with the help of an electric
sander applied to the artworks’ surfaces. For Leone, the process
was like "wandering through a dark mist. Fleeting images, shrouded
and obscured, peer back resurrected, but not in their entirety;
worn, partial and aged, a rich loam of textures and tricksters come
haunting where the old meets the new, and a fragile friendship is
found."
Rick Lucia's work
celebrates the whimsical side of life. He began making art by drawing
in pencil and then in pen and ink, before moving into photography,
which was his preferred medium for many years. Now, however, we
are the lucky recipients of his return to pen and ink with a looser,
less detail-oriented style. As he says, he draws "damn near
anything," using a newfound freedom of movement that he describes
as a "semi-continuous-line approach." His pen and ink
drawings are therefore simple, fluid, elegant, graceful, and generally
humorous. Says Lucia, "I've given my style of pen/ink drawing
the name of Fischymbolism—therefore I'm a Fischymbolist." This
artist sees the ineffable gifts in life and, thankfully, is drawn
to share them with us.
At 3 pm on closing Sunday, Nov 18, the four award-winning Art Guild artists will talk about their work, along with curator Tiffany Schmierer, in the Main Gallery.
Sanchez Art Center
is located at 1220 Linda Mar Blvd in Pacifica, about a mile east
of Highway 1. Following opening night, galleries are open Friday,
Saturday, and Sunday, 1–5 pm, and by appointment, through Nov 12.
For more information call 650.355.1894 or email info@sanchezartcenter.org.
To learn about and join the Art Guild of Pacifica, visit ArtGuildofPacifica.org.
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