A Delectable Feast of Presents

 

A Delectable Feast of Presents

By Tom Wachunas

A woman's place was in the home, by Judi Krew

Shared Desires (A Cup of Coffee), by Patricia Zinsmeister Parker

(Not) Our Bodies Ourselves, by Priscilla Roggenkamp

Dancing Cirrus Clouds, (photography) by Charity Hockenberry

Imminent Storm, (oil) by Gerald Fox

Ormond Beach VI, (oil pastel) by Diane Belfiglio

Transitions, (encaustic) by Therese Cook

“When I think of art I think of beauty. Beauty is the mystery of life. It is not in the eye it is in the mind. In our minds there is awareness of perfection.” – Agnes Martin

“Art is restoration: the idea is to repair the damages that are inflicted in life, to make something that is fragmented – which is what fear and anxiety do to a person – into something whole.” – Louise Bourgeois

“…If art doesn't make us better, then what on earth is it for?”― Alice Walker

   EXHIBIT:  Annual STARK COUNTY ARTISTS EXHIBITION, at Massillon Museum, 121 Lincoln Way East, downtown Massillon, Ohio / THROUGH JANUARY 17, 2021 / Phone: 330-833-4061 / The Massillon Museum is open Tuesday through Saturday 9:30am - 5:00pm, Sunday 2:00pm – 5pm

https://massillonmuseum.org/  

   The bad news is that it’s time once again for my annual complaint against the practice of designating special awards in juried art exhibitions (Best in Show, Second Place, Third Place, and Honorable Mentions). The good news is that I’ve decided to do something unprecedented (oh how I’ve come to hate that word!) this year by sparing you the trouble of trudging through more of my griping about a dated, silly ritual.  

   That said, I am elated to have a mixed media piece in this show called Writes of Passage, which I wrote about here on June 5 (and which you can find in the ARTWACH archive if you care to read more about it).  I congratulate this year’s top awardees, and my aforementioned objection to the awards process in general is certainly not intended to question the excellence of their works. I encourage you to listen to their statements by clicking on this video link: 

https://www.facebook.com/MassillonMuseum/videos/396282818448601 

    Additionally, I commend all 40 artists on view here for their engaging contributions to this diverse and delectable feast for the eyes. It’s a remarkable assembly of 57 works selected out of 164 entries from 66 artists. This year’s jurors were Nolan Beck-Rivera, a Cleveland-based designer and founder of Heyhey Studio; Alexandria Couch, an Akron-based painter and printmaker; and Bellamy Printz, a Cleveland-based printmaker and owner of Deep Dive Art Projects and Editions. Their decisions must have been difficult.

   One compelling aspect of this exhibit is that slightly more than half of the exhibitors are women. Not that I’m surprised, mind you. Far from it. Stark county has been notably rich with accomplished women artists for a long time. There was even a point when I seriously considered titling this post “Hommage aux femmes artistes.”  However, my purpose in that case was never to imply that the jurors were somehow acting on a peremptory or exclusionary agenda, or that the exhibiting menfolk didn’t merit our careful attentions.

   Speaking of careful attention, consider Imminent Storm, a stunning oil painting by Gerald Fox (Honorable Mention). There’s a dramatic tension at work between the dreamy, glowing green field receding to a quiet, low horizon, and the looming storm above - verdant peace about to be engulfed by monstrous supernal forces. A fitting metaphor for the current turbulence of our sociocultural landscape?

   Turbulent indeed. In these contentious and traumatic times, many voices of women have risen with renewed passion and intensity as they speak to issues of female aspirations, empowerment, and identity. There’s an intriguing dichotomy conveyed in (Not) Our Bodies Ourselves, a dyed fabric work by Priscilla Roggenkamp (Third Place Winner). The four hanging,  camesole forms are somewhat suggestive of uterine anatomies. At once autonomous forms and yet tied together, are they united, or entangled?  I wonder: Is that loose-looking knot a symbol of solidarity, or an imminent act of subjugation?

 Patricia Zinsmeister Parker has three mixed media paintings in this exhibit. Her Shared Desires (A Cup of Coffee) was awarded Second Place. It seems like a still-life, though there’s nothing static about it at all. Parker  doesn’t paint scenic pictures in the strictest sense of the word. She paints attitudes, really, and with a thoughtful swagger. Call it mindful playtime. Her picture planes aren’t illusionistic windows but rather like dance floors, where bold shapes and textures pop and pulse, push and pull, all vigorously swaying in sassy saturated hues. Thoroughly electrifying.

   Best in Show was awarded to Judi Krew for her exquisite A woman’s place was in the home.  It’s a 1950s-style dress that Krew fashioned from vintage pieces of embroidery and tatting work made by Krew’s husband’s grandmother, Anna Drottleff, circa 1930s-1950s. This work - a collaboration of sorts - is an altogether bedazzling adventure in fibrous storytelling on Krew’s part. You could consider it a loving dialogue between two women spanning generations. Here’s a tactile conversation, then, about wondrously dexterous hands transcending time as they reconfigured pieces of old dresser and chair scarves, tablecloths, pillowcases and the like, into something far more than a domestic utilitarian craft.

   These days (and maybe more than ever before in our lifetime?), viewing an actual art object – up close, in real time - can be an efficacious salve for the myriad vexations inflicted by “social distancing.” Art always makes tangible the voices of the makers’ innermost musings and ideations, in effect transmitting an intimate narrative of their aliveness. Their presence.  Better yet, their presents. Which is to say…gifts. Looking at them, long and slowly, is to open them, to unwrap them. And when you do, here’s hoping it’s with eyes wide open, an alert mind, and thankful heart.

   So savor this feast. Be filled. And have a Merry Christmas.