By Donald H. Harrison
EL CAJON, California –To some degree all of us want to put our ancestors on a pedestal, but Grossmont College student artist Jessica Kowaski has been able to actually do so in the current student art exhibition at the Hyde Gallery.
Finished in a way to make it look weathered, her ceramic of a “Polish immigrant” with a leather cap and craggy face, reminds me of so many of our forebearers, be they Jewish or Christian, who traveled in the late 19th and early 20th century from Poland to the United States in search of opportunities. We can’t help but admire women and men, like this Polish immigrant, whose bravery and determination enabled future generations to live in democracy and freedom. How much we owe to them!
Kowaski, a student of ceramicist Jeff Irwin, wrote: “Originally I was assigned to make a sculpture of myself, so instead I chose to reflect myself by going back to my family’s roots and sculpting a Polish immigrant. In my head I knew what I wanted my immigrant to look like and the features I wanted to include. I wanted to give the viewer a sense of the fashion at the time by giving my sculpture a “Van Dyke” goatee. It was also very common for European men to sport the leather ivy cap, so I included this feature as well.
“The medium is clay, however I wanted to create the illusion of aged copper for my viewers to give off the mood of ‘antiquity.’ When my piece was all done I didn’t want to keep it to myself, so I surprised my grandpa for Christmas. He was so surprised that I made it for him and he sat there at the coffee table and just gazed at it. He chuckled and shook his head and said ‘I am amazed at how much it resembles my own grandfather.’ In the end, ‘Polish Immigrant’ really did portray me; it turned out I had sculpted my great-great grandfather who I never knew.”
In the front room of the three-room gallery, Cindy Menne has “Gramma’s Cupboard,” which is a sculpture of a standing female figure whose abdomen opens cabinet like. Artist Larry Kline, for whom this exhibition was a farewell gig as the Hyde Gallery’s curator, pointed out that Menne’s piece was nicely finished with a patina that made it seem older than it really was. The sculpture made me think of all the Yiddishe bubbes who would say “I’ve got this feeling in my kishkes (insides) that …” With Menne’s piece–which she accomplished for a sculpture class taught by Jim Wilsterman–I had the sensation I could look right in and see for myself what this gramma’s kishkes were telling her.
There are 166 art pieces on display at the student exhibition which will be shown through May 23. Whoever takes the time to visit the gallery will find his or her own favorites, many of which are for sale. A price list is available at the front desk.
Members of Grossmont College’s art faculty selected the student works for exhibit in the gallery. Kline decided not to segregate the works by medium, choosing instead to show photographs, paintings, jewelry, sculpture, and drawings in juxtaposition with one another.
Two dimensional art pieces, by necessity, had to be placed on the walls for exhibition, whereas some three dimensional pieces also were mounted on walls as well as upon pedestals of different heights. Kline explained to me that for students, who are trying out different media and even combining some, multiple art classes provide numerous visual stimuli, and the exhibit may partially replicate that feeling for the visitor.
A ceramic by Ethan Snow, “Politics,” is sure to occasion some comment from viewers. Behind a lectern bearing the seal of the President of the United States, dressed in a suit, is a large rat giving some speech or another. We have no idea whether Snow, a student in a class taught by Steve Garcia, is referring to any specific U.S. President, but there’s no arguing that something about the American political process has soured him. I imagine that Republicans will see a Democrat in that rodent, and Democrats will see a Republican. This is an editorial cartoon in 3-D, and if one purpose of art is to get you to think, or to react, this one certainly does.
Two two-dimensional art works also drew my attention. One of these was “Reflections,” a digitally altered photograph by Jesse Hofstee that showed a book on a window ledge overlooking a pastoral scene. From a page of the book grows a small tree. Perhaps this is the tree from which the paper of the book was milled, or perhaps it was the tree that the writing in the book describes. Possibly both are true. The image was created under the tutelage of Toni Renier.
Carlos Garcia’s “The Kiss” shows various representations of the same couple kissing. Curator Kline said the hair styles of the woman and man suggest they may have come from the 1950s. However, in all the representations repeated with slight variations, both the man and the woman are wearing surgical masks. Perhaps they fell in love around 2007, during the time of the SARS scare. It can’t be easy smooching through the masks, but love will find a way. Garcia’s instructor is William Mosley.
Garcia gave this explanation for the work: Students in his Painting 1 class “were asked to create a painting in a style similar to that of pop art, specifically Andy Warhol. With the repetition of a subject. We could choose anything we wanted and I had a post card laying around my room of a couple kissing, so I chose that. However I decided to kind of vary my images in more ways than just the color scheme.”
The late Jewish scientist Carl Sagan’s greatest impact on the public’s appreciation of science came in 1980 when his 13-part “Cosmos” series aired over PBS. Whether by design or accident, Grossmont College student artist Jake Emery appears to have linked CBS to science’s great interpreter. What could be taken for that television network’s logo eye stares from the night heavens in a mixed media piece which Emery named “Carl Sagan.” Of course, given its location in the cosmos, the eye may be alternatively interpreted as belonging to the Almighty, or perhaps simply that of the late, great Sagan himself. One cannot be too literal about these matters; the PBS logo, with three heads in profile, might have led us to believe that instead of the universe being created by the One God, it was the work of multiple gods.
The eye, painted on wood, is surrounded by branches–or perhaps wooden tendrils–that seem to beckon to everyone who enters the Hyde Gallery. If I were one of the gallery assistants sitting at the reception desk, I might have the eerie feeling that I was being watched all day long. I might try to stare back, but I’d lose the battle. That big blue eye is unblinking.
Another of Emery’s works to which I also was drawn was a ceramic called “Happy Endings” — an ironic title, to be sure. It shows the planet earth bursting out the back of a man’s head.
This is another piece that invites varying interpretations from intrigued gallery goers. The image is of the planet exploding, fully formed, from its source — similar to the way Greek mythology tells us Athena emerged full-grown from the forehead of Zeus. However, Zeus survived in that story, whereas “Happy Endings” suggests that in bringing forth the planet, God may have suffered a fatal hemorrhage. The image brings to mind, at least for those who lived through it, the “God is Dead” movement of the 1960s.
Emery is a student in the Art 129 class taught by Stephanie Bedwell.
So many images at the Hyde Gallery, so many stories. Admission to the exhibition is free.
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Harrison is editor of San Diego Jewish World. He may be contacted via donald.harrison@sdjewishworld.com