In Focus: This Week @ the Student Art Galleries

My highlights for this week's art event at the Student Art Galleries are here! Here's a glimpse to what you must see.

1.

The Circle Painting Project will leave you smudged with paint and with inspiration for communal art. Visit the Max L. Gatov Gallery, where project leader and Cal State Long Beach MFA student Hiep Nguyen sticks to his catchy motto: "Art for All. All for Art." (There's a lot more to this than the picture you see above, but you've got to walk into the gallery for yourself. It will wow you!)

2.

Juicy bits of souvenirs from a trip into a foreign land are nicely lined up in the Max L. Gatov Gallery East for The Cambodian Project's multimedia show, "Art and Social Action 2008." Amazingly, 20 CSULB students traveled to Phnom Penh, Cambodia, in January, where, upon encountering the city's schoolchildren, the Long Beach students employed non-verbal communication lesson plans, which helped developed their new young friends' sense of self, relationship to their community, gave some inspiration to dream and, well, helped build this colorful medley of art.

3.

It's more about listening in the Dennis W. Dutzi Gallery, where tiki-esque melodies ride through along the background of this installation. Although I'm not sure of the creators of this art piece, I'm sure that the music sounded as if it was composed by a factory line of workers hitting on pots or banging on rails. Hints of piano interspersed in the layers of this tricky music made room for a whimsical moment of observation. Update: This is Laura Duphily's "fiber works" collection.

4.

On display in the Merlino Gallery, the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transexual (LGBT) Artist Collective "uses interactive installation to explore issues of Freedom and Imprisonment." While I'm not clear on how those precise issues of freedom and imprisonment were translated in this group show, I collected a sense of release in all the artists' works, especially in Robin Anne Lynch's "Eyes Within." In the desriptions of her work, Lynch says that her art pieces, which are horizontal cut-outs of her eyes in multiple technoligically-altered tones, are an "introspective look into the mystical world of a catlike and aloof young artist." I like her spirit.

5.

Dozens of artists are featured in the Marilyn Werby Gallery for the Art Education Student Group Show, "Windows." But I especially enjoyed this "Busy Work" by Lydia Simson. Made of pencil, watercolor and gouache, I think Simson's work is so incandescent and cool that I'll have to visit the galleries one more time to see it, before it's all gone Thursday.

All photos and video by Barbara Navarro.

This week's art event will end on Thursday.

To view higlighlights of last week's art event at the Student Art Galleries, please click here.

Hours for the galleries:
Monday, Tuesday, Thursday — 12 p.m. to 7 p.m.
Wednesday — 12 p.m. to 7 p.m.

Opening receptions for the student art galleries are on Sundays from 5:00 to 7:00 pm.

What is the Purpose of Art on Campus?

What may be one's vision of a knotty, bony collection of metal sticks and tangled angles might be another person's reminder to not focus on the chaos.

I have not learned the creator of this sculpture, nor do I know the name of it. But I'm on my path to finding it out.

Staring at this piece rouses my imagination—on what it might all mean. To explain it may be somewhat complicated, but just imagine me (or all of us) being somewhere in those scrambled lines.

Maybe these are lines that mimic a sick tongue with irregular interlacing layers of muscles, which in their disordered condition cause great immobility.

Maybe this is an empty cell, with only the traces of lines like we see on connect-the-dot games. Once upon a time things were the way they used to (and should) be—membrane and cytoplasm, to organelles and nucleus, to ribosomes, centrioles, peroxisome, vacuoles, and the whole deal.

Yes, maybe there was somebody who saw the logic in the beautiful way birds' feathers and hair and wings follow a pattern, like connecting a huge population of stars into short, romantic phrases—Hydrus and Mensa, Centaurus and Crux. (Find them in the "Large and Small Magellanic Clouds.")

But with motion, nothing, not even the prettiest constellations, stand still. And that may be because we don't stand still. Isn't that somewhat appealing in all its chaos and asymmetry? Maybe the artist thought about that, too. And viola.

The reminder: not to focus too hard. (After all, there's a shower of water next to that McIntosh Humanities Building, always ready to lure you off the deep fixation.) So, just move on.

That is my insight, my interpretation, on this sculpture. It's safe to wonder. It's safe, because, as they say in class sometimes, there are no right or wrong answers.

There are some facts attached to this piece and those answers will be found in the Diversions section of the Daily Forty-Niner soon, so stay in touch. (I'm working on a feature regarding the University Art Museum's unique permanent collection, and these sculptures belong to that collection.)

Do you ever visit the UAM or sit and stare at those steel/concrete/wooden sculptures all over campus? Maybe, you know, just to wonder?

Photos by Barbara Navarro

A Tasty Blend at Surf City Squeeze

Monday's '5 to Try'...

Surf On Over
Cruise over to Surf City Squeeze at the University Dining Plaza for a thirst-quenching chiller or smoothie.

You're still not sure where or what I meant? Here's a video to remind you...

In the video, Jennifer Lee, 18, a SCQ worker and sociology student of the university, blends my favorite drink: a small smoothie made of strawberry, apple, bee pollen and ginseng. Jennifer shared her favorite drink with me too—the blueberry banana smoothie.

What's your favorite drink at Surf City Squeeze?