The Meaning of Wood at SPSCC

The Weekly Volcano, April 17, 2014

"Cedar Iv" painting by Kathy Gore Fuss

Mark Scherer’s “Back Saw”,” Broken Saw”, “Painted Saw”, and “Sharp Saw”

The Meaning of Wood at the gallery at South Puget Sound Community College is one of the best theme shows I have seen in a long time. This spacious gallery in the Kenneth J Minnaert Center features sculptures, paintings and drawings from many artists in a wide range of styles, all commenting on trees, wood products and the ecology of our forest lands, and nearly all of excellent artistic quality. The curators of this show chose wisely.

Well known Olympia artists in the show include Kathy Gore Fuss, Susan Aurand and Jeffree Stewart, plus there are many excellent artists from other areas, most of whom I am not familiar with but hope to see more of. There are many large and impressive works such as Seattle artist Julia Haack’s “Escher’s Rabbit,” brightly colored patterns on oddly shaped wooden panels. Haack’s flat but eccentrically shaped paintings remind me of early work by Frank Stella but her patterns are more decorative, and she uses old wood and matt paint that lend to her work the look of signs painted on the sides of barns and weathered by years of wind and rain. It’s great to see her work in this show.

Gore Fuss’s large painting of a tree seen from a close-up vantage point in a tangle of vines and leaves is a slice of Pacific Northwest forest personified with wonderfully expressive brushstrokes and impasto.

I was particularly impressed with Cheri Kopp’s “Forest of Yesterday,” a sculpture made up of five pyramids of stacked toilet paper tubes on corner pedestals, a paper clip attached to every tube with each set of tubes with its own color scheme — little specks of blue here and yellow there and so forth. Described verbally it may not sound so great, but to see it is a joy.

Karen Hackenberg’s “Deep Dish Ecology” is a circle like a surrealistic merry-go-round of match sticks with burnt tips and little cone-shaped evergreens made of match sticks with green tips and a pile of fallen trees in the middle made of more match sticks. Sadly, however, she slightly dilutes what would otherwise be a powerful image and a powerful message by adding a bunch of tiny toy people and equipment, making a great ecological statement cute.

Suzanne DeCuir’s “Skagit Boneyard” may be the best landscape painting in this show of many landscapes. It is a sparse bit of land with a winding river and scattered logs with thinly brushed-on oil paint applied with what looks like a dry brush and lots of bare canvas showing through.

Stephen Kafer’s “Horizontals 36, 37, 38” comprises three elegant stick-like sculptures that reach ceiling to floor and are simple, streamlined shapes with nuanced variations in textures and changes in shape with salvaged cedar, redwood and lacewood.

Cami Weingrod’s “Multigrain Sampler 1, 2, 3” comprises three stacked prints with what appears to be differently colored circles printed to show tree rings on squares and all three stacked so that the white of the paper between the shapes makes negative forms into positives. The patterning and color choices have a lot in common with Haack’s painting.

Also outstanding is Aurand’s “Home Fires” a house on fire constructed with cut and painted wood panels and other materials. Her soft blending of brilliantly fiery colors and both architectural and curvilinear forms is exciting.

This is a wonderful show well worth a trip to SPSCC from anywhere in the South Sound.

 [South Puget Sound Community College, Kenneth J Minnaert Center for the Arts Gallery, Monday-Friday, noon-4 p.m. and by appointment, through May 2, 2011 Mottman Rd. SW. Olympia, 360.596.5527.]