Texture tenure

Bob Gillis shows 20 years of work at the Art House Designs gallery in Olympia

Published in the Weekly Volcano May 17, 2007
Photo: Courtesy Photo"Three Horizons," acrylic and collage by Bob Gillis

Bob Gillis’ maturity is showing in his mini-retrospective, “Work After 70 Years,” at Art House Designs in Olympia. I’ve followed his progress over an almost 20-year period, and his latest works are the strongest yet.

Gillis has always done wonderful things with intricately textured surfaces. His earlier works were all about the surface with marks that simulated rocks, twigs and leaves, but with formal structures that were less interesting than the textural markings. In his latest works, the abstract forms — based on nature and in some cases on architectural motifs such as columns and cornices — are much more interesting.

Twenty-four large paintings fill the two gallery spaces at Art House. Although there are no dates indicated on the paintings, memory of earlier shows leads me to deduce that they are displayed in chronological order with the earlier works in the front room and the latest in the larger back room. (Note: The way the gallery is laid out it is not evident that there even is a back room. You have to pass through the frame shop to get to it.)

Most of the works in the front gallery have a floral motif. They are painted on wood panels. Flowers, leaves and twigs are strewn about in dense profusion on highly textured surfaces. The stark white flowers and leaves appear to be negative images over a ground that is mostly brown with touches of red. Gillis’ method is to lay leaves and twigs on the surface, paint over them, and then lift them away to leave the negative images. Obviously, it is more complicated than that. There’s a lot of painting back into the left-behind negative images. In some, there is a horizon line to create a natural landscape feel. Others are more abstract. The “ground” in them is a flat, rock-shaped form centered on the surface.

Typical of the floral-motif paintings, and one of the best of the lot, is “Rocky Wall Alive.” In this one, overlapping leaf shapes at the top create an almost empty white sky. On the ground below it are scattered white leaves, and below that are more densely spaced rocks and twigs. These paintings are highly decorative in a traditional manner. The paintings in the back room are also decorative, but more inventive and less traditional. They introduce figures, collage, and architectural elements, and they are far more elaborately designed. Another new feature that shows up in a lot of these newer works is what appears to be inlaid particle board. I could not tell from looking whether it is actual board cut into fancy patterns and inlaid or if it is simulated with paint. Either way, it makes for a fascinating textural element.

Two of my favorites are “One Perfect Heart” and “Streets of the Ennui.” “Heart” is an almost perfectly symmetrical design with an abstract figure in the middle that looks somewhat like a chess piece. The figure’s torso is a collaged page from The San Francisco Examiner with a red Valentine heart. The figure has two heads, both perfect circles. Background shapes reminiscent of columns and steps place it in a kind of abstracted Italian piazza. “Streets” is similarly symmetrical with a central figure, but this figure breaks the perfect symmetry by leaning slighting to one side. His feet point in one direction and his head in another, sort of like a figure in Egyptian paintings.

Another excellent painting, which stands out as different than all of the rest, is “Ballpoint Pen,” a painting done in — you guessed it — ball point pen and pencil featuring stacks of large rocks drawn with intricate cross-hatching on (again) what appears to be particle board.

This is a nice exhibition by an artist who knows his stuff. The paintings are labor intensive and beautifully jewel-like.

[Art House Designs, through June 9, Tuesday through Friday 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. and Saturday 10 a.m. to 3 p.m., 420B Franklin
St., Olympia, 360.943.3377.

Perplexing ‘Enrico IV’ grows on audience

Published in The News Tribune May 11, 2007

Pictured: Anders Bolang as Henry and Paul Purvine as an atendee. Photo by TorStudios.

Enrico IV: The Holy Roman Emperor,” performed by Harlequin Productions at the State Theater in Olympia, is one of the strangest, funniest and most challenging plays you might ever see.

I’m talking “Waiting for Godot” strange and “No Exit” strange. I’m talking funny and challenging a la Sam Shepard and Tom Stoppard.

On the night I attended, the audience didn’t know quite what to make of it, most noticeably during Act 1. I could sense that they didn’t know whether to laugh or when to applaud. At the closing of the first act, there was silence from the audience. But early in Act 2, everything seemed to click in place, and I could sense relief as the audience began to get it. Director Scot Whitney said he had observed similar reactions in every performance.

Written in 1921 by Nobel Prize-winning Italian playwright Luigi Pirandello, “Enrico IV” is seldom produced in America – perhaps because it is so challenging.

There are many English translations, including one by Stoppard that Whitney said he was disappointed in. But he loved the translation by Robert Cornthwaite, which he saw at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival. It was “one of my five favorite theatrical experiences of all time,” Whitney said, noting that: “Pirandello deals with challenging questions about the nature of reality, but tosses them all up into an exuberant, comic absurdity. He’s shaking us with one hand and tickling us with the other. It makes you feel like a kid playing with a giant psychological jack-in-the-box. Anticipation is built, and we hold our breath. When it goes bang! we laugh and scream at the same time.”

The story takes place in Italy in the early 1920s. A man who is never identified by name – who is referred to simply as “Him” or as the more imperious “Himself” – had been thrown from his horse during a pageant in which he was playing the role of the 11th-century German monarch Henry IV. His brain was damaged from the fall. From that point on, he thinks he is, in fact, Henry IV. For 20 years, he has continued to live out this delusion. His friends help keep the delusion alive by building an elaborate throne room for him, dressing in costume and treating him as royalty. There is even a troupe of four court attendants who serve as both servants and advisers to the “king.” They are obviously as insane as he is, but at least they know they are playing roles. At least they know it is 1920, not 1077.

But does Henry know? Is he truly insane, or is he playing along with the elaborate hoax? Would any sane man continue to live in a make-believe world for 20 years if he were sane enough to know the difference between fantasy and reality? Layer after layer of the complex relations between sanity and insanity are peeled away as the play progresses.

The program for this play includes director’s notes from Bonnie J. Monté, who directed a 2002 performance at The Shakespeare Theatre of New Jersey. One paragraph of Monté’s notes succinctly explains Pirandello’s genius: “The tragic inner cores of Pirandello’s plays are so powerful they overshadow the comic outer shells in which they are encased; while the plays are often hysterically funny throughout, the last acts of his works typically end with actions or revelations that are so stunning for the characters and audience, that agony prevails over comedy; traditional comedies end with resolutions, Pirandello’s end with gaping wounds and unanswered and unanswerable questions.”

How beautifully that describes “Enrico IV.”

Although the character who thinks he is Henry is on stage during less than half of the play, when he is on stage, it is practically a one-man show. It is written that way.

Anders Bolang is Henry. He looks and performs much like Albert Finney. With his broad, comic gestures and agonized facial expressions, Bolang makes Henry’s insanity palpable.
Nyree Martinez, as Henry’s former lover Donna Matilda, is outstanding. Russ Holm stands out as the Viennese Doctor Dionisio Genoni, an obvious parody of Sigmund Freud; and Steve Manning plays the theatrical Barron Tito Belcredi with great bluster.

Among the puppet-like attendees, Paul Purvine and Brian Jansen strike just the right note of absurdity. It might be noted that in the first act, Holm, Manning, Purvine and Jansen all appear to ham it up far too much, but gradually their histrionics become integral to their characters.

The set designed by Nate Kirkwood is on a level with the best sets seen at professional theaters such as Tacoma Actors Guild and Seattle Repertory Theatre. Jill Carter’s lighting is both dramatic and comfortable. And once again director Scot Whitney has guided his troupe to an inspired performance.

WHEN: 8 p.m. Thursdays-Saturdays, 2 p.m. Sundays through May 19
WHERE: State Theater, 202 Fourth Ave. E., Olympia
TICKETS: $24-$33; $12-$15 rush tickets available a half-hour before curtain
INFORMATION: 360-786-0151; http://www.harlequinproductions.org/

Imagine this

John Lennon came to our house on Tuesday -- in spirit -- along with the piano on which he composed the song "Imagine" and along with out dear friend, singer/songwriter Steve Schalchlin; our son, Noel; our friend and former housemate (and Noel's "second mom") Catherine; and many of our closest friends.

Caroline True, creative director of the Imagine Piano Peace Project

Steve sang "Imagine" and "Will it Always be Like This," a song he wrote about our son Bill, and about Gabi's efforts to turn the tragedy of Bill's death into something positive. There were requests for other songs, and then most of the guests got a chance to sit at the piano. Our friend Anna played "Chopsticks," and a young neighbor girl surprised us with a great Scott Joplin ragtime tune.

Catherine (far left), Noel, Steve, Craig (project filmmaker), Caroline and an unidentified worker watch as John Lennon's piano is being unloaded.

Film crews document the unloading of the piano.

Steve plays "Imagine" on John Lennon's piano in the shade of our weeping cherry tree. Bill collected stuffed animals. The ones pictured here were his favorites. (He made the little blue one that's almost cut off on the edge of the photo.)

After everyone got their turn at the piano, it was moved inside and set up in the kitchen where I found Bill on the floor 12 years ago. Steve played many more songs. There were tears and hugs and voices joining in. "The Closet," an upbeat and funny song about coming out of the closet, brought peals of laughter; and "The Group," a song about Steve's life with AIDS before new drugs brought him back from the brink of death, dampened most of the eyes in the house. Pictured in the background are, from the left: Noel; our neighbor, Junko; Sarah; Catherine; Bill and Noel's favorite teacher from high school, Gary Gerst; and Gabi.

Someone placed Bill's photo on the piano. Everyone joined in to sing "In My Life" and "Give Peace a Chance."

Much more has been posted about this event on Gabi's blog and Steve's blog.

The Olympian posted an article, video and photo gallery.

King-5 News posted a video.

Paintings at Stadium Bistro

My gallery, Art on Center in Tacoma, has just placed two of my large paintings in Stadium Bistro, a new downtown restaurant. I haven't seen the paintings there, but the gallery sent me this photo.

Click here to read a review of Stadium Bistro that was published in the Weekly Volcano.

BTW, Art on Center has temporarily closed while preparing to move into a new location on Sixth Avenue. I'll be sure to post an announcement when they open the new space.

The Wives of Marty Winters Part III

Book One

1960 to 1971

"The heart senses a moment of magic. It is the evening of June 10. Elvis has just come home from the Army, and Marty is at the graduation dance at Priest Point Park. A mirrored ball flashes bubbles of light on swirling skirts, red and violet light floating across figures and walls like a laser show on clouds. Couples move together in ways that look more like sex than dancing, Jimmy Collins humping his date like a dog, while on the bandstand The Twilights play Pat Boone’s 'Love Letters in the Sand'.”

Thus begins Book One, Chapter One of The Wives of Marty Winters, a work in progress. In the prologue (sections of which I've already posted here) it looked like the story was a mystery. Now it turns out it's a love story. To read more, go here.

Actors don’t pussyfoot in this ‘Cat’

published in The News Tribune, May 4, 2007

pictured: Big Mama (Jacqueline Plett), Big Daddy (Steve Nuehring), Brick (Erik Cornelius) and Maggie the Cat (Abby Wells), photo by Toni Holm.

Tennessee Williams’ “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof” at Olympia Little Theatre is among the greatest American plays ever written. Fifty-two years after it premiered, it has not lost one iota of its emotional impact.

“My characters make my plays,” the author said, “They build the play about them like spiders weaving their web, sea creatures making their shell.”

And what marvelous characters they are. Even their names evoke powerful images: Brick, the cold and brooding alcoholic who can’t abide the touch of his sexy wife, Maggie the Cat, who is desperately in love with him; Big Daddy, the overbearing and larger-than-life patriarch; Gooper, the despised older son, and his fawning wife, Sister Mae; and Big Mama, the matriarch who impossibly tries to hold together her broken family.

Modern audiences may find these characters a bit outlandish, but, while being a bit one-dimensional, they are anything but caricatures. I know. I grew up near the Mississippi Delta setting of Williams’ play during the time period in which it takes place, and I knew people just like every one of his characters.

Brick is a former football hero obsessed with demons from his past and married to a woman he now detests. A hopeless drunk, he limps on a single crutch because the night before he broke his ankle while trying to jump hurdles at the high school track – stupidly trying to relive past glories. He refuses to sleep with his wife, Maggie, who is as beautiful and sultry as a Southern night. She is afraid that sex appeal is the only thing she has with which to hold onto her husband, but he is untouched by her beauty.

And she cannot compete with the memory of Brick’s dead friend Skipper. When she implies that there may have been a homosexual component to the friendship between Brick and Skipper, Brick explodes in anger, accusing her of “making dirty” a pure and noble friendship. Yet the possibility that there may have been homosexual love between Brick and Skipper, whether suppressed or expressed, never goes away

Big Daddy, who rules the roost with an iron fist, is dying of cancer, but his doctor has told him he just has a spastic colon. His sons and their wives argue over whether or not to tell Big Daddy the truth. Gooper and Mae also fight with Maggie over who should inherit Big Daddy’s plantation – 28,000 acres of the most fertile land west of the Nile. Brick is too drunk to care.

The casting is perfection. Abby Wells has the face and figure to play the beautiful Maggie, and her 1950s makeup and hairstyle are just right. She nails the sultry aspects of Maggie’s character, but could play the emotional outbursts a little more explosively. Erik Cornelius has the athletic body, brooding good looks and dramatic timing to be a thoroughly believable Brick. Corey Moore comes across stiff and haughty, making the odious Gooper just as detestable as he should be, and Hannah Eklund is equally disgusting as Gooper’s uptight and manipulative wife, Mae. As Big Mama, Jacqueline Plett appears matronly and clueless.

Best of all is the amazing Steve Nuehring as Big Daddy. Forget Burl Ives; this guy looks and sounds like he was born into the role of Big Daddy. He struts and sputters, he keeps hitching up his oversized britches and chewing on a big cigar; his face turns red; he screams and chortles. His face and body language run the gamut of emotions as he struggles to communicate with his son, Brick, and to do what is always so terribly hard for big and powerful men – to show a little human love and compassion.

Nuehring gets my nod right now for best supporting actor in a drama.

The choice to use recorded voices instead of child actors for Gooper and Sister Mae’s children, otherwise known as the no-neck monsters, was unfortunate. The voices created a surrealistic feel not in keeping with the spirit of the play.

The harsh lighting was also unfortunate. Lighting in a Southern plantation home in 1955 would have been much warmer and softer. But these are minor quibbles about an otherwise excellent play.

WHEN: 7:55 p.m. Thursdays through Saturdays and 1:55 p.m. Sundays through May 13.
WHERE: Olympia Little Theater, 1925 Miller Ave. N.E., Olympia.
TICKETS: $10.
INFORMATION: 360-786-9484

Wood!

As the wood turns at American Art Com

published in The Weekly Volcano, May 3, 2007

pictured: “Cranes in Four Seasons” by Binh Pho.

The 7th North American Sculptural Wood Invitational at American Art Company is an audacious show. How these artisans do what they do with wood boggles the mind. The media is turned wood, which, strictly speaking, means carving forms out wood that is turned on a lathe. But these artisans are anything but purists; the objects they make often involve methods other than, or in addition to turning wood. Many of the pieces look like ceramics, glass, metal and other materials. The forms tend toward shapes associated most often with pottery, be they ornate or classical.

Binh Pho’s “Cranes in Four Seasons” is one of the most fabulous craft items I’ve ever laid eyes upon. It is a classical urn broken into many sections that appear to be on many overlapping levels, although they’re really not. Or are they? It’s hard to tell. Each section is decorated with etched images of birds in flight, or traditional Asian landscapes, or elaborate carvings that look like wrought iron gates or slatted window shades. The colors are rich and luminous, and some of the carving is so delicate the gallery had to place it under glass for protection. You can’t buy this piece. Someone already did. But you can and should look at it.

Although many of the artworks look like anything but wood, a few emphasis the native qualities and textures of the material. Seth Roland’s “Beacon” uses contrasts of color and texture to highlight the natural grain of wood. It looks like a simple plank standing on end with what appears to be a white stone embedded near the top, as if it had been thrown with great force and stuck there. Grooves radiate outward from the white-wood pseudo stone.

Two of my favorite pieces are John Skau’s “Offset Diamonds” and “Bow Ties.” Both are painted and varnished double-weave vessels of cherry, maple, and poplar. Wow! That’s a mouthful. Try to say it fast. Each of these is a slightly rounded, wall-hung, convex square with woven square and diamond patterns that create illusions of great depth.

Milo Mirabelli’s “Water Tower” looks exactly like what the title implies. What makes it fascinating is that it defies structural believability. The heavy wooden bowl rests on spindly legs that look like popsicle sticks that may break at any moment.

Donald Derry has been in many of the wood shows at American Art Company. In the past, I have been impressed with the depth and brilliance of his color. His newest works, “Life Can be Hard” and Fired Up,” offer up almost grotesquely ornamental shapes not seen in previous shows — at least not around here. They verge on the realm of so-ugly-they’re-beautiful. I love them.

Robert Cutler’s “Showtime” is a classically simple covered bowl with ornate surface decorations reminiscent of a Tiffany lamp. It’s truly beautiful. And it is sold. Come to think of it, nearly all my favorites in this show have sold already. Oh well, I couldn’t afford any of them anyway.

Other works that go all out to emphasize the natural grains of wood include Trent Bosch’s “Extended Family” and “Tightly Twisted.” Both feature wooden shapes like baseball bats that extend from bronze collars.

Another favorite of mine is Betty Scarpino’s “Disobedient Currents." Made of maple that is turned, carved, bleached, painted, textured, and stippled, it is a plate form that looks more like rough stone than wood.

One other piece I have to mention is Ben Carpenter’s “Black Orchid,” which looks like some kind of spiky shellfish. A crab with black spike legs.

Other than the pieces I have mentioned here, few of the pieces in this show are artistically astounding. But they are technically astounding. The shapes are, for the most part, traditional; and most of them rely on a few simple tricks of the trade, such as the juxtaposition of blending and contrasting shapes, colors and textures. Having stated that caveat, I must say that most of the works in this show are simply breathtakingly beautiful.

If they’re so beautiful, you might ask, then why aren’t they art? Sorry, that’s too big a subject for this column.