Montalvo, Author at Montalvo Arts Center • Page 6 of 13

Return to the Garden of Eden

High-fired stoneware, porcelain, glazes; aluminum baseOverall: 80 x 30 x 38 in. / Base: 30 x 40 in.Courtesy of the artist and Catharine Clark Gallery, San FranciscoPhoto: Isaiah Plaza Return to the Garden of Eden is deeply inspired by Zhang’s upbringing in Maoist China, his subsequent disillusionment, and his ultimate relocation to California as a young artist in the 1990s. The sculpture reflects both a geographical journey and an ideological search. The monumental clay figure features the artist’s signature style – a blend that reflects Bay Area Figurative and California Funk traditions with nods to Chinese history. Inspired by his…

Color Face

High fired clay with glaze30 x 31 x 37 in.Courtesy of the artist and Catharine Clark Gallery, San FranciscoPhoto: Isaiah Plaza Wanxin Zhang began his Color Face series in 2007 as an homage to his homeland. These works specifically reference Chinese opera performances where actors’ faces are painted in a stylized fashion or masked to represent a character’s personality or cultural status. The use of certain colors can distinguish goodness from evil, and strength from serenity. Although the designs can be complex, there are usually only two or three colors used for each character. Dripping with multi-colored glaze, this sculpture…

A Taste of Place: Distilling Redwoods

By Andrea Blum ( @myamericanpantry ), Montalvo Culinary Artist Students from the Crafting Hydrosols & Essential Oils class Photo: Andrea Blum The redwood is my absolute favorite tree in so many ways. It’s a powerful symbol and a living, breathing organism that defines a place. Oh California, how I appreciate you. It’s the tallest tree in the world that only grows in the coastal foggy climate of the west. It’s not only a pleasure to gaze at in all its wonder, but it also has a scent that brightens the dark forest. Last week, I invited Alice Duvernell, an ethnobotanist…

Underworlding

The Underworlding residency, convened by UCSB Art Professor Kim Yasuda, assembles a diverse group of California-based practitioners and community knowledge holders for the first time as an exploratory cohort in residence at our Lucas Artists Program (LAP) from May 16 – June 24, 2022. Underworlding, as a practice, counters the extractivist logics embedded in our institutions that have surfaced in the current pandemic to reveal essential realities over whose body, whose labor, and whose land has been exploited in the uneven settlements of our social order between precarity and privilege. This residency draws individuals who share a grounded ethos and anchor their practices across and beneath surfaces, generations, genders, and…

A Fruitful Year: Ciderhouse Cookbook + A Baby

By Andrea Blum ( @myamericanpantry ), Montalvo Culinary Artist It’s been over a year since I started working on my first cookbook, Ciderhouse Cookbook , and a lifetime of learning to make it happen! It’s also been a year since I gave birth to Lucienne Claire, a revelation of inspiration and happiness. The two together became the reason why I wanted to write this book—to make simple recipes that let the seasonal and special flavors of my family’s ciderhouse shine and to celebrate the love one feels when one shares a delicious meal with friends and family. This is also…

Strike

Polished stainless steel122 x 120 x 30 in.Courtesy of the artistPhoto: Airyka Rockefeller In Strike, based on a 1935 lithograph by Louis Lozowick depicting an encounter between a protester and a policeman, a disembodied arm raised up and wielding a nightstick is grasped at the wrist by another hand, the forearms forming a triangular geometry. This piece, made of gleaming stainless steel with a mirrored finish, resembles a trophy. In these works too, the intentional ambiguity, the incompleteness of the disembodied figures, leaves viewers the opportunity to find meaning in their own questions about what it is they are seeing.…

Eight Days until Nina Waisman activates “Body Envelope” at Montalvo

The countdown to current artist-in-residence Nina Waisman’s presentation is on! In 8 days (on Thursday, November 8 at 7pm ), she will activate her work Body Envelope (think of it as a six foot square interactive sound chandelier) with a special dance performance she has developed during her Montalvo residency in collaboration with New York-based choreographer Mariah Maloney, and Los Angeles-based choreographers, dancers and artists Natalie Metzger and Flora Wiegmann. Audience members will also be able to interact with and explore the piece.The performance will be followed by a Q & A with the artist and her collaborators. In the photo above,…

Nina Waisman discusses “9 evenings”

On Thursday, November 8 at 7pm , current Montalvo artist-in-residence Nina Waisman will present an evening of dance, movement, and interactive sound work as part of a series of performances entitled “ 9 evenings ,” arranged as part of the 2012 ZERO1 Biennial . Conceived of as part of Waisman’s Body Envelope series, the evening will examine the role physical movement plays in structuring human thought. In this video, taken by ZERO1 Art Ambassador Leyla Carleo , Waisman discusses her work. And if you’d like to see more pictures of the installation at Montalvo, take a moment to look at Waisman’s webpage .

Marble Sculpture No. 1

Marble56 x 23 x 27 in.Courtesy of the artist and Rena Bransten Gallery, San FranciscoPhoto: Isaiah Plaza Jackson spent extended periods in 1983 and 1985 in Carrara, Italy, working on marble sculptures, which he has continued in his studio in Oakland, California. In an art historical sense one might perceive the figures in his otherwise abstract paintings as an attempt to resolve or at least investigate the space between abstraction and figuration. That would be wrong. His figures are not trying to become something else, they exist in between states — being and becoming, living and dead, dreaming and awake.…

A Look Back in Time: Ethel Barrymore and Senator Phelan

Something that former Montalvo Artist-in-Residence Daniel Canogar said when we spoke to him a few weeks ago about his work resonated with us: the idea of the countless people who have passed through the Villa Montalvo during the hundred years of its existence. This inspired us to make a trip to the Montalvo archive to peruse its photographic holdings. And that is where we stumbled upon the photos above, showing legendary actress Ethel Barrymore visiting Montalvo more than 80 years ago. In these candid shots, she joins Montalvo founder Senator James Duval Phelan (the man with the distinguished beard), the…

Author: Montalvo