Image provided by: Clackamas Community College; Oregon City, OR
About The Clackamas print. (Oregon City, Oregon) 1989-2019 | View Entire Issue (March 8, 2017)
Student Sara Cone looks at a collection of fired porcelain in the gallery. Art is being displayed in the Pauling Center. The gallery is open every Monday through Friday from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Artist Autumn Higgins has multiple pieces on display including “Daily Snapshots,” a watercolor on paper collection and “Small Objects,” made with a cone 10 reduction and fired porcelain, Artists push perspectives PAULING ART GALLERY SHOWCASES CERAMIC ART FROM 10 CREATORS BY NICHOLAS ALLISON J The Pauling Center has been transformed from a sparse environm ent tq a hall filled w ith art. “ The Corner of Siskiyou and Indiana: Ten Years, Ten People” is a ceramic art exhibit currently installed there. Since the art did not arrive on tim e, the opening of the gallery was delayed from Tuesday, Feb. 21, until Monday, Feb. 27. It is an exhibit first imagined by Robin Strangfeld, who teaches ceramics at Southern Oregon University and has been teaching there for 10 years. Nine students, from the previous 10 years, were called up to help her create this gallery, each contributing som ething to make it unique. “ Our w o rk ten d s to p u sh w h at ceram ic is / ’ said Strangfeld. “ We thought that m ight be an interesting conversation to bring to [the cam pus].” When the exhibit was first imagined, no central theme was denoted. Then, a them e of place naturally form ed w ith images o f China and New Orleans, finding a place j here beside letters Connecting the artists together and numerous pieces that brought it all together. Between all o f them , this sense o f place and your place in the world form ed organically. Jess Volk was one o f the artists, and her piece focused 4 Clackamas Print MARCH 8,2017 theclackamasprint.com on the idea of perspective. She explored the them e b y looking back into the past and forward into the future, using new and interesting materials alongside a storm glass just like the ones used by the navigators o f old to. predict weather patterns, albeit somewhat inaccurately. “ W e’ve already entered, and are further entering this age, with new culture and interracial mixing,” said Volk. She wanted to give perspective on that in her piece. “ Hugging is tangible in the moment, but once that moment’s gone you ju st have the memory.” -A njaD uB ois Anja DuBois, another artist, did a piece about intimacy. She wanted to explore having people gather and hug one another. They weren’t romantically involved. Many didn’t even know each other, but that w asn’t the point. “ I had them all place these sheets of aluminum foil betw een th em ,” said DuBois. “ I wanted to map that space betw een th em .” A s to why she did the piece this way, she said, “ I wanted to make these objects that represented something that’ s not tangible. Hugging is tangible in the moment, but once that m om ent’ s gone, you just have the memory of it. I wanted to capture that moment, then translate them through a number of materials, to see what they’d becom e.” DuBois was quite fond of what she accomplished. “ All of them are more and more, sort of degraded and weird, as tim e goes on ,” said DuBois. These three, and seven m ore, had in teresting and unique stories to tell through their work and those they worked with. Explore them, take part in the conversation and experience it alongside others. Get ah understanding of these artists and the place they see them selves in in the world. The art gallery w ill remain open until March 24, and it is open from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. every Monday through Friday. “ Migratory Flux” is another gallery that w ill open in Niemeyer Center on M arch 13 through March 26.
