Let’s take a walk together, just down the block and back. We can marvel at the sky moving behind the trees. Feel the songs sung by skywires.
In this third-of-three looks at individual works of art in the Pajaro Valley Arts HOME Exhibit, (links to all the others below) we have the pleasure of spending time with Maren Sinclair Hurn’s small porcelain wallpiece titled “Central Coast Summer.” It’s as brief and brilliant as a haiku. Evocative. A sassy statement about HOME without mentioning the house.
It speaks to the larger places in which we live. The stage set where we enact our plays. Our environs, streetscapes and resonant climate and culture. It’s a spot-on look at the truth that our homes commonly exist somewhere in time and space– or once did – and that that somewhere inevitably affects how we experience them.
Maren would say the same. I spent a few minutes with her at the Opening Reception for this exhibit. We talked about how hard it was for her to get those wires straight on a torn and curved piece of clay, about how palm trees and pines co-exist in our Mediterranean climate. It ended with her talking about how vital it is to live in 3D in real time and real place and to pay well-considered attention to all of it as it is happening right around us. I think she’s funny and profound and get her to pose below her piece – noticing she and it both glow.
Environs. Culture. Streetscapes. The Place Which Surrounds The Place We Are From. How can such a snippet of sky with a few treetops and some wires running across it be so right? How can a straightforward title call up a location and a season so perfectly? Honestly, this piece pulls me in and just kills me with sweet love for my own home, for clay, for saucy curving shards of painted poetry.
–Liz Crain, who sang a few bars of the chorus of Danny O’Keefe’s “In Northern California” to Maren right there at the reception. And, yeah, they got some stares.
Links for Posts About the HOME Exhibit and My Piece in It
“Homefire 1957” Sculpture
- Between Two Fires – An overview of the finished work, including photos of it
- R&D for Homefire 1957 – A look at the information and image-gathering that went into this piece
- The Soviets Thumb Their Collective Nose – A description of the imagery and meaning on the back side
- Dad Points Things Out – An autobiographical moment in time on one side of the incinerator sculpture
“HOME” Exhibit
- Bringing it All Home – Delivering my piece to the exhibit
- In Which I Find My Art Reception Mojo – Some tips on feeling at home at art receptions
- The Ur-HOME – A look at Dawn Motyka’s piece entitled “Sipa Pu: Hopi Creation Myth”
- The HOME of the Phoenix – Joan Tanzer’s “Lost Home Memory Box” assemblage
Exhibit Details: “HOME” Member’s Exhibit 2016, July 6 – August 7, 2016, Pajaro Valley Arts Gallery, 37 Sudden St., Watsonville, CA