Central Washington Artists' Exhibition Award Winner at Larson Galllery

 

my face bulbs at CWAE this weekend

This weekend was the opening of the Central Washington Artists' Exhibition at Larson Gallery in Yakima. I have two pieces in the show this year, my Chartreucat sculpture and a small wall-installation of face bulbs.

the CWAE program

This is the 64th annual Central Washington Artists' Exhibition and I believe this is the first year in the new Larson Gallery on the new west side campus of Yakima Valley College, behind Taco Bell. The show runs through December 11. The gallery is open Tuesday-Friday 10-5 and Saturdays 12-5.

my installation at CWAE this weekend (I really like the neighboring work by Yu-Hen Dade)

The new gallery is much larger and nicer than the already pretty decent gallery across the street. The new space has multiple rooms, including a totally separate sales gallery with small art and gifts for sale. The new gallery also boasts better parking.

Chartreucat, also at CWAE (picture taken at home)

This was the first year in a bit that I remembered to enter this show. I can't remember if they had a show last year, but it's been a busy couple of years for me. This Chartreucat sculpture was one of several abstract sculptures I started last spring and finished this summer(with one not quite finished yet). I felt pretty good about finding the time to make these pieces.

my award certificate

My wall installation was also built last summer and mostly finished in Spring 2021. This installation won an award, the Jeffery Schaap & Gilbert Young Award, which was great news, and even better when I realized it was a monetary award.

detail with sold stickers Saturday afternoon

The installation features 15 unique face bulbs with a range of features, colors and expressions. When I arrived at the gallery this weekend, a couple was in the process of purchasing a pair of the bulbs. The woman indicated that she liked the masked pieces. Someone asked about the bulbs with plants coming out of their mouths, thinking they were like a scene from Trolls 2 (which I haven't seen).

weeds as speech

I explained that when I made these, I was thinking of the weeds coming out of mouth as a metaphor for hateful language, the way it spreads quickly and chokes out the beautiful flowers or healthy vegetables that might otherwise grow in that space.

invasive choking weeds/speech

Most of the bulbs were specifically created as a reference to the hateful political climate of the past several years. The masks were clearly created post-pandemic, but the screaming faces started showing up before the pandemic in the lead up to the last election.

masked face

 

I believe more of these may have sold since I left the show on Saturday. I was asked to provide some written explanation yesterday for Larson Gallery to use on their social media. It's not up yet, but these may be featured later on Larson Gallery's Facebook or Instagram. 

detail of installation

I'm happy to get these seen. It is sometimes challenging to keep up with teaching, union work, and my own work. Especially when my own work includes making, applying, showing, advertising, and keeping up an online presence here, on my website, and (kind of) on social media. 

my face bulbs and other (abstract) bulbs in my home studio this September

I showed these pieces this summer at my home studio for the Yakima Artists Studio Tour in September, but this was the first year for this show and I think all of us are still kind of gearing back up from pandemic to semi-post-pandemic mode for attending shows and going out in public. It is strange how long it has taken to start to move back to operating how we did before the pandemic.

award page of the CWAE program

After I published this, Larson Gallery added a video tour of the CWAE show: