CREATIVE STREAK: Works in Series

Opening Reception: Thursday, February 22nd, 4-6 pm
Duration: February 18th – March 21st, 2024
Location: Mendocino College Gallery, 1000 Hensley Creek Rd. (Center Theatre Lobby)

Mendocino College Gallery is excited to present ‘CREATIVE STREAK: Works in Series’. The exhibition features a wide range of practices, from assemblage to cyanotype, ceramic sculpture, intricate pen + ink drawing and oil painting. The common thread is that these artists all work in series. ‘Working in series’ means that the artist creates a number of different pieces that all look similar, or have the same thematic content, but are not identical.

Working in series allows an artist to think deeply about a certain subject and potentially make better art through the process. In order to tell a larger story, or to refine content, artists will explore a theme in depth across a number of pieces through variations in design elements.

Many commercial artists work in series in order to have more pieces to sell, or alternates, if a collector wanted a certain work that had already been sold. Journalists and bloggers can craft a story from a series more easily and effectively than from an exhibition of unrelated works.

Working in series is often a more natural studio practice for the artist as well. While patiently waiting for one painting to dry, or ceramic piece to cure, the artist can move on to a similar piece without losing creative flow. There is less pressure to create a single ‘great’ work of art when working on multiple pieces at once. Artists naturally move around the studio, allowing the creative mind to rest and pivot without losing momentum, naturally building a cohesive ‘body of work’.

CREATIVE STREAK: Works in Series features the following five artists:

Mona Cliff (Aniiih) is a Multidisciplinary visual artist. She explores the subject of contemporary Native American identity and culture through her use of traditional Native crafting methods such as seed bead embroidery and fabric applique. Based in Kansas City, Cliff is an enrolled member of the Gros Ventre tribe (A’aninin/Nakota Nations) she is Frozen Clan (Aniiih) and of the Medicine Bear Clan (Nakota) of Ft. Belknap, MT. Her works have been exhibited widely and will be featured in New Worlds: Women to Watch 2024 at the National Museum of Women in the Arts in Washington DC.

Linda MacDonald makes intricate and detailed portraits of the interiors of redwood trees, coast and sequoia, in pen + ink drawing as well as watercolor and oil painting. The history of aging is there in the wood—marred, burned and charred, graffiti-laden, smooth, textured or curly.
MacDonald has shown extensively in the US and Japan and has work in the collection of The White House, the City of San Francisco, the Museum of Art & Design (MAD) in NYC.

Shannon Sullivan creates sculptures, wall pieces and installations using a core visual vocabulary rooted in the prevailing ways of nature. Sullivan’s work has been exhibited in galleries and museums nationally and internationally. She is currently head of Ceramics at College of the Redwoods in Eureka, California.

Spencer Brewer and Esther Siegel create assemblage works both collaboratively and independently. The husband and wife duo have lived on their Redwood Valley ranch for the last 39 years, where they maintain a robust studio practice. It’s hard to identify where art ends and life begins there. In fact, the entire property feels like walking into a massive art installation. What appears to be an outdoor seating area becomes an Alice in Wonderland themed water fountain with the flick of a switch, water gushing out of tea pots, across cups and saucers and cascading onto the ground. Brewer and Siegel recently published a book of assemblage art: Lost and Found, which won the First Place Ben Franklin award for ‘Interior Design’ at the 2023 Independent Book Publishers Association.

We hope you can join us:
Opening Reception: Thursday, February 22nd, 4 – 6 PM. Light refreshments will be served.

Mendocino College Gallery will also be open for ticket holders of The New World String Project on Sunday, Feb. 18, 2 PM at the Mendocino College Center Theatre. Tickets are available online at www.ukiahconcerts.org and at Mendocino Book Company in Ukiah and Mazahar in Willits. For more information, please contact the UCCA at 707-463-2738 or email info@ukiahconcerts.org