My Valuables—What Really Matters?

Scheduled to open in the Elaine Jacob Foyer and Burnett Gallery at Gualala Arts Center, “My Valuables—What Really Matters?” is a new, personal and interactive exhibit curated by Holly Stiel. The show, opening Friday, October 2, 2020, will combine a variety of art forms and take visitors on an inspiring journey through the artists’ ideas of what is valuable, via these disparate mediums, personal collections and recollections. The Arts Center will be open daily from 11 am to 4 pm through October 25, 2020.

Inspired by the devastating, destructive and distressing aftermaths of fires, floods and various catastrophes, the artists take a deep look at what matters, and what is ultimately valuable.  The show explores the meaning we attach to our “stuff” through the memories and stories we have attached to those things.

The sculptures, like a phoenix literally rising from the ashes, bring new life to what was lost. The goal of the exhibit is for each person to embark on their own personal journey, imagining their own unique valuables, and it is an opportunity to reflect on what is important in these times of ever-present climate caused adversities.

Visitors are encouraged to bring their own memories to share during this exhibit. Sharing is simple. Bring an image and a description or short personal story on a half-sheet of paper or (preferably) on a 5”x7” card (example below).  These personal memories will be tacked to the walls of the Elaine Jacob Foyer, to be shared with everyone who comes through the exhibit. After posting your memory and enjoying the posted memories of others, take time to explore the exhibit of “My Valuables” in the Burnett Gallery. The exhibit includes sculpture by Peg Videtta, and photography and paintings by Bill Apton.

Adding an even more personal touch, a video with music has been created by artist, writer, poet and curator Holly Stiel, along with composer Jana Stanfield.

Holly Stiel is a Gualala resident, and is a Poet, Performance Artist, Author, Speaker and entrepreneur. Stiel brings a love of words, storytelling, and a deep heartfelt connection to relationships on all levels that has allowed this show to come to fruition.

Peg Videtta’s sculptures are inspired by the figure. Her spatial awareness and love of form stem from decades of ballet, modern dance and the study of Physics. In this exhibit Ms. Videtta has taken loss and given it new meaning and new life. Like a phoenix rising she has transformed what was burnt into something new sparking hope and contemplation.

When Peg went to help her Cousin Sue look through the rubble of her destroyed home in Sonoma she took a few pieces of charred wood. Thinking she would make a sculpture based on something she had been inspired by: a sculpture in the DeYoung using pieces of a Church  that had been burned by The KKK,. When she started working with the pieces she had taken from her Cousins home she found good wood underneath and began to form a heart, just to experiment with  the material. She was holding on to the wood as if it were a stick and just before she was about to detach the heart as she looked at it she realized that she had sculpted a figure. The rest of the pieces literally created themselves, the figures underneath emerging on their own.  She trusted the process completely. One figure that Peg thought was a child, suddenly became a dignified man as half the head in the fragile material crumbled off revealing a completely different countenance.