PRS EXHIBITIONS COMMITTEE:   

The PRS Exhibitions Committee is navigating a new reality due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Don't forget: the world needs art more than ever! Here's an update on planned exhibitions:

Sculpture of the Pacific Rim at the Commonwealth Club SF:  Juror Robert Melton is finalizing selections from submissions by an unprecedented 74 artists. We still hope to notify you of selections by April 3rd -- but we may be late. We do know that, due to the pandemic, the installation and opening will be postponed; we will inform you of the new dates when we know them. Meanwhile, we are looking into ways to create a virtual exhibition that may have even greater visibility! If you have volunteer interests and skills in this arena, please contact our Exhibitions Committee: Exhibitions@PacificRimSculptors.org

Beauty or Truth at Art Works Downtown with juror Chandra Cerrito is also being rescheduled, including the submission deadline. This gives you more time to enter if you have not already! The new schedule is below:

• Exhibition Dates: August 7- September 18, 2020
• Entries due: Wednesday July 7, 11:59pm
• Notify Artists: Saturday July 25
• Art Delivery: Saturday August 1, 1-4pm
• First Day of exhibition: Friday August 7
• Reception and Art Walk: Friday August 14, 5-8pm
• 2nd Reception: Friday September 11, 5-8pm
• Pick up: Sunday September 19, 10am–2pm

Our hearts and best wishes go out to you! 

PRS EVENTS COMMITTEE: Second Sunday Spotlights suspended  

Also due to the pandemic, the Committee announces that 

• All PRS's in-person activities are temporarily suspended, including the popular "Second Sunday Spotlight" events.
  
• The Committee is exploring new opportunities for interacting:  video-based virtual visits to studios and museums, portfolio reviews, happy hours, pot-lucks, . . . ?
  
• To begin, Natasha Dikareva will host a Zoom virtual visit to see her beautiful ceramic work in her efficient art studio. Registration information will be announced; watch the Members-only Events Calendar!

If you want to explore new possibilities for PRS, the Events Committee welcomes your participation!  Send us an email: Events@PacificRimSculptors.org

MARCH 2020 SECOND SUNDAY SPOTLIGHT:  Stephanie Metz

On Sunday March 8, 2020, PRS members and their guests visited the exhibition Stephanie Metz: InTouch, at the de Saisset Museum at Santa Clara University, featuring two galleries filled with Stephanie's touchable felted sculptures. 

The images above and below are installation views of 'Hanging Pods,' twelve cocoon-like forms suspended from a steel armature. Visitors are invited to feel, stroke, and hug the pliable sculptures, whose organic shapes borrow loosely from forms in nature.

Visitors could insert themselves into the narrative by moving, arranging, and even wearing the sculptural forms, which range from hand-held to furniture-sized. Stephanie built the thick industrial felt forms over structures of various plasticity -- carved foam rubber or styrofoam, expanding spray foam, foam scraps, fiberfill -- for a variety of densities, weights, rigidities, and 'squishiness'. The pieces also have a range of surface textures, varying by how Stephanie compressed the wool on the surface.

Stephanie presented an Artist's Talk at the museum, describing how she worked with a team of volunteers, whom she trained to apply wool over the forms and to do 'needle felting' using sharp, notched needles to compress the wool into smooth, detailed felt. 

After the museum visit, PRS members traveled to Stephanie's studio in The Alameda Artworks complex in downtown San Jose, where the group enjoyed refreshments and Stephanie showed her tools, materials, maquettes for scaling up the works, and a display of smaller past works. 

Volunteer to host an event or share ideas with the Events Committee -- Email:  Events@PacificRimSculptors.org

JERRY BARRISH

Jerry Barrish has works in the exhibition Under The Covers: It's Not What It Seams. The San Jose Museum of Quilt & Textiles collaborated with Art and Art History students at San Jose State University in Fall, 2020. The exhibition juxtaposes one work from the Museum's permanent collecction to an art piece / object in the world. A student chose Jerry's sculpture, "We Are Family" and juxtaposed it with the piece, "Road to California Quilt." The exhibition, curated by Amy DiPlacido, runs from April 19 to May 31, 2020 with a reception on April 18.  See www.SJQuiltMuseum.org for details.  

"We Are Family" 2015, 57"x32"x21", assemblages plastic found objects on painted wood base, photo by Wilfred J. Jones

Jerry's piece "Grieving" (below) is in the exclusive ISC Professional Members Online Showcase, which can be viewed on Artsy at this link. 

"Grieving", 2008, 57"x16"x12", bronze, ed. 1/5, photo by Wilfred J. Jones

MARGUERITE ELLIOT

Marguerite Elliot has works in the exhibition 48 Pillars at Arc Gallery, San Francisco, CA. The exhibition, curated by Michael Yochum, challenged 24 artists to create two works each that were 48" x 12". For this exhibition, Marguerite fabricated the panels, "Falling Leaves I and II" (below), out of 16 gauge steel, then cut deep gashes in the steel symbolic of the way we are destroying our precious environment. She cut individual leaf forms from delicate gold leaf and floated them downward amidst deep gashes in the steel panels. The exhibition runs from February 29 to May 1, 2020. See more information at www.Margueriteelliot.com 

"Falling Leaves" (diptych; 2020, 48"x24"x1.5", steel, gold Leaf, copper and bronze powder 

MARGO McMAHON

Margo McMahon has works in the exhibition Entanglements at the Oak Park Art League (OPAL), including "Ripple Effect" (below). Works in the exhibition explore concepts of quantum physics expressed through abstract art. On display are 63 works by 42 artists that include a wide range of media—paintings, drawings, mixed media, fiber, printmaking, sculpture, photography, and an installation. See a write up in the Chicago Tribune at this link. 

"Ripple Effect", 2020, 24"x25"x1", technique mixte on masonite 

Charles Stinson was invited to include eight of his bamboo sculptures (below) in the exhibition Bamboo and Haiku at the Vargas Gallery, Mission College, Santa Clara, CA.

Curated by Gallery Director Lynne Todaro along with Dotti Cichon, the exhibition was installed immediately prior to the shelter-in-place orders; the reception is postponed and the exhibition is extended to May 30, 2020. See Vargas.MissionCollege.edu for more information.

JEFF KEY

Jeff Key’s pieces in “The Vessel Series” were featured in a solo “Pop-Up” show at the Sculpturesite Gallery in Glen Ellen on March 1, 2020. Additionally, Sculpturesite Gallery’s website features 25 sculptures by Jeff, curated by Brigitte Micmacker, in an Exclusive On-line Exhibition Life Vessels through April 30, 2020. Jeff’s work, primarily constructed of wood and flax, makes allusion to the vessel, a cross-cultural, and at times totemic form, that represents human presence and the cycle of life. The solo “Pop-Up” show was part of Sculpturesite’s 30th Anniversary celebration. Jeff’s wood sculpture, “Vessel #32—Witness II” (below) is currently on view as part of SculptureWALK, Sculpturesite Gallery’s on-going outdoor exhibition.

"Vessel #32 — Witness II” (Installation View), 2005, 98"x48"x40", wood, photo by Brigitte Micmacker

Also, three of Jeff’s sculptures are on exhibit at the Schermeister Winery at Jack London Village in Glen Ellen. 

See more information about Jeff's exhibition at this link.

CORINNE WHITAKER

Corinne Whitaker updated images in her Sculpture Directory page on the International Sculpture Center website (see all of her images at this link). 

"White Nun", digital sculpture

CATHERINE DALEY

Catherine Daley created "The Labyrinth" with her students in an intensive sculpture class at Sonoma Academy, Santa Rosa, CA. The piece required three months of planning and coordinating with the school's board and facilities, followed by about four days of hard work to create the on-campus installation. To gain an understanding of how land and installation art fall under the broad umbrella of sculpture, the class visited the Labyrinth at Land's End and Andy Goldsworthy's installations in the Presidio, both in San Francisco. The students also worked on individual projects ranging from shadow boxes to a surfboard. "The Labyrinth" was completed mid-January and was in use until recent restrictions due to the COVID-19 crisis. 

"The Labyrinth", 2020

PAMELA MERORY DERNHAM

Pamela Merory Dernham had works in the group show MIGRATION at Vessel Gallery's new gallery location in Oakland, CA.

WELCOME NEW MEMBERS!

Nancy Genn of Berkeley, in Alameda, CA, creates abstract, non-objective sculpture of cast bronze, ceramics, tile, and organic material. Her volunteer interest area is History of PRS. Check out her website at www.NancyGenn.com

Invite your sculptor colleagues to join and get one month free membership for each new member you recruit (cannot previously have been a member). Just ask the new member to mention your name while filling out the "How did you hear about us?" blank in the application form.