“Who Framed Colonel Mustard?” by Amy Bickerton (Contributed)
An invitation to come see the latest display of art at the Corner Gallery was met with some reluctance.
The theme of the show was “Celebrating Our Differences” which only added despair to misgivings. Haven’t we been celebrating the tired slogan of multicultural differences more than long enough? Isn’t it time to demonstrate and enjoy some unity and commonality? Readers may quibble.
But I answered the call and, shortly after 5 p.m., began wandering among what I assumed would be amateurish art-like indulgences, naive political nonsense and elderly hippies cooing and chirping about vision and courage.
Happily I was wrong about everything except the old hippies milling about. The show was first-rate, which means it’s the first Ukiah art installation I’ve thoroughly enjoyed in 40 years. Go ahead, see the show, tell me I’m wrong.
John Richards is a former machinist who now churns out cool, museum quality ballpoint pen casings made from exotic materials. It’s not John’s first exhibit, because I purchased a few of his pens five or so years ago as (well-received) Christmas gifts.
Also on his modest display tables was a 3-D blue bowl that looked like it had several layers, and maybe it did. But priced at $200, maybe it didn’t.
A less prominent display showed Lori Holaday’s black-and-white photos of Christian-themed statues and monuments. It’s timeless, breathtaking, eye-watering art, even reduced to an 8 x 10 frame: Beloved Mother and, in repose, the Duchess and Duke of Argylt. A Warrior Angel necropolis brought a small group to peer over my shoulder.
There were also examples of the Squiggly-Blurt school of abstract canvas but mercifully few in number and easy to ignore.
Jeanne Koelle had space for more than a few of her southwest America paintings that struck the proper bright, soft, dry pastel reality of that part of the country.
A favorite? Amy Bickerton mounted what appeared to be the inner workings and mental anguish of an exploded pinball machine. The display, weirdly but aptly titled “Who Framed Colonel Mustard?” has lights and complicated buzzers that may or not function, topped by a small cuckoo clock. Go figure.
Then turn 180-degrees and also go figure “Playtime” by Greg Alden, an equally intriguing statuette that brought together disparate elements from your grandparents’ attic and assembled an homage to The Wizard of Oz.
Or else it didn’t. Maybe it represents, Man’s Inhumanity to Man or Swans on the Danube. NOTE: “Playtime” is priced at an absurdly low $200, which I originally mistook for a reasonable $2,000.
(Both Bickerton and Alden had no doubt been influenced by the deeply influential work of the late Larry Fuentes, who was producing, and maybe inventing, collage-assemblages on the Fort Bragg coast in the 1970s.)
And it would be wrong to overlook the musical accompaniment of Stephen Winkle, who provided a superb soundtrack for the evening, mixing Homeward Bound, Time After Time and many another that made it hard to leave the building. He’s good, and you can rent him at (707) 391-7058.
So I went and I saw and I had yet another handful of my numerous misconceptions swept out the door. Good show. Good art.
Ignore the hippies.
