FORM FOLLOWS FURNITURE
SCULPTURE UNION @ MOLECULE
From a curatorial perspective, installing a sculpture exhibition in a retail furniture showroom might not seem to be an ideal viewing experience. But Sculpture Union @ Molecule — the show of works by members of the Santa Fe Community College’s Sculpture Union, currently on view at Molecule Design — does provide an opportunity to get some idea of how a work might fit into your own design aesthetic or home décor. The show plays a game of hide-and-seek, as most of the works are tucked in among contemporary home furnishings — and it’s to Molecule’s credit that you may not always be able to tell the shop’s merchandise from the college’s objets d’art. “One thing that’s kind of nice about showing there is the fact that some people said it was kind of like an Easter egg hunt, looking for the artwork amid all the furnishings,” said Susan Ohori, who has a ceramic sculpture in the show. “It provides a setting in which people can imagine themselves sitting on the sofa and living with the art.”
Sculpture Union @ Molecule is an eclectic mix of functional sculpture and purely sculptural works in a variety of mediums, including metal, ceramics, wood, 3-D printing, and more. While all of the work is by students enrolled in classes at SFCC, not all of them are necessarily in the sculpture department. “You can be in a ceramics class or glass class or a woodworking class,” Ohori said. “You can take advantage of the facilities for the particular class that you’re in. I’m enrolled in both ceramics and sculpture classes.” SFCC faculty and staff also show work with the Sculpture Union. Although the sculpture on view at Molecule are primarily created by students, many are by established working artists in the community such as Nina Mastrangelo, a painter and sculptor who is showing work in kiln-formed glass, ceramic artist Spencer Snyder, and Ohori, a ceramist, host of KSFR’s radio program Beyond Borders, and founder of Ohori’s Coffee. Ohori’s untitled ceramic piece in the exhibition is a smooth white form, punctured with two small slits, that bears a resemblance to a cell in the process of mitosis. The form was inspired by the lingam, a column or oval-shaped Tantric symbol often made of stone, wood, or clay. Her work is a more contemporary, abstract representation.
Sculpture Union members pay a small fee per semester and attend regular meetings. The primary purpose is to provide shows for the members. “The prototype really came from ceramics,” Ohori said. “They have a clay club, which has organized shows once or twice a year that have been extremely successful. Seeing that, people in the sculpture department thought we should do the same thing. We’ve done them at the college, but we felt, because the college is kind of far for people to get to from the rest of town, that attendance wasn’t what we would hope. So we were looking for a space more downtown where people could attend. The show at Molecule was the result of that search.”
The works in the exhibit are primarily small- and mid-scale sculpture, some of which, such as Lisa Freeman’s Red and Black, represent a cross-disciplinary approach to art-making. Red and Black combines a painting of alternating red and black vertical bands with a sculptural component: a leafless tree painted black that is positioned in front of the painting. It’s one of the larger works in the show. Among the 3-D printed sculpture is Ezra Hubbard’s Born into Decay. The piece is composed of five cubes, each one made from from corn-based bioplastic, which deteriorates at a much faster rate than
petroleum-based plastics (60 days versus 400 years, according to the artist). It’s an ephemeral work, in which each cube has places where the form appears to have already begun to degrade, suggesting a breakdown of the solid form, or a degradation of structure and order.
Annette Morreale’s Folded Forms, three geometric wall-mounted pieces, are rendered in steel, while Charlie Carruthers’ Over/Under is a curvilinear steel sculpture. Each one shows a mature, practiced eye for composition, as well as the versatility of a time-honored medium. Their bold, solid forms contrast with Fairley Barnes’ Sight Unseen, a delicate work in forged steel composed of thin, linear threads that look like something akin to a brain synapse. Faye Bates’ Blessing Woman and Gayanne Stem Robinson’s Etruscan Horse are more traditional works in bronze, although the latter takes its cue from the aesthetics of historic Etruscan artworks made before the common era. Among the more functional works on display is Scarlett O’Hara
Red Ferrari, a chair by furniture maker Richard Podmore, finished in bright powder-coated red. The chair is designed for comfort as well as to provide a contemporary aesthetic. Podmore’s chair feels right at home among Molecule’s furnishings, even more so than the other Sculpture Union works, serving as a reminder that the line between design and fine art is often quite porous.
SFCC’s Sculpture Union show gives some idea of the capabilities of not only of its members, but of the facilities available to artists at the college, who, for being engaged at the associate level only, are doing some top-notch work. Many of the students have shown their work regionally as well as nationally. In addition to exhibitions, the union also seeks engagement with the larger community in other ways, such as by partnering with Habitat for Humanity, the international nonprofit housing organization, to create gates for the houses the organization builds locally. “We’re also hoping to bring in guest artist speakers,” Ohori said. “There’s a women’s show that’s coming up at the college and the impetus and faculty sponsorship for that came up out of the sculpture department.” The upcoming show Women Speak Out opens on April 5 in the SFCC Fine Arts Center (6401 Richards Ave.) and presents works by women artists in all disciplines within the fine arts department. With the forthcoming closure of the Santa Fe University of Design this spring, it’s worthwhile to remember that SFCC maintains a strong and vibrant art department. details Sculpture Union @ Molecule; through April 30 Molecule Design, 1226 Flagman Way, 505-989-9806