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Modesto Modernism

Modesto Modernism

Free screenings:

In the middle decades of the 20th century, the Modernist architecture of Modesto, California, was on the cutting edge of environmental and artistic design and it received national attention. In the 1940s, the New York Museum of Modern Art published three books featuring Modesto architecture and a photo of a Modesto home was on the cover of the catalog for its trend-setting 1944 exhibition on modern architecture. From the 1940s through the 1960s, many books, professional journals, and popular magazines published articles on Modesto buildings, but nothing exists in video. The city’s national stature in architecture began with the Heckendorf House designed by John Funk in 1939. The success of that house and the national attention it received inspired Modesto residents to hire other major designers for their landscape, commercial, residential, and government projects.

There are more than 85 Modernist buildings and landscapes in Modesto from 1939 to 1972 by noted 20th century designers including John Funk, William Wurster, Frank Lloyd Wright, Gardner Dailey, Henry Hill, Cliff May, Joseph Eichler, Christopher Alexander, William Turnbull, Joseph Esherick, SOM, Thomas Church, Lawrence Halprin, and many more. Modesto’s architecture was a model for other cities and a laboratory in the development of a distinctive California style that blended the indoors with the outdoors.

“I had no idea when we started doing the research we would uncover designs from so many major architects,” said Bob Barzan, director of the Modesto Art Museum.

Produced by Steve Arounsack & Jessica Gomula-Kruzic
Directed by Jessica Gomula-Kruzic
A Production of the Modesto Art Museum, with support from the Creative Work Fund.

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Alexa Fraser-Herron & Scary Cow

Alexa Fraser-Herron & Scary Cow

July 9 to September 3, 2015
Reception Thursday, July 9 at 6:30pm.

Alexa Fraser-Herron is a writer, director, and producer based out of San Francisco. Originally lured to the city to pursue fine art at the San Francisco Art Institute, Alexa later channeled her myriad interests into film. Upon discovering a local film collective called Scary Cow, she immediately joined and set to work making shorts, among them EAT PRAY WHATEVER (2008), ALONE FOREVER (2010), the experimental horror short 7 MINUTES IN HELL (2010), PETE & VERONICA (2012), and MINI SUPREME (2015). Alexa now runs Scary Cow in addition to being the production manager for Peaches Christ and lecturing on various aspects of creative development and film production.

Filmmakers are photographed with Darryl Macdonald, center, executive director of the Palm Springs International ShortFest, during the Opening Night: Make 'Em Laugh program at the Camelot Theatres in Palm Springs on Tuesday. (Photo: Taya Gray/Special to The Desert Sun)
Filmmakers are photographed with Darryl Macdonald, center, executive director of the Palm Springs International ShortFest, during the Opening Night: Make ‘Em Laugh program at the Camelot Theatres in Palm Springs on Tuesday. (Photo: Taya Gray/Special to The Desert Sun)

 

Scary Cow is a collective that welcomes anyone with an interest in film. Members pitch their ideas to one another and splinter off into groups of their choosing to make whatever film they’d like. Films are screened three times a year at the Castro Theatre where everyone in attendance votes on which filmmakers should win budget for their next film. This process has nurtured 100s of filmmakers since its inception in 2007 and has fostered a community of filmmakers bonded by the collective spirit. In keeping in this vein, this selection features an eclectic mix of Scary Cow-produced shorts that touch on relationships, love, and sacrifice. All of the films share a sense of intimacy in one way or another and run the gamut from classically dramatic and observational to the absurd.

 

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BFA Graduating Seniors Exhibition & Current works from the Building Imagination Initiative

BFA Graduating Seniors Exhibition

Reception May 7, 2015 at 6:30 pm
May 7 to June 30, 2015
Artist Talk at 7:00 pm

 

Current works from the Building Imagination Initiative

Reception May 7, 2015 at 6:30 pm
May 7 to June 30, 2015

Housed within the Video & Time-Based Media program of the California State University Stanislaus Art Department, the Building Imagination Initiative is a uniquely service learning oriented, interdisciplinary, academic and research program. The Building Imagination Initiative is offered to students who wish to gain core industry experiences through a project based, integrated learning environment which has strategic partnerships with leading non-profits. Dedicated to creative applications of digital technologies and targeted service learning opportunities within Modesto, CA and the greater Central Valley, theBuilding Imagination Initiative is a highly innovative research program which focuses upon the low quality of life rankings of the Central Valley and the re-imagining of its future as a metaphorical bridge for social struggles endemic to humanity itself. Faculty and students representing interdisciplinary interests create a unique academic environment dedicated to realizing individual artistic intentions while creating a collaborative structure for critical thinking and the understanding of media ecology.

Works on view include student directed documentaries produced with the Center for Human Services, as well as student directed documentaries of the location based game Modesto 2034, held in conjunction with the Modesto International Architecture Festival 2014.

 

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Enid Baxter Ryce

Enid Baxter Ryce

March 5 to May 1, 2015
Reception Thursday March 5, 2015 at 5:30 pm

Enid Ryce
THE WEST – a history of the colonization of California’s water in 3 parts.

Enid Baxter Ryce (formerly Blader) is an artist, filmmaker and musician whose investigations explore the lyrical relationships resonating in places between ecology and hidden histories.  Her works have exhibited internationally at venues such as the Smithsonian, Washington, D.C; the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; Location One, New York; Sundance, Park City; The Arclight Theater, Los Angeles; The Kunsthalle Vienna, The Arnolfini in London; the Director’s Guild of America; Center for Contemporary Arts, Glasgow, CCA Andratx, Mallorca, and many others.

Enid’s work was featured in the Getty Museum’s retrospective of California Video, 1960-present.  Her animation, Olive’s Backyard Concert, screened in film festivals internationally and regularly on California PBS.  A collection of her filmic art works, A Film is A Burning Place, was released by Microcinema International on the Aurora Video Label.

Enid’s work has been written about in The New York Times, Artforum, Artreviews, The Los Angeles Times, Bitch Magazine and many other books, journals and magazines.  She has exhibited in and curated several museum exhibitions based on her projects Water, CA and Planet Ord including one sponsored by the Irvine Foundation at the Crocker Museum (2011), one NEA-funded at the Armory in Pasadena (2012) and one funded by Cal Humanities at the Santa Cruz Museum of Art and History (2014).  She curates participatory arts and science projects for the biennial Bay-Delta Science Conference, Sacramento.

In 2008, Enid founded the Monterey Bay Film Society was awarded a Federal Stimulus (ARRA -BTOP) grant to fund an ongoing community program of film workshops for over 2000 at-risk, incarcerated and migrant youth annually.

Enid has been the community curator for the Philip Glass Days and Nights festival since 2013. She also works with the US Army and the Library of Congress to create materials for their archives about Fort Ord. She has received grants from the California Council of the Humanities, Durfee Foundation, Kodak and others. She has won awards for her work as an artist and arts educator from government agencies and non-profit festivals.

Enid received her BFA from The Cooper Union (1996), was a fellow at Yale University and received her MFA with a fellowship from Claremont Graduate University (2000). She is Associate Professor of Cinematic Arts and Environmental Studies and Chair of Cinematic Arts at CSU Monterey Bay.  She lives and works on the former Fort Ord, with her husband Walter and their two children.

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Sean Clute: Memory Reset and the Great Modesto Bouncy Thing

Sean Clute

Sean Clute: Memory Reset and the Great Modesto Bouncy Thing

January 29 to February 27, 2015
Reception Thursday February 5, 2015 at 5:30 pm
Artist Talk at 2:30 pm, Art Department Digital Media Studio.

Sean Clute is an interdisciplinary artist, composer and performer. His work has been presented internationally at venues such as The Kitchen, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, MuseumsQuartier Wien, ISEA2014 – Dubai, and the Autonomous Mutant Festival. Currently, Clute lives in Vermont where he is Co-Artistic Director of intermedia dance company DOUBLE VISION, the founder and director of the Media Arts Research Studio (MARS) and Assistant Professor of Digital Art at Johnson State College. Occasionally, he attempts to cross-country ski.

Sean Clute

 

Clute-installation

Memory Reset and the Great Modesto Bouncy Thing

Memory Reset and the Great Modesto Bouncy Thing is a video installation that uses a distributed network to visually reconstruct friends jumping together on an inflatable structure in the outskirts of the Central Valley, CA. Projected on two screens, found footage of the jumpers is blurred, cut-up and colorized. The viewer can imagine the composite of each screen depicting the original footage, while if viewing only a single screen, the viewer experiences only part of the total. The video installation is a reminder of how both the brain and digital technology can record, store and transform memories.

As English poet Stephen Spender exclaimed:

“Memory is not exactly memory. It is more like a prong, upon which a calendar of similar experiences happening throughout the years, collect. A memory once clearly stated ceases to be a memory, it becomes perpetually present, because every time we experience something which recalls it, the clear and lucid original experience imposes its formal beauty on the new experiences. It is thus no longer memory but an experience lived through again and again.”

The video installation Memory Reset, while influenced by the idea of memory, isn’t an attempt to emulate it as a human would. Rather, video pixels are programmed to algorithmically construct half of the computer’s video matrix. For example, one screen may present half of the colors used in the original while the other projector shows the remaining half. Furthermore, the video installation randomly cycles through many processes (nothing is fixed). Because two computers are networked, the subsequent projections always sum the complete image.

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University Art Gallery Downtown

University Art Gallery Downtown

While Turlock’s downtown restaurant scene has expanded in recent years, the area is now playing host to a more culturally appetizing establishment: the California State University, Stanislaus Art Gallery.

Made possible through the generous contributions of private donors, the CSU Stanislaus Art Gallery has been in the making for four years. While the aim is to display student art, the gallery is more than a place to admire works, as it includes an interactive component with a Building Imagination Center and studios for students working towards their Bachelor of Fine Arts. Of the 130 art majors at CSU Stanislaus, about 24 students are working towards their BFA, which is a higher level major of study that requires more coursework.

“As the Art Department of the University, part of our mission is that we have a gallery to serve both our students and the community and we thought what better way to serve the community than having  a place downtown,” said Roxanne Robbin, chair of the Art Department.

The Building Imagination Center, which was formerly located in downtown Modesto, focuses on video production and exhibitions of Central Valley community members, alumni  and graduate movie makers, while also hosting community workshops for classes and student projects.  The Lofts for the BFA students provides undergraduate students the rare opportunity to hone their craft in a dedicated space. The gallery also serves as an exhibition space for work of CSU Stanislaus students as well as international artists.

“Ultimately, we believe that opening the Art Space on Main will bring us closer to our mission by engaging the community more directly,” said Robbin.

CSU Stanislaus Art Gallery director Dean DeCocker and Building Imagination Center director Jessica Gomula-Kruzic oversees the gallery space, which is not only a place for community members to satisfy their artistic interests, but also provides students in the Art Department professional experience in running an exhibition space.

The CSU Stanislaus Art Gallery is located at the intersection of Main Street and Broadway in downtown Turlock.

 

By Elizabeth Arakelian
Courtesy of The Turlock Journal

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Art Faculty on Main

Art Faculty on Main

September 5 to October 24, 2014
Reception Thursday September 5, 2014 at 5:30 pm
Artist Talk at 6:00 pm

Professor of Art Jessica Gomula-Kruzic will have three works on display in the video gallery.

“My visual arts research explores the relationship between the immediate environment, the audience, and the artist, as interactive media and DIY culture continues to blur those relationships. My goal is to create collaborative intermedia artwork in diverse public spaces, which addresses socially conscious subject matter.

Through large scale video and animation projections, live performances, and responsive systems, my projects creatively respond to the physical and social character of an environment, working to animate public and private spaces, in an effort to bring diverse people together to inspire, and be inspired.”

dreams-affection

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Generations of Art Alumni Connect with Students, Community

Generations of Art Alumni Connect with Students, Community

On the heels of its inaugural faculty exhibition, the new CSU Stanislaus Art Space on Main in downtown Turlock is currently featuring works by 42 alumni from the Department of Art. The exhibition “Art Alumni on Main” opened in the recently renovated space with a November reception that brought together alumni artists, faculty, current students and the community.

“This exhibition really showcases to the community many of our great alumni artists,” said Dean DeCocker, director of the University Art Gallery. “It is an opportunity for our alumni to reconnect with their professors and with each other — to share what they are working on and what they have accomplished.”

DeCocker also said the exhibition provides opportunities for current students to connect with alumni and learn about the types of work that they are doing post-graduation.

“This is a great show because you will see such a diverse group of artists,” said Ellen Roehne, a Modesto artist and lecturer in the CSU Stanislaus Department of Art. She encouraged students in her art appreciation class to attend the reception and interview the alumni artists.

Art Space on Main
Art alumni Cliff H. and Ann W. Bailey, both from the class of ’73, with their son Clifford W. Bailey, ’10. All three have artwork on exhibit in “Art Alumni on Main.

“You are sure to find something to connect with.”

The exhibition is also multi-generational, with alumni whose children followed their footsteps into art at CSU Stanislaus and are now exhibiting together in this group show.

Clifford W. Bailey, ’10, who followed the example of his parents, Cliff H. and Ann W. Bailey, both from the class of ’73, are exhibiting very different works of art that include techniques in sculpture, mixed media and photography.

“Each of us does very different work,” Ann Bailey said. “Having our work here together starts a conversation about our different passions.”

Another family exhibiting together includes Larry DeTomasi, ’11, who teaches art at Pitman High School, and his daughter Jessica DeTomasi, ’14.

For recent grads, the exhibition is also an opportunity to cut their teeth in a professional gallery environment. Diana Isho, who graduated with her Bachelor of Fine Arts in 2012 and is currently teaching art in Modesto while pursuing her teaching credential, said the exhibition has provided her a chance to grow professionally as an artist and to showcase her work for her students.

“I can’t believe that I’ve just graduated and now I am working and teaching art,” she said. “It’s very exciting to have the opportunity to show my work in a professional gallery.”

“Art Alumni on Main” runs through Jan. 16. Located at 135 W. Main Street, Art Space on Main is open to the public from noon to 5 p.m. Monday through Wednesday and from noon to 9 p.m. Thursday through Saturday.

 Read the article here: https://www.csustan.edu/alumni-news/december-2014/generations-art-alumni-connect-students-community 

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Bee in Turlock: California State University, Stanislaus, brings art space to downtown

Bee in Turlock: California State University, Stanislaus, brings art space to downtown

TURLOCK — A new art gallery and studio set to open downtown is a project involving a lot of partnerships: between the university and the community, between public and private agencies, and between students and faculty. Even the restrooms are shared with a new restaurant next door.

The “Art Space on Main,” as it’s been named, is set to open in early September. The building will be part gallery, part laboratory.

It follows on the success of the Building Imagination Center, a joint effort between the university and the Modesto Art Museum that operated under a grant in downtown Modesto.

But even before the Building Imagination Center opened in 2012, university officials had been looking for space in downtown Turlock, said Roxanne Robbin, chairwoman of the California State University, Stanislaus, art department.

“Our (department of fine arts) program has grown so much,” she said. The university is required to have working areas for each student, and it ran out of space on the campus across town at Geer Road and Monte Vista avenues.

The new space also is more visible to Turlock and other Valley residents who find themselves downtown. The university has a gallery on campus, but it can be difficult to find, and people never know whether they need to pay for parking, Robbin said.

At the Art Space, students will get to work on projects. Community members can take part in workshops on everything from watercolor painting to video production. And students can get practical experience running a gallery.

Robbin said she is hoping to expand the services available there even more. “It would be great if people in the community could come in to get help with a logo,” she said as one example.

The building itself is an art project of sorts, with workers removing layers of improvements over the decades to bring back the original charm and elegance of the structure. Previously, the building was best known to Turlock residents as the longtime home of the JC Penney department store before it moved to Fulkerth Road.

Workers pulled up plenty of carpet and tile, said Eric Gonsalves, vice president of Brownstone Equities, the building’s property manager. Underneath, they found hardwood floors that date back 102 years. The store had a mezzanine in the back; the flooring and supporting structure for that were dismantled and some of that wood was used to make doors for the building and tables for Memo’s Cucina & Tequila Bar, which recently opened next door.

“It’s a lot of recycling, which is exciting,” Robbin said.

All told, Gonsalves said, the property owner contributed about $300,000 in remodeling work. The university, using a combination of public and private funds, has leased the space for three years. Hopefully, Robbin said, the gallery will stay open long after that.

Bee Breaking News Editor Patty Guerra can be reached at pguerra@modbee.com or (209) 578-2343. Follow her on Twitter @PattyGuerra.

Read more here