How to resolve AdBlock issue? Arts & Life
MIDDLETOWN, Calif. — Join the Middletown Art Center on Saturday, June 26, for a hybrid opening reception of its new exhibitions, “Two Wise” and “Multiples.”
Two Wise is a duo exhibition featuring Ava Avione’s monumental paintings and Alana Clearlake’s organically-inspired felted forms.
Multiples, a group exhibition on display in the small gallery showcases artwork made of two or more panels.
The opening reception will take place in hybrid format in-person at MAC and online on Zoom from 6 to 8 p.m.
To join the virtual opening visit www.middletownartcenter.org to register for Zoom which is free to the public. Conversations with artists begin at 6:30 p.m.
Ava Avione is visual artist, architect, pilot, poet and humanitarian. A master artist, Avione paints to explore and capture diverse forms of energy in her creations.
Her work has been collected by dignitaries and celebrities, exhibited in major museums, shown on television, computer media and in concerts, and published in magazines and newspapers internationally.
Avione’s paintings range from captivating light pastel iridescent angels to sophisticated energetic images that push the limits of figurative abstract expressionism. She moved to Lake County in 2015 just before the Valley fire.
“The immersive large scale images vibrate with color and movement,” said Lisa Kaplan, MAC director and artist. “The works are exuberant and uplifting, evoking a feeling of expansion.”
Alana Clearlake is a visual artist, singer/songwriter, poet, and mother and long-time Lake County resident. She exhibits regularly at the MAC and has co-curated exhibits with Kaplan since MAC opened in 2015.
Her felted works are inspired by the bright colors and organic botanical forms found in nature, often incorporating bones, feathers and bamboo.
Before felting she was an enamellist, showing her work throughout the United States, Europe, Japan and Australia, and published in Craft in America Magazine.
In her most recent body of work, “White Series,” she removed all color, challenging herself to concentrate on pure form.
Organic shapes blossom out of 2-D wool, paper and an encaustic layering process that is molded into 3-D forms ranging from playful to abstract shapes.
“Alana’s work challenges our notion of biology and nature through her combinations of materials and forms,” said MAC staff member and ceramicist Jacque Adams. “I find her work inspiring! They elicit in me new ways of understanding vessels, form, and materiality, sparking curiosity with each new iteration and combination of work.”
Multiples, a group exhibition of local artists showcases work consisting of two or more panels connected in theme, color, or content to make a series or whole piece.
Exhibiting artists include Judy Rudiger, Robert Minuzzo, Kim Baughan-Young, Nicholas Hay, Yelena Zhavaronkova, Jacque Adams and Lisa Kaplan.
Find out more about events, programs, opportunities, and ways to support and celebrate the MAC’s efforts to weave the arts and culture into the fabric of life in Lake County as we recover from the pandemic, visit www.middletownartcenter.org.
The MAC Gallery is open Thursday through Monday, 10:30 a.m. to 5 p.m., or by appointment at 707-809-8118. Changing health guidelines are observed.
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I heard Yona Harvey say in an interview that this loose Shakespearean (“the bard”) sonnet was written for her teenage daughter, which makes its deep, layered beauty a touching monument to what this mother knows and admires in her daughter’s unsettling but necessary blooming into selfhood.
Sonnet for A Tall Flower Blooming at Dinner
By Yona Harvey
Southern Flower, I want to quote the bard,
to serenade you, to raise a glass to you.
lone & tall you are always parched
& hungry. You wobble in strong winds, you
pull your bright hair when it rains, you
toss off the lint of dandelions, you
lean into the evening haunts
with your indifferent afro. You
were born in the old-world city, the invisible
dark girl city, the city that couldn’t hold
a candle, a straight pin a slave-owner’s sins
to you. You are the most beautiful
dark that hosts the most private sorrows
& feeds the hungriest ghosts.
American Life in Poetry does not accept unsolicited manuscripts. It is made possible by The Poetry Foundation, publisher of Poetry magazine. It is also supported by the Department of English at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Poem copyright ©2020 by Yona Harvey, “Sonnet for A Tall Flower Blooming at Dinner” from You Don’t Have to Go to Mars for Love, (Four Ways Books 2020). Poem reprinted by permission of Permissions Company, LLC and the publisher. Introduction copyright ©2021 by The Poetry Foundation. The introduction’s author, Kwame Dawes, is George W. Holmes Professor of English and Glenna Luschei Editor of Prairie Schooner at the University of Nebraska.
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- Written by: Kwame Dawes
