North County's art community grew, diversified in 2005

By: BILL FARK - For the North County Times | Wednesday, December 28, 2005 4:24 PM PST ∞

Growth and diversity marked the North County art scene during 2005. New galleries opened every month ---- three in January alone ---- and two that had been dark for several months reopened. And the Oceanside Museum of Art announced a major expansion plan. The range in forms and techniques was also impressive, from an exhibition of painted coconut shells at the California Center for the Arts Escondido Museum to a neon sculpture show at the Oceanside museum.

Escondido gained new venues: The Poet's Den/Drake, Shiva Art Gallery, Sana Art Foundation and Jack's Glass Shack. The Artisans Studio and Above Boards Fine Art Studio opened in Oceanside, while Carlsbad welcomed the Artists Salon & Gallery.

Kareem Art Gallery reopened in Solana Beach, and the 101 Artists' Colony came back after a long hiatus. The San Dieguito Art Guild, which has maintained the Offtrack Gallery for a decade in a venue over the Pannikin Coffee and Tea Company, moved its operations to a new spot in Leucadia.

Although not a new gallery, the Valley Center History Museum mounted a photo exhibition. The subject was the 112-year-old North County castle. Vista also had an unusual art venue. On the second Sunday of each month the Vista Art Association sponsored "Art at Creek Walk" sale. Local artists displayed their work in and around the Creek Walk Park in Vista Village.

The year also brought new faces. Mary-Catherine Ferguson was named director of the California Center for the Arts Escondido Museum, replacing Natasha Bonilla-Martinez, who had spent four years in the position. And Catherine Gleason, a veteran of the Escondido Museum, was hired this month as director of exhibitions and collections at the Oceanside Museum of Art.

Another major change occurred at Mingei International Museum, represented in North County by an Escondido satellite museum on Grand Avenue. In April, founder and longtime President Martha Longenecker asked the museum board to begin searching for her replacement.

In November, that replacement was named ---- James Goodwin, consulting director for the Craft and Folk Art Museum in Los Angeles. He remained in the position just a few weeks before resigning for "unforeseen personal reasons." Currently, assistant director Rob Snider serves as acting director, and may be in line for the job.

The California Center for the Arts Escondido Museum reached a significant milestone, its 10th anniversary. The museum has never been self-supporting, and last year, due to lack of funds, it closed temporarily. It reopened last fall with a show of art and sculpture by the late La Jolla artist Niki de Saint Phalle.

To celebrate its birthday, the museum remembered important events in its first decade. "Making It: 10 Years of Artists Commissions" was well received. Since then, shows have included "Mixtec Medicine," in collaboration with Cal State San Marcos; "Live With History: Photographs From the New York Times Archives"; the coconut shell exhibition, "Alsacia de Coco en Mexico"; and four exhibitions now running simultaneously.

The Carlsbad-Oceanside Art league also observed an anniversary. COAL has been mounting shows, sponsoring workshops and demonstrations and generally supporting art activities in the coastal communities for 55 years.

This year, the Oceanside Museum of Art unveiled a plan to transform itself over the next five years from a 5,000-square-foot one-building operation to a sprawling, 32,000-square-foot complex that will take up half a city block. The $5 million expansion project is scheduled to break ground in the spring.

Not everything in art was new, however. James Hubbell, an iconic figure on the local ---- as well as the national and international ---- art scene, recovered from the loss of his Santa Ysabel home and studio in the disastrous wildfires of 2003. He showed two collections of watercolors, mixes of work finished before and after his losses.

Local art traditions continued as well. Oceanside celebrated its "Days of Art" festival for the 13th year. Santa Ysabel Art Gallery also defied the superstitions associated with the number in its 13th Spring Art Festival. And Escondido observed Dia de los Muertos for the 10th consecutive year with an altar display by Mexican artist Eloy Tarcisio.

As always, North County artists gained recognition outside the area, even outside the country.

James Luna, who moonlights as a counselor at Palomar College, represented the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of the American Indian and Indian Art at the 2005 Venice Biennial. His work was exhibited at the Fondazion Querini Stanyska.

Artist Gail Roberts of Valley Center went to France. As an awardee of the Alfred and Trafford Klots Artist Residency, she spent a month lecturing and demonstrating art in Rochefort-en-Terre, Brittany.

Cheryl Tall, founder/director of the Cheryl Tall Studio in Escondido, and Cardiff artist Patricia Frischer also took their art overseas. Their joint exhibition, "Borders of Intimacy," which showed earlier at San Diego Mesa College, moved to the Mary Ogilvie Gallery at St. Anne's College, Oxford University, England, where it was on display in October and November.

Closer to home, Morton E. Solberg of Oceanside and Gary Johnson of Encinitas were winners in the national Arts in the Park competition. Solberg won the Grand Prize of $25,000 and a gold medal for his painting "Morning Flight." Johnson took home $10,000 and a gold medal for his "The Silence of the Dawn." The artists received their awards at a ceremony in Jackson Hole, Wyo.

Steve Maloney of Rancho Santa Fe turned art into literature. His "Banned Booty" exhibition, created from objects confiscated by airport security agents, enjoyed a run at the Museum of Flight in Seattle. Xlibris, a division of Random House, has published an illustrated book of the same title on the exhibition.

Amid all the diversity, familiar themes and forms endured. Fallbrook concentrated on printmaking, involving the entire community in a monthlong exhibition. Exhibits at Cal State San Marcos focused on history and social problems. In Escondido, glass was king during November. Mingei International Museum's North County Satellite showed "Timeless Glass: From Byzantine to Dale Chihuly," featuring a chandelier the museum commissioned Chihuly to make for its stairwell.

Other glass artists also showed new works. And one of Escondidan Bobby Valdez's pieces was selected for the Port of San Diego's yearlong "Urban Trees" exhibition. Valdez's glass sculpture "Cnidarian Elements" (cnidarian is the oceanographic term for coral) is a tree adorned with kelplike leaves of glass. The effect is similar to seeing coral while swimming above it.

Poway broke new ground with its exhibition "Dawn of the Living Pixel." All the pieces ---- by 45 artists ---- were created digitally, in a variety of forms and techniques.

Meanwhile in San Diego, the Museum of Natural History had a sweet year with the success of its "Chocolate, an Exhibition," last spring. More than 70,000 visitors toured the exhibit on the history of chocolate and they purchased a combined 25,000 chocolate bars in the museum gift shop. The San Diego Museum of Art also had great success with the touring exhibition, "Maxfield Parrish, Master of Make-Believe."

As productive as it was, 2005 may pale compared to what's in store for next year. Lux Art Institute, responsible for the successful art in schools program "Traveling Valises," is nearing completion in Encinitas and promises a busy year of artists-in-residence along with exhibitions and demonstrations.

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