ACCI Gallery Featured Artist

“Recovery: Man Over Matter” provides our audience with 10 artist’s interpretations of transformation. The artists use their sense of humor and a variety of unusual media to transform an experience or object into an enlightening body of work. This exhibition will challenge and delight our audience while showing that nothing should be taken for face value.

Plastic Target grocery bags and condoms illuminate beautifully in Dave Meekers blow-up lamps. Nemo Gould used a lawn sprinkler, street light covers, and chandelier parts to create his 11-foot mechanical squid.

The mixed-media works of EDGE Art Group (Ventana Amico, Allegra Davis-Burke, Cynthia Jensen, Marty Jonas, and Stuart Wagner) take myriad forms, connected by a compelling focus. If anything characterizes the diverse work of these artists, it is their uncommon use of common materials: Soda cans, felt, discarded metal shavings, old luggage, etc. Amusing, poignant, somber, beautiful, brash---their creative expression sparks EDGE artists and viewers alike.

Photographer, Cass Morris, uses her global adventures as a form self-transformation. She reflects, “I often go into situations radically different from here for many reasons. And, I always go alone; it keeps me on edge.”

		Ventana Amico No wonder my art looks organic, and is often made from, or mimics nature. When events and ideas interrupt the flow of my daily life, they provoke or captivate me to the point where I want to express them visually, using artistic methods. Some people write; I am moved to formulate ideas with my hands and six senses. The provocation is the seed, while researching ideas, gathering intriguing materials, and making sculptures are the growth processes. The outcome via art is a way to connect and explore with others, whether we laugh or cry, rant, or rave in awe. By recycling materials and redefining their purpose, scrap metals take on new life as sculpture. Now, I might ask, what would that furious storm look like in steel? In fiber, clay, or vines? What if a form kept growing or flowing into an uncontrollable mass of exaggerated movement? This is such a contrast to my first career as a business consultant. While observations and insights are still key in my work, what I do with them now is more liberating and evocative. My art with the “Entropy” theme may be reactions to our bizarre society, our environment; or cultural values being abused. In corporate life and in art, translating ideas into forms may call attention to curious concepts, promote awareness, or plant seeds for change.
		Clayton Bain I really don't like to say too much about my sculptures, although I'll talk your ear off about them if you let me. I use mostly found objects, so they inherently have their own meaning. It is your experience that is reflected in the meaning, not mine. I focus more on form and spatial qualities instead. The physical space is so important to any sculpture. Any connection to the content is prejudiced by your own viewpoint. You create the artwork from that point onward. You are the artist, not me.
		Fern Barker Many , many moons ago I joined ACCI as a jeweler, and I am still at my soldering station and rolling mill. Do check out my jewelry, but first check out my "Little People." They evolved from my great interest in memory ware, a large collection of stuff (i.e. Buttons, chains, beads, etc.), and love of my dolls, going back to my childhood. I find small ceramic figures whose faces ³talk to me.² I then give them new bodies, small bottles, and embellish them. In many cases, they actually make themselves. And, if one is giving me a hard time I go on to another. They are very special to me and I sincerely hope they speak to you, too.
		Allegra Davis-Burke http://www.edgeartgroup.com A relative newcomer to the art world, Allegra emerged as an artist in 2000 after discovering a passion for recycling materials into functional, as well as aesthetically pleasing art forms. As an autodidact, she is unlimited in her approach, and finds making mistakes to be her best teacher. A problem solver by nature, she loves the challenge of teaching herself new and diverse techniques that relate to a multitude of different mediums. Her unique and daring approach is inspired by her passion and insatiable curiosity. Allegra hopes to encourage an interaction with the viewer that will invite, stimulate, and hopefully pose questions thereby eliciting a response. Her enthusiasm challenges the onlooker to touch, investigate, or simply move in for a closer look. Choosing to work almost exclusively with reclaimed materials is her conscious commentary on waste in our self destructive society.
		Nemo Gould http://www.nemomatic.com/nemomatic/portfolio_blog/ What makes a thing fascinating is to not completely know it. It is this gap in our understanding that the imagination uses as its canvass. Salvaged material is an ideal medium to make use of this principle. A ³found object² is just a familiar thing seen as though for the first time. By maintaining this unbiased view of the objects I collect, I am able to create forms and figures that fascinate and surprise. These sculptures are both familiar and new. Incorporating consumer detritus with my own symbology, they are the synthesis of our manufactured landscape and our tentative place within it-- strong and frail at the same time.
		Cynthia Jensen http://www.edgeartgroup.com For the past several years, I have worked out of my studio/gallery as a textile artist and printer. Using pigments, fiber reactive dyes, resists, discharge, and burnout, I have printed on a wide variety of fabrics from silk and rayon to cotton and linen. Many of my pieces (clothing, silk wall panels, and framed works) have been shown and sold through my own retail business as well as through other galleries and exhibits. Most recently, I have been investigating new ways of working. I am intriguedwith the idea of giving my work "life" and have been working in a three-dimensional manner. My current work includes explorations using materials such as metal, wire, paper, fabric and other fibers. The pieces are often bowl-shaped or represent articles of clothing. My intent is to emphasize line, form, and texture, using color sparingly, with much of my inspiration coming from nature. Many of my pieces are studies in fragility versus stability. The spiral is evident in much of my work, sometimes crushed or distorted, but always providing the structural and emotional strength of each sculpture. There is movement and rhythm in all my pieces, suggesting they are in a state of transition, as is my life.
		Dave Meeker http://www.davemeekerart.com/ I¹ve liked making things move using motors and other means since I was very young. As a child I had a particular fascination with robots and in fact it was my dream to become a robot. I grew up an electrician (by trade) and sculptor (by desire) instead. My kinetic pieces explore different ways to make objects move. I created my first kinetic piece over thirty years ago from scraps of wood, a fan and recycled paper products that my father brought home from his job as an envelope salesman. My current kinetics use air to inflate, deflate and otherwise make move recycled materials. I suppose the deeper meaning here is that I¹m breathing new life into objects that otherwise would have "died"- destined for a landfill, the burial ground of our culture¹s castoffs. My pieces bring new life to these dead objects.
		Cass Morris http://www.cassmorris.com/Exhibits.asp My travels transform me whether I like it or not. When I leave this country, I step into adventures and encounters that amaze me, educate me, inform my aesthetic. Traveling is one of the best things I do. It gets me outside myself and forces me to interact with the world. I often go into situations radically different from here for many reasons. And I always go alone; it keeps me on edge. I do not romanticize third world countries the way I did when I was younger, but I appreciate them in a different way. I once had a photography show called "Vanishing Cultures" and stated that,"I like to be where people build what they live in, weave what they wear, grow what they eat." The world is smaller now, I am more aware of politics, and I try to be an ambassador of sorts. With the people that I meet when I travel, I discover what we have in common and what makes us unique. That, I can share with you through my photographs.
		Thomas Pratt .
		Stuart Wagner http://www.edgeartgroup.com If I could draw, I¹d be a cartoonist. Instead, I use more dimensional materials. Because the components are so critical to the content of my art, I have developed a broad palette which includes fiber, steel, ceramics, wood, precious metals, recycled materials and both conventional and digital photography. I am essentially a 3-D artist; even my photography often has a third dimension. I emphasize realism over abstraction and usually work in life size. I consider myself a "local" artist and submit work regularly to nearby area exhibitions. I have been honored with a number of awards at the Marin County Fair, Sebastopol Center for the Arts and from the Marin Society of Artists. My art is conceptual in that I construct visual representations of thoughts,memories and ideas. These, in turn, derive added meaning from the materials and construction techniques I use. My work is rarely personal in the sense of being introspective, but it is subjective, nearly always evincing a strong point of view. In rare fits of sanctimony, in a quixotic delusion, I point a spear at some imagined or real injustice. During those times--when I realize that I've crossed the line from art to therapy--I hurry back to satire. Actually, humor and irony underlie the vast majority of my work. If my art simply makes someone smile--even if they do not go deeper into the underlying motivation for creating the piece--I feel that I have accomplished my purpose. As I said, if I could draw I'd be a cartoonist.
		Marty Jonas http://www.martyjonas.com My travels transform me whether I like it or not. When I leave this country, I step into adventures and encounters that amaze me, educate me, inform my aesthetic.