Sabrina Zarco at Gallery 360

Sabrina Zarco Exhibit
Chicana Goddess in the Bosque:
Walking With Ancestors 

 Opening Night 7 p.m. July 16 

        Sabrina Zarco will be back in Arkansas this July for an exhibition at Gallery 360 that will be a mixture of embroidery work on painted canvas, small art quilts stretched on canvas and large mixed media pieces.

      Ms. Zarco, who lived in Arkansas for 10 years, is a past Grand Award Winner in The Delta Exhibition, and her work has been shown in solo and group shows around the world.  Sabrina, who now lives in Pecos, New Mexico, sees herself as a “visual storyteller.”

     “I use stories and life lessons as a way to connect, preserve, and promote traditional cultural stories and often marginalized stories.

     Her work often employs traditional symbols and colors of the Chicano movement of the 70s when she was young. They include the prickly pear cactus, various forest animals real and imagined, Aztec goddesses and Mexican symbols of spirit and community.

      “I also use the image of Our Lady of Guadalupe, also known as Tonatzin, Aztec goddess and leader of the indigenous and oppressed people. Civil rights and justice work is also part of my storytelling process.”  
     “In the Guardian series, which are embroidered faces on painted canvas, I use birds as symbols of freedom and looking at the big picture as you fly above situations. Flowers and butterflies represent transformation and rebirth.” 

     Justice is the theme of her 2004 Grand Award Winner, Women of Juarez, which focused on the hundreds of murdered and missing women around the border town of Juarez. 

     Sabrina’s work is currently being shown in national and international shows, as it has consistently since she began her art career in the 1990s. She had a large installation and a number of mixed media pieces in Gallery 360’s first exhibition, Dia de los Muertos, in 2012.  

      “Thank you to Gallery 360 for the opportunity to come back home. I was part of their initial show years ago and it’s one of my fondest memories of Arkansas.  

      “I lived and worked in Arkansas for a little over ten years so its like a second home filled with amazing community I call my family.”

      Opening night for the new show,  Chicana Goddess in the Bosque: Walking with the Ancestors, will be 7 p.m. July 16. 

      “Intentions for this show are to remind viewers that we are more than just our day-to-day experiences. We are a part of nature and making time to slow down and observe and listen can be a healing experience for mind, body and soul. Even if it’s on the drive to work, eating lunch outside or a walk in the woods. All of these experiences are added value to your day. Breathing clear air,

listening to the wind in the trees, watching birds or noticing a flower in bloom can shift perspective and help to release the negatives in life. Kind of like a reboot for your personal operating system and can also be lots of fun.

     “This show focuses on telling the stories of my experiences in the forest where I live. The works speak to the visions, messages, renewal and healing and joy that can come from being connected to nature. 

     “In the case of the three women images in this show, they can represent traditional Mexican and Indigenous matriarchal families where community and mentoring of women is a rite of passage. These women images can also represent three general stages: young woman, middle time in life and elderhood, which is revered in our community.”

    Sabrina fell in love with fabric as a child. While her mother and grandmother worked at their sewing machines, Sabrina would pick up scraps of fabric to make dolls and other small items.

     “When I was around 6 or 7 years old, I went to the local seamstress’ home to learn to sew. While all the other girls made beanbag frogs in shades of green, I created a cotton stuffed black velvet frog with red and white printed underbelly and red pom pom eyes. I have always been thankful and dearly loved my teacher for allowing me the space to be different. The velvet frog sits in my studio as a reminder that I have always been a nonconformist.”

     Sabrina, who has been diagnosed as autistic, said her “neurology is different.”

    “Creating in some way is a respite from the exhaustion of navigating a challenging world for me because of my neurology. The creative process is essential for my well-being. 

     “I have explored different kinds of visual work over the years: beading, collage, clay, mosaics, embroidery, painting, printing, surface design, and recycling and repurposing materials. I found that I could use many of these processes in my art quilt work, which is the work I return to most often. I think it might be my sensitivity to textures and working with cloth, the first thing that touches our bodies when we arrive, that is always comforting to me.”

      An “art quilt” is an original exploration of a concept rather than the handing down of a “pattern,” according to the Studio Art Quilt Association of which Sabrina is a member. 

     “It experiments with textile manipulation, color, texture and/or a diversity of mixed media. It consists predominately of fiber or a fiber-like material with one or multiple layers, which are held together with stitches or piercing of the layers. In my work I draw and add paint, embroidery, beadwork, buttons, seeds, found objects, basically anything I can attach/add to the work to further the story.” 

     Sabrina draws inspiration from her home in Pecos, which is just outside Santa Fe.  It is an old hand-made adobe home isolated on a ridge.

     “I’m surrounded by towering Ponderosa and Piñon trees, boulders to climb, and an arroyo that, when the spring monsoon rains come, turns into a rushing creek. I can walk out my door and wander for hours and never see anyone and be reminded that we are all one with nature. I spent years as a workshop leader and community educator so this time is a great respite for me and I get to focus full time on my art.

     “My dog goes out with me on my adventures. It’s a great inspiration place and served as the primary inspiration for this show. 

     “At night I am under millions of stars and the sounds of coyotes echo in the valley. In the morning I watch sunrise over the mountains as ravens call out and rabbit, squirrels and deer move in the forest. There is always something to do and learn from the land, the trees, the rocks, and the wildlife all are a part of our history, our ancestors. The bosque, or forest, is filled with life lessons we only need to slow down, stop and listen. Some examples of reminders are to be resilient like the tree growing out from a crack in a outcropping. The determination of the creek flowing over and around boulders, and the reminder to fly above and look at the bigger picture from the ravens. And then there is the reminder of the power of the collective and community from the coyotes who travel the bosque together.”

      For more information about Sabrina, visit SabrinaZarco.com.  She is working with Hueso Productions in Baja to have her work reproduced for sale as limited edition works, posters and cards.

Artists Scrounging Opens September 20 with Reception at Gallery 360

                       Mother, mixed media, Melissa "Mo" Lashbrook 

              Artists Scrounging             

          Twenty three artists will be participating in "Artists Scrounging," an exhibit of art made from found, recycled and re-purposed materials, which opens with a reception 6:30 p.m. September 20 at Gallery 360.  The event is free and open to the public.

     The exhibit will run until November 1.  Gallery owner Jay King will be accepting art for the show until September 10.

      Artists in the show include Amy Edgington, Laura Fanning, Melissa "Mo" Lashbrook, Kelley Naylor Wise, Michelle Canulla, Nina Sharkey Culpepper, Jessica Crenshaw, Ming Donkey, Jay King, Wade Wise, Gerald Brown, Fabio Adrian Delgado, Mike Church, Lynn Frost, Steph Brouwers, Debra Young, Michael Crenshaw, Everett Gee and others. 

    Gallery 360 is located at 900 S. Rodney Parham.  Mr. King may be reached by calling 993-0012 or emailing audiolingo@gmail.com. 

Arkansas Potter Joe Bruhin

  Joe Bruhin 

   creates beauty out of clay and fire and wood.

     If that sounds simple, it is not.  After the initial creation of clay pieces, a firing requires 10 days of continuous stoking of a cord of wood a day - with a mind to temperature, humidity, ash content, salts, placement of pottery in the kiln, the path of the flame and the process of cool down. 

     Only then do his amazing vases, plates, jars, tea bowls and saki cups emerge from the two wood-fired kilns Mr. Bruhin built on his property in Fox, Arkansas. 

     For 28 years, this art inspired by traditional Japanese forms has earned the appreciation and praise of museums and collectors across the nation.

    Joe's pottery may be seen in a number of collections, including the permanent collections of Historic 

Arkansas Museum and the Arkansas Arts Center, where he had a one person museum exhibition in 2007.  Two Little Rock galleries will have some of his pottery on display in June and July: The Edge Gallery, 301-B President Clinton Ave., and Gallery 360, 900 S. Rodney Parham Road.

      Joe's first kiln was built in 1986, and he still uses it.

     "I fired it last year.  I'm going to fire it once a year now."

      He recycled 4,000 bricks from the old Falstaff Brewing Corporation site in St. Louis, which had kilns used to roast barley, and these bricks eventually ended up in this first kiln in Fox.

      "The brick was in really good shape.  I was living in St. Louis then.  I took my Volkswagen van and got 120 bricks at a time.  I stored them in my basement in St. Louis."

     In 1985, Joe and his first wife, Terry, bought 40 undeveloped acres of land in Fox in the heart of the Ozarks and built a cabin with stone and wood from their land.

     The next project was the kiln.  "I rented a big Hertz truck and brought back the bricks in two trips.  After it was made, we called it Falstaff, since the bricks came from the brewery. Back then, there were not many wood-fired kilns in the country."

    The type of kiln he built is called a "noborigama," which is a three-chambered kiln in which he experimented with ash and salt finishes.  

    Joe sent out an invitation in June 2013 to his noborigama kiln opening and studio exhibit that pictured Criselda, whom he married that previous February, crouched in the kiln opening holding 

up an absolutely gorgeous vase from the latest firing.       

     In recent years, Joe has invited the public to be there when the kilns are opened and their contents revealed.  There's something special in seeing the finished vessels for the first time.

     The second kiln Joe built is an anagama-type structure that was first used in China circa 1,000 B.C.E. and then was brought to Japan via Korea about 500 years later.  "Anagama" is a Japanese term meaning "cave kiln."  Joe describes it as a long tube with no dividers and said the most

traditional ones are built partially underground, as is his.  He named this kiln "Cave Light."

      "Somebody called me from Louisiana.  They had an over amount of brick, had ordered too much.  They had 70 pallets of brick with 450 bricks to a pallet.  They said they thought about taking them to the dump, but they asked if I wanted them."

     He did.  And he set about building a 40-foot long anagama kiln with 4,000 new bricks he took from the Louisiana company.  

    "Mine is half under the ground.  Twenty foot of that is the flue, a horizontal flue on a 30 percent slope.  I fire for 10 days.  Basically, it's a cord of wood a day.  The wood is small, about two inches in diameter and 18 inches long.  You're putting in about 20 pieces every two or three minutes.  The

anagama is harder to fire.  It takes a month to load the kiln, fire the kiln and cool the kiln."

     Joe's advice if you want to operate a wood-fired kiln:  "Have lots of children,"  he said with

a chuckle. It's a labor-intensive occupation, and some of them might want to stick around and 

help, he said, adding that that is what some Japanese potters do, operate as a family enterprise.

     "What I am doing is kind of a Japanese thing.  It is not an easy thing to do."

     But Joe gets lots of help from volunteers, whom he hosts at his home for the once- or twice-a-year firings. 

     Jay King, owner of Gallery 360, has been friends with Joe for more than 15 years and has helped with firings twice.  

     "A firing with Joe is an exercise in reading signs. Fire, smoke, wind - all these play a role. Joe has the reading of the signs down, but his helpers have to learn them. It's intense at first, then it becomes a ritual and, for Joe especially, a deeply rewarding spiritual exercise," Mr. King said.

     Joe said a crew of at least four people is needed to fire the anagama.  We usually take an 8-hour shift."

     He said firing the kiln is his favorite part of the pottery process.  "I enjoy loading the kiln.  But, it's all good. It's my devotion.  I certainly don't do it for money."

     In 2003, Joe helped with a firing in Bloomsburg, Pennsylvania, and that is where he met Japanese ceramic master Shiho Kanzaki of Shigaraki, a city heralded as one of the six oldest pottery centers in Japan.  At the time Joe met him, Mr. Kanzaki, a leading figure in the pottery world, was in the States for the 10th anniversary of the firing of an anagama kiln he'd built on the property of Karl Beamer, a ceramics and sculpture instructor at Bloomsburg University of Pennsylvania and a fine potter in his own right.

      "I just loved Shiho's work.  When I met him, he showed me and gave me 

dimensions for building this kiln," Joe said.

     Shiho is a Buddhist and his pottery, like Joe's, is a spiritual adventure.  

     Joe built and first fired this anagram kiln in 2006. 

     "I built it exactly the way Kanzaki said it was to be built."

      Joe sent the Japanese master photographs of the kiln and the pots that were coming  out of it.  That's when Kanzaki invited Joe to Japan.  "He said I needed no money, just a  plane ticket." 

     Joe's friends helped with the plane ticket, and he was in Little Rock ready for his  trip to Japan.  He was staying at Jay King's home in the Foxcroft subdivision of Little Rock when the tornado sirens began screaming. The lights went out, and Jay's cell phone had no juice.  They debated going directly to the airport, but decided that Joe needed some rest before his trip.  So Jay set a kitchen timer for an hour and woke up.  Set it for another hour and woke up, and so on through the night.  

    Jay drove Joe to the airport in time for his flight and was astonished the next day to see the swath of destruction that they had driven through only the night before.  But Joe  was on his way to Japan and one of the best adventures he'd ever embarked upon. 

    Japan was everything Joe ever wanted to experience and his host, Shiho, was most generous.

     "I lived in his house and he fed me.  He made available to me a tea ceremony.  We traveled.

I was there a month.  It was the second most wonderful experience of my life."

      Shigaraki had three to four hundred pottery galleries, Joe said.  It is a town where literally

millions of pots are on display daily.

    "I had so much fun.  Shiho makes bicycles as a hobby.  And we rode.  I've had some spiritual experiences.  I traveled in India.  But, Japan, there is such a wonderful feeling there.  It's just different.  You might as well be on another planet.  Mostly I was out in the small villages.  There is just something in those mountains there.  It was just a really strong feeling there.  I've seen the Himalayas.  I love India too, but Japan just had a real mystic-type feel to it.  I miss it.  If I were younger … ." 

     "And the food.  I loved all of it.  I was just really happy there.  My body felt good, my mind felt good."

      And he was pleased with the Japanese tradition of hospitality.

     "They take care of you.  Shiho really did take really good care of me."

      Shiho, who had taught himself English, helped Joe through his process of firing 

the kiln.

     "I watched.  I helped him load the kiln.  I fire my kiln exactly as he fires his kiln.  He'd have guests come over.  When the guests would come, I would bow and serve tea.  It was just a really good experience."

     At home in Arkansas, Joe burns yellow pine in his kilns, wood that he has cut from his land.

    "The next firing, I'm going to throw some ash in and try a little hickory and some oak too and see

how I like that."

     When Joe was in Japan, he said it took about $5,000 worth of wood to fire Shito's 

kiln.  

     Having your own source of wood on your own land definitely has its advantages.

     Joe is not always pleased with what comes out of his kiln.  In fact, he's downright picky. 

     "I might put 350 pots in there (the anagama) and get 30 that I like, that make

my standard," Joe said. 

    "The pots I like the best are in the fire box.  It's also the most dangerous place.  They

can fall over, get cracks.  When the wood is thrown in, you can hit a pot.  It's really close. It's a little dangerous.

     "The next pieces I like are on the top on the first step.  There's the firebox, and there

are four steps maybe 20 inches in diameter.  So there are four different levels in the kiln."

     The ancient process of firing an anagama kiln produces stunning surfaces through  natural ash deposits and manipulations of fire rather than the application of glazes.

     In recent years, Joe has been getting into a Buddha place.

     That place is the land and the beauty of nature and the enjoyment of small things that have no monetary value.

      "In the last few years, I've been trying to improve my environment. I've been gardening,

building rock walls.  I remodeled my porch and made a great big arch gate.  It's inspirational

to have your living environment nice as you can make it.  It doesn't matter if I am making 

clay pots, gardening or building a stone wall.  It's all the same.  My goal is for it to all have

the same importance.  I spend maybe less than ten percent of my time on the potter's

wheel.  The living environment is as important as the pottery,  Now, I get more joy

looking at the stone wall, listening to the cardinals chirp outside."

   "My whole reason to work is if I can inspire anyone.  An artist's responsibility is to

manifest inspiration for others."

This story was written by Bobbi Nesbitt and first appeared in the June/July issue of Shoppe Talk. 

   

Fantastic Jewelry Show by Belgian Artist Steph Brouwers at Gallery 360 April 5

Stone, thread, fine silver wire, old piece of silver from Syria on leather cord

         Gallery 360 is proud to announce "Inner Voices: Wearable Art," a jewelry show April 5 featuring the work of the enormously talented Belgian artist Steph Brouwers.  A reception will be held 6 - 10 p.m.  It is free and open to the public. 

      Ms. Brouwers carefully selects leather, bone, glass, found objects, ancient coins, her own hand-made beads and talismans, African glass beads, animal teeth, fabrics, ostrich egg shells, horsehair, thread, turquoise, amber, and other materials for her jewelry.  Her pieces reflect her humor, intelligence and love of craft.

     Steph is also a sculptor, and she teaches art in Belgium.  She will have artist trading cards from some of her students available for trade at the show.

    Steph will teaching a class on Polymer Clay Talisman 2 - 5 p.m. April 6 at the gallery.  The goal of the workshop will be to create a small amulet or talisman.  She will discuss amulets and talismans.  "We will discover the amazing world of folk beliefs," Steph said.  "Then we will get familiar with the polymer clay and see what an incredible medium it is.  And then we create." Clay and tools will be provided.  She suggested that students bring things  such as ear wires, jump rings, clasps, cotton cord or broken jewelry.  The cost of the class is $35.

    The gallery will be showing the work of Angela Davis Johnson, Byron Werner, Kelley Naylor Wise, and Lynn Frost, as well.  The show will continue until May 4.

    Gallery 360 is located at 900 South Rodney Parham. For more information, call 663-2222 or 993-0012.  Steph's wearable art may be found on Pinterest, on Vladthebatsattic.blogspot.com, and Etsy.

 Steph and Mrs. Wise will appear on Fox television's Good Day program
with host Nichelle Sullivan 7:45 a.m. April 5. 

     

Steph Brouwers Profile 

      When did you first know you were an artist?  I don't see myself as an artist.  I see myself as someone who makes stuff.  I've always been playing, creating.  As a child, I was attracted to my mom's jewelry box and my dad's tool box. Then I got the chance to study at the Fine Arts School.  A lot of people call me an artist.  That's strange to me.  I could not go without doing what I do.  It is a need. 

       What do you like about teaching?  The ability to share my knowledge.  I give them a lot, but they give me a lot too.  I like interacting with teenagers.  I think they are fun.  They are not kids any more and not quite adult, and I quite like that.  I am teaching them sculpture.  It's part of the process.  But my main goal is to make them creative adults, even if they don't pursue a career in art. 

      How many times have you been to the States?  This is the fifth time.  I like the States.  I like the people.  They are friendly and interesting and generous.  I never felt bad.  I never felt judged.  A lot of people in Europe think most Americans are narrow-minded, and I think it is quite the opposite.

      What is a typical day?  I get up and have breakfast, and I go running. And then I go to my studio and play with my supplies.  Sometimes I have an idea about what I want to make.  Sometimes just looking at the beads I have, the idea just pops in. 

      What inspires you?  Ethnic jewelry.  What people call Tribal Art, like African art and art from Papua New Guinea.  And life and death.  That's something you can find a lot in my jewelry.  I think if you ignore one, you are ignoring the other.  They are both part of the path.  And I am interested in talismans and amulets and folk beliefs.

      Who is your favorite writer?  That's a tough one.  I like a lot of American writers from the 20th Century … Pat Conroy, Raymond Carver, Dos Passos.  I like French writers from the early 20th Century.  I like history about the United States and the Civil War and slavery.  I like Giono. And Gabriel Garcia Marquez. I liked his "Love in the Time of Cholera" and "Chronicle of a Death Foretold."  I like Borges. It's always an adventure to open a book. 

      I just finished John Irving's "The Hotel New Hampshire," and it's on my mind.  Do you like Irving?  Yes, I liked "A Prayer for Owen Meany" and "The Cider House Rules" and "The World According to Garp."  I also like Stephen King. I love books.  I've got lots of books, and I give them away too.  I have a great pile of books here I need to read, and I keep buying books.  When I went to study abroad in England during the last year of university, I spent my time in the library rather than going to class.  I read all of Orwell, Isaac Bashevis Singer, Dos Passos. I read a great Charlie Chaplin autobiography.  

       Tell us about the work you are bringing for your show.  It's quite eclectic, I think.  Some pieces are tribal, some have found objects in them, some are quite romantic.  They are for every means.  Some pieces are quite affordable.  The prices range from $20 to $250. Last summer, before I started running, I took walks.  And I would pick up things like rock and pieces of metal.  I make swaps with people all over the world.  That's something I really like about the Internet.  And recently, I've sold quite a lot of pieces all over the world and a lot of different states in the United States.  It's amazing.  I am in Belgium, and people so far away can be interested in my stuff.  I know I could do more to try to sell more.  But it would be less time for creativity.  I'd rather take time to make a necklace than to take time to promote my work.

Interview by Bobbi Nesbitt