THE FRAMEWORK Ceramics MFA candidate Julia Haft-Candell left her studio doors open for curious visitors attending the weekend's Open Studios. Found: Materials, books for inspiration and gorgeous works in progress.
Alan Klein, publisher and president of Angeleno, writes in the current edition of his magazine on the topic of solid first impressions and how they are formed by mere surface appearance "criteria." If we want a further glimpse, he adds, and perhaps a more honest exploration to the person, "Just walk inside their home."
The annual FARt-organized extravaganza that is the Open Studios unfolds chapters in the very way Klein and countless others seek for definition. Question marks turn into exclamation points as the youthful, brainy and creative MFA art stars of Cal State Long Beach open wide the doors to their studios. New artists you'll find fixed in an air of newness, gathered most comfortably guarding the few paintings hanging on their very white walls. Other artists leave their spaces behind, set on "loud volumes," where visitors can freely walk in and experience a sweet and personal dose of absorption in full confidence.
Whether messy or organized, bookshelves or paint brushes, I found these artist studios in surplus of inspiration, where space belonged to visions and works in progress.
FUN ABUNDANCE Haft-Candell's stick things.
MADE WITH CLAY Bryan Allen Moore suspends a scuplted figure in his studios (top, left), shelves the parts (top, right). Space-mate Haft-Candell's bags (bottom), which I could not resist photographing. Muted colors everywhere. And all very pretty.
EAT ME! Kelly Nye, an MFA candidate in metals, and a working force behind the "GLAMFA 2009" exhibition show, shows off pretty pink buttocks, plastic pink cupcakes, and some gold. Where do we bite into first?
IN A PICASSO JAZZ Developing illustration MFA artist, Robert Pokorny left a few large canvases in his very spotless studio space. All focus turned to his wildly beastly-beauty works, which always show his amazing talent for color and hand-drawing.
SUBTLE WIRING New to the MFA painting scene is the author of this series, Elisa Salcedo. In the Open Studios catalog she explains her current works focusing "on ideas of self-destruction and dystopia."
PATTERN RUSH A nice view of Julie Williams's (MFA status unknown) studio space, while printmaking students show their own pattern works and working spaces (below).
FARt is selling the chronicled catalog of this year's near 30 Open Studios MFA participants, at Blurb.com. Also in the book, forward and introduction essays written by, respectively, FARt secretary and fibers MFA student Jennifer Reinfsneider, and professor-head to the sculpture program, Bryan Crockett.
