Maude Kerns and Memory Perception Ritual

We were going into Eugene on some errands so I got Sharyn to drop me off at Maude Kerns Art Center so I could see the latest gallery offering. The title was Memory Perception Ritual and the Artists were Una Mjurka, Alexandra Opie and Naomi Kasumi.

I had never noticed the cool bulletin board at MKAC with a steeple mirroring the center's own steeple.

Not part of the exhibit this pine cone with a bird by Lynn Ihsen Peterson was very nice.

The main gallery featured Naomi Kasumi's nine tapestry-like books that hang from the ceiling and are illuminated from the back.

Each book is bound with 108 translucent cards (pages) containing Japanese sutra calligraphy, Xerox images, digital images, text, butterfly wings and leaves. Each page of the book is constructed by layering used tea bags and bee's wax. Using these materials made each page translucent and look like liquid yet stiff like cardstock.

Each hanging is a grid of 6x18 pages.


Naomi writes,

"The color of the books comes from the natural tea dye and bee's wax. Tea leaves naturally dyed the tea bags when I brew a tea in a cup, and this naturally allowed the artist no control over the color and staining process. However, this is part of my continuous practice of letting go, and allowing myself to flow with the force of nature. So, each page of the book, in which three tea bags are randomly layered, is visually unique and none of the pages is the same. My evening tea-ritual every night for over few years provided most of tea bags used for this project..."

The beauty of this installation is best seen in the detail of the images...


... leaves that express...


...a wide range of thought.


I next transitioned to the stage area and the clay creations of Una Mjurka.


While each piece is individually priced the entire work is titles Harvest.


It is a fascinating exhibit wonderfully put together with meticulous attention to detail.


The ceramic lobster actually made me a bit hungry.




The display was very cleverly put together and really looked like a harvest time kitchen.


More work by Una was scattered around the center and I particularly liked pears on shelves ...


... and "Lunchbox"


There were also these smaller displays titles "Cacao" and "Temptation"


Another wall in the narrow gallery features a lovely grid of ceramic tiles again Una work.


There was also a series of small tiles ...


The final work by Una Mjurka was this whimsical and sweet grid of houses.

Alexandra Opie presents Still Life a series of short video works that explore the intersection of traditional painterly or photographic subject matter with the time-based art form of video. As a practitioner and educator of both video art and photography,

"I engage the interplay between these forms, their properties and traditional uses. In each work, an essentially static, two- dimensional, compositional scenario is altered by the intervention of a time-based action. "

As Opie says,

"The scenes have been recorded simultaneously on multiple cameras at slightly different viewing angles and are displayed on multiple TVs - thus the whole is created of fragmented, connected, parts. This allows for the stacking-up of multiple TVs to create the final works - emphasizing the TV as object."

It is one of the most unique art presentations I've ever seen and adding the dimension of time to normally two dimensional still life paintings.


The exhibit is in the Maude Kerns Salon Gallery


It is a very difficult thing to shoot televised images and the display is wonderful in person.



I have to say I am so proud of my sister Elaine whose "New Catch 2020" Sends a message about what our harvest may be in the future with a netting of plastic bottles. There is a great write-up about her installation in this article from "The Mariners Museum" [Click Here]

No Scrabble game - called on account of rain.

Quote of the Day ~

“Creativity is allowing yourself to make mistakes. Art is knowing which ones to keep.” ~ Scott Adams quotes (American Cartoonist - Creator of Dilbert)