Humboldt State University First Street Gallery presents Dragon Summer: Works by Emerging HSU Alumni.  The exhibit will run from July 5th through August 5th 2012. The exhibition is billed by First Street Gallery as a clear demonstration of the excellent career preparation that Humboldt State University offers its Art Majors.

The curators for this exhibition are HSU alumnae Heather Cruce and Malia Penhall, who in planning this exhibition, write that:

In the spirit of the Chinese zodiac symbol of the dragon, HSU First Street Gallery exhibits HSU’s emerging visual artists. The dragon is a symbol of good fortune and a sign of intense power, fueled by a creative spark that is ready to flame into life. These Humboldt State artists exemplify the qualities of the dragon. They are confident and fearless in the face of challenges, which will lead them inevitably to success. Their enterprise is one of high risk and equally high returns. It is the common, shared trait of these artists in that they dedicate their entire being to be free and unencumbered in order to seek the fruits of the creative mind and the poetic spirit.  A dragon summer 2012 is just the beginning for these adventurous artists.

Art is one of the highest enrolled majors at the HSU campus. The university’s Art Department offers classes with 24 full and part-time instructors, multiple, well equipped studio facilities and several campus showcases that enable undergraduates to enjoy an early experience of presenting their works to the public. Additionally, students enrolled in the Art Department’s Museum and Gallery Practices Program gain practical, hands-on experience as they design, coordinate and curate exhibits at HSU First Street Gallery.

“The alumni participating in this show have all developed to a point where they are working at a professional level as artists,” states First Street Gallery Director Jack Bentley.  “All 28 participants demonstrate real evidence of artistic success.  Crucial to their success, however, are the less tangible qualities they all share—a dedication and commitment to making art as a way of life and a deep engagement with their work on poetic and intellectual levels.”

Participating artists are: Alex Anderson—jewelry and small metals, Brittany Britton—ceramic sculpture and prints, Heather Cruce—performance, Dorian Daneau—bronze sculpture, Danielle DeMartini—digital illustration and graphic design, Hollie Dilley—mixed media sculpture, Chris Fortin—ceramic sculpture, Rhianna Gallagher—photography, Lily Haas—graphic design, Brenton Henriques—sculpture, Sylvie Dakota Huhn—painting, Kasey Jorgensen—jewelry, Karen L. Kintz—mixed media drawing/painting, Greg Lysander—ceramic sculpture, Malia Penhall–fiber collage/drawing, Janarie Ricchio—painting, Anna Schneider—photography, Maccabee Shelley—ceramic sculpture, Justin Skillstad—bronze and metal sculpture, Ryan Spaulding—paintings and prints, Elysse Valdez—paintings, Stephanie Vonderahe—prints, Kyra Weber—jewelry, ceramics and metalsmithing.

A reception for the Dragon Summer artists will be held Saturday July 7th, 2012 during Eureka’s monthly Arts Alive event. An open house will follow during the August 4th Arts Alive event.  Celebrating its fourteenth year of service to HSU students and to the North Coast community, the gallery is open Tuesday through Sunday from 12 to 5 p.m., located at 422 First Street Eureka, California. Admission is free. Those planning group tours are encouraged to call ahead.  For more information call 707-443-6363.

Humboldt State University First Street Gallery presents, Light of Day: Selections from Humboldt State University's Permanent Collection.  The exhibit will run from August 19th through September 16th, 2012, with two special preview days added, August 19th and 20th.

Light of Day is a way to enlighten the public about Humboldt State University's (HSU's) permanent collection of fine art. While works from the collection are displayed in various locations around the HSU campus, much of the art remains in storage. The goal of this exhibition is to showcase the permanent collection in a way that has never been done, by bringing a selection of pieces to the University's First Street Gallery, located off-campus in nearby Eureka, California.
  
The curators of this show are current HSU students Erin Grady, Shawn O'Connor and Natalie Schoch. All the work is two-dimensional, including paintings, prints and photographs. The pieces were chosen by the curators to illuminate the variety and depth of the collection. From Rembrandt to Martin Wong, the show brings to light the work through the decades and reflects upon the growth of the permanent collection.

Light of Day highlights some engaging pieces of the permanent collection. The collection was built over the years through acquisitions by the Art Department and by generous donations made by private individuals. One such Art Department acquisition is the President's Purchase Award. This is given out at the annual student exhibition and many of the pieces that are being shown were purchased through this prestigious award. Other works were donated by benefactors or came as gifts from the artists.

Mr. and Mrs. Kublin, c. 1977, by Hal Martin Fogel, is one such work. Acquired through an exhibition aimed at increasing the amount of photography in the HSU permanent collection, the piece travels back in time, filling the viewers' eye and mind with pictorial semiotic associations that provide a glimpse into this couple's life and the period in which they lived. The seemingly inherent simplicity of a black and white portrait in fact provides a psychological insight by allowing the viewer to peer into the desire of a couple who wish to be portrayed adorned and surrounded by their rich accoutrements.  Light of Day allows rarely seen works, such as this photograph, a moment to shine and to bring focus to HSU's permanent collection.

Among the works that the gallery will present are pieces by such notable artists as Martin Wong, Mel Ramos, Tim Rollins and Leslie Kenneth Price, to name a few.

A reception for Light of Day will be held Saturday September 1st, 2012 during Eureka's monthly Arts Alive event. Celebrating its fourteenth year of service to HSU students and to California's North Coast community, the gallery is open Tuesday through Sunday from 12 to 5 p.m. and is located at 422 First Street Eureka, California. Admission is free. Those planning group tours are encouraged to call ahead. For more information call 707-443-6363.

Humboldt State University’s First Street Gallery presents Make It All True, featuring an array of paintings and mixed media works by Bay Area artist Kelly Allen. The exhibit will run from January 31st through March 4th.

Allen is interested in creating paintings that portray the unity of life on earth. With an emphasis on images from wild nature, her work is primarily fueled by the desire to build a bridge between our ancestral connection to the natural world and contemporary society, which is largely detached from nature.  Acting from our current side of that bridge, she seeks to create a renewed respect and appreciation for the fantastic animals and plants that share the earth with us.

Kelly Allen describes her work as symbolic portraits comprised of a multitude of imagery culled from a wide range of visual sources. A common motif in her work presents a particular animal is surrounded by a carefully constructed arrangement of organic forms, graphic shapes, bold swatches of pattern and color, jewels, beads, and flowers woven together to create her compelling compositions.

Allen, a native of Michigan and an alumna of Humboldt State University, earned her undergraduate degree in Studio Art from Humboldt State, graduating summa cum laude in 2003.  She later went on to a residency at the Ox-Bow School of Art.  In 2008 she earned an MFA with Emphasis in Drawing from the Kendall College of Art and Design.

Kelly Allen will present a slide lecture about her work on February 3rd at 5 p.m. in the Art Building, Room 102 on the Humboldt State University campus.  Admission is free to the public. The public can locate the Art Building by linking to www.humboldt.edu/humboldt/maps 
Parking information can be found at http://humboldt.edu/parking

A reception for Kelly Allen will be held Saturday February 4th during Eureka’s monthly Arts Alive event. Celebrating its fourteenth year of service to HSU students and to the North Coast community, Humboldt State University First Street Gallery is open Tuesday through Sunday from 12 to 5 p.m. and is located at 422 First Street, Eureka, California. Admission is free. Those planning group tours are encouraged to call ahead.  For more information call 707-443-6363.

I am interested in creating paintings that capture the unity of all life on earth, with an emphasis on wild nature. My work is primarily fueled by the desire to build a bridge between our ancestral connection to the natural world and our current detachment from it. Acting from this side of the bridge, I seek to create a renewed respect and connection to the fantastic animals and plants that share the earth with us. I take my role of the artist as a duty to inspire love for nature and filter it through my own aesthetic of beauty, informed by my interest in art history, design, fashion, and discarded belongings.

My paintings can most easily be described as symbolic portraits comprised of a multitude of imagery culled from a wide range of visual sources. Oftentimes, a particular animal is surrounded by a carefully constructed arrangement of organic forms, graphic shapes, bold swatches of pattern and color, jewels, beads, and flowers woven together to create a whole world within the painting where a new kind of sense is made.

The composition is initially constructed as a collage of archived imagery, extracted from a diverse collection of source material including second-hand textbooks, nature books, and magazines. Each element is studied and painted to create a photorealistic, unified painting imbued with the energy and focus of my mind and my hands. The result often tricks the viewer into believing the work is a cut and paste collage, when in reality it is much more. This realization pulls the viewer in to stay with the work longer and enjoy it more fully, which is the ultimate reward.

I am deeply inspired by the work of Joseph Campbell, the American mythologist, whose life work evinces the fact that mythology holds an important function for human society. He maintains that our myths must transform and evolve to continue to address the realities of contemporary life. My work is created with this thought in mind, though there is no single narrative for a single painting, inciting purposeful ambiguity to spark the inventive voice of the imagination. For I am not a storyteller, but an abstract image-maker, inspired by the archetypal stories from the distant past. And with an eye on our rapidly vanishing wildlife, I seek to create a new visual mythology to encourage compassion and respect for the living world that sustains us all.

Kelly Allen
Winter, 2012

Humboldt State University First Street Gallery presents, Midnight Sun: Works by Julie McNiel.  Produced and curated by the students in the Museum and Gallery Practices Program at Humboldt State University, the exhibition will run from November 27th through December 23rd, 2012. 

In the exhibition, Midnight Sun, Julie McNiel riffs on the theme of seasonal change from autumn to winter. She states that, “The drawings in Midnight Sun are winter tales that situate the viewer in the space between. I do not try to draw or tell a literal description of winter, but prefer to evoke and reflect upon its characteristic elements and particular beauty.” 

McNiel’s multi-layered drawings take the viewer into an imagined netherworld where the winter’s landscape is populated by fantastic, mythic figures. She writes that, “These are the characters and situations to be found in a winter’s tale, by fireside. As in a musical nocturne, darkness recalls the vigil that takes place during the transition from the night hours towards dawn. In my drawn form, the vigil is suggested by a lack of clear distinction between dark and light, night or day – this is an imaginary, intermediary world where anything is still possible, or may have already happened.” 

A native of San Francisco, Julie McNiel currently resides with her family on California’s North Coast.  She has traveled across the U.S., Asia and Europe, and performed with interdisciplinary arts troupes such as The Three-Legged Puppet Troupe, Vent, and Aqua. She received a two-year California Graduate Fellowship for study at the San Francisco Art Institute, and graduated there with an M.F.A. degree in painting in 1999. 

There will be a gallery reception for the artist, whichwill take place at HSU First Street Gallery on December 1st, 2012 from 6 to 9 p.m. during Eureka’s Arts Alive program. The gallery is open Tuesday through Sunday from 12 to 5 p.m. and is located at 422 First Street, Eureka, California. Admission is free. Those planning group tours are encouraged to call ahead. For more information call 707-443-6363.

Watch the Documentary

A few years ago I visited a friend who lived close to the Arctic Circle. There, the sun still shone in the summer sky past midnight each evening. Insomnia ensued and we swam in Helsinki Bay at three in the morning. She described to me her dread of oncoming winter when it was dark as night the whole day long. The concept of such extremes and of the resulting disorientation was influential in the making of the drawings for this exhibition. Also, the idea of an unusual illumination or unexpected fluctuations in atmospheric conditions are visual metaphors for reliance on instinct: something that guides us from within based on sensitivity to cues in nature.

Closer to home: spring is lush and summer a far high point; the end of year seasons are a drawing within: a condensing of energy. The bear hibernates hidden; seeds wait under earth, and deciduous trees above only appear, barren. Light comes from candles, distant or electric stars, fireplaces, lanterns, and shadows pulsate. We awaken to darkness.

As we countdown to the final days of our planet’s annual revolution around our sun, some look back in review while others look towards the new year with expectations and resolutions. The drawings in Midnight Sun are winter tales that situate the viewer in the space between. I do not try to draw or tell a literal description of winter, but prefer to evoke and reflect upon its characteristic elements and particular beauty.
  
Sightless, wingless birds, injured or anthropomorphized bodies, storms and lightning bolts, singular figures situated in austere locale, populate the drawings. (You would only notice such figures, under low light conditions…) These are the characters and situations to be found in a winter’s tale, by fireside. As in a musical nocturne, darkness recalls the vigil that takes place during the transition from the night hours towards dawn. In my drawn form, the vigil is suggested by a lack of clear distinction between dark and light, night or day – this is an imaginary, intermediary world where anything is still possible, or may have already happened.

Julie McNiel
Winter, 2012

Humboldt State University: First Street Gallery presents, My Heart’s a Little Fast, but Otherwise, Everything’s Fine: New paintings by Susanna Bluhm, on exhibit from October 2nd to November 4th, 2012. 

A Los Angeles native, Bluhm received a BA in Studio Art in 1998 from Humboldt State University and went on to earn MFA in Painting from University of Illinois. She now resides with her family in Seattle. She has exhibited her art nationally and internationally, including exhibitions in Berlin, Dublin, New York, San Francisco, Chicago and Washington D.C. 

Susanna Bluhm’s works blends abstraction and representation to create landscape environments that engage the viewer’s imagination and emotions. Bluhm utilizes many art materials, including, oil, acrylic, gouache, pencil, and colored pencil to create her drawings and paintings. Her style is painterly, incorporating a variety of painting techniques that selectively flatten and expand the depth of her environments.  

She avoids injecting deliberate narrative meaning into her work, instead preferring the viewer to have a subjective reaction from the act of looking. When creating these liminal spaces, she hopes to arouse the “sensations of things that might happen in a place, such as weather, touch, landscape, temperature, sex, or noise.” These paintings inspire personal interpretations by the viewer. 

The titles of her work often catch the attention of viewers as they have literary and poetic appeal. For example, one painting in the exhibition is titled, His eyes are like doves beside springs of water, bathed in milk. The title is drawn from the poem, The Songs of Songs of Solomon in The Old Testament. The painting is not a literal depiction of the poem, but rather Bluhm’s own personal interpretation—expressing her love for her family. 

Susanna Bluhm will present a Slide Lecture about her art on October 5th at Humboldt State University’s main campus in Arcata, California.  The lecture is free to the public and will be presented in Room 102 in the Art Building, HSU campus at 5 p.m.  

There will be a gallery reception for the artist, whichwill take place at HSU First Street Gallery on October 6, 2012 from 6 to 9 p.m. during Eureka’s Arts Alive program. The gallery is open Tuesday through Sunday from 12 to 5 p.m. and is located at 422 First Street, Eureka, California. Admission is free. Those planning group tours are encouraged to call ahead. For more information call 707-443-6363.

My various projects tend to be related in some way to my physical environments and experience of them. Also, they are experiments in creating new environments. An individual painting can become a new place in itself, with sensations of things that might happen in a place, such as weather, touch, landscape, temperature, sex, or noise. Abstract marks interact with more recognizable shapes, and a kind of narrative ensues. When talking or writing about my work, I stray from defining the narratives. Instead, I try to describe them as I see them; both as the person that made them and decided they make sense, and also as a witness to the end result.

By not providing a literal translation of the visual elements, I have relinquished some control over what is read into the paintings. The person viewing a painting deciphers it within his/her own frame of reference, and is invited to enable the very act of looking to generate the meaning.

I think of both painting and looking as pleasureful experiences.

Susanna Bluhm,
Autumn, 2012

Humboldt State University’s First Street Gallery presents Play/House, a collaboration of works by Claire Joyce and Garth Johnson.  Featuring a mixture of ceramics, glitter paintings, works on paper and mixed media installations, the exhibition will run from January 31st through March 4th.

Husband and wife Garth Johnson and Claire Joyce live, work and make art in Eureka, California.  As they are in marriage, their work is capable of cohabitation—creating an exhibition that will examine the subject of domesticity and the trappings of tradition found both in art making and in marriage.

Viewed and considered separately, Joyce and Johnson’s works appear to be vastly different in approach and technique. When examined in the same space, it becomes apparent that the two artists share a deep interest in challenging and subverting traditional means of producing art and an excitement about how these traditions are reflected in contemporary society.

Claire Joyce creates scenes based on specific images from art history and re-imagines them as comments on domesticity, fertility, and feminine roles. Inserting herself into each splintered portrait of a woman points to both the freedom and weighty responsibility felt in marriage. Rather than executing these obsessive narratives in paint, Joyce chooses glitter to render her imagery. It is not a painting, but an image made from tiny specs of reflective color—though the glitter sparkles and seems to emit light, one cannot escape the fact that it is a frivolous craft material most often associated with sororities, Martha Stewart, and grade school valentines.

Garth Johnson utilizes conventional ceramic forms, such as the teapot, to both embrace and mock imagery and forms derived from ceramic history. In an effort to further examine these common domestic objects, Johnson reconstructs the teapot using casts made from bottles commonly found in contemporary American homes.  In his hand mouthwash, shampoo, and syrup bottles become totemic domestic objects, merged with handles and spouts appropriated from silver-plated tea and coffee pots. His practice also revolves around porcelain souvenirs and commemorative objects such as collector plates. In Johnson’s hands, banal plates rescued from thrift shops are transformed into humor—(and occasionally tragedy) laden vignettes of American cultural entropy.

In addition to Joyce’s glitter paintings and Johnson’s ceramic objects, this exhibition will contain a collaborative three-dimensional installation that ties the themes of the two artists together.

HSU First Street Gallery will present a Gallery Talk by the artists on Saturday, February 18th at 3 p.m.  The public is invited to meet the artists as they guide attendees through their exhibition.  Admission is free to all.

A reception for Claire Joyce and Garth Johnson will be held Saturday February 4th during Eureka’s monthly Arts Alive event. Celebrating its fourteenth year of service to HSU students and to the North Coast community, Humboldt State University First Street Gallery is open Tuesday through Sunday from 12 to 5 p.m. and is located at 422 First Street, Eureka, California.  Admission is free. Those planning group tours are encouraged to call ahead.  For more information call  707-443-6363.

Watch the Documentary

My Romance With Handicraft is Finished…. 
This Time For Good.

In the spring of 2000, I took a thrift store plate with a tiny, low-relief bird on it and added the above statement in a speech bubble coming out of the bird’s mouth. This plate, created as an afterthought, has become a touchstone that I have returned to time and again throughout my career. Like anyone involved in the crafts, I struggle with process. I push against the boundaries of the materials and processes that I use while simultaneously pushing against the limita­tions of my own hands.

 
I choose to work in porcelain. It might be more accurate to say that porcelain chose me. What other material can evoke purity, luxury and family heirlooms one moment, while evoking mass-produced souvenirs and trinkets the next. I have paid my respects at the site of the imperial kilns in Jingdezhen, China, and I have also marveled at bustling porcelain factories like Buffalo China.
 
Parallel to my own material explorations in porcelain, I explore the culture of porcelain—from the baroque ornamentation and excesses of Capodimonte to the geometric Art Deco stylings of Norita­ke. I am perhaps most drawn, however, to porcelain’s association with commemoration and nostal­gia. My collector plate interventions are part of a long line of art détournements that stretch from ancient graffiti to Guy Debord and the Situationists and current “culture jammers” like the Billboard Liberation Front. Language is an important component of these works. The resonance of language to the imagery of the plate is my chief goal.
 
My porcelain vessels are assembled from slipcast plastic bottles and handles and spouts from silver coffee and teapots. On the surface, these vessels could be taken as a commentary on consumerism and our disposable society. However, I am more interested in the formal qualities of plastic bottles. The flattened form of soap and syrup bottles are sophisticated and beautiful works of design that hold their contents while advertising themselves through labels integrated into their form. The plas­tic bottle can be seen as spiritual heir to the Italian Albarello--.

My recent vessel work is centered on themes of place and production. For the past two years, I have spent the summer in China, working with age-old porcelain production methods in a mod­ern setting. My Chinese work explores themes of slippage in meaning through cultural differences. Chinese porcelain decoration is filled with playful use of language and iconography. My work purposefully mistranslates this system of coded communication into an American vernacular, trading American pop culture for traditional Chinese imagery.
 
Porcelain’s formal qualities have made it a perfect vessel for meaning and commentary since its inven­tion nearly a millennium ago. I continue to struggle with my own technical skills, as well as what it means to be a maker in the 21st Century. My romance with handicraft has only just begun.

Garth Johnson
Winter, 2012

After a middleclass childhood spent beading, sewing, knotting, drawing, cross-stitching, and paper snowflake snipping, I have developed a vested interest in the use of materials often relegated to the category of craft.  Personal associations with craft begin at an early age when we are first handed a bottle of Elmer’s glue. Our craft materials, as our motor skills and social awareness, are later pushed towards more refined exercises.  While most people were raised making crafts, once grown they only seem to dabble during holidays or on special occasions so that many people who craft, like attending church, could be called Easter and Christmas crafters.  Artist Mike Kelley, himself interested in craft associations, said, “In my working-class background, the most invisible things were crafts.” It is the invisibility of craft materials that make them such strong social signifiers—they have, until recently, rarely been examined for ethnographic significance, but the overwhelming presence of craft materials and activities in America make them ripe with associative meaning.  
  
Using materials capable of referencing broad life experiences—from childhood naivety or giggling sorority girl activities to domestic practices of adulthood—my work is created with the identifiable patterns, surfaces, and textures of craft works.  To counteract and confuse the reading of craft media, I use these materials in exaggerated self-portraits that humorously meld my common life experience with art historical references.  This amalgam of narrative art historical imagery, utterly mundane contemporary objects, and staged scenes from my own life are carefully rendered using craft store glitter.  Multiple images of myself within these works allows me to play a variety of roles common to the  contemporary female expressed through the lens of art historical subjects. My intention in juxtaposing fantastical art postures with mundane feminine roles and base materials of crafting with refined obsession of art making, is to investigate the wit and grace which is capable of rising from the banal and ordinary.

Claire Joyce
Winter, 2012

Humboldt State University’s First Street Gallery presents Works by the Giant Squid: A Print Makers Collective featuring affordable works of art for the Holiday Season.  The exhibition, which is produced by students in the Museum and Gallery Practices Program at Humboldt State University, will run from November 27th through December 23rd, 2012.  

This exhibition consists of a wide variety of mediums such as woodcuts, etching, engravings, lithographs and serigraphy, all covering a broad array of subjects. Many of contributing artists are students and alumni of Professor Sarah Whorf’s Printmaking classes at Humboldt State University. 

Based in Eureka, California, Giant Squid formed as an artists collective earlier this year in an effort to pool and share the technical resources necessary to make fine art prints.  This show is their debut exhibition as a collective. The artists included in the show are Crystal Azul, Isaac Bluefoot, Brittany Britton, Tim Camp, Tim Clewell, Kristy Eden, Rhianna Gallagher, Max Garcia, Jorden Goodspeed, Jeff Jensen, Ruth Jensen, Sam Kirby, Justin Skillstad, Crystal Thorpe and Sarah Whorf. 

An opening reception in honor of the artists will be held at HSU First Street Gallery on Saturday, December 1st, from 6:00 to 9:00 p.m. The exhibition will run from November 27th – December 23rd, 2009. The gallery is open Tuesday through Sunday, noon to 5:00 p.m., and is located at 422 First Street, Eureka, California. Admission is free and those planning group tours are encouraged to call ahead at 707-443-6363.

Giant Squid is a co-operative printmaking group located in Eureka, California. The group formed in spring of 2012. Our facility is located in the Ink Annex in cooperation with The Ink People Center for the Arts. The Ink Annex is a building in downtown Eureka that houses the Ink People’s gallery as well as the print lab maintained by the Eureka Print Alliance, a Dreammaker project of the Ink People. The press we use and most of the equipment has been donated by members of the Eureka Print Alliance or by the Ink People. The work in this show represents the accomplishments of Giant Squid, the Eureka Print Alliance and the Ink People supporting one another’s common passion for printmaking. It is our group’s intention to maintain a workspace for printmaking and facilitate connections to other communities of printmaking out in the world.
            
 This is our first group exhibition and it demonstrates the diversity, dedication, and professionalism of its members. I have seen the group grow over the last few months; it is very encouraging to witness artists pulling together in support of printmaking. I hope to recruit more members and have our lab open to the public on an appointment or drop-in basis to allow our group more exposure to the community.

I want to thank all the members of Giant Squid for putting this together, the Eureka Print Alliance, The Ink People Center for the Arts, HSU First Street Gallery and all of you who come to see this exhibition for making this a great first show of many to come.

Jorden Goodspeed, 
President of Eureka Print Alliance
Executive Tentacle of Giant Squid Print Collective

Humboldt State University First Street Gallery is pleased to present, A Moment in Time, a group exhibition featuring eight photographers from California’s North Coast, on display from October 4th through November 3rd, 2013. The exhibition will feature photographers working in diverse media and subjects and is meant as a sample snapshot of some of the artistic work being made in photographic media, currently, in the region of California’s North Coast.

The photographers in the exhibition work with a variety of techniques, some using, strictly analog, that is traditional wet darkroom techniques, others using purely digital approaches and still, others who employ hybrid analog/digital approaches.  Despite these different technical approaches, the exhibition is unified by a group of artists who make visually compelling images drawing from a depth of poetic imagination.

Participating artists include, Julie Clark, Ricardo Febré, Nicole Jean Hill, Vaughn Hutchins, Suk Choo Kim, Ellen Land-Weber, John Mahony and William Pierson.

The exhibition opens as the western chapter of the Society for Photographic Education, holds its annual conference this year in Humboldt County, California, co-hosted by Humboldt State University and where a number of the exhibiting artists will be present and participating.  Information about the conference programs can be found on line at www.west.spenational.org/conference

The exhibition is curated and produced by Humboldt State University students enrolled in the university’s Museum and Gallery Practices Certificate Program.

A reception for the artists will be held at HSU First Street Gallery on Saturday, October 5th, 2013,  6:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m. during Eureka’s monthly Arts Alive event. The gallery is open Tuesday through Sunday from 12 to 5 p.m. and is located at 422 First Street Eureka, California. Admission is free. Those planning group tours are encouraged to call ahead. For more information call 707-443-6363.

Humboldt State University First Street Gallery is pleased to present, A Ceramic Invitational Exhibition, currently open and will continue through December 23rd.  Featured in the show, will be artwork by nine artists from California's North Coast, who work in diverse styles and mediums.  The show is a fundraiser for the gallery, with a broad selection of affordable, high quality ceramic pieces and paintings suitable for gift making during the Holiday Season.

A Ceramic Invitational features traditional ceramic vessels and ceramic sculpture by North Coast artists Nancy Frazier, Ryan Hurst, Marlena Kellogg, Peggy Loudon, Scott North, Michael Pearce, Clarissa Pezone and Keith Schneider.

Of special note, and as a last minute addition to the line-up, the exhibition will feature the acrylic paintings of Soodie Whitaker who blends science fiction and horror movie themes with an exuberant, expressive painting style

“We're very pleased to bring together these accomplished artists during this holiday season," says First Street Gallery Director Jack Bentley. "This exhibition reminds those of us who live here, how fortunate we are to live in a community that is also the home of so many wonderful visual artists."

A Holiday Invitational Exhibition is produced by Humboldt State students. Students enrolled in the Art Museum and Gallery Practices Program participate in the daily management and planning of shows at the gallery.  The gallery provides real-life opportunities for the students to develop their gallery and museum skills, which in turn provides them with experience that will help them to enter the job market. Many students who have participated in the program have gone on to careers in museums and galleries throughout the nation.  

Exhibition Schedule 

The exhibition will run through December 23rd.  A reception for the artists at HSU First Street Gallery will be held Saturday, December 7th, 2013 6:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m. during Eureka’s monthly Arts Alive event. The gallery is open Tuesday through Sunday from noon to 5 p.m. and is located at 422 First Street Eureka, California. Admission is free. Those planning group tours are encouraged to call ahead. For more information call 707-443-6363. 

Humboldt State University First Street Gallery presents, Golden States of Grace: Prayers of the Disinherited, a photo documentary exhibition by Rick Nahmias.  This acclaimed traveling exhibition of black and white photography aims to give image and voice to nearly a dozen virtually invisible communities on California's religious landscape. Golden States of Grace will run from February 1st through March 3rd.  
  
California has long been sanctuary to people of myriad religious faiths - those in the mainstream as well as those existing on the fringes of society. While conventional middle class religion is widely visible, rarely seen are the sacred worlds of marginalized groups: the outcasts, the fallen, those society has labeled as "other" - those for whom religion was arguably first formed, but who now worship as a means of finding refuge or of forging community where they would otherwise have none.

Golden States of Grace, created by acclaimed photographer and writer, Rick Nahmias, documents groups ranging from a transgender gospel choir, to San Quentin inmates who have converted to Zen Buddhism, to a branch of the Mormon Church created by and catering to the Deaf, to a halfway house for recovering Jewish addicts. Each participating community in the project represents a different denomination, different part of the state's geography, and different ethnic group.

From 2003-2006, Nahmias examined the question: "How are spiritual individuals who live outside the mainstream of an increasingly fundamentally faith-based society, finding place, meaning and community in their lives?" To do this, he spent time documenting those who, because of world events, society's prejudices, or their own actions, have been all but silenced.

Merging art, humanities and theology, Golden States of Grace will bring together the personal and collective histories of spiritual groups from Santa Rosa to San Diego who, consciously or not, are reinventing time-honored modes of worship and ritual and pushing their respective traditions into the 21st century. With Golden States of Grace, Nahmias wants to provide more than a window to view diverse religions and lifestyles - he hopes to encourage his audience to "see the 'us' in 'them.'"

"Rick is extremely skilled at entering communities, winning people's trust, and capturing the spirit of a place and its people. His photographs share the triumphs, joys, and anguish of his amazingly diverse subjects, and offer us captivating images of overlooked residents of our golden state." says Lois Ann Lorentzen, Ph.D., Director of The Religion and Immigration Project at the University of San Francisco, which along with The Pew Charitable Trusts and The Kurz Family Foundation supplied seed grants to the project.

The exhibition will run from February 1st through March 3rd, 2013. HSU First Street Gallery is open Tuesday through Sunday, noon to 5:00 p.m. and is located at 422 First Street, Eureka, California. Admission is free and those planning group tours are encouraged to call ahead at (707) 443-6363 or visit ricknahmias.com

A weekend of exhibition-related events, presentations and symposia will commence on March 1st: 

KEYNOTE SPEECH - ARTIST'S TALK

Rick Nahmias will present a slide show and discuss his approach to documenting marginalized communities at prayer in their own faith traditions.

Free to the public, all participants are welcome.
Date & Time: March 1, 2013. 5 p.m.
Place: Room 102, Art Department Building, Humboldt State University Campus,
intersection of B Street and Laurel, Arcata, CA

RECEPTION FOR THE ARTIST, RICK NAHMIAS

Public Reception and Book Signing 
A closing reception and book signing for the artist will be held at HSU First Street Gallery where Rick Nahmias will be present to meet the public and to sign his book, Golden States of Grace: Prayers of the Disinherited. The book was named Best Religion Book of 2012 by the Arizona-New Mexico Book Awards.
Free to the public, all participants are welcome.
Date & Time: Saturday, March 2nd, 2013, 6 - 9 p.m.
Place: Humboldt State University First Street Gallery, 422 First Street, Eureka, CA 95501

SYMPOSIA

The public is invited to participate in a weekend of free related talks and presentations, March 2 - March 3. For additional information contact Dr. Sara Jaye Hart, 707-601-6619 or sarajaye@gmail.com 

Religion and Social Action Symposium

Following an informal, coffee and bagel reception, local community leaders, authors, activists, and HSU faculty from related fields will present talks and lead discussions on a range of issues addressing the role of both individual belief and faith communities in motivating programs of social change.
Detailed schedule: To Be Announced.

Free to the public, all participants are welcome.
Date & Time: Saturday, March 2nd, 2013, 9:30 a.m.
Place: Native American Forum, BSS Building, Humboldt State University Campus, Union Street at 16th Street, Arcata, CA.

Believing, in a Place - A Symposium

Local religious leaders, authors, and activists will join HSU faculty and students to consider how place influences faith, how a community's material environment helps to shape its worldviews. Detailed schedule: To Be Announced.

Free to the public, all participants are welcome.
Date & Time: Saturday, March 3rd, 2013, 11 a.m.
Place: Native American Forum, Behavioral & Social Sciences Building, Humboldt State University Campus, Union Street at 16th Street, Arcata, CA. 

RELATED EXHIBITIONS

Collaborate, Create, Communicate

Opening on Valentine's Day 2013, The Reese Bullen Gallery hosts Collaborate, Create Communicate, an exhibit of collaborative artworks by members of the HSU community created around the thematic elements of acceptance, diversity, tolerance and inclusion.

Free to the public, all participants are welcome.
Place: Reese Bullen Gallery, Art Department Building, Humboldt State University 
Campus, intersection of B Street and Laurel, Arcata, CA.
Dates & Times: February 14 - March 14, 2013, Monday - Wednesday, 12-5 p.m. Thursday, 12-7 p.m. Friday, 12-5 p.m. Saturday, 10 a.m.-2 p.m.
Opening Reception: Thursday, February 14, 4 - 6 p.m.  
Contact: Michele McCall-Wallace, Gallery Director, 707-826-5814,
rbg@humboldt.edu
   

Fixing the Earth: NOW!

Fixing the Earth: NOW sheds light on the traditional tribal practice of healing the earth through World Renewal Ceremonies. The exhibit highlights an on-going dialogue about World Renewal and art between the artists, cultural leaders and community members.

Free to the public, all participants are welcome.
Place: Goudi'ni Gallery, Behavioral & Social Sciences Building, Humboldt State 
University Campus, Union Street at 16th Street. Arcata, CA.
Dates & Times: February 21 - April 27, 2013, Monday - Wednesday, 12-5 p.m. 
Thursday, 12-7 p.m. Friday, 12-5 p.m.
Opening Reception: Thursday, February 21, 5 - 7 p.m.  
Contact: Michele McCall-Wallace, Gallery Director, 707-826-5814, rbg@humboldt.edu  

The Golden States of Grace exhibition and related programs are funded in part by generous support from the Humboldt State University Instructionally Related Activities Fund, the Humboldt State University Loyalty Fund, the HSU Center for Indian Community Development, an HSU Office of Diversity and Inclusion Program Grant and by generous donors in our community.

These exhibitions and programs are a collaborative project by Humboldt State's Department of Religious Studies, Art Department and HSU First Street Gallery. Special thanks are extended to Dr. Sara Jaye Hart, Professor Michele McCall-Wallace, Jack Bentley, Dean Kenneth Ayoob, Provost Robert Snyder, President Rollin Richmond and to Dr. Harry Wells.