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SFCC’s on-site art gallery is currently hosting a show called Obsessive Behavior: Wall to Wall, which features the work of three prominent members of the local art community, showcasing not only their work but their commitment to their art.
“I picked these guys because they’re all three artists that work in the studio every day,” said Tom O’Day, instructor and advisor for the Art Gallery Club. “They don’t just make work for a show, they make work to make work, and for me that’s what an artist is.
“For (these artists) it’s an activity, a daily activity and an important aspect of their well-being and who they are.”
Stepping into the gallery, one is confronted with the lefthand wall filled with colorful painted work by Ric Gendron, a former SFCC student who later attended Cornish College of the Arts.
“I paint because that is what I do and who I am,” Gendron said on his website. “I attempt to capture what I am feeling at the moment – love and loss; joy and pain; awareness and anxiety; light and darkness.”
In the center of the gallery and along the righthand wall are sculptures and other artworks by Richard Schindler, a native of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania who earned an undergraduate with an emphasis in Painting from the San Francisco Art Institute followed by an MFA in painting from Stanford University.
Many of his works in the gallery incorporate what appear to be found objects: machinery, wood that he has worked, painted-over objects rendered unidentifiable and unique.
In the promotional material for the gallery, Schindler said, ”The most important part of the artistic-making process is for me the point where all things dissolve into the moment, a point in which I am most lost in the grace of the flow.”
At the back third of the gallery are sculptures and other works by Harold Balazs, an artist best known for his various public works throughout the Pacific Northwest. Amongst his public works is the Rotary Fountain featured prominently in Spokane’s Riverfront Park, created in 2005. In 1967, Balazs was awarded a gold medal by the American Institute of Architects, and a Washington State Governor’s Award in the Arts in 1988. In 2009, he was given the Lifetime Achievement Award of the Seattle Metal Guild.
Many of his works incorporate the phrase “transcend the bullshit”, including an untitled sculpture known colloquially as Lantern in Riverfront Park.
“I make stuff because it’s better than not making stuff,” said Balaz in the gallery flyer.
The gallery and its events are free and open to the public 8:30 a.m. to 3:30p.m. Monday through Friday from Jan. 3 until Feb. 9. On the 9th there will be a closing reception from 11a.m. to 2p.m.