Los Gatos Weekly-Times Photograph by George Sakkestad Among artist Jacqueline Thurston's works that celebrate nature and women's place in it is 'Song of the Fire.' Montalvo exhibit features 10 years of expression Where the moon always shines By Shari Kaplan There is a site, ensconced in the Saratoga foothills, where the enchanting glow of a full moon always shines, where waves gently lap the seashore and wild women dance around shady trees and crackling fires. Can such disparities all come together in one place? They can and do at the Gallery at Villa Montalvo--in the form of Cycle of Songs, an exhibition by Palo Alto artist, writer, poet, mother of two and college professor Jacqueline Thurston. Cycle of Songs is an eclectic body of work representing more than 10 years of creative expression. Most of the exhibit comprises items loosely described as photo-objects; they combine color cibachrome photos of painstakingly arranged still-lifes--most made of natural objects--with poems printed on handmade paper. Some poems are contained in handcrafted wooden containers, and others are mounted alongside the photos they accompany. "I view poetry as a pictorial language full of images and stories; I think of the printed word as a sculptural frieze of images," says Thurston, who teaches in the School of Art and Design at San Jose State University. "All artists have their own internal rhythm. Mine is to work slowly and sort of excavate a special place over time," she explains. Indeed, Thurston is an artist who cannot create on cue, but must rather wait for an afflatus--or divine wind of inspiration--as poet Walt Whitman once wrote of. "There are some moments like epiphanies where I'm transported; I and what I'm making become indivisible and it's like time stops. On the other end, sometimes there's an image that doesn't yield itself easily, and it's something of a struggle to get it to work for me," she adds. In "Song of the Moon," Thurston combines a still-life of iridescent seashells on a shiny black background with a graphite sketch and a poem about the moon's influence as it waxes, blooms in fullness, and wanes. "Song of the Sea" is in a similar vein, its poem including the imagery that "moon and sea, forever mated to one another, cradled the earth, rocking her to sleep in tidal lullabies." Combining five pages of verse with five thought-provoking photos is "Song of the Fire." Physically joined by 10 hinged frames, the pieces are also united by the shared visions and themes of their verses and the items in their still-lifes. Earth is the foremost element in "Song of the Shaman" and "Song of the Bear," both telling pictorial and written stories of primal, shamanic women in touch with the equally primal forces of nature. A respect for, rather than an exploit of, the mysteries and magic of life and the natural world are not only the messages of these songs, but a message of the exhibit as a whole. Cycle of Songs runs through Feb. 7. The Gallery, at 15400 Montalvo Road, is open Thursday and Friday, 1-4 p.m.; and Saturday and Sunday, 11 a.m.-4 p.m. For information, call 961-5813. [ Back to Contents Page | Los Gatos Weekly-Times Home Page | Archives ] This article appeared in the Los Gatos Weekly-Times, January 20, 1999. ©1999 Metro Publishing, Inc. All rights reserved.