Los Gatos Weekly-Times

Photograph by George Sakkestad

Julia Bradshaw peers from behind her book 'Street People,' which consists of photographs she took along a walkway in Germany.

Unique books and paintings fill museum

By Shari Kaplan

Two different but equally creative exhibits cover almost every vertical and horizontal surface at the Los Gatos Art and Natural Science Museum. Paintings by the late Ruth Schaus adorn the walls with the retrospective A Life Well-Seen, while A White Glove Affair covers tables with handmade books by members of the South Bay chapter of the Women's Caucus for Art.

Schaus resided in Los Gatos with husband Dick, who entertained during the exhibit's reception with his string quartet. She held a bachelor's degree in painting and actively participated in exhibitions and workshops. The paintings at the exhibit include watercolors as well as representational and abstract monotypes done with brush and oil, with some with collage and pastel added.

In addition to imaginative abstract art, Schaus also portrayed people, landscapes, cityscapes and still lifes. In "Dancers," she used the lattice-like patterns left by gauze on paint to depict the swirling clothes and movements of dancers.

"Oranges" is a simple still life of two juicy fruits, whereas "Lupine Valley" is more impressionistic. The indigo of lupine blends with the familiar orange of poppies in a flowery expanse of meadow, behind which rises a mountain range.

True to its literal meaning, A White Glove Affair requires visitors to don gloves (kept in a box by the front door) before handling the books, which cover as many topics and use as many media as the 15 artists who created them.

Julia Bradshaw, who just moved with her husband from Saratoga to Los Gatos, was introduced to book arts in Munich, Germany, when she was involved in a group called Projekt: Fotografie. The native of England used to work in international public relations, which kept her flying between and through the U.S. and Europe.

This was part of the inspiration for Flying. After the first page--a reproduced and enlarged flight ticket--each page has three color photographs of Bradshaw while aloft, taken by a camera on "interval" setting. The purpose, she writes, is to randomly capture "the ill feeling and sense of foreboding that overwhelms me every time the plane takes off or hits an air pocket."

In all her books, Bradshaw ties topic and physical appearance together--in this case, each page is glossy and rectangular, like the flight ticket. The trios of photos symbolize an airplane's three-seat rows.

Her other books are Street People and Im Wohnzimer (In the Living Room). In the former are photos of the stenciled outlines of human figures, which she discovered along a pedestrian walkway in Germany. The book's exterior resembles pavement in color and texture. The latter, which consists of photographs of European friends in their living rooms, has a cover that looks and feels like a comfy sofa.

"The whole idea of making a book is for the concepts to fit the images. For me, content is everything," she explained last week, while curating the exhibit. "It's a matter of pulling the concept together to make a cohesive whole."

Concepts inspired by travel are among the favorites of Palo Alto resident Jone Small Manoogian. In A Celebration of Life, Manoogian chronicles--with photos, clothing scraps and writings--the time she visited daughter Shannan, a Peace Corps volunteer in Sierra Leone. For this and her other books, Manoogian does her own designing, sewing and binding.

The Los Gatos Art and Natural Science Museum is located at 4 Tait Ave. Hours are noon to 4 p.m., Wednesday through Sunday. The exhibits run through March 1.

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