Saratoga News

Photograph by George Sakkestad

Cathy Laikin and Teresa Zolar, both art students at San Jose State University, examine Megan Wilson's work titled 'Bawdice.'

Women's art reflects many influences

By Shari Kaplan

Three women who work in three different combinations of media have contributed to the newest exhibit at The Gallery at Villa Montalvo, Three Generations: Women Represent Women in Method and Concept.

Running through Oct. 26, the exhibit features pieces by Gertrud Parker of Tiburon, Karen LeCocq of Merced and Megan Wilson of San Francisco.

"The intent of this exhibition is to show exciting and unusual juxtapositions of approaches, as well as methods and materials, that draw on traditions of women's work," explains gallery curator Theres Rohan. "All three artists bring an attitude of building their art-making out of their experience as women."

A native of Austria, Parker studied academically and artistically in Vienna, Paris and San Francisco and has exhibited nationally and internationally. Her works at Montalvo consist of thin, translucent gut-skin, which she hand-dyes and dries, then stretches or crinkles to create a variety of effects.

"Coat of Many Colors," which floats above the viewer's head on nearly invisible wires, resembles a vest or other similar body covering. Dyed a variety of hues with an iridescent sheen and adorned with a few feathers, the piece looks both fragile and tough, hard and soft. "Shirred Gold," although hung on a wall, also seems to float toward the viewer. In this piece the gilded skin is tenuously attached to a steel framework that gives it both shape and limitations.

LeCocq, an art teacher and art writer who has been exhibiting since 1969, calls her most recent series Empty Stones, of which the Gallery at Montalvo has several pieces. "Su Seki VI" and "Su Seki VII," for example, are both large, round masses of jagged and curly steel wires and rods; some are coated with colored vinyl.

"Rocks fascinate me because they are grounded, bound with the earth, and have a rounded, bottom-heavy form--an 'earth-mother' shape and feel," LeCocq says in her artist's statement. "My stones possess a quiet, contemplative nature. Being hollow inside, they suggest matter as space, contained energy and latent possibilities."

Megan Wilson, who recently received a master's degree in fine arts from the San Francisco Art Institute, has only one installation on display--"Bawdice." It consists, however, of 13 individually hanging columns hung in four staggered rows.

Photocopies of text from Anne Rice's Sleeping Beauty Trilogy are taped or glued together to form tall, narrow sheets of paper. Wrapped around each "chapter" is a covering of soft brown moleskin that laces up with satin ribbon, similar to the way women laced bodices over their blouses many centuries ago.

In naming her installation, Wilson may refer to the words that are only partially hidden behind the moleskin of each "bawdice." Rice's chapters offer some provocative titles that tempt the viewer into reading between the satin lacing: "Soldiers Night at the Inn," "Revelations and Mysteries," "Tristan's Soul Further Revealed" and "The Claiming of Sleeping Beauty."

The three-woman exhibit runs through Oct. 26. The Gallery, located at 15400 Montalvo Road in Saratoga, is open Wednesday through Friday, 12:30-4 p.m., and Saturday and Sunday, 11 a.m.-4 p.m., before Montalvo concerts and during intermissions. For more information, call 961-5813.

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