Stacking / Up Group exhibition at The Loft Galleries showcases thirteen artists, all of whom happen to be local

Stacking / Up, an organic and surprisingly zen-inducing exhibition now on display at The Loft Gallery, was co-organized by artists Jim Murray, of The Loft and Jan Govaerts, founder of The Loft and Blue Water Clay ceramics studio. January’s First Thursday opening of Stacking/ Up generated great interest because of the way different works play off of each other. For example, Ben Zask’s pieces play well off of both Murray’s and Ann Daub’s pieces of horizontal stacking. All the artists in Stacking /Up work in 3D but stacking is not a typical process that they utilize in their works.

Murray said Govaerts, who has been a working artist in San Pedro since 1996, proposed the initial exhibition. The Loft’s previous show was made up of artists that have worked at The Loft Studios.

“Jan thought we could follow up with artists who had shown in The Loft Studios,” said Murray. “We didn’t have any idea what the title was going to be but when we started assembling names we realized that everybody that we were trying to consider were 3D people and a lot of them fit this concept of “stacked.” 

He said the various pieces in the show are stacked up but also stacked out. But that was too long a title. 

Exhibiting artists include three from Angels Gate Cultural Center, Phoebe Barnum, Lowell Nickel and Nancy Voegeli-Curran.

The exhibit also features Ann Olsen Daub, Eugene Daub, Peggy Sivert, Ben Zask and Eric Johnson. And from The Loft, Michael Stearns, Jim Murray and Jan Govaerts, who also is from Blue Water Clay along with Mayra Zaragoza and Gregorio Nocon.   As indicated by this list, Murray noted San Pedro has so many quality artists. 

“We’re off the beaten path but in a way that’s how many people prefer it,” he said.

 The exhibition presents a wide variety of works that play well together. 

 “One thing leads to another,” said Jan.

Utilizing curious, often organic, pieces, Stacking / Up  evokes a sense of progressive energy with works that, together, build this exhibition upwards. See the exhibition to experience its energy but in the meantime, you can discover more details here on Stacking / Up.

 Govaerts and Murray were familiar with the variety of work the artists in Stacking / Up do; it wasn’t based on stacking in particular but that’s what they came to, Murray explained. Both Murray and Govaerts work in stacking themselves. Govaerts’ Stone Stack 3 and Chrysalis take the form of columns; the former in round, stacked rock forms — balanced stable on the narrowest rock in the stack. Her Chrysalis almost suggests the form of a mummified being with a narrow top (head) atop a wider top third (torso) that narrows downward: a caterpillar’s ceramic chrysalis. 

Jan Govaerts Stone Stack lll, 2022, ceramic

Peggy Sivert’s works, Break Up, Home Ism and Relic Totem made during COVID-19, include left behind pieces from her past students’ work that she had accumulated. She developed a series of works from cast off ceramics, metal, plastic and cement. The pieces resemble playful totems of colors and surprising individual shapes, stacked together in slender, graceful triangles.

Peggy Sivert 3 Ceramic Castoffs Installation

Michal Stearn’s Sky Ladder (wood, rawhide, stone, yarn) is an inspired implement reaching towards the sky: it exemplifies the thoughts, meditations, words or prayers that humans offer — as we gaze upwards. It was good fortune running into Stearns as I left the gallery; I mentioned my affinity for this piece to him, to which he offered this sage explanation.

Ann Olsen Daub’s Child Warrior in black (painted corrugated cardboard relief sculpture) and Night Vision are different in what Murray calls horizontal layered stacking. One can imagine Daub’s  Child Warrior confidently donning this black gi-like ensemble of corrugated armor.

Murray said some of his relief pieces and Ben Zask’s work are also a kind of horizontal stacking, or layered. Murray works with wood panels, paper and mixed media. His textured paintings present realistic images of natural elements, like wood, water, mountainscapes and Southwest colorscapes. His panels, he said, give him a lot of flexibility. He has both vertical and horizontal layered stacks — displayed on podiums and walls — of various sized, mixed media panels in a whole series: SW Strat Column 2, SW Strat Hoodoo 2 and 3 and Untitled SW Fissure 4 and 5.

“I’m not a 3D person … but I started to play around with these pieces and I stacked them and I thought it was an interesting variation,” he said. “I spent a lot of time in the Southwest and I had that interest in the control of the coloration, like in the Southwest. I started thinking about how they’re stacking. They started to look like the hoodoos, those sandstone columns in Bryce Canyon [Utah].”

Murray added the hoodoo’s are like the arches (in Arches National Park) which will eventually fall down because the sandstone wears away. But in the meantime they create these “otherworldly, fantastic columns.”

A fantastically fun example of horizontally stacked are Ben Zask’s musical sculptures (metal, paint). His D Flat is literally a flattened horn, with three bells, sized large, medium and small, with its various tubing and mouthpieces placed within the sculpture. Zask’s Musical Keys are exactly that; the metal valves and buttons are strung together in a 54-inch sculpture, evoking the sound of melodious music.

Eric Johnson’s Ocean Color Scape in blue and Pond Color Scape in green in the form of bars (polyester, resin) offer a visual, layered stacking. They are a blend of contemporary sculpture and abstract painting.

Lowell Nickel‘s Rock Garden on Pallet and Axehead (palm, wood stand, ceramic mixed media) blends organic and ceramic materials. Murray said he’s a beach scavenger. Nickel likens himself a landscape artist, creating projects made of human disposed materials, describing his work as “the fashioning of our own human footprint as artifact … These remains might resemble just another strange abstracted strata upon a future landscape.”

Lowell Nickel  Axehead, 2022, ceramic mxed media

Nancy Voegeli-Curran’s Spill (recycled plastics, tyvek, wire, paint) has a darkness to the piece, Govaerts noted, its creation was based on an oil spill.

“When you look at Nancy’s [piece], you wonder how she did this and that’s when it comes to inquiry about the materials [she used],” said Govaerts.

Eugene Daub’s  The Mentor (bronze) and Joe Hill (stoneware bust) sculptures stand across from each other in the gallery. Daub’s sculptures, often of historical figures who inspire him, are important and grounding pieces. Yet, charm and sense of humor are also present. In this case, Daub created a podium of “stacked”  Home Depot buckets, with the phrase “Songs of Labor” painted on the makeshift platform to support the songwriter, itinerant laborer and union organizer.

Phoebe Barnum’s Stick a Nail In It (low-fire ceramic mixed media) depicts a personal trauma the artist endured when she had to have a series of surgeries which ultimately caused the complete loss of vision in one eye. The large piece is composed of multiple clay masks that appear to express stages of pain. Barnum said the clay lends itself to the visceral expression. 

“The use of clay enabled me to express my feelings about my loss of vision and all that entailed,” Barnum wrote in her statement.

All the artists self-curated their works and in one form or another all the pieces are reused or recycled. Murray posited that what artists do with their process is intriguing but in the end it’s the image that we need to respond to. Because whatever the materials are, that tends to generate the conversation. The process can be really important but it’s usually the secondary thing when it comes to actually appreciating the work.

Stacking / Up will have a closing reception Feb. 4, following the next First Thursday ArtWalk,

Time: Jan. 5 to Feb. 4, closing reception

Cost: Free

Details: www.loftartstudiosandgalleries.com and www.facebook.com/Loft401smesa

Venue: The LOFT Gallery and Artist Studios 401 S Mesa St., San Pedro