ArtHop galleries honor Saroyan

One remarkable piece is crafted by using gunpowder.
By Felicia Cousart Matlosz and Donald Munro / The Fresno Bee
02/14/08 22:04:55

February ArtHop Night No. 1 — we’re all adjusting to this new format
of two nights per month — ventured into William Saroyan-inspired
motifs, metal impressions and religious imagery.

The first Thursday of the month for ArtHop now focuses solely on
downtown Fresno and the Tower District. At Gallery 25 and the Fig
Tree Gallery, it’s space time for writer Saroyan in this centennial
year of his birth in Fresno.

One chat-stoking piece, at Gallery 25’s full devotion to Saroyan,
is "Tracy’s Tiger" by Robert Weibel. He’s been striving to master
the use of gunpowder in his drawings. The result for this show is
a flowing convergence of blasts and lines curved into an energetic
mass of browns, black-browns and mustard yellows — an Asian-looking
tiger — on a ream of construction paper.

Weibel says he became intrigued with the possibilities through
the massive gunpowder pieces created by Chinese-born artist Cai
Guo-Qiang. Weibel says that in this method, an artist is "using
explosives for something creative instead of something destructive."

(The Saroyan reference, by the way, is from a play called "Tracy’s
Tiger" based on a Saroyan novella titled "The Barber Whose Uncle Had
His Head Bitten Off by a Circus Tiger.")

Just a few steps away is Karen LeCocq’s "I Used to Believe I Had
Forever, Now I’m Not So Sure." (The title refers to a 1968 collection
of Saroyan short stories.) The large multimedia piece features an
image of the great man himself, his head resting against his right
fist and his eyes downcast in a contemplative moment. LeCocq uses
gads of material — wood, bambo blind, an Asian broom, digital print
on fabric, rusted steel, acrylic and wax — to create an arresting
piece of a famous man in near-final repose.

At Fig Tree, the back portion of the venue is devoted to
Saroyan-spurred work. Bill Bruce, in an apparent ode to the writer’s
well-known penchant for riding a bicycle around Fresno, uses black
inner tubes for three pieces. In "Circle of Tubes," for example,
he tautly stretched and overlapped them over a square.

The Chris M. Sorensen Studio offers what you might call "The Two
Bobs" show. It’s a joint exhibition by Bob Gifford and Bob Levine,
who became friends years ago while working at the Sorenson studio,
and decided they wanted to show their stuff together.

A standout among Gifford’s metal pieces is his whimsical "Indian
Dancer." With its prickly spines jutting from various planes of metal
sticking out in different directions, it looks positively substantial
— until you touch it. (We’d like to make the point that Bee arts
reporter Donald Munro was given permission by Gifford to do so.) The
various arms on the abstract figure are balanced so they wobble
slightly. It’s an amazing work practically begging you to reach out
and feel the spines.

Levine’s show, which he titles "The Mandala Series," consists both
of paintings and sculptures. He’s enamored of meticulously crafted
circles, and he incorporates basic religious imagery (Jewish menorahs,
Buddhist depictions, Hindu allusions) in works that have a vaguely
Eastern and meditative feel. There’s a determined symmetrical energy
to much of his work.

Just one more reminder: The second February ArtHop night is the
third Thursday of each month. Next Thursday, venues in Fig Garden,
north Fresno and Clovis will be open to visitors. Information
about participating ArtHop locations and shows can be found at
fresnoarthop.org.

The reporters can be reached at dmunro@fresnobee.com,
fmatlosz@fresnobee.com or (559) 441-6330.