Visiting Old Places for New Sites

This week, I decided to visit the place from whence I came before I transferred to Sac State. This place might be familiar to many students since it is one of the most well known community colleges. I am talking, of course, about Sierra College. For three years it was my home for academics and there isn't a place anywhere I am more familiar with. Since it has been a long time, I decided to pay a short visit to Sierra's small yet very impressive gallery known as the Ridley Gallery.

The Ridley Gallery is a great place for all sorts of art ranging from just about any kind a person can think of. On my more than a dozen visits to it, there was always a new theme that was put on display. Perhaps the most popular one that I remember since I saw the installations appear multiple times on two different semesters was a presentation on African Masks as well as the history and culture of African Aesthetics. Other exhibits included Classical Art renditions that are similar to what an old master would paint and authentic Hatian Art that were reactions by artists towards the tragic earthquake of Haiti. 

This time, there was an emphasis on contemporary art as shown by these images. I took a few images, but I didn't care much for the names of the artists and titles of the pieces. I did take pictures of the pieces that I found most interesting. The name of this particular piece was caught by my companion as Friend Chicken Not People. I love this particular work for two specific reasons. One, it reminded me of my childhood and some of the old cartoons I used to watch where people would be able to deep fry anything. Two, I find this as cruel irony with regards to us Americans. It's no coincidence that all the items that have been deep fried are weapons. Weapons tend to cause harm, and if it's one thing thing us Americans do, it's cook everything in a way that makes just about anything we eat nearly toxic to us. I find this piece as a satire to our regular(or irregular) diets as a society.

Moving on, the piece I really wanted to talk about is this one. This is a piece from a ceramic artist named Linda S. Fitz Gibbon called Narcissus. This specific piece is a type of hard clay inflatable. These have always interested me because of how naturalistic a shape clay can take. At first glance, this simply looks like two blown up swans with nothing more to it. Upon a closer look and a more thorough inspection, one can learn that these seemingly plastic or rubber swans are in fact clay. This deceptive nature caused by the clay creates a jarring idea that on one hand is naturalistic and on the other artificial. It's pretty much a big metaphor on how life can be so random at times, going from being completely orderly to extremely chaotic. With all that said, I have nothing more. I will say that it was fun visiting this small gem of a gallery once more. Though my stay was short(no longer than 15 minutes), I found much enjoyment at what I saw. I hope those who see this will consider visiting this outspoken gallery for themselves.