Bruce McGrew is 10 years dead, but his paintings never died, to
paraphrase the old song about Joe Hill.
A batch of McGrew paintings, newly released by his family on the
10th anniversary of his death, is on view at Davis Dominguez
Gallery.
“Black Rock Landscape,” a large oil on canvas, is quintessential
McGrew. An open-hearted imaginary landscape inspired by the desert, it
has a cascade of orange and rust mountains rolling below a cerulean
sky. Clear water shimmers below. In “Black Bird, Blue Lady,” a
mysterious drama unfolds within a wilderness that’s been painted pink
and yellow and abstracted into geometries.
“These are great paintings I didn’t know would be available,” says
Candice Davis, co-owner of the gallery. “All the life and joy that
Bruce had, it’s all here in the gallery.”
Sculptor Joy Fox, McGrew’s widow, fills the floor with her
large-scale ceramic pieces that have been etched and fired and
blackened. The connubial exhibition is a highlight of Big
Picture this Saturday night, when the Central Tucson Gallery
Association kicks off the fall art season with a swarm of gallery
openings all at once.
Coincidentally, Big Picture and McGrew are both marking
anniversaries: Big Picture was born in 1999, the same year that
McGrew died.
There’ve been a few casualties among the member galleries since last
season. Lauren Rabb closed her Gallery at Sixth and Sixth, an excellent
emporium of classical modernism, and moved on to a curator position at
the University of Arizona Museum of Art. (That’s a curious transition
considering the museum cited financial difficulties when it recently
laid off the estimable Lisa Fischman as chief curator.) Davison Koenig,
already on staff at the Arizona State Museum, shuttered his daring dada
contemporary gallery.
The remaining central Tucson galleries are celebrating the fact that
earlier this year, the readers of AmericanStyle magazine ranked
Tucson 20th as an arts destination among American cities with
populations more than 500,000. (Tucson slipped a little from last
year’s slot at no 16.) New York City, natch, led the unscientific poll
both years.
“For our size city, we’ve got great art,” Davis opines. “And at
reasonable prices. We’re better than Scottsdale.”
Big Picture is not the only event this weekend celebrating
Tucson’s artiness. An hour north of town, near Oracle, where McGrew
once made his art and Fox still does, dozens of local artists are
participating in Glow, the annual outdoor, under-the-moon
exhibition of lighted sculptures. The artwork will be set up on desert
paths in Triangle L Ranch on Friday and Saturday nights, and musicians
will perform under the mesquites.
Perennial art favorites include Mary Lucking, who this year
incorporates “interactive bird calls” into her sculpture; and Michael
Carroll, Don Spaulding and Mykl Wells, who promise a “multimedia
extravaganza.” Among the musicians are Orion on Friday and Danielle
Chavez on Saturday. Admission is $10, $5 for kids 4 to 8, and free for
those 3 and younger. A round-trip minibus ride from El Con Mall costs
$19.99, Glow admission included.
For information on the Friday and Saturday night arts event, check
out www.trianglelranch.com, or call
(520) 623-6732.
Everything’s free at downtown’s Big Picture art stroll,
including the wine, and you can get munchies at most places. Reception
times vary, and most galleries adhere strictly to the posted closing
time. Here’s a guide.
Vicinity of Sixth and Sixth
Davis Dominguez, 154 E. Sixth St. 629-9759; www.davisdominguez.com. Reception
6 to 8 p.m. The gallery is exhibiting 10 large Bruce McGrew canvases
and 15 Joy Fox ceramic sculptures. The lobby gallery displays 3-D
collaborations between Fox and painter Albert Kogel.
Contreras Gallery, 110 E. Sixth St. 398-6557; www.contrerashousefineart.com.
Reception 6 to 10 p.m. Right next door to Davis Dominguez, the
Cyber-Chica is showing off her computer art. The alter ego of
Bolivian-born artist Lucia Grossberger Morales, the Cyber-Chica counts
herself as the “first Latina digital artist.” Grossberger once wrote
software for Apple, but has since decamped from Silicon Valley to make
her art in Tucson’s dry desert, says gallery owner Michael Contreras.
He expects about 20 artworks from the Chica for the show, Andean
Circuit. Advance samples include abstract collages made of torn
rice paper printed with digital images, and large-scale computer art
filled with Bolivian iconography, including animals mythical and
otherwise.
Platform Gallery, 439 N. Sixth Ave. 882-3886; www.platformart.com. Reception 3 to 9
p.m. A trio of artists takes over the corner gallery: mixed-media
artist Nadia Hlibka, painter Donna Reibslager and sculptor Jason
Williamson.
Raices Taller 222 Art Gallery and Workshop, 218 E. Sixth St.
881-5335; www.raicestaller222.org.
Reception 5 to 9 p.m. Comadres y Compadres celebrates a host of
artist friends, 40 to be exact, including Nicole DiSante, Ann
Tracy-Lopez, Richard Zelens and Adrienne and Keith Lehrer.
Fourth Avenue
Conrad Wilde Gallery, 210 N. Fourth Ave. 622-8997; www.conradwildegallery.com.
Reception 6 to 9 p.m. Artist Simon Donovan guest-curated an exhibition
of furniture, lights and other functional art. Like Etherton Gallery,
which also has an art and design show up right now (though it’s not
open Saturday night for Big Picture), Donovan aimed “to bring
together artists and furniture makers,” Miles Conrad says. Among the 10
artisans is young Adán Bañuelos, a former student of
Donovan’s at ArtWorks Academy and a furniture-maker who crafted a sleek
silver chair in three curving pieces. Other exhibitors include Kevin
Mills, lights; Tom Bright, furniture; Tom Kerrigan, ceramics; and
Michael Joplin, glass.
Downtown
Stroll south through the newly re-opened Fourth Avenue underpass,
and look for tiled photos of your friends and neighbors. For their
Tucson Portrait Project, Darren Clark and Gary Patch
transferred 6,000 photos to ceramic and glued them permanently to the
walls.
Dinnerware Artspace, 264 E. Congress St. 792-4503; www.dinnerwarearts.com. Reception
6 to 9 p.m. Dinnerware celebrates its 30th anniversary this season,
having survived—and often thrived—in multiple incarnations
in multiple venues. Right now, the former co-op is a “nonprofit
community artspace.” Das Gruppe—The Group—is the
exhibition on view.
The Drawing Studio, 33 S. Sixth Ave. 620-0947; www.thedrawingstudio.org.
Closing reception 6 to 9 p.m. for rEvolution, an exhibition of
works in a variety of media by the faculty of the studio’s school.
Central Arts, 274 E. Congress St. 792-4503; www.centralartsgallery.org.
Reception 6 to 9 p.m. The nonprofit gallery, operating under the
auspices of Dinnerware, offers up True Stories, works by
members.
Philabaum Glass Studio, 711 S. Sixth Ave. 884-7404; www.philabaumglass.com. Reception
4 to 7 p.m. SchoolGlass exhibits the shimmering wares of the
faculty and staff of the Sonoran Glass Academy, a Philabaum spinoff.
Artist Tom Philabaum, who’s already planning for a citywide glass arts
extravaganza in 2011 that will combine an international conference with
exhibitions, says the arts biz is picking up after a slow summer.
On Campus
Joseph Gross Gallery, in the UA Fine Arts complex at Speedway
Boulevard and Park Avenue. 626-4215; web.cfa.arizona.edu/galleries. Open
noon to 4 p.m. only. There’s no reception, but there is a show of
inventive political art, Confronting the Capitalist Crisis, on
view. Crafted by member artists in Justseeds, a “radical art
cooperative” that’s in cities around the country, the prints cover
issues from border deaths and immigration to the racial politics of
incarceration.
Louis Carlos Bernal Gallery, Pima Community College West
Center for the Arts, 2202 W. Anklam Road. 206-6942; pima.edu/cfa. Reception 4 to 7 p.m.
Distilled Matter: Conte, Oil, Enamel, Thread exhibits enamel art
by Charity Hall, tapestry/thread works by Kay Lawrence and paintings by
Matthias Düwel.
The German-born Düwel paints works crowded with the clutter of
a mass-consumption-mad society. He’s the lead art faculty member at
Pima’s northwest campus, and he lives in Rancho Linda Vista, the art
community started by Bruce McGrew, Joy Fox and others in the 1960s.
Düwel paints his abstractions in the same studio space where the
late McGrew once brought the desert light to life.
This article appears in Oct 1-7, 2009.