Art Show At Marin Civic Center Highlights MAC Artists

Art is alive and well down at the Marin Civic Center.  The Marin Arts Council (MAC) is sponsoring a Members' Exhibit and you'll find watercolors, photography, mixed media, oils, sculpture and jewelry.  Note to budding art collectors; many of the works are marked for sale.

Ellen Campbell, Director of Exhibits, tells us all MAC members (the organization has about 1,000) are invited to submit one work to exhibit in the annual show.  About 80 chose to participate in the Civic Center show.

We dropped by the exhibit and saw strikingly original- some beautiful, some strange- and visually compelling works.  Although the art is contemporary, many of them pay homage to impressionism, and one exquisite still-life looked exactly like something you'd find in the mid-19th century. 

(click images to enlarge)

One of our favorite pieces was the hauntingly beautiful Barn At Papa's Taverna, an oil by Carol Smith Myer. The sober subject, a single structure near a tree, fairly bursts with intensely warm tones of reds and oranges. 

There is a fair amount of photography in the exhibit but one interesting work featured a photograph printed on canvas.  Artist Emily Riddell's technique gave her photo, Brigadoon, a texture that softened the image but did not render it out of focus.  Another photograph, Bling by Geraldine GaNun Owens couldn't have been more different.  Most of the print is black and white except for the highly colorized flaming red high heeled shoes.

Bug lovers would appreciate Lucy Arnold's Amazon Insects, a highly detailed and color-saturated watercolor painting that depicted very realistic looking butterflies, insects and bugs.

One whimsical mixed-media piece, Wish You Were Here by Roz Ritter, appeared to use old postcards from NYC and Hollywood.  Ritter embellished the postcards with paint, stitching and cut-outs and it created an interesting dichotomy; postcards are public, postcards are personal.

In Guns We Trust by Susan Doyle, caught our eye.  Doyle used bullet shells wrapped with red, white and blue thread to create her version of an American flag.  The small, but powerful piece communicated an unambiguous message.

Doug Herr's ethereally beautiful oil on painted panel, Adding Ambrosia At the Eternal Spring, is a highly detailed fantasy that- unlike the bullet flag- leaves much open to interpretation.  The painting is sprinkled with ferns, waterfalls, minarets and fairy-like figures that appear to be floating on a cloud in the night sky.  Or maybe not.  The intensely saturated cobalt blue sky contrasts with the pale, almost translucent body of the painting giving one the impression of both solidity and light. 

The exhibit has enough variation to please practically anyone from children to their grandparents.  In addition to the Marin Civic Center, MAC has revolving exhibits at Marin Community Foundation Offices and the Marin Center Redwood Foyer. 

Here's our MoreMarin photo album showing more of the exhibit.

• The Members' Exhibit is showing through February 26th and it's free. 

• Marin Civic Center Galleries on the 1st and 3rd floors. 

• Hours are 9a to 5p, Monday through Friday

Comments

[Cathleen Guerrini]

Thank you for this lovely treatise on the MAC exhibit. I am very pleased to be a MAC member and to have been able to show at this particular exhibit. Good art, good company and a beautiful venue to showcase the members' artwork each year is a good thing indeed. Keep up the good work MAC so we artists can continue to support you in return.