FARRELL

FREUEN

GIESER

GILMORE

JUNDT ART MUSEUM· GONZAGA UNIVERSITY • SPOKANE, WASHINGTON

JANUARY 20 "APRIL 8, 2006

ROBERT GILMOREKreielsheimer Professor of Art Robert Gilmore is the senior

member of Gonzaga's Art Department. Nonetheless, he possesses

an energy, pluck and passion for painting that one might falsely

believe could only be found within a recent art school graduate

embarking upon a career in art. His enthusiasm for painting can

only be rivaled by his excitement about jazz. Indeed, Gilmore came

of age as an art student when painting and jazz thrived in post-VVW

II America and profoundly changed the modern cultural landscape

at home and abroad. The Abstract Expressionist generation in

I940s and 1950s New York completely transformed the field of painting by exploring and interrogating traditional

definitions of the medium. Although European modernists such as Wassily Kandinsky and Piet Mondrian had

already broached the issue, the American modernists like Jackson Pollock and Willem de Kooning infused non-

representational painting yvith a dynamism and flair considered by many scholars and historians of art as distinctly

American. That dynamism partly derived from a tension between spontaneity and control that Pollock, de Kooning,

and others of their generation embraced. Like abstraction in art, jazz had been born earlier in the twentieth century;

however, the era of bebop in the late I940s and I950s-Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, John Coltrane-took jazz

to a higher, more experimental level that valued improvisation and that tension between spontaneity and control.

Gilmore's oeuvre may be within the same family tree as Abstract Expressionism, but his body of work

represents a notably distinct branch. Indeed, he describes his own style as "abstract realism," meaning that every

form in a painting relates to or is inspired by something else, often something tangible and specific in the world.

Birds, flowers, and feathers, for example, have been the inspiration for the rhythmically flowing shapes that we see

in a number of his paintings. More specifically, in his painting Futurist Manifesto that sense of fluid movement of

form elegantly recalls Umberto Boccioni's 1913 sculpture Unique Forms of Continuity in Space, one of the seminal

works of twentieth-century art. Indeed, Gilmore's homage to the Italian Futurist's fascination with bodies and

objects in motion exhibits a musical sensibility that underlies so many of his paintings, including his Giant Steps,

a direct reference to John Coltrane's 1960 composition of the same name. Granted, there is not a one-to-one

correspondence between jazz music and Gilmore's painting. Nevertheless, they seem to share a modern sensibility

that involves identifying a single concept or form, whether a musical chord or visual motif, and exploring it, delving

into it, figuratively turning it over, without being too excessively concerned where the final outcome might lead.

To riff effectively, however, requires paradoxically substantial training and its own kind of rigor. Gilmore's

paintings are extraordinarily lovely and graceful in tone. Yet their elegance and soothing nature are somewhat

deceptive because underlying them is a rigor and discipline of the paint brush and the mind that only arrive after

many decades of making art, teaching art, and thinking about it. Besides jazz, perhaps also analogous to his paintings

is the dancer. The dancer's body moves on the stage with a grace and fluidity that are only made possible through a

combination of constant focus, discipline, and talent. And we see all three qualities in Gilmore's own body of work.

Educated under the tutelage of Walter Murch and other great teachers at Boston University, Gilmore actually

began his teaching career in Spokane at Fort Wright College in 1964. He joined the faculty at Gonzaga University

in 1968. In 1987 he was appointed the Leo Kreielsheimer Professor of Fine Arts. His work can be found

in private and public collections throughout the U.S.

MARY FARRELLMary Farrell joined the Art Department in 1995 to direct the printmaking program. Yet, the foundation of

Farrell's work, along with the art of printmaking, is the art of drawing. In Peter Steinhart's recent book on why we

draw he asserts that "to draw is to understand what we see" before us. Farrell's drawings and prints consistently

reveal a focused, meditative, and intimate look at the world, particularly the natural world and the world of the body.

Whether her subject isawilting sunflower, a bird's nest, the human hand or figure, Farrell scrutinizes that form with an

intense fervor that expresses itself most explicitly as a dynamism of line. line, of course, defines drawing, and it is the

quality of line in Farrell's work that so many of usadmire and envy. In her art it imbues form with a baroque, lush energy

that is palpable. As we see it with our eyes, we can feel it in our bodies and perhaps for other artists, in their hands.

Within this fantasia, however, there is an economy of line, a definite control and facility, which maintains

a delicate balance between the sense of solid form and the sense of fluid marks on the paper that seem to exist

independently. In other words, one can look at a woodcut like Opposed I and observe how the inked marks on the

print paper collectively register in the mind as hand and wrist; at the same time, one can also perceive and enjoy it as

an abstract study of lines that start and stop, twist and turn, meet and intersect at a myriad number of angles. This

gentle oscillation between abstraction and figuration is not achieved

strictly through line. It is the result of an extremely sensitive and

agile interweaving of color, tone, light and space, in relation to line.

Farrell was educated in Ohio at the Art Academy of _

Cincinnati and the University of Cincinnati, where she earned

her B.F.A. and M.F.A., respectively. She teaches both printmaking

and drawing, and was the subject of solo exhibitions at the

Jundt Art Museum in 1996 and 1999. Five years ago she

was honored with the Scholar of the Year Award here at Gonzaga, and in

2000 received an Artist Trust Fellowship, a highly competitive program

intended to recognize artists in Washington state who have achieved both

artistic and professional excellence. Farrell exhibits widely throughout the

U.S. and the world, with recent group shows in England,China, and Mexico.

GINAFREUENUnlike painters and printmakers, potters (or "clay people" as they're

affectionately called) often exist within two artistic realms-the world of

"craft", which frequently implies functional art, and that of the fine arts. Although the artist Peter Voulkos in

the 1950s ardently questioned and shattered the assumption that clay pieces must have a functional purpose,

the issueof utilitarian versus non-utilitarian art is still visible in the work of contemporary potters. Gina Freuen's

work astutely addresses this issue in a quirky and clever manner. For example, rather than the standard round

and smooth-bodied teapot with spout and neatly curving handle, Freuen creates, through slab construction and

wheel throwing, teapots whose bodies dip and curve at odd angles,sometimes appearing to have cinched waists

where one expects the teapot to be at its widest. Or a handle may be comprised of two branch-like appendages,

one wide and textured and the other willowy and smooth, in which they overlap or one seems to pierce the

other. In other cases,the handle may be a curvy loop, but it seems too compressed for an adult hand to easily

and comfortably grip. Like her vasesand pitchers, Freuen's signature teapots often appear to be composed like

a patchwork quilt, discrete panels assembled together where the points of contact seem visible. Indeed, her

asymmetrical handling of shape and form and collage-style of pottery compel the first-time viewer of her work

to wonder if that teapot really can be used as a vessel for keeping water hot or if that pitcher can securely hold

liquid without leaking. In fact, all of her work is fully functional, or asshe herself hasstated "functional in intent."

Thus, she leaves it to the owner of each piece to decide if it will be put on display or be put to use, or both.

Although largely identified with the world of pottery, Freuen also incorporates two-dimensional

processes into her studio regimen. Indeed, her method for producing her distinct mixed media drawings

parallels her pottery glazing techniques. Just as she applies glazes in subtle layers, often scrubbing away and

then adding more in order to create unusual textures, Freuen creates "layered" drawings that bring together

disparate shapesand objects. With these drawings, forms and objects appear to float across the picture plane

or up and down, and gently jostle against one another. Freuen herself hasstated that they are like "Iayerings of

thought" made visible. This layering, almost dream-like effect derives from her dexterous union of technology

and artistry. Through scanningshe initially combines her own drawings and slide imagesof her pottery or other

objects, often elements from nature like feathers or leaves. She then takes these scanned collage-like images and

erases some sections and overlaps others to create a "ghosting" effect. After printing the images on museum

grade paper, Freuen completes her works on paper with additional graphite marks for creating tone or line.

Like so many contemporary artists, Freuen wears with great verve and expertise a number of professional

hats. Besides teaching the design curriculum at Gonzaga, she free lances as a graphic designer and also cheerfully

serves as the Art Department's computer guru-in-residence. Freuen joined the Art Department in 1997, but has

been active within the local and regional arts community for over thirty years. A Washington native, she created and

ran ArtFest, a spring arts and crafts festival run by the Museum of Arts & Culture and Spokane Art School for its first

10 years, and for the last 23 has been a manager of Inland Crafts, the premiere exhibition and sale of fine crafts in

the Inland Northwest held annually in Spokane. While she continues to serve as one of the key organizers of Inland

Crafts, she maintains an active exhibition schedule for her own ceramics and mixed media, two-dimensional art. Most

recently, her pottery was showcased in agroup exhibition at the Northwest Craft Center in Seattle and in the annual

juried exhibition of the Washington Potters Association. Earlier this year her work was featured in Artisan Northwest

(Tea Time,S Artists. Spring 2005), and the Sun Valley Arts Festival honored her with its Best of Ceramics Award.

TERRY GIESERLong time chair of the Art Department, Professor Terry Gieber has led the ceramics program at Gon-

zaga University since the early I 980s and has perhaps become best known professionally for his unique, soar-

ing Tornado jars. Indeed, nature and weather, the earth, are the basis for all of his work. Like Farrell, he

originates from the Midwest, and it was the topography and weather of his home state of Kansas that initially

exposed him to the brute force and magnificence of nature. Gieber's decision to turn to clay as his means of

artistic expression is not surprising, given his commitment to create work inspired by nature. Clay is elemental,

of the earth, and a culmination of geological pressure and release, decomposition, chemical change, and time.

One can think of clay asan organic expression of time, or rather its passage.

Gieber's clay pieces, like his open-mouthed sagger jars from the Erosion Series or

those in the Southwest Series, often evoke that sense of the passageof time, and per-

haps more intriguingly a past world. In the Erosion Series. for instance, his tall sagger

jars exhibit thick, jagged lines that seem to suggest an ancient pottery vessel that has

been fractured into several pieces, excavated from the earth centuries or millen-

nia later by an archaeologist, and carefully pieced back together by a modern-day

conservator. In the Southwest Series Gieber also creates along a vessel's surface

a distinct network of lines, sometimes zigzag and geometric in shape or wave-like.

Moreover, the line patterns, earth tone palette, and irregular rims of these wide, round piec-

es recall and seem to pay tribute to the Pueblo (Anasazi) pottery of the southwestern United States.

That sense of excavation and restoration in his art parallels Gieber's own work as a ceramic tile restorer

for historic buildings like the Central Library of Los Angeles and Campbell House of the Northwest Museum of Arts

and Culture in Spokane. His tile restoration projects have involved innovative glaze formulas and the development

of experimental techniques for expertly matching new tile pieces to their originals. This contribution to historic

preservation is made possible by Gieber's wizardry with glazes and kiln firing. He constantly experiments with firing

methods, and his most recent creations, including some in this exhibition, involve a wood firing process that allows

the ash of wood to "flash" onto (coat) the clay and become an additional layer of glaze. Greber's achievements as an

artist and teacher have been acknowledged in a number of ways. In 1994 he won Gonzaga's Great Teachers Pro-

gram Award for Distinguished Scholarship. He was in residence at the Archie Bray Foundation in Helena, Montana

for Summer 2002, one of the most highly coveted residencies for ceramicists. The many local Gonzaga alumni who

still orbit around him certainly testify to his gifts as a teacher and supporter of fellow clay people in the local com-

munity. Like his colleagues in the Department he maintains an active exhibition schedule on a regional and national

scale, and most recently in 2004 was included in the Washington Potter's Association retrospective exhibition.

Shalon Parker, PhD.Assistant Professor of Art History, Gonzaga University, Spokane, WA

I Peter Steinhart, The Undressed Art: Why We Draw (Knopf, 2004)

2 The term "sagger" refers to the container, often boxlike, that delicate glazed ware is placed in. The container helps to protect the ware from loose ash

and combustible gasses. With Gieber's sagger [ars they are placed in containers filled with salts and combustible materials which serve an opposite purpose.

Rather than being protected from the ash and flame the pieces are subjected to the direct assault of corrosive materials.

3 Wood firings last a minimum of twelve hours, and can continue for as long as seventy-two. Gieber throws additional wood into the wood kiln when the

temperature reaches 2400 degrees, and the ash from this tossed wood then coats the clay in a glaze-like fashion.

IMAGES: Cover: (top to bottom) Mary Farrell, Opposed I (detail). Woodcut on mulberry paper, 4S" X 30"; Gina Freuen, Feathers and Smoke (detail). Graph-

ite and collage on clay board, IS" X 35"; Terry Giebel', Southwest Series Jar (detail). Sagger fired stoneware, 16"h; Robert Gilmore, Unfinished Symphony (detail),

Oil on canvas, 4S" X 32"

Left panel: Robert Gilmore, Portrait of a Lady Oil on canvas, 39 1/4" X 32 1/4"

Center panel: Mary Farrell, Even the Walls Are Flowing. Pencil on Mylar, 25"X 32"

Right panel: Gina Freuen, Water Vessel. Clay, 16"h

Right fold: Terry Gieber, Jar III. Woodfired stoneware, 30"h

This publication was funded by the Jundt Art Museum's Annual Campaign 2005-2006

© Jundt Art Museum, Gonzaga University, Spokane, WA 99258-000 I