“Coastal Textures” Quarry Cove Art Gallery, Pacifica, September 19 to November 19, 2022

COASTAL TEXTURES is an expression of love and time spent on the ocean coasts. We hope you share in the enjoyment of our connection and protection of the beautiful life on the coast. 

September 19-November 19, 2022

Julie Stock

Artist, teacher, mom

So many days of my childhood were spent enjoying the beautiful beaches on the east coast. I grew up on Long Island, NY.  Mom brought a picnic and a blanket; she read while we played in nature’s beach playground paradise. Dad, a middle school science teacher and outdoor educator, guided us on nature’s discoveries from pipefish to kelp to whelk egg cases, he showed us the different parts of sand under the microscope and the erosion of the dunes mitigated by beach grass or dune fencing.  We observed hermit crabs and watched sand moving in the gentle waves. We camped at the ocean and harvested beach plums. 

I am grateful for this abundant life experience as a child. I moved to California in my twenties, partially lured by the dramatic coasts. I feel fortunate to live in peaceful Pacifica, a place of real beauty on the west edge of the continent. I get a charge from that salty ocean air.  I love cooking, being a mom and all things art, especially ceramics, drawing, printmaking and photography. 

Maggie Menigoz

Artist, student, writer

I am a senior at San Mateo High School. I love all things nature, scuba diving, and photography. I have dived in Southern Florida, Northern California, and Catalina Island. I have gone sailing in Mexico, the Caribbean, Long Island, NY and the San Francisco bay. I love taking pictures of nature, whether it be landscapes, close ups of flowers or small animals, underwater, or interesting patterns and shadows. I intend to major in environmental studies, and hope to be an outdoor educator. A fun fact about me is that I also do figure drawing, metal working, jewelry making, sculpting, and fiber arts.


Jenny Stock

Ocean Educator, wife, mom, part-time mermaid

My childhood on Long Island includes memories of long walks, beach combing, swimming and boogie boarding.  My Dad shared a National Geographic magazine that featured elephant seals and tidepools on the West Coast. I recall thinking, “I will go there, I want to experience that!” Summers on the Long Island Sound and Atlantic Ocean on a friend’s boat visiting coastal towns and islands helped me form a deep attachment and love for salt water.

My career has  centered around helping others form an appreciation of and connection to the ocean. I have worked as a seasonal National Park Service park ranger, environmental educator, marine science instructor and now as an educator/communicator with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, I’ve had opportunities to learn, explore and share the wondrous blue world around us. 

The California coast is like no other. During family trips to the shores, we share the awe of this natural world together. While exploring through remotely operated vehicles in the deep sea, rowing estuaries and bays in my Catalina Wherry or stand up paddle board, snorkeling in shallows and tidepooling, I see the ocean as a giant art show, with different textures, forms and relationships and marvel at the diversity. Next time you're at the coast, complete these sentences:  “I notice… I wonder… it reminds me of…” to see what your observations lead you to!

Reception 

October 15th

2-4pm at Quarry Cove Art Gallery, Pacifica, CA 94044


Textural Abstraction at the Edge of the BUILT WORLD and the NATURAL WORLD.

This year, I got into the Annual 50/50 Show at the Sanchez. I have been working all summer on this project; I've taken thousands of photographs locally and on travels. They will be on exhibit and for sale at the Sanchez Art Center in Pacifica starting August 31, 2018. Link for tickets to the preview which starts at 6pm. Starting at 7:30pm, visitors may purchase the work right off the wall and take it home! The show closes September 23. 

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Earth Matters review of Sanchez Artists' exhibit February 2018

Reflections on artwork from “Earth Matters” Sanchez Art Center                                            January/February 2018

 

 

Seeing Jennifer Alpaugh’s cloud painting upon entering the Sanchez Center East Wing gallery is a refreshing vista, free of pollution (or is it?) Clean air, beautifully painted is an “ahh” moment that we all need to be reminded of as an essential part of our lives. We need the sky, the air, the atmosphere, free of drones, clean oxygen, and to look up from our phones to watch the clouds.

 

Across the gallery, Orcas Island by Ann West feels connected to the Alpaugh piece, now with a peaceful as well as a foreboding feeling. At first Orcas Island looks quiet, gentle; however the left side is darker, while the right is brighter. It is the changing weather, the light and dark, the power and peace of storms and sunny days.

 

“Cypress” by Charlotte Seekamp is a precious treasure, a classically framed sepia photo, like a memory from a keepsake box of an intimate connection. Or, a post-apocalyptic artifact of what was once alive in its natural balanced habitat.

 

Rig Terrell’s piece “Fading Memory” is labeled as a photograph, however it looks like a layered collage/mixed-media piece, scraped and spray painted. There is a presence of light, and several blues. It is mysterious and wonderful; Earth Matters; there is a sacred yin-yang cylindrical form, open and fragile, in the center breathes life and energy, arctic cool and at the same time, the end of days, a sense of the end of the cycle, a fragile balance, soon to dissipate.

 

“Knot the Answer” by Riita Herwitz brings up the questions How? Why? What? Can the dense tangles of entrenched messes, thick layers of war, destruction of the earth, its innocent inhabitants ever be undone, straightened out, brought to order? Riita’s piece says “No.”  A human size column of complicated, heavy, colorless, unapproachable, twisted ropey mess, imposing and powerful, stands in our space, reminding us of the power of decisions, time, the dramatic downside of the interconnectedness of the whole.

 

A conceptual piece by Cynthia Rettig, two oil cans, one black and one white, both vessels for the same material create an opportunity to make connections about resources, energy, race, equal and opposites. There is no gray area here.

 

Alan Firestone’s desperate attempt at a help signal is humorous and fatalistic. A set of eyes is about to be swallowed up by quicksand.  A free postcard to take to remind us of the impending end of the world as we know it.


“Space Junque” by Charles McDevitt is literally that which the title describes. It’s there too, not just here.

 

“Haloorchaea” by Lisa Kairo is a sophisticated, delightful encaustic that draws the viewer into the elements of energy, science, molecules, existence. Repetition of white particles dart across the skin-like background; soft textures of the wax media and the energetic use of repetition and rhythm make this piece a stand-out.

 

At the end of the gallery is a fiber arts map of the Smith River: ”Wild and Free”.  This river is  the last undammed river in California. This is a layered and beautifully textured labor of love by Kimberlie Moutoux. A map in fabric! The river has three paths to the ocean and reminds of the the rich landscape, the blue-green paradise here on earth. One can get lost in the piece, imagining the beauty and adventure of this place. Fly above, float in the heavens, look into a pure vista. Saturated colors, layers of cloth and stitching; translate the flora and waters below.

 

Sheila Gamble Dorn’s kelp basket, tightly woven, lovingly labored from giant bull kelp, sits humbly and forever formed into a utilitarian object. It harkens back to native experiences of the land, specifically the coast, where we are, reminding us to connect with the beauty of our resources, notice the natural color, whimsical and cylindrical quality, once so flexible, now dried to sculpture form. It pretends to be nothing else, no imposter, a pure and direct gift of nature elevated to a pedestal and brought to our attention. No plastic. No part of this artwork was processed in any artificial way; the material for this sculpture was transported by the ocean, not a shipping container or a manufacturing plant. This is the material, the matter, of Earth.

 

“Earth Matters” is an intriguing and beautiful exhibit concerning that topic which desperately requires our attention. It can be overwhelming. While walking this gallery, one can contemplate our collective concerns.  Art can speak, remind us of that which is front and center in our world. The conversation is important. The decisions and attention brought forward from this exhibit can effect some change, small or large...Earth Matters.

 

Julie Stock