The art show must go on, so SPSCC will put its Juror’s Invitational on social media

How is South Puget Sound Community College keeping its Juror’s Invitational exhibition on schedule when the college is closed and people have been ordered to stay home?

It’s using social media. The third annual invitational is the first local show to be produced entirely online.

Gallery coordinator Sean Barnes hasn’t even seen the featured pieces created by a half-dozen Olympia artists who won awards at last year’s Southwest Regional Juried Exhibition.

He’ll be using photos, artist’s statements and perhaps some videos made by the artists to share the paintings, prints and sculptures with art lovers in South Sound and beyond.

The exhibition will show off not only the works by Marilyn Frasca, Hart James, Irene Osborn, Jay Shepard, Julia Szten and Gail Ramsey Wharton but also the “healing and adaptable nature of art,” Barnes told The Olympian.

“The works evoke an ever-present desire to connect the land, the mind and the inner reaches of outer space,” he said. The works “explore what it can mean to seek refuge, find one’s seat in the world or bask in the wonder of material investigation.”

Barnes had planned to have the artists bring in their pieces to be hung in the Leonor R. Fuller Gallery on campus and then take photos, make videos of conversations with artists and lead a virtual video tour. But tighter restrictions intended to slow the spread of the coronavirus ruled all of that out, so the exhibition will happen through a series of Facebook and Instagram posts.

“I’ve never put a whole exhibit online,” Barnes said. “My plan is still to post images of the artists’ work highlighting certain pieces and trying to the bring the work into context for the online viewer.”

He’ll begin posting images and details on March 30, the show’s original opening date.

Jay Shepard of Olympia, who makes painted wooden sculptures and three-dimensional wall hangings, is naturally disappointed that his pieces can’t be shown in the gallery.

“When you’re in the presence of art, it talks to you,” he told The Olympian. “It’s about evoking emotion, and the experience of being present with a piece of art is not the same as viewing it on a screen. You don’t get that intimate relationship. … You don’t get the dimensionality. You don’t get to experience the sensuousness of the surfaces.”

That’s true of any piece of art, he said. Yet his pieces, made of turned wood, are particularly rich in texture. For this exhibition, he made wall hangings that depict the moon and the earth, a series of intricately patterned vases called “You Wouldn’t Believe My Dreams Last Night” and an urn painted with a skyscape.

Shepard, who is retired after working for 30 years for the state Department of Ecology, stumbled into working in turned wood years ago when he decided to make a table.

“I was making a table top, and I thought the tabletop needed round legs,” he said. “So I bought a lathe, and I turned the legs, and I thought, ‘This is a lot of fun.’

“I didn’t finish the tabletop,” he said, “and I’ve been turning wood ever since.”

The smoothly sculpted surfaces of Shepard’s pieces are evident in photos, but he and Barnes agreed that something is lost when a viewer’s experience of art is limited to online images.

“In a gallery, you have a physical experience with the work,” Barnes said. “You can smell it. You can move around it; even with two-dimensional images you can look at them from the side. You don’t have that with the virtual experience.”

He suggested those visiting the exhibition on their phones and laptops make a point of pausing with each work and consider zooming in for a closer look.

The three-dimensional pieces will be shown from various angles, he said, and the online format lends itself to going beyond the surface to research the influences and inspirations of the artists.

“Some of the artists reference poets or spiritual leaders in their artists’ statements,” Barnes said. “You can take the statements as recommendations for furthering your own experience.”

Juror’s Invitational

• What: South Puget Sound Community College’s third annual invitational art show features the work of six artists who won awards at last year’s Southwest Regional Juried Exhibition. Due to closures intended to slow the spread of coronavirus COVID-19, the exhibit will happen online only.
• Featured artists: Marilyn Frasca, Hart James, Irene Osborn and Gail Ramsey Wharton, all selected by juror Dawna Holloway, who owns a gallery in Seattle; and Jay Shepard and Julia Szten, who won purchase awards.
• When: March 30-May 1
• Where: facebook.com/SPSCCgallery or instagram.com/spsccgallery
• More information: spscc.edu/gallery

This story was originally published March 26, 2020 at 5:45 AM.