| Event Description |
In this exhibition combining sculpture, artist books, installation and painting, artists Judith and James Christensen ask themselves: “Where do we store our memories?” Memories live in the corridors of the mind but material things — photos, journal entries, letters, and even grocery lists or an old checkbook — jog the mind and reveal things forgotten. Now we can store away things electronically so the need for the physical memento is vanishing. For Judith, “the interaction of memory, experience, place and language is central…vestiges from the past find their way into my artwork.” ------ Many of Judith Christensen’s works focus on the metaphor of the house as a repository of family memory. Miniature model homes lined with seeds offer refuge for lost moments, even the seeds contain the intimate knowledge of the plant that was and will be. In “Contract for Building a House,” instructions for constructing a house juxtaposed with old photographs of the house and the family become a testament, visible memories of four generations that transformed those walls into a lived-in home. ------ Our personal memories and mementos are one thing, but, as a culture, our collective memory is embedded in the artifacts preserved in museums, either exhibited in display cases or secured in the vault. James Christensen’s sculptures playfully explore this notion. His converted museum crates and his animal sculptures are custom-made symbolic containers of our shared culture. Meticulous vistas painted on cowboy hats suggest remembrances of places visited and also reflect the memory of our lost natural landscapes—the places that ‘Now we can’t forget.’ ----- Judith Christensen is a writer and book artist whose artwork often takes sculptural form. She has taught book arts at Grossmont College, the San Diego Museum of Art, and also at local schools and libraries. Her work has been exhibited widely and she has works in numerous private and public collections including the Athenaeum, Mandeville Special Collections at UCSD and the Jaffe Collection at Florida Atlantic University. ------ James Christensen received his M.F.A. from UCSD and works in the areas of graphic arts, photography, sculpture, painting and construction. His work is held in a number of private collections and has been shown at the San Diego Museum of Art, the University of the Pacific in Seattle, UCSD, the Long Beach Museum of Art and independent galleries throughout California. ------ GALLERY HOURS AND PARKING INFORMATION:
M- T- W- TH 12-4 pm and by appointment. Closed Fridays, weekends and school holidays. ------ PARKING IS FREE ON RECEPTION NIGHT. You may park anywhere in the upper faculty parking area adjacent and across from the flagpole. During regular gallery hours use the visitors’ metered spaces or, from the Marlesta entrance, purchase a $1.00 daily pass from the machine at the information booth to be used only in the student lots. For additional information: www.sdmesa.edu/art-gallery/or call (619) 388-2829.
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