‘Getting’ contemporary art
Durango Arts Center exhibits ‘The Insistence of Memory’

The Durango Arts Center is currently exhibiting “The Insistence of Memory”in the Local Expressions Gallery. The contemporary art show features work by Durango artists Sandra Butler, Debra Greenblatt, Maureen May, Karen Pittman and Jules Masterjohn. The exhibit’s title is a play on Salvador Dali’s surreal painting, “The Persistence of Memory.”/Photo by David Halterman

by Jules Masterjohn

"Hey, the art lady is back,” I heard from the other end of the hallway. How could it be, that after all these months, this woman remembers me? Half a year ago, I met Felicia toward the end of a long day installing a collection of artwork at a hospital in Texas. She was just coming on her graveyard shift in housekeeping. From our first interaction as workers, she, wiping and polishing, and me, measuring and drilling, there seemed to be an understanding between us. Womenfolk working; her in a traditional role as a cleaning woman and me doing, as she termed it, “man’s work.” I think we each recognized a similar perfectionism in each other, as she commented, “You look any harder, girl, and your eyes are gonna get stuck.”

I, too, watched her as she carefully examined the brushed metal elevator doors for smudges, to be sure she had removed all the handprints. Felicia takes her cleaning as seriously as I take my art installing.

Felicia wasn’t the only person to take notice of my return. A number of nurses took the time to tell me how much they enjoy having paintings and photographs in their workplace. “Calming,” “a momentary getaway,” “a reminder of God’s beauty,” were a few of the perceptions offered to me. My gratitude for this work, the relatively straightforward act of placing artists’ work on walls, deepened as I took full stock in the meaningful role that art can play in our environments.

Each person, too, “loved” a different piece. For most, the realistic images like a landscape or portrait of a child, brought the most cheers. The abstract works, based in color, shape and texture drew the most disregard. “Well, it’s not my cup of tea” was the polite southern equivalent for “What the &#$% is that?”

Interestingly enough, I did overhear a remark with a similar sentiment a few weeks ago at the opening reception for the art exhibit, “The Insistence of Memory,” in which my work is included along with four other Durango artists. “I just don’t ‘get’ contemporary art,” came seething from a viewer’s lips. Part confusion and part disdain, neither emotion is an uncommon reaction to art that lacks recognizable subject matter or is made from materials found in everyday life. For some, and in certain environments (like hospitals perhaps), the function of art is to soothe or entertain, and if it doesn’t do its job, derisive comments can follow.

Understandably, if a viewer lacks curiosity when encountering my installation, “Touchstones,” a dozen wire baskets filled with rounded river rocks hanging on the gallery wall, consternation might result. What perplexes me is the undertone of anger that often accompanies such a statement, as if an artist’s goal is to confront and confound by not making an easily digestible image.

Sandra Butler, Debra Greenblatt, Maureen May, Karen Pittman and I have not intended to upset stomachs. Rather, we have aimed to present work that is personal, themed around an idea we found compelling to explore and unusual for the Durango Art Center’s Local Expressions gallery. Site-specific and installation-oriented, selling is not our motivation: engaging the audience and offering our vision is.

Sandra Butler’s found object sculpture, “Can of Worms,” is among the works currently on display at DAC. The show’s only motivation is to engage the audience./Photo by David Halterman

We may have succeeded, at least in a few people’s minds. Sandra Butler was told by an older fellow looking at “Can of Worms,” her large-scale found-object sculpture, “This is the most interesting thing I have ever seen in this gallery.” She was also asked by some of her nonartist friends, “Why would you put so much time into something that no one would put in their living room?”

Here is a well-kept secret about some artworks: they are not made to sell or as interior design items. The truth is that some art is made purely for the artist and her desire to express ideas in a visual form. Seen in a museum-type setting, works of this type can be understood best as interactions with the creative spirit embodied through the artistic process.

“Process over product” could have been our rallying call for this exhibit. Each of us worked, either in conceptualizing or physically making our pieces, since last February when we decided on the title. Even that, “The Insistence of Memory,” is a play on the theme. A take-off from Salvador Dali’s famous painting, “The Persistence of Memory,” a few visitors to the exhibit said they thought the title sounded familiar somehow but couldn’t remember why.

Memory. We engage in it daily, and it is common to us all. We have personal memories, illustrated in Maureen May’s wall-sized self-portrait, “Going There.” She innovatively uses the gallery’s windows as backlighting for her ink on Plexiglass drawings that pictures her asleep above her dream imagery. Debra Greenblatt reminds us, with her ceiling installation “Crossties,” that memory is also collective. Looking up we see photos of the World Trade Center Towers as part of the Manhattan skyline as well as the Kennedys in their motorcade on that fateful day in 1963. Karen Pittman takes a more cool approach to the theme, offering “Untitled” and “Work in Progress” – nonobjective, monochromatic blue oil paintings on unstretched canvas that look like they could be depictions of the essence of memory itself.

Hospital. Gallery. Living room. Different art for different purposes. Go figure… . •

“The Insistence of Memory” is on display at the Durango Arts Center through Sept. 26.