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Open Juried Show provides an ocean of emotions

Posted on November 6th, 2024 By: Carolyn Bick

This year’s Peninsula Art League (PAL) Open Juried Show is deceptive. What seems, at first, to be a relatively small exhibition at the Harbor History Museum is actually an explosive, powerful expression of emotion, much of which centers around the central question of place, and the impact of introspection and memory.

Tilt your head, and you could swear that Heather Cornelius’ Undine and Chris Bronstad’s Noble Companion fix you with the same reflected eyes. Both ask many different questions that, ultimately, demand answers that stem from the same core truth: Why do we humans assume other animals are our companions? What is the face of beauty that draws us onward?

From left to right, Bryan Sabol’s ‘Remnant,’ Tony Furtado’s ‘Relic,’ Chris Bronstad’s ‘Noble Companion,’ and Heather Cornelius’ ‘Undine.’ Photo by Carolyn Bick. © Carolyn Bick 2024

Just a few steps beyond, the lonesome skeleton of Bryan Sabol’s Remnant keeps company with Tony Furtado’s equally mournful Relic. Without mouths, they sing of something old and lost, of futures uncertain and lives woven with regret.

But dwell not upon sorrow only, dear Reader. You can find deep joy, too, and tranquility for the weary mind.

Steve Chan’s three featured woodcut prints — Timberline Lodge, Song of the West, and Coffee Farmers — invite a different kind of reflection. These are memories immersed in sweet, springtime grass and floating snowflakes. They are the kind of memories that flicker through a mind on the edge of sleep, perhaps to be remembered.

Raising the bar

Bella Kim’s Joy — the word itself — bubblingly speaks in a smiling sprawl of fibres and recycled materials. It is these materials that give the piece its loud, bright waterfall of stories, with each circle of fabric having lived an entire life, before becoming part of the textile tumult that gleefully cascades down the wall to land at the viewer’s feet.

Bella Kim’s ‘Joy.’ Photo by Carolyn Bick. © Carolyn Bick 2024

And it’s this show, said artist Josi Callan — show organizer and PAL board member — that has raised the bar for future Open Juried Shows.

“I used to say this to the team when I was running museums,” Callan said. “‘When you raise a bar, you have to keep that bar.’ If you want to keep that, everybody has to understand the bar has been raised. And so I think that this exhibition has certainly been raised. There’s no question.”

This year’s show opened in early October and marks PAL’s 22nd annual exhibition. Callan brought in veteran art museum curator Cathy Kimball, who lives outside Gig Harbor, to decide which pieces would be included in the show.

A fresh set of eyes

“I have to say that, in a way, it was probably to my advantage when I juried this show to PAL, because it was a blind jurying to me,” Kimball said. “Had [the juror] been somebody local, had it been somebody who’s in the art scene, and knows a bunch of these people, it probably would have been a very different show. But, honestly, I didn’t know if I was eliminating a presumed art star or elevating somebody that came from nowhere.”

Kelly Christel’s ‘Lady Fleur.’ Photo by Carolyn Bick. © Carolyn Bick 2024

Kimball said she sorted through more than 300 pieces, whittling down the show to just 95 works of art in an array of mediums. Though Kimball “can’t count” the number of shows she has juried by now, it’s still not an easy task. Even though Kimball is an art world veteran, she readily admitted that a juried show is subject to a juror’s personal tastes — hers included.

“It’s subjective. There’s just no way around it,” Kimball said. “There’s no set formula. It’s what I know. It’s my experience, it’s what I’ve seen. It’s what I understand about techniques and mediums and etcetera — but it also comes down to my taste and that’s the reality of it.”

There was no show theme this year, but that doesn’t mean an artist can simply submit anything. It also doesn’t mean that if an artist’s piece isn’t chosen that it’s bad. This goes for any show or contest, not just PAL’s.

“Don’t take it personally. Keep on submitting,” Kimball said. “Make sure your images are good, etc., etc. — and make sure that you are entering competitions where your work is going to resonate.”

The art of being a juror

For instance, as a curator at the San Jose Institute of Contemporary Art in California, Kimball turned down art that wasn’t a fit for the kind of art the museum displayed.

“I did far more cutting-edge, provocative, challenging work,” Kimball recalled. “If they had looked at the website, if they’d come in to see any of my shows, they would have realized that their work was not appropriate for my particular program. Doesn’t mean it’s not good. It just means it’s not part of what I am trying to do here.”

And what Kimball did at the museum, and for this show — arranging a show entirely in her head — is no easy task. For the Open Juried Show, Kimball scrolled through the hundreds of images artists submitted of their work on an online platform called CaFÉ (short for “Call For Entry”).

She could not physically see the pieces ahead of time, much less arrange them in a real-space way to see how they fit together.

“[It was] very hard, and not as process-driven as you might think,” Kimball said thoughtfully. “It does come with a sort of intuition — some kind of little chip in your brain. You’re scrolling through, you can see maybe 12 at a time … and you can’t see them all.”

David Thoutt’s ‘Monochrome Gateway,’ left, and Steve Hammond’s ‘Nomad,’ center. Photo by Carolyn Bick. © Carolyn Bick 2024

‘I’m blind’

And, Kimball said, “there is an exponential decrease in a juror’s ability to look at art, no matter how much passion and love they may have for it. Kimball said that it takes her “many, many, many days” to put together a show like this, “because it’s too overwhelming.”

“You can only sit for so long and do it before you realize, ‘I’ve gotta come back to this, because I am not going to do this next person justice,’” Kimball said. ‘I’m done, I’m blind, I’m finished.’”

This year’s show runs until Nov. 22 at the Harbor History Museum, located at 4121 Harborview Drive. The museum is open from Wednesday through Saturday every week from 11 a.m. – 4 p.m.

Artist Bella Kim’s name in her work, ‘Joy,’ which won Best in Show in this year’s Open Juried Show. Photo by Carolyn Bick. © Carolyn Bick 2024