By David James
See the gorgeous new group exhibition Pollen Path at Tohono Chul Park, Gardens, Galleries, Bistro, 7366 N. Paseo Del Norte, Tucson, through April 17th. There is a lot to like about this place and this show. Travel + Leisure magazine lists it as one of the top 22 private gardens worldwide, along with Monet’s estate at Giverny, France and the Brooklyn Botanic Garden.
The exhibition summary includes this statement: “The flowering plants of the Sonoran Desert are filled with myriad colors, shapes, textures, and lines; fertile territory for any artist. In combination with the pattern, decoration and unpredictable movement of the desert’s fantastic pollinators another story unfolds. Artists are asked to contribute works of art that focus on the desert’s pollen producers and transporters – in isolation or in concert – in microcosm or macrocosm. The possibilities are endless.”
It’s true. Local artists who took on this challenge are too numerous to mention but I will include a few here. The diversity of approach and mediums make the show a fun and educational experience. Tom Baumgartner’s Offset Lithograph titled Ocotillix Rosario, beautiful and restrained, reads like a scientific diagram, a treatise on the pollen path of the Ocotillo.
I was particularly taken by the delicacy of much of the work in this show. I also found myself returning to the heavy whimsy of Nest by Phil Lichtenhan. His sculptures are built from desert refuse, rods, springs, rusted metal bits, a Robin blue ceramic egg in Nest facilitates contemplation. These pieces had a definite sense of the secret life of desert plants, seen and unseen. Paul Waid shows two small paintings in oil that recall Albert Pinkham Ryder in their emotions and layering. I got a sense of a sort of spiritual longing in this work, like with Ryder a bubbling sort of intensity barely contained by the limits of the picture’s edges.
Jim Waid’s Summer Scent is a powerful entry here and it is worth seeing the show if only to spend some quiet time alone with this painting. Waid, arguably the Dean of Tucson painters these days, has a way with acrylic paint developed over more than 50 years as an artist. So many passages within this painting allude to Spring, flowering, pollinating, that it makes one realize how easy it is to miss this beauty in our everyday lives. We are lucky to have artists to point out to us what many of us in this high-tech world have gotten away from. Actually seeing and then interpreting nature through paint is a bold act. Waid’s work captures a sense of this energy that vibrates all around us, often unnoticed. Waid’s gorgeous pastel drawing Rosy Fingered Dawn appears in the show as well.
Other exhibits currently at Tohono Chul, Laura McKenna’s Undesirables is a timely installation that ostensibly re-examines the 1917 Bisbee Miner’s Strike. It’s hard to miss the point as food for thought in light of the demonization of others in our current political landscape.
Errin Kennedy’s featured artist exhibition in the adjacent space is quietly uplifting. Her work glows with a sort of pictorial shorthand and her broad strokes of pastel and desert inspired color is lovely in a way and is a nice complement to Pollen Path.
See this beautiful space and this great work dear Vail Voice readers. Support artists, make art if you are so inclined, nurture the artist in others. Namaste.
Photo: Jim Waid, Summer Scent, 66 x 50, Acrylic on Canvas
