Galaxies, Mysteries, Soul Mates: Sandstone Gallery at 30

, the oldest on North Laguna’s historic Gallery Row, celebrated 30 years this month since it was first established in 1981 by 10 women from the then-Laguna Beach School of Art (now the ). At a time when men by and large were calling the shots in the art world, the opening of an all-women’s gallery was groundbreaking, and to the surprise of many—not excluding the women’s instructor, Sueo Serisawa, who told them it wouldn’t even make it three months—the gallery is still open in the 21st century, still relevant, and still pushing boundaries.

One of those women, founding artist Marge Chapman—who in her 90s continues making and showing her work with a playful exploration of line, figures and patterns—has remained with Sandstone for the entire three-decade trek.

And she remembers how the gallery started like it was yesterday.

“One of my friends was driving by,” she recalls. “They were all meeting to see if they could do something together. They said, ‘Well, we’re only going to be able to do something with our paintings if we stop putting them under the bed.’ And one of them said, ‘I saw a place with a GALLERY FOR RENT sign on my drive up here.’ So then the two of them went right down and rented this gallery. And they called me that night and told me, ‘You’re in a gallery.’ And I said, ‘I’m not in a gallery. I’m not ready to be in a gallery.’ ‘Well too bad,’ they said, ‘you already are.’”

Over the years, Sandstone evolved as the artists evolved, from a focus on more representational work—landscapes, portraits, floral designs and figures—to collections like those on display through July 4th, collections that further push, bend, and in each of the artist’s own unique approach, reimagine the possibilities of abstraction.

Sandstone also evolved to showcase male artists. Out of the nine resident artists today, there is currently one, Howard Hitchcock, whose bronze sculptures often exaggerate the man-machine relationship/struggle. In Search of Consensus shows a group of men standing on the shoulders of another group, who are standing on another group, who are standing aboard a three-wheeled vehicle of sorts. All the men on top of this odd machine are pointing in different directions. The sheer futility of their disagreement is made all the more obvious—and all the more comical—by the vehicle’s three wheels, all of which are situated on equidistant, 45-degree angles. In other words, the machine has been engineered to rotate in place, voyage nowhere; blow off the steam of man’s endless pursuit of endless pursuits.

The central, sustaining force that keeps Sandstone pulsing with imagination galore is the same magical synergism between artists responsible for its very creation; the energy that made a seemingly unrealistic goal a thing of reality 30 years ago. And the current lineup of artists is a testament to such magic, including Marge Chapman, Jennifer Griffiths, KL Heagen, Anne Moore, Elyse Katz and Lynn Welker (see ). And, for purposes of this review, Sunny Kim’s space-time-light warping Cosmic Dreams, Judy Laschober’s watercolored journeys into Nature’s Mysteries, and the digital glass art of Marjorie Sanders’ Change of Venue.

About 10 years ago, Korean-born Sunny Kim watched Carl Sagan’s Cosmos on DVD, and thus began her fascination with the cosmos.

Much like the universe (or multiverse, depending on which astrophysicist you talk to), the acrylics in her Cosmic Dreams series reveal the process of their own unfolding, from formlessness to the structuring of matter on a galactic scale (or microscopic, depending on the vantage point). In Cosmic Dream 10-XVI, rust-reds and oranges shimmer through a black haze in light-year paced streaks, while remnants of charcoal swirls and Pollack-esque splattered explosions lie intertwined with, and placed into context by, sequences of star clusters, planetary bodies, and potential constellations, ad infinitum. The brighter Cosmic Dream 10-VIII is again like staring through a telescope into Kim’s subconscious impression of the cosmos, teetering between discord and harmony, sporadic drips and geometric forms.

“I am fascinated by the power, energy, speed, and of course, the beauty of the universe.”

In her work, you will find a landscape of emotions on an incomprehensible scale, a kind of galactic perspective, a window into space beyond linear time for your mind to enter, and ideally for your mind to contemplate the vastness of the cosmos, the countless unknowns, and out of that contemplation, make room for a little peace. Her process reflects this intended effect in that she paints instinctually, grasping at images in her mind, until at last a feeling of peace has been rendered from the chaos.

“When it is done, I feel very peaceful,” says Kim, “and that there is no more to do.”

The mysteries of the universe (or multiverse) are brought down to a local level in the Laguna Beach coast-inspired seascapes of Judy Laschober’s Nature’s Mysteries, marking a shift away from some of her more representational watercolors. Recently, Laschober, a guest artist at Sandstone since 2000, has grown “intrigued with the techniques of nonobjective painting, allowing the paint to flow with little restraint, and composing spontaneously without conscious thought.” 

Laguna Sundown is a perfect example of this. Where the ocean meets the shore in the foreground, the curvature of the Earth is exaggerated so that reflections of light, rocks poking through the water’s surface, whitewater and shadows all whirl into a kind of vortex, similar to a fish-eye lens effect, obfuscating the ocean-shore relationship, and by extension, undermining the viewer’s expectations of a coastal watercolor. Instead of being grounded by the comfort of an obvious shoreline, you are wrapped up by the whirling of elements; by some invisible, mysterious torsion-field-like phenomenon.

Really though, the only phenomenon is Laschober’s exploration of the mysterious through the act of painting with watercolors—where “mistakes” not only become a part of the show, but often redefine the rules of the show—simultaneously exercising complete concentration and complete abandon.

“Creating a painting is a fascinating journey into the unknown, a journey inside oneself inspired by the surrounding world,” says Laschober. “A successful painting is not necessarily one that turns out as planned.”

Across from the seascapes, the other half of her exhibit is filled with watercolors of ancient gardens and forests of Japan, where Laschober once lived and studied. Influenced by the muted colors of Hokusai and Hiroshige, each painting is accompanied by a haiku, adding poetic in-roads into the pulsing life of the natural world portrayed in the paintings.

In the following haiku by Basho—accompanying Morning Glories Secure the Gate—flowers overgrow an old fence, inadvertently (or intentionally?) entombing the gate into place, undoing its man-made purpose: 

The morning glories
bloom, securing the gate
in the old fence

Standing between serene Zen Buddhist temples in ancient forests of Japan, and the wild, nonobjective seascapes, the destructive potential of the ocean feels especially poignant given the devastating tsunami back in March.

Marjorie Sanders’ latest work, on the other hand, takes the idea of Zen to a whole new level, for they have no reference point beyond the human imagination, no models or scenery, no camera or lens, not even ink or paint. Just the artist’s imagination and the tools made possible by modern computer software, a digitized stylus, and a graphics tablet. Sanders’ exhibition, Change of Venue, showcases her evolutionary step away from photography and into digital painting.

“I have always gravitated toward the intersection between art and technology,” says Sanders. “Going digital was the most significant catalyst in my evolution as an artist, because it facilitated a shift toward the abstract, opening the door to a vast new world of expressive capabilities.”

Take Dharma, for instance, which appears as a gateway to infinity, or enlightenment, in the form of a silver, reflective orb with a black center. Or is it a long silver tube? Either way, there is a mesmerizing ripple effect between the black center and the outer membrane. After a while of staring at the ripples, the gateway-orb almost appears to take on a rhythmic pulsing of its own, a personality: a life.

Some of her pieces, like Arabesque, are so strikingly vivid they suggest the photorealism of her earlier work, although they are nothing, in essence or process, like each other. Instead of finding the right subject, angle, and light, Sanders now uses filters, fractals, distortions and gradients, “blending and manipulating elements in transparent layers until intriguing patterns emerge.” Instead of developing film, each of Sanders’ pieces are exposed by red, blue, and green lasers onto light-sensitive, metallic papers, then fused between a composite back and a highly refined, cast-acrylic face plate, making each piece of art truly one-of-a-kind.

In her experience, “the digital medium allows open-ended, spontaneous exploration and discovery, with often unexpected results. In that sense, you could say that the process inspires the outcome.”

For the last two years, Sanders has been heavily influenced by the translucent, reflective and sculptural properties of glass. Soul Mates depicts two matching vessels sitting next to each other, their reflections in the black void below. It is a perfect match, and you start to wonder whether the soul mates are the vessels themselves, or the possible couple enjoying whatever is in the vessels—if anything was ever there to begin with. Of course, you, the viewer, can put anything you imagine in the vessels.

“I think of my vessels as containers waiting to be filled. Emptiness, depicted by whiteness (light), implies a condition that will be filled with something in the future, a container suspended within a transitional state.”

Sanders next plans to redefine what digital technology can do to create imagery of the pure imagination. She envisions expanding her art into the 3D arena, combining digital imagery with kiln-formed glass sculpture.

“I intend to start taking classes in the fall,” she says.

And the Sandstone evolution continues …

Sandstone Gallery, 384 N. Coast Hwy., 949-497-6775; www.sandstonegallery.com.