I'm pleased to announce the opening of a collaborative exhibition titled Vanished: A Chronicle of Loss and Discovery Across Half a Million Years at the Harold J. Miossi Art Gallery at Cuesta College in San Luis Obispo, California.
It opens on Thursday, January 19, and will run until February 16. Here's the show postcard: Download Vanished Postcard 5 x 7
Opening Reception and artist panel:
January 19 • 12pm, student reception January 19 • 4–7pm, panel at 5:30pm
It's a project I've been working on since 2009 with Heather Altfeld, Oliver Hutton, Troy Jollimore, Sheri Simons, and Rachel Teasdale. We been investigating four vanished icons including Chico's famous Hooker Oak, Ishi - "the last Yahi", a mammoth's molar, and a disappeared stratus volcano. They're all things that are gone, but are connected in interesting and sometimes unexpected ways.
Their connections, and the dimensions of space and time are explored through the things we've made, including poems, essays, photographs, sculptures, and books. Here are some highlights of the physical parameters of the show.
Heaviest object: a giant hand made book (about 60 pounds) about the Hooker Oak. When open it is over seven feet wide - so big that it required a custom viewing table.
Tallest object: Cross section drawings of a mammoth's skeleton (15 feet high!) drawn with charcoal from a burned remnant of the Hooker Oak.
Smallest object: A picture of a little girl in front of the Hooker Oak in 1900 that's so small it requires a magnifying glass to view.
Most whimsical: A tiny book of collected drawings from people who had never seen a mammoth's tooth, but drew one anyway. Many of the drawings have been transformed into actual physical objects!
Most surprising: 1.3 million year old ungulate fossils found while looking for more of the lost mammoth!
Oldest: Ishi, photographed in 1914, standing on 15 million year old basalt in Deer Creek Canyon. The rock is still there.
Biggest calculated number: A book that depicts 48 million individual acorns - the estimated number produced by the Hooker Oak during it's lifetime.
If you're in the area and have a chance to stop in and see the show, I hope you will. This is the first of what I hope will be many exhibitions of the work that is ongoing. The next show is scheduled for October 2017 in Chico.
Byron