It's Back! - Oklahoma Visual Arts Coalition

12
reviews
Dragon Dance
by Ron Fleming.
redwood burl, from the
exhibit Sacred Hybrids at
Living ArtSpace, December
2-23, 2004, Tulsa, OK.
Sacred Hybrids
There is a piece entitled, Nurture or Nature, in the
Sacred Hybrids exhibit at Tulsa’s Living ArtSpace.
The work is a bowl-shaped vessel of manzanita
burl and gourd – beautifully gnarled, organic and
irregular - that holds in its center a cradled shell
from which an egg, born of polished stone, has
emerged. A succession of protective orbs and vessels
- molded by nature, molded by hands – this piece
also holds in its center the essence of a collaborative
exhibition by two Tulsa artists, Ron Fleming and
Linda Stilley. If this title, Nurture or Nature, poses as
a question, then this exhibit sets up a compelling
dialogue between the two. And, if this title is the
answer to a question, then it’s easy to accept its
harmonious resolution.
Vessels and bowls, urns and jars metamorphose
into womb-like forms, alternately protective and
vulnerable, inviting you to witness the birth and
decay of nature. An intriguing combination of
bio-morphic and geometric designs, natural and
mannered surfaces, this collection reveals the
individual style of each artist, but resolves itself best
in the works which join the two most evocatively;
these are the “sacred hybrids.”
Ron Fleming’s turned-wood sculptures are texturally
diverse and expressive. There are the simple vessels,
with geometric patterns, combining smooth and
jagged edges, like Pyramidal Vessel, made of spalted
(a process of rotting the wood to create a pattern)
by Rhonda S. Davis
hackberry. Other works are composed of more
elaborate, complex open and closed forms, playing
off outer and inner light patterns. Serpico, a small
vessel, retains the natural irregularities and openings
of buckeye burl, allowing the light to shine through
circular openings, repeating the cast light shapes from
its exposed interior. Open and closed forms take a
most ornate turn in Dragon Dance, made of redwood
burl and mannered into fluid, leaf-like spirals.
The hand of Linda Stilley becomes evident in the
adornment of many of the works present, not just
riding upon their surface, but penetrating into
their content and three-dimensionality. Primarily a
painter who has also worked in clay, Stilley appears
to slip effortlessly into a collective consciousness
with Fleming, elaborating on the integration of the
tactile and spiritual by using opaque and translucent
acrylic washes and the introduction of fetishes in
the form of extraneous objects, such as beads and
feathers. Time Frame incorporates hackberry, acrylic,
leather, copper, stone and bone into a vessel. The
repetition and subsequent patterns composed of
these ornate features suggests musical rhythm,
with perhaps ritualistic associations. At times,
Stilley vacillates between suggestively unrestrained
brushwork and the insistence of order, as she
complements the forms.
Method and content are tightly woven in this
exhibit. Naturally evolving and deteriorating
wood, suggestive of transition and the passage of
time, crosses paths with the touch of the artists’
hands - gentle hands, playing off the stage of life
of the material itself and intent on preserving its
inherent beauty, but firm and molding hands as
well. Metamorphosis rests in three pieces, made of
sycamore, acrylics, hackberry, walnut and cocobolo.
Like Nurture or Nature, it addresses the core of our
existence, as it joins man and environment through
the birth of one from the other. Smooth egg shapes
that have left behind their broken shells, jagged
from the break or trauma of birth, serve as symbolic
reminders of both life’s protection and destruction.
There is an implied tenderness toward the natural
condition of the woods and materials in this
collection – a respect for their innate qualities. There
is the mark of the artist as well, searching for and
determining his or her creative, but respectful role.
Fleming and Stilley found a good match with each
other for their respective aesthetics when they joined
forces here, establishing a dynamic not unlike the
one which exists in the play of the concepts of nature
and nurture they address. It’s a dynamic operating
on many levels, including one which reminds us of a
shared passage of time with nature’s resources, where
we recognize and find universal concepts of beauty.