APTOS—Cabrillo College’s Fall 2019 semester begins Monday, and with it comes the school’s first art exhibition of the school year.
Cabrillo Gallery will open “Time Untethered: Creative Life After Cabrillo,” which features the work of retired Cabrillo College Art Studio and Art Photography faculty.
Seven artists’ works are featured: Bonnie Britton, Martha Casanave, Terry Hogan, SJ Hoisington, Ted Orland, Margitta Dietrick Welsh and Rose Sellery.
Current Cabrillo Gallery Director Beverly Rayner said the gallery has done similar shows in the past, but not for a long while—and not in this capacity.
“It was time,” Rayner said. “We now have mostly adjunct instructors at Cabrillo… so this time around we’ll be showing works from both adjunct and full timers.”
The exhibit spotlights the artists’ personal practice since retirement—and celebrates the creative freedom many instructors feel after years of time constraints.
“There is definitely a sense of freedom [after retirement],” Rayner said, “but also a loss of structure. It’s different for everyone.”
Various mediums, from oil painting to pastel, textiles to experimental photography, are represented in the exhibition. Rayner singled out the work of Sellery, a former Cabrillo Gallery Program Coordinator. Sellery crafts intricate garments from a number of materials.
This piece, created by former Cabrillo Gallery Program Coordinator Rose Sellery, will be on display starting Monday. (Contributed)
Hoisington, who retired from Cabrillo this year after teaching in the photography department for 22 years, was at the gallery Wednesday evening installing her multi-media entry, “Under One Roof,” which is made up of numerous house-shaped pieces, each created with a different artistic process.
“This started as a way to represent the home as we know it,” Hoisington explained. “And then I started asking myself, ‘What does a home contain?’ It’s endless now; we are connected to the rest of the world… through television, the internet. Home means something so different.”
A series of pieces by artist SJ Hoisington, entitled “Under One Roof,” were installed at the Cabrillo Gallery Wednesday. (Johanna Miller/The Pajaronian)
Hoisington said she admired people who could balance career and personal practice, nodding to Rayner and current Gallery Program Coordinator Victoria May as examples. But that isn’t the case for everyone, she added.
“When you teach [art], you get to see it, be around it… but you’re often too busy to do your own,” she said. “Retirement… can be really freeing.”
“Time Untethered: Creative Life After Cabrillo” opens Monday and runs through Sept. 20. A free artists’ reception, which includes an artists’ talk and a walkthrough of the exhibit, will be held at the gallery on Sept. 7, 4-6 p.m.
•••
Cabrillo Gallery is located at 6500 Soquel Dr., Aptos in building 1002 (below the library). Hours are Monday-Friday, 9 a.m.-4 p.m., as well as Monday and Tuesday 7-9 p.m. Admission is free. For information visit cabrillo.edu/services/artgallery.
