Staff Pick | Monthly Muse September 2021

I think about Charles Rollo Peters standing in front of this mission, waiting for his eyes to adjust as night falls. The delicacy in the light transitions caught my interest—and prompted me to consider how I perceive the world once the sun has set. The mission in Starlit Mission, Carmel is painted just off-center, appearing still and dormant as if it were sleeping in the night. There is an atmospheric density within the painting, that feels like the night is blanketing the canvas. Though it is a nocturne (a painting style that depicts scenes evocative of the night), there is a strong presence of light that allows a revelation of detail in the work. This light warms the aerial perspective, illuminating the stars in the night sky, and the impression of a dirt road.

Though the painting is enveloped in darkness, none of the shadows are in an absolute black tone. The absence of black conjures a warm, human feeling as if the mission is breathing. The night will bring the new day, and life will once again resume within the walls. For me, the painting speaks about transitional time and space—capturing darkness when it is quiet and heavy.

Hiroshi Richard Clark
Graduate Student Assistant Researcher (Collections Department)

Staff Pick | Monthly Muse August 2021

What is the secret in Helen Pashgian’s Blue Secret? My initial response points to the single, radiating, brushstroke-like mark that interrupts the green-blue, curved, rectangular plane hovering between the surface and the wall. This mark, however, poses more questions to me than it answers. Pashgian is an artist increasingly recognized as one of the most influential members of the Light and Space movement. In her practice, the object is not the artwork. In Blue Secret, light is not merely that which illuminates the work, but instead forms its very matter.

The secret of Blue Secret, in my view, is two-fold: the internal illuminated stroke produced through the artist's use of different materials as well as the obscure workings of light itself. Here, rather than simply revealing an image, light is rendered mysterious. It is not only an exterior transmission between the artwork and the viewer, but matter with its own strange corporeality. Blue Secret exposes the materiality of light, toying with its impenetrable and alien logics. For me, the work simultaneously evokes an atmosphere of reflection—the calm, blue, minimal plane and its singular interruption—and a feeling of destabilization. Embodiments of light, like the ghostly mark in Blue Secret, are all around me and form my visual world. Rather than revealing the world to me, perhaps these moments of light hide themselves as I navigate a universe of secrets.

Zachary Korol-Gold
IMCA Graduate Student Assistant Researcher (Curatorial Department)

Staff Pick | Monthly Muse July 2021

Florence Arnold’s Landscape (1959), with its warm purple and brown hues, conveys a continuity between shadow and light, night and day, land and sky. Its geometric shapes resemble temples, radiating a sense of the sublime and infusing the work with a spiritual component. As someone born and raised in Central Europe, I am compelled by Arnold’s desert setting, so unlike anything I knew in my old life, at once evoking and contradicting the myth of the “New World.” What pulls me into this desert landscapes is the feeling of history it inspires, which is at odds with the settler narrative of California as a new and emerging space. It is impossible to look at rocks formed by millions of years of erosion and exposure to the elements and not get a sense of deep time, geological and human.

On a visceral level, the landscape serves as a visual reminder of history. Arnold’s juxtaposition of the ancient and the modern is a new take on an old theme, one she achieves through the abstract breakdown of the landscape into simplified shapes and colors. The painting’s generic title transcends locale, and its ordered and highly aestheticized portrayal of a complex space suggests tensions inherent in the American West.

Sara Černe
Interim Project Analyst and Executive Assistant, IMCA

Staff Pick | Monthly Muse June 2021

A devoted wanderer, I am often compelled to explore just a bit further. What might be discovered around the next turn? My curiosity and wonder draw me to Channel Pickering Townsley’s Bend of the River, 1919.

Invited in, I follow.

A calm, quiet morning, I imagine the slight rustling of leaves, the faint call of a distant meadowlark, and the untamed churning of the river. Gold patches radiate on branch and chaparral, while long, violet tree-shadows slowly form as the Sun begins to burst over the horizon. Intense contrasts of blue and yellow lead to a well-worn, sunlit path that follows the bend. A faraway cottage perches on the bank.

I reluctantly depart the solace of the painting, leaving no footprint, broken twig, or sign of my presence. The scene remains untouched, pristine into perpetuity.

Dora James
Education Coordinator, IMCA

Staff Pick | Monthly Muse April 2021

In the summer of 2020, I began researching the Latinx and Chicanx artists in IMCA’s collection. I had very limited education in Latinx/Chicanx art and art history before embarking on this project. This work has emboldened me to continue to pursue a career in art historical education focusing on the Latinx experience. The transcendent feminine connection in Cosmic Cruise by Ester Hernandez has remained with me since I first saw it—that moment when you notice something and then all of a sudden you see it everywhere. A few months later I randomly bought a book on Chicana spiritual art. To my surprise, Cosmic Cruise was featured, and I was able to gain a deeper insight into this print. The inspiration for the work comes from the artist’s mother being the first woman to drive a car in the small agricultural town where she was raised. The theme of motherhood and feminine resilience, and the month of May in which I am writing this, has made me think of my own mother. This month we celebrate Mother’s Day and I also celebrate my mom’s birthday. She is a woman who also embarked on many “firsts”—the first woman in her family to migrate to the US, the first to drive, and the first to hold a job.

Endria Suarez
Intern and UCI Student Museum Educator, IMCA

Staff Pick | Monthly Muse April 2021

What is it about a sparkling pool on a hot summer day that makes kids want to show off their tricks and water skills to any adult within ear- and eyeshot?

I had a good chuckle the first time I saw D.J. Hall’s Look at Me and read its perfectly fitting title. It brought back summer memories of swimming with my brother and cousins. We constantly shouted, “LOOK AT ME! LOOK AT ME!”, as we jumped, dove, bellyflopped, and splashed in the water. Meanwhile, our parents (sitting in the shade talking about “boring adult stuff”) humored us with quick glances and feigned enthusiasm—while in the same breath reminding us, again, that they didn’t want to get splashed.

My daughter, who is almost three years old, has already discovered the power of the phrase “look at me.” I suspect it will not be long before I am the parent finding myself caught between adult conversations off to the side and my child’s performance right in front of me. She will undoubtedly be just as determined as the girls in Hall’s drawing to capture the full attention of every adult sitting poolside with her best Esther Williams impressions. Hopefully, I won’t get too soaked from being in the splash zone.

Katie Zulueta
Assistant Museum Registrar, IMCA