Sculpturesite owner and curator Brigitte Micmacker was invited to jury a show of contemporary sculpture for the Pacific Rim Sculptors Group titled "Sculpture Now" for exhibition at the Peninsula Museum of Art in Burlingame, CA from November 18th, 2018 through January 27, 2019.

Sculptors were asked to present works focusing on their response to serious social or environmental issues challenging our country and planet and resulting in humanitarian crises: industrial pollutants and climate change damage our atmosphere and increase the risks of fires, crop failures, extreme weather, poisoned land and waterways while discarded plastic chokes our oceans and kills already over-fished marine life. Scarce resources lead to strife. Borders close to desperate asylum-seeking refugees and children are torn from their parents.  In these times of unprecedented and rapid change, artists' voices need to be heard more than ever. 

I was asked to jury Sculpture Now, an exhibition of works by selected members of the Pacific Rim Sculptors Group, during one of the most intense and divisive US election season (the 2018 Mid-terms). The show was presented at the Peninsula Museum of Art, in Northern California from November 18th, 2018 to January 27th, 2019. The show asked sculptors to address pressing social or environmental issues with which we are confronted today. I had the honor and the pleasure of jurying 26 artists into this show from a rich array of works spanning many approaches to the show’s concept.

Based on the success of the exhibition, we decided to present most of the works in this exclusive online exhibition on Sculpturesite.com. Below are the juror’s notes. 

On first review, many works exploded with anger and despair, not surprisingly, since our region is known for its liberal left leaning and the last two years have not been kind to liberals. It was important to show these intense feelings, but also to end up with an aesthetically pleasing experience. We are mostly well informed, and so didactic discourses through artwork are not what is most needed today. I felt that we needed humor, irony, subtlety and hope. 

There is humor on display: Judy Miller’s “Liberty” shows the famous statue slumped in despair and we assume she is crying in her fingers, while Jerry Barrish’s “Seventh Sin” shows an obese Statue of Liberty gorging on a hamburger. 

David Trousdale’s sardonic, yet whimsical “Hurricane Preparedness Drill”, a ceramic human head on a single foot, both blue with large red polka dots and badly fitted with a ducky swim ring, is stepping on brown muck. He reminds us of a climate change denier suddenly encountering a polluted beach. He’ll keep on swimming until he cannot.

These artists have plenty more to say about today’s environmental disasters: Teddy Milder’s “Tailings 2” is a wall installation based on “the horrific beauty of mining tailings”. Our dependence on oil is the subject of Lynne Todaro’s “Tank You”. Extinct animals are mourned in “Day of the Dead Altar for the Extinct Ones” by Virginia Stearns. And “Thank you” by Ruth Tabancay provides a ray of hope in the plastic garbage crisis, with her swarms of hand-embroidered green creatures digesting a plastic bag. Thank you, Ruth, for making us smile!

Fire is mesmerizing and destructive. It is at once a powerful ally and an enemy of humans. “After the Inferno: Magnolia” by Catherine Daley and Syd Dunton’s “Left Standing” are both beautiful reminders. 

Several participants are immigrants or a first generation child of immigrants. Their exposure to different cultural and physical environments has given them a definite voice on the subject of this show. Interestingly, as the jurying was blind, this fact was discovered later. 

Kristin Lindseth explores the theme of refugees’ hardships in Aleppo, a bronze sculpture that shows a black root encircling a beige dwelling that appears to be built from mud, and in “Caught between Worlds”, where a flimsy boat is rocked by gnarly roots. In her statement, Lindseth reminds us that “only 3% of refugees ever become permanently  relocated”. They are “unable to return to their roots, having lost their means of livelihood and because of the danger.”

The pain and destruction wielded on people by addictions cannot be better illustrated than by “39 Weeks of Distorted Reality”, the eerily beautiful wall installation by Briona Hendren. 39 glass vials, still colored by the chemicals they held, have been deformed to slump over the edge of a long shelf to show 39 weeks of intense suffering and aborted possibilities. 

Our times of instant messaging sees its share of miscommunication. In the humorous “LIT (Lost in Translation)”, Eric Saint Georges opposes two bronze figures, one with a book for a head and the other with a cellular phone instead. The inclusion of a cane for the book person adds a generational divide aspect. 

In “Chaos”, a porcelain and wood veneer ship shape piled high with dozens of white empty chairs, Maru Hoeber explores the outcome of profound misunderstandings: no one is left, no one wins. 

Jeff Key’s “Vessel #61-Heed” invites us to listen when we disagree with those who don’t share our political beliefs. He asks: “Do we alienate them and try to suppress their opinions, or do we try to engage them in a civil debate with the goal of understanding how and why they derived their beliefs?” 

The materials used span metal, ceramic, wood, resin, fabric, glass, photos, thread, acrylics, but of course the subject matter invited the use of recycled materials, such as plastics and charred wood.

Jerry Barrish’s “We Are Family” shows a family of four made from found, mostly black plastic. Barrish’s piece is about “keeping families together”, he says, and it is a powerful statement. I couldn’t help but also remember how many people in the world loved seeing the Obama family on election night in 2008 –and how many people hated that same sight.

Like these artists, I have been processing overwhelming feelings of anger and frustration over the political situation and an immense sadness at the deepening divides between factions. The absurd lies that lead to tragic consequences. The battles that seemed won for good and that have to be fought all over again. Delving deeply into the artistic outcome from a group of thoughtful sculptors during this jurying process supplied a sort of catharsis. I was delighted that 20 women and 6 men, guessing from the first names, (a most unusual unbalance in the art world) shared their deepest fears and hope with us. 

I hope that this exhibition will serve a similar function to its visitors. 

Brigitte Micmacker 

Gallerist, Sculpturesite Gallery