Uncultivated: Sarah Alexander and Jim Banks
Core artists Jim Banks and Sarah Alexander’s exhibition, Uncultivated, runs through Sunday, October 24, 2021. Below the artists talk a bit about the work on exhibit.
Sarah Alexander
Most artists would relish the idea of a year and a half of solitude. We crave time alone, time in our studios. Instead of gaining glorious studio time, I was isolated from my children, forbidden from visiting my aging parents (with whom every moment lost is a tragedy). My father was hospitalized twice with non-Covid health emergencies, and I was helplessly worrying about my mom going through that alone. And I had to learn about virtual teaching overnight. Just existing was exhausting.
The work that I created for this exhibit happened after a period of artists block that lasted for much of my time in isolation. I couldn’t connect to anything, life was full of uncertainty, paralyzing. I began to compile symbols of the people in my life that I was separated from. I grew passionflowers to honor my mother (she used to bring them to me every spring), I painted blueberries for my daughter, who was no longer a plane trip away. I found solace in nature taking long walks with my husband and digging in my unruly garden.
If I can find a positive in all of this, it is that like everyone else, I began to examine what I held dear, what was truly precious to me, my family, friends, and connections to people.
I decided to use precious, and semi-precious materials in my work to draw and paint these shrines of longing. I used watercolor paints made with crushed gemstones, Malachite, Zoisite, Bloodstone, etc. I also used gold leaf for accents. My garden, botanical imagery, and bits of nature stumbled upon on my walks became metaphors for my thoughts. Slowly I was unlocking my artists block and releasing my wild and unruly imagination.
Late to the Party, Watercolor and Ink on Paper, 27 x 34.5 inches
The last thing I made for this exhibit was a beacon of hope. Two wing-like grassy/feathery forms cold hammered and welded to form a wing-like shape inspired by an owl I saw in North Carolina in my first trip to see my daughter after a long absence. It was sitting up in a tree in her yard watching us walk towards the house. We had been looking for owls, with no luck, and lo and behold, there it was welcoming us home.
Night Owl, Steel, 102 x 24 x 10 inches
Jim Banks
I’d been a math-psych major at UCLA before transferring to Bard College in my junior year. At Bard, I was intending to narrow my studies to the psychology of art. Strategically I became an art major to better understand the mind of the artist. I knew nothing about art, so by default I sought painting classes. However, since I was a week delayed in arriving at Bard for the semester, all the painting classes were full. So I became a sculptor major because there was space available in the beginning sculpture class. Since that time, I’ve done both.
Iced, Gouache on board, 18 x 24 inches
I don’t think much about what my work is about. Left brain analysis doesn’t really work for me in that regard. I am inspired by weeds (obsession) and experimenting with a variety of materials. Somehow the work I do always looks like my work. That’s the short and flip answer. There is, of course, more to the story. Probably much more than I am aware of.
Cambrian Explosion, Mixed-media Installation, Size Varies