(Un)wearable Art At Cabrillo

These clothes are wild but they’ll never be seen on even the most eccentric Santa Cruzans. The blouses and dresses are part of a show that uses textiles and clothing to make bold political and social statements. The exhibit entitled “(un)wearable” illustrates vivid expressions of emotion and activism intertwined into stunning textile art.
It’s Fall fashion month in Santa Cruz and artists are displaying their work all over the county. Here at Cabrillo we have a beautiful collaboration of local artist’s work on display in the College Gallery. The three contributing artists of this show are Dawn Marie Forsyth, Richard Elliott and Kathleen Crocetti. Each has their own unique style and message engrained within their pieces.
Dawn Marie Forsyth’s exhibit occupies the back part of the gallery and is hugely dramatic in delivery. She has constructed five separate blouses hanging high from the ceiling. Each blouse has arms that stretch all the way to the floor where they lay, folded, curled or draped. The blouses are representative of unwound straight jackets to go with Forsyth’s central theme of “expressing the beauty of our struggles.” She explains that her work illustrates the “creepy seductive,” and the “sensual sculptural” aspect of the relationship between art and life.
Each blouse is created using different fabrics such as wool, taffeta, velvet, silk, spandex, and nylon and then sewn with silk and cotton thread. Each fabric is a representation of different human struggles. Her physical exhibit is accompanied by a video in black and white entitled “My Skin II,” which shows a woman in a straight jacket struggling to escape its confines. The pieces compliment one another, and follow her main theme of expressing “the triumph of the human spirit.”
Richard Elliott works with media ranging from digitally printed and hand manipulated polyester fabric to rusted steel transfers on fabric-mounted canvas. He is fascinated and inspired by scientific magnification. His pieces are entitled “Micro/Macro,” “Hidden Networks,” “Subcutaneous Micro Colony,” and “Human/Nature.” Science geeks and artists converge! Elliott illustrates his appreciation for art and science.
Elliott’s pieces are both two-dimensional wall pieces and three-dimensional forms. He layers these 3-D forms with materials such as Plexiglass, transparencies, fabrics and translucent tracing papers. Elliott’s major focus “lies in rather mundane, unnoticed or unseen patterns.” He puzzles at such natural phenomena as fingerprints and hair growth patterns. The “playful shapes and language of chromosomes, DNA, microscopic cellular and molecular structures” inspire him.
Kathleen Crocetti works with media such as steel, newsprint, cotton, satin, dog tags, flags and origami. Crocetti uses the inside labels of Gap, Eddie Bauer ad Old Navy clothes to invent new party dress designs. Her main purpose in these pieces is to point out the ridiculousness of “label status” as she juxtaposes inexpensive labels to accent collars and hems of presumably expensive party dresses.
In her more politically infused pieces, Crocetti illustrates the idea of “wear[ing] our grief,” a practice that was abandoned after World War II. She hopes to inspire a “ripple effect of compassion and outrage” to replace the current “ripple effect of insensitivity and complacency.” Her politically infused pieces are entitled “Posthumous Citizenship,” “Coalition of the Willing,” and “War Bride.”
This show is located in the Cabrillo College Gallery and is available for viewing Monday through Friday, 9 am to 4 pm and Monday and Tuesday evenings from 7 pm to 9 pm. The show will run through the third of October.