Medical Spa LaCost - HIPFiSHmonthly

KALA@HIPFiSHmonthly
presents
2nd Saturday Art Walk
Agnes Field • K.A Hughes • Brenda Harper
KALA@HIPFiSHmonthly presents
three local artists in conjunction
with Astoria 2nd Saturday Art
Walk, Saturday, August 13, 5pm –
9pm. Paintings and Mixed Media by
Rebecca Rubens, aka Agnes Field, K.
A. Hughes - Paintings on Mixed Media
and Brenda Harper – Video Installation.
The ground floor space of the
HIPFiSH production office, housed in
the beautifully preserved storefront at
1017 Marine Drive, a part of the historic
Occident Building, joyfully hosts
it’s second exhibit.
Visual Arts Curator of the space is
Rebecca Rubens – who often signs her
paintings and writes under the non de
plume, Agnes Field, a tribute to her deceased
grandmother, a Quinalt Indian
Tribes member. KALA this month was
also a stop on the first Astoria Artist
Summer Studio Tours, hosting the
studio work of Rubens and Hughes.
The two artist exhibits will continue
through August.
Rebecca Rubens is a native Astorian
who graduated from the New York
University graduate art program and
has lived and shown art in Portland
(Chambers & Pullium Deffenbaugh),
New York and Europe. She studied art
at Pacific Northwest College of Art, the
School of Visual Arts in New York, and
frescos and art history at SACI in Florence
and Venice, Italy. Her studio is
in the Lewis & Clark area on Shweeash
Bamboo Farm. She is the Founder of
Astoria Visual Arts, a non-profit arts
organization, and has been affiliated
Cabell Tice + LION CO •
w/Morgan Laurence + Gatsby
Sunday, August 14, 8pm, Doors opens 7:30
Daniel, Cabell and Travis are LION CO
with numerous non-profit arts projects
in the region throughout the years.
The AVA Open Studio Show (July
30-31) honored Ruben’s father’s 85th
birthday on July 30th. Nemo, an elder
in the Chinook Tribe belongs to an era
straddled between lost tradition and
new found meaning in the practice
of forgotten culture. Some of the
work reflects the melding of tradition
with contemporary issues--traditional
iconography combined with recycled
fragments of cans from Fort George
Brewery, and reinterpretation of
traditional practices, such as the large
cedar panels found in native Long
Houses.
The new paintings in the show are
a continuation of work on “fresco-like”
panels using mixed media and collage.
Employing a light touch over layered
paint and textural material, hopefully
achieves the look of aged frescos with
more airy freshness.
K.A. Hughes, having studied art and
graphic design, still considers herself a
self-taught painter/artist. Says Hughes,
“‘ART’ in all its variant forms presides
over my life; painting or two-dimensional
art has been a part of my life for
25+ years — my favorite genres being
Art Brut, Visionary Art and a little Pop
Art thrown in for good measure.
Hughes’ recent collection of paintings
on canvas and board portray
nuance of fantasy. Rich royal color
and shimmer are playfully majestic,
emotive, as shapes and images lead to
the unknown. The crown, a symbol of
royalty and reverence throughout millennia
appears in each work as a part
of what the artist herself reveres – in
this case, the feline. Hughes’ work appears
in Hipfish on a monthly basis as
the illustrated mascot, named Frowny
Cat, in Elia Seely’s column Foodlove.
Unique to the scene on the coast,
artist Brenda Harper offers Video
Installation. Harper has exhibited
work at PICA, the Portland Institute
for Contemporary Art, Astoria Visual
Arts gallery, and the 12 x 16 gallery in
Portland, Oregon.
While sun is a hopeful for the Saturday
Artwalk, and multi-celebrations
throughout the city of Astoria, Harpers
installation will be isolated in a viewing
station, replete with couch and
blackout curtains. Three videos run
in a loop, the approximate length of
10 minutes, each capturing a salient
feature that compels the viewer to
watch again. Harper will also have stills
available for sale.
‘Look in the Air’ is a slightly
confusing and faux conversation and
portrayal of office speculations. Next,
is ‘Sculpture Yard’, a recording of an
industrial waterfront in Portland, Ore;
with it’s denseness of water, rock, and
exploration of an empty and mysterious
place on a late Sunday afternoon.
Then is ‘Undiluted Bedmart’, set in a
7x 5 wooden and cement domestic
structure, it shows the man who lives
there as he completes a simple chore.
A vintage storefront space offers
possibility. Artists have long gathered
to these spaces in sections of cities
that have become obsolete – such as
Local indie-folk trio LION CO comes back
to Astoria after a mini-tour of Northwest venues.
The band marks the first music ensemble on the
stage at KALA, inaugurating sonic proportions of
the storefront space. Cabell Tice and LION CO hail
from the halls of Astoria High, where they first met
and played together in band class. (circa 2009)
Frontman Tice, has been crafting his tunes since
he was a kid in eighth grade. He gradually progressed
to performing and then joining forces with
his buds. Its refreshing to know that school band
experiences in the hometown of Astoria fosters
students inspired to make the connective leap into
self-expression.
LION CO has a 6 song EP available on
bandcamp.com, recorded by local guitar wizard
Manasseh Israel. The recording quality is good,
and allows you to hear the passionate vocal quality
that Cabell Tice can let flow. As a youth Tice was
listening to the Beatles, Beach Boys and Elvis, “in
the car,” all master vocal stand-outs in the history
New York’s SOHO district in the 60’s,
of which by the 90’s had become
overtly commercialized and condominiumized
– leaving a lot of artists to
head for Brooklyn. That was in a day,
when the working class was just beginning
to shine. Today, as we ponder the
gap between the wealth of America’s
corporate lords and the rest of the declining
99% of us, it is a sort of forced
reversed serfdom that may indeed
save the farm. So just when you think
you have finally thrown the baby out
with the bath water, new inspiration
takes you up in its arms. KALA, named
for the Finnish word for fish, opens its
doors to new vision.
Ruben’s as curator says this, “Coordinating
art exhibits is a wonderful
experience when you are able to work
with an organization and individuals
who support the vision, without too
much control. I always learn a great
deal about the artist and the work, and
consequently that informs all my experience
about art. Art is elusive, but all
around us everyday, in ordinary experience
and objects. The artist filters a
massive amount of sensory information
and tells us about who we are, where
we are, and where we might be going.
I am looking for those who see or feel
the unexpected, occasionally something
that is enchanted. It could be an
object, but often is an experience that
is trapped in the moment waiting for
extraordinary perspective to set it free.”
September Exhibition at KALA will
feature Portland artists Cynthia Lahti
and Justin L’Amie.
of rock and pop, and inspiring him to probably sing
along.
While the EP is TICE alone, the trio performs his
tunes, and they are getting prepared to record a
new set of tunes for a new EP. “We’re playing
music we love and have been fortunate enough
to have toured quite a bit this year. We’d like to
continue on the same path. Playing bigger stages
with bigger bands, as we progress and grow, is a
definite goal of ours too.”
A unique combination, sax in an indie-folk band.
The band MORPHINE from the 90’s was more in
the alt rock genre, but amazing sax lines, voice,
string bass and drums created a minimalist sound
that fully transported the songs. Sax player Daniel
Mathre does some doubling of melodies – he originally
started on bass, but the group decided why
waste a good sax player. Travis Dowell is on drums,
percussion and glockenspiel (an instrument getting
play in the chamber folk music scene). A great
Agnes Field, repurposed Fort George Beer Cans
K.A. Hughes, Royal Illumination
Brenda Harper, “Look in the Air” video still
creative effort on LION CO’s part to incorporate and
go for a diverse sound.
LION CO (pronounced just “KO” rather than
company), is a band name derived from Tice’s first
trip to Israel and a name given to him by his host
family for his then long mane of hair, KFIR, which
means Young Lion in Hebrew. When it came to
naming the band says Tice, “I thought Lion Co was
perfect. When I imagine young lions venturing out
to new territory to start their own lives and “make
their own name” so to speak, that’s something we
can identify with. Travis, Dan and I are in a pretty
transitional point in our lives. We’re in that stage
where we are finding who we are as not only musicians,
but human beings. In short, we see lions as
adventurous creatures and we’d like to take a little
bit of that adventure into our lives.”
A chance to take LION CO into your life, is
coming up at KALA, plus a touring friend band from
Albuquerque, NM in a new space in Astoria.
aug11 hipfishmonthly.com
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