The Wild Side’s Curated Invitational Artwork

Invitational Artists

Marguerite Elliot Flidais: Protector of the Forests and All Wild Things 108 x 36 x 24 inches steel, paint, gold leaf, wire

Flidais is a powerful Celtic goddess who protects nature and everything wild. My sculpture invokes her fierce energy to watch over and protect forests as well as all creatures that reside therein.

Flidais is part of my Sentinel series that keep watch or stand guard over our sacred lands and symbolize the precarious interface between humankind and the environment.

Gillian Garro Radiant Red 96 x 12 x 12 inches felted wool, silk, sinemay

Radiant Red is the most recent of thirteen ancestor figures collectively entitled Multitude. The figures are intended to evoke a sense of our shared ancestry —the energy/spirit that moves endlessly through us from the beginning of time, connecting all beings. Each piece is a vessel, husk, or skin that honors the unique being who once lived inside.

Radiant Red, detail

Kate Jordahl Self Portrait 45 x 30 inches archival pigment print

Self Portrait 2 45 x 30 inches archival pigment print

Artworks echo through the years. The two self portraits in this exhibition are separated by decades. They are a call and response from my younger self to my current self. They represent my search for self and my place in the world. What is wilder than our inner world? I am my most authentic self, free and untamed when seeing and making art.

I believe art heals and leads our way to understanding. In all my making, I strive to create a pause and an opportunity for reflection. I create quiet work that beckons viewers to contemplate.

Kate Jordahl

(clockwise, from top left) Tree Pair, Hundred Acre Wood, Bellingham 6.5 x 4.25 inches unique lumen silver gelatin print

Ferns in Hundred Acre Wood, Bellingham 6.5 x 4.25 inches unique lumen silver gelatin print

Leaf, Hundred Acre Wood, Bellingham 6.5 x 4.25 inches unique lumen silver gelatin print

Three Trees, Hundred Acre Wood, Bellingham 6.5 x 4.25 inches unique lumen silver gelatin print

Exploring wild, natural areas like the Hundred Acre Wood, I create quiet works that invite introspection. The process of translating these photographs into unique Lumen prints, made by exposing a digital negative onto silver gelatin paper to sunlight for six hours, is also contemplative. Art and Nature heal. Right now, our wild hearts need this healing.

Afatasi The Artist Afronaut 1 textile, papier-mâché

These wearable art pieces are called, “Vehicles of Exploration” and are dedicated to Afrofuturism. These vehicles allow the wearer movement, a free pass, into another part of themselves–transported; able to interact, engage, and explore the environment in new ways.

Afronaut 1 is an exploration of spaces in San Francisco that hold memory for its Black residents. The helmet in this piece is handmade entirely of papier-mâché, with hand-carved details, equipped with lighting elements. The outfit was sewn by the artist, and includes EVA foam inside of the bell-bottom pants.

Afatasi The Artist Bitch What ‘Chu Lookin’ At?!? textile, steel, vinyl

These wearable art pieces are called, “Vehicles of Exploration” and are dedicated to Afrofuturism. These vehicles allow the wearer movement, a free pass, into another part of themselves–transported; able to interact, engage, and explore the environment in new ways.

Bitch What ‘Chu Lookin’ At?!? explores what it is like to have all eyes on you, literally. The headpiece is hand welded with steel rod, and vinyl fabric is added to create detail to the eyes. The shirt and skirt set is made from three different fabrics.

M. Louise Stanley Conversation Between Two Harpies courtesy of Anglim/Trimble 46 x 64 inches acrylic on canvas

Years ago, I had a dream of two harpies conversing on a dead man. I made a little sketch the next morning but couldn’t make sense of it. Several years later I asked my sister what I should do. She said, go ahead and paint it, it will then make sense. My mother never liked it. It now hangs above my bed. It still doesn’t make sense.

To the Ancient Greeks, Harpies were vile creatures. They were thought to be personifications of the destructive nature of wind. Their name means ‘snatchers.’ They are the messengers of Hades, god of the underworld, who steal the souls of men. They preyed on Phineas who was blinded and sent to Crete (another story). Every time he sat down to eat, the Harpies befouled his plate and snatched his food. I believe harpies are man’s invention out of a fear of strong and independent, bitchy women of a certain age. If you confronted a harpy, sauntering in the door, about three feet high or so, click, click, click, you would be scared out of your pants!

Debra Wright Criminal Code, Revised 10 x 10 inches hand milled shredded criminal code book

There are few powers greater than the written rule of law. Recent attempts to overhaul the criminal justice system have yet to fully address the widespread racial oppression inherent in the criminal code. Mass incarceration remains an effective instrument for those in power to disproportionately impact the lives of people of color.

“Criminal Code, Revised” was created from pulp fibers extracted from a shredded criminal code book. I destroyed this publication as an act of outright protest.

Shaped by hand and deckle, the pulp was dried in the harsh summer sun. This resulted in a finished paper with an appearance closely resembling the concrete brick and block used to build facilities that warehouse inmates.

Fragments of text are visible and several viewers remarked that one such artifact closely resembles the word “lies.” This occurred completely by accident. This work bears no inscription, reinforcing our collective ability to write our future history and rectify errors of the past.

Debra Wright Money Shot 9 x 8 x 8 inches U.S currency

Money Shot addresses the power dynamic between sex workers and the patrons they serve. Fabricated from actual U.S. currency, it is a fully-functional undergarment that begs the viewer to ponder where the dominance lies in these equations.