Tip Toland: Fall Out, October '17

TIP TOLAND T R AV E R G A L L E RY OCTOBER 2017

TIP TOLAND FA L L O U T

T R AV E R G A L L E RY October 5 - 28, 2017

PERHAPS NO ONE WORKING IN CERAMIC SCULPTURE TODAY HAS BETTER-CAPTURED CLAY’S POTENTIAL TO EXPRESS THE BREADTH OF HUMAN EMOTION AND OUR INDIVIDUAL AND COLLECTIVE FOIBLES MORE CLEARLY, AND LOVINGLY, THAN MS. TOLAND. Richard Notkin

Storytelling, with its heroes and the plight of the downtrodden, informs Tip Toland’s work at its core. Peter Voulkos once said, “Technique without idea is nothing.”

(I would also add the corollary: Idea without technique is nothing). Toland’s work, as evidenced by her new work in this exhibition, Fall Out, stands out precisely because of the ideas – the narrative underpinnings of her work – are so focused on the complexities of the human condition. Perhaps no one working in ceramic sculpture today has better-captured clay’s potential to express the breadth of human emotion and our individual and collective foibles more clearly, and lovingly, than Ms. Toland.

From a remarkably early age, Toland exhibited an awareness and an obsession towards visually depicting the human figure, with all of its virtues and flaws. Her unique sense of self and stubborn determination to go her own way consistently led Toland down a unique, if not somewhat rebellious path. An aspiring young artist, she experimented in various lifestyles as she began her studies as an art major in a string of colleges and universities, eventually achieving a BFA from the University of Colorado, Boulder, in 1975, and an MFA from Montana State University, Bozeman, in 1981. Following her graduate studies, her inquisitiveness about the human condition deepened and she began a series of personal explorations into spirituality and psychological therapy. These journeys have infused her figurative sculptures – beyond her technical and aesthetic mastery – with imaginative and deeply psychological narratives.

Toland’s early inspirations, the artists she regards as

most influential on her own directions and philosophy, were not artists working in clay. Although many ceramic artists of the ‘50’s and ‘60’s opened the field for the contemporary eclecticism we see today, Toland was voraciously looking at the works of artists from a wide cross-section of history. From early Renaissance through the Modern Art eras of the 20th Century, she was inspired by the diverse works of Giotto, Gian Lorenzo Bernini, Leonardo da Vinci, Hieronymous Bosch, Michelangelo (the Pietà in particular), Indian miniatures, Andrew Wyeth, the Surrealist movement, George Tooker, Jim Nutt, Diane Arbus and even images from the early days of children’s television, such as Clutch Cargo.

Each of these influences, which deal with implicit narratives, left their marks, in some overt or subtle way, on the work she does today.

Entering college, she had no inclination that she would eventually be working primarily in clay, but became involved in this medium when she began to carve small figures in low relief to adhere to her paintings of surreal landscapes and interiors. For most of her first two or three decades as a practicing professional artist, she pursued these bas relief formats, and clay increasingly became a more dominant material. It wasn’t until the mid-1990’s, during an artist residency at the Archie Bray Foundation for the Ceramic Arts, that she began to carve small figures in full three dimensions. These early 3-D figurative works displayed her unique approach to the human image; somewhat distorted, somewhat simplified, somewhat filtered through a Surrealistic lens.

Her growing mastery in anatomical accuracy was achieved 20 years after receiving her MFA when she decided to study human anatomy in the traditional academic approach favored at Gage Academy in Seattle.

Her desire to return to school in her 50’s indicates her acknowledgment that the true artist is always a student, curious to learn more, and open to growth and evolution. By studying in-depth the realism of the human figure – its skeletal and musculature underpinnings – she also furthered her abilities to depict the gestures and facial expressions which reveal the complexity of the human psyche and the wide range of emotions hidden in each of our interiors.

Her art is, quite simply, the human condition laid bare.

Viola Davis once said of her acclaimed colleague Meryl Streep, she is “an observer and a thief.” The same could be said about Ms. Toland. Perhaps these are the foundational pillars which underlie the spirits and lives of great artists, in all of art’s many forms throughout human history.

Toland’s anatomical studies at Gage Academy encouraged her to push her figures into full and over-life-sized scales. Although quite challenging technically in the ceramic medium, her larger works are of a scale which forces the viewer to directly confront her subjects. This confrontational approach was especially effective in her exhibition at the Portland Art Museum in 2014. The installation consisted of one twice-sized sleeping figure of a rotund African woman and five twice-sized busts of persecuted African children with albinism. The children share expressions of fear and uncertainty, and some are missing arms which were brutally hacked off to supply an illicit trade born from myths which ascribe magical powers to the limbs and body parts of people with albinism.

Confronting the lifelike clay depictions of these survivors of unthinkable trauma and cruelty, on an eye to eye level, increases the power of the work to evoke compassion and empathy in viewers.

Among the new works in her current exhibition, Fall Out, one piece best demonstrates Toland’s mastery in expressing the human condition in today’s precarious world. Tantrum is a visual portrait of universal frustration, indignation and the sheer feelings of helplessness – “a very real response to an insane world… to things, I have no control over”, in Toland’s own words. An older woman sits on a classic tick mattress, partially naked with legs askew, holding the shredded remains of a down-feather pillow between her tensely positioned hands and outstretched arms. The pillow, which she has just torn open, has scattered its contents over this somewhat surreal scene. When a child is denied his or her wants and confronts the immovable wall of a parent’s ruling, he or she finds that there is no way to negotiate or control the situation, that child’s last resort is often a melt-down, a tantrum. As we age, we learn to suppress this primal reaction, still, we retain this emotion in its bottled-up form.

Much like the power of previous iconic works of art, Edvard Munch’s The Scream, for example, or the visceral lamentations of women’s upturned faces in Pablo Picasso’s Guernica, Tantrum is Toland’s primal response to a feeling that civilization has spun out of control and demonstrates the ongoing power of art to reflect our perceptions of the world we inhabit. Likewise, it is a plea for much-needed change in the direction of contemporary human history.

Refugee is an overt reference to the dire plight of the many individuals and families that are forced to flee wartorn countries and conflicted areas. Somewhat broken, literally and figuratively, this refugee, with his skin the same color as the rubble from which he emerges, seems to be looking back, towards his past life.

Refugee illustrates the foreboding sense of helplessness, of impossible reconstruction, and a feeling of being out of control. A victim of circumstances resulting from misguided actions outside his control.

Remembrance is quite a different matter. A male figure, naked and vulnerable, stands in a sort of dusk colored fleshiness as if emerging from the shadows of the past.

Capturing a film-noir sensibility, the figure stands in a guarded gesture, his arms up as if in self-defense. He is seemingly held by a vision as he looks upwards, caught in a moment between questioning his circumstances and an effort to fully comprehend what is about to happen.

He is spellbound, realizing the uncertainty of his fate.

The remaining pieces in the exhibition examine other aspects of the human psyche. One of the recurring themes in Toland’s work is vanity and the fear of feeling less than perfect. Cloud is the only piece which is less than full life-size in scale. An obese female figure is sleeping, lying on her side in a peaceful and serene position, rolls of billowing flesh succumbing to gravity around the perimeter of her body. Mimicking the softness and shape of a lazy cumulous cloud on a still day, beautiful and non-threatening, this softness is further enhanced by the application of impressionistic strokes of subtle colors.

But, the slight discomfort in her expression reveals an inner tension, like a sleeper caught in the throes of an unpleasant dream. She is not totally at peace.

Toland believes that there is beauty in all body types, and this is revealed in the positioning of the figure’s hands. A devout follower of the Indian guru Amma, meaning “mother”, and often referred to as the Hugging Saint, Toland has been inspired by Hindu teachings and lore. In this case, the hands are joined together in a symbolic position called “mudra”, an interlocking or cradling gesture often used in Hindu and Buddhist ceremonies and statuary, and in Indian dance – indicating solidarity within oneself. Toland views this piece as “an attempt to heal my own past insecurities with body image.” As an artist who delves bravely and deeply into her own psyche and fears (most of her depictions of female subjects are thinly veiled self-portraits), she also gives voice to the innermost concerns and anxieties in us all.

Exemplifying the sometimes playful and often humorous side of her work, Toland’s Beauty Parlor depicts a larger than life-size bust of an elderly woman who has succumbed to the playful hairstyling of mischievous children. The woman’s expression is partly a smile and part-

ly a grimace, giving the sense that she is literally grinning and bearing it. The randomly placed ponytails, buns, tightly braided pigtails, unevenly chopped bangs and scattered patches of unmanageable frizz, make her an unlikely cross between Pippi Longstocking and the Bride of Frankenstein. There seems to be a thematic echo of an earlier work, Painting the Burning Fence, from 2007, which depicts an elderly woman trying to recapture her lost youth through the ample application of bright red lipstick. But Beauty Parlor is the polar opposite. Here, vanity is overcome by love, a love which gives her an ability to embrace patience, endurance, and resignation, even to the point of looking the fool.

Tip Toland’s new exhibition expresses the many ways we deal with what we observe in the world around us, and how these events impact us internally. Not to be confused with a nuclear fallout (although there is a metaphorical connection to the aftermath of a nuclear detonation), Toland’s work seems to ask, what are the consequences and repercussions of our actions? What are the body signs, gestures, and expressions which reveal the emotions and feelings we try so desperately to conceal? A student of human nature, as well as human anatomy, Toland continues her artistic explorations into the essence of our souls – our passions and fears – with a deep sense of empathy.

Personally, I am most impacted by art that knocks my socks off, art that amazes me through a strong conceptual base and high level of aesthetic achievement. Tip Toland produces such art. All you have to do is just look at it and feel its impact.

– Richard Notkin Richard Notkin is an ar tist who lives and maintains a ceramics studio in Vaughn, WA. Full disclosure: In 1981, Notkin was a Visiting Assistant Professor at Montana State University and the acting chair of Tip Toland’s MFA Thesis Committee. He is Tip’s brotherin-law, whose marriage par tner for the past 24 years is Phoebe Toland, also an ar tist. Guess it runs in the family…

Rememberance, 2017 58 x 27 x 18 inches Opposite: Rememberance (detail)

Tantrum, 2017 23.5 x 25 x 40 inches

Cloud, 2017 7 x 31 x 11 inches

Beauty Parlor, 2017 16 x 22 x 22 inches Opposite: Beauty Parlor (detail)

Refugee (in progress, in studio) Opposite: Refugee, 2017 16 x 22 x 22 inches

T i p To l a n d Fall Out T R AV E R G A L L E RY October 5 - 28, 2017

Now and always , thank you Amma.

I could not have made this show without the help of my friends and family. For the literal and moral support of my friends and my incredible family beginning with my mother, Weemie, sister, Phoe, brother, Bob and brother in law Richard Notkin.

And most especially, my husband, Kenny. Thank you from the bottom of my heart. Thanks also to my two dear friends Willie and Chester, our dogs.

Tip Toland September 2017 artwork photography by Ann Welch studio and portrait photography by Ben Lerman/Traver Gallery

TIP TOLAND FA L L O U T OCTOBER 5 - 28, 2017

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