Cathy Rose: Lost and Found

Cathy Rose: Lost and Found

Cathy Rose: Lost and Found November 18 to December, 31, 2016 Reception: Saturday, November 19, 5:30 to 7:30 Front Cover: Cathy Rose, Give Way, 2016, hand-formed porcelain, found materials, 33 x 16 x 20 in Back Cover: Cathy Rose, Our of Hand, 2016, hand-formed porcelain, found materials, 39 x 22 x 19 in Photo Credit: Will Crocker Direct inquiries to: Seager Gray Gallery 108 Throckmorton Avenue Mill Valley, CA 94941 415-384-8288 seagergray.com

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Somersault Not to rebel against what pulls us down, The private burden each of us could name That weigh heavily in the blood and bone So that we stumble, clumsy half the time Unable to love well or love at all!

Who knows the full weight that another bears, What obscure densities sustains alone, To burst fearfully through what self-locked doors?

So heavy is our walk with what we feel, And cannot tell, and cannot ever tell.

Oh, to have the lightness, the savoir faire Of a tightrope walker, his quicksilver tread As he runs softly over the taut steel thread; Sharp as a knife blade cutting walls of air, He’s pitted against weights we cannot see, All tension balanced, though we see him only A rapture of grace and skill, focused and lonely.

Is it a question of discipline or grace?

The steel trap of the will or some slight shift Within an opened consciousness?

The tightrope walker juggles weights, to lift Himself up on the stress, and, airy master Of his own loss, he springs from heaviness.

But we, stumbling our way, how learn such poise, The perfect balance of all griefs and joys?

Burdened by love, how learn the light release That, out of stress, can somersault to peace?

May Sarton, 1958

Cathy Rose: Lost and Found New Orleans artist Cathy Rose works with wood, found objects and hand-formed porcelain to create figures that balance on balls, wheel down stairs and careen on carts, arms outstretched. Poised as they are somewhere between freedom and risk, the works become an anthem to balance and resilience in the face of loss, and (in the case of her once beleaguered city), catastrophic natural disaster. The title of the exhibition, “Lost and Found,” is very personal to the artist and one she chose herself.

It refers to the materials that are reincarnated into works that bear titles such as “Precarious”, “Daredevil” and “Determination,” but in a greater sense is refers to her own journey. Having suffered through the illness and loss of a beloved partner, then Katrina and then a bout with cancer in her own life, Rose reflects on how making art has saved her.

“I don’t know what people do who don’t make art,” she says. “For about three years I felt lost, but I would get up and go down into my studio and just work. Tools bring clarity. The beginning tasks of creating the work are mostly tedium, but tedium leads to good stuff.”

Although demand for the artist’s work has risen significantly since she left her teaching job in Florida to become a full time artist twenty years ago, Rose will not employ assistants.

“I need to work alone,” she says, preferring to think of the studio as her own private space in which to create.

After the tedium, in the assembly stage of the work, the magic begins to happen and the characters emerge. Sometimes it is not until the titling of the works “that I can finally hear what they are trying to say.” She knows when she has gotten it right when “I kind of tear up,” She realizes that there are things she is working on internally that get resolved in the work. “If everyone made art, we would need less therapists in the world.”

Rose’s studio is in the basement of the artist’s cozy house in the Broadmoor area of New Orleans, a homey neighborhood that was built in the late 19th century with raised houses (basements above ground) for protection against flood, the land having once been a marsh until drained by the new levee and pump system. The house has all the character associated with The Big Easy with lots of art, often received in trade with her artist friends. The studio is divided between the clay area, where feet, hands and faces await their firing in the kiln and the large worktable where wood is carved and each work is carefully assembled.

Developments in the artist’s medium include the use of other kinds of clay and carved wood, sometimes covered with the white leather from old opera gloves. This enables her to give more expression to the graceful precariousness of the forms as they seek balance in their various predicaments. They are more natural looking and Rose is enjoying the new possibilities in surface textures she is able to create.

Transcendence over difficulties is a theme in Rose’s work that has bonded her with her collectors. She speaks of talking to viewers who will be moved by the work and tell her of their own struggles - stories that are both intimate and personal. Some of her early collectors have kept in touch for 20 years, stopping to visit her whenever they are in New Orleans. As a metaphor, the creation of these figures from discarded artifacts and porcelain with its dual characteristic of brittleness and strength calls to mind such mythical allusions as the Phoenix rising from the ashes or tales of rebirth and reincarnation. Bearing the title of the exhibition, the work, “Lost and Found,” for example, is a compelling figure, eyes closed and head tilted back floating in a boat made of clay. The figure appears helpless, exposed and vulnerable, yet oddly at peace or at least surrender, rescued by the vessel taking her to safety.

It has been a long wait for this second one person exhibition for Cathy Rose, her last being in December of 2012. It’s good to welcome her back to California with this remarkable selection of works.

Donna Seager, November, 2016

Daredevil handformed porcelain, found materials , 2016 31 x 17 x 20 in

Strateg y handformed porcelain, found materials , 2016 24 x 9 x 9 in

Determination handformed porcelain, found materials , 2016 22 x 12 x 12 in

Give Way handformed porcelain, found materials , 2016 33 x 16 x 20 in

Human Nature handformed porcelain, found materials , 2016 75 x 30 x 36 in

Out of Hand handformed porcelain, found materials , 2016 39 x 22 x 19 in

Counterbalance handformed porcelain, found materials , 2016 40 x 27 x 10 in

Lost and Found handformed porcelain, found materials , 2016 10 x 15 x 5 in

Natural Instinct handformed porcelain, found materials , 2016 10 5 15 x 5 in

Precarious handformed porcelain, found materials , 2016 28 x 15 x 12 in

Prince Charming handformed porcelain, found materials , 2016 22 x 10 x 6 in

Promise handformed porcelain, found materials , 2016 26 x 14 x 7 in