5 picks for June ArtHop: Attend a taping of ‘The Munro Review on CMAC,’ doom-scroll with Chris Janzen at Fig Tree Gallery, and more
By Donald Munro
Here’s a first for ArtHop: You can watch a taping of “The Munro Review on CMAC.” The fun starts at 5:30 p.m. Thursday, June 6.
The backstory: The Community Media Access Collaborative is a regular ArtHop venue and presents a monthly show. (Fresno’s open house of galleries and studios in the downtown and Tower District neighborhoods occurs on the first Thursday of the month. Most venues are open 5-8 p.m.) For June, CMAC’s show is titled “Celebrating Pride Month,” which features media created for, by and about the LGBTQ+ community.
A previous taping of The Munro Review.
If you schedule your CMAC ArtHop visit at 5:30 p.m., you’ll also be able to sit in on a taping of my monthly arts talk show. The taping will likely run about 45 minutes.
I have two in-studio sets of guests scheduled:
• From Good Company Players, director Mark Standriff and actors Casey Ballard and Michael Fidalgo will represent the new production of “The Complete Works of William Shakespeare,” which opens June 21 at the 2nd Space Theatre.
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• And from the Madera Theatre Project, director Rachel Hibler and cast members of “The Little Mermaid” will talk about the company’s ambitious season. (“A Midsummer Night’s Dream” opens June 13, followed by the female version of “The Odd Couple” on July 5, “Aladdin” (dual language) on July 18 and “Mermaid” on July 25.
For more details on ArtHop, you can check in with the Fresno Arts Council.
Here are four more picks for June:
‘Doom-scrolling’ at Fig Tree Gallery
Chris Janzen takes aim at a phenomenon that has become ever more prevalent in contemporary society in recent years: the practice of “doom-scrolling,” what he calls the endless diversion of attention from one image or video to another practiced when scrolling through Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Twitter, browsing YouTube, TV channel-surfing, etc.
The solo exhibition at Fig Tree Gallery includes drawings, paintings and mixed-media artworks.
Each artwork was created during periods of playful improvisation, says Janzen, a Fresno Pacific University art professor. Print and digital media including movie posters, books, magazines, junk mail, personal photographs, and social media screenshots served as source material to be chopped up and reassembled into new compositions.
“I began each of these artworks using chance techniques developed by the Surrealists in the early 20th century: scribbling, splattering paint, and having absolutely no idea where the marks would lead,” he says. Inevitably, these marks resembled compositional similarities to photos on my social media feed, giving me multiple directions to push the composition into.”
The ubiquitous smartphone plays a starring role.
“Popsicle Monolith” (pictured at top), a mixed media work combining graphite, charcoal, wax pencil, acrylic paint, oil pastel, and stickers, is a large-scale drawing that combines elements of at least three figures: a bearded man at right, a child at center, and a woman at left, each preoccupied in some way with a popsicle.
“The popsicle is a metaphor for the smartphone,” Janzen says. “We are addicted to our screen devices like we are to sugar.”
Student work at Spectrum Art Gallery
Photography can be a great way for young people to find focus. That’s one of the joys of Spectrum’s juried student exhibition, organizers say: “This very process of observing and creating, is, by nature, a meditative task that draws you into a mindful, peaceful state. In this sense, students can use their photography practice as a tool to curate and reframe the world around them.”
Jurors for the exhibition were Sandee Scott, Dean Taylor and Steve Dzerigian.
Student prizes for “This Is My World: Juried Student Exhibition 2024” will be presented at ArtHop.
‘Printocalypse’ at Corridor 2122
Printmaking has a long history of storytelling. In Corridor 2122’s “Printocalypse,” curated by Matthew Hopson-Walker, has selected three guest artists: Trishelle Jeffery, Samantha Mendoza and Emmett Merrill.
Q: How did you select the three printmakers featured?
A: I generally come up with a loose theme each year and then seek out artists to participate. Sometimes the theme is inspired by a single artist and then I expand out from there, mixing and matching other artists whose work can also fit the theme. Samantha Mendoza is a former student of mine from College of the Sequoias (around 10 years ago) and she was a visiting artist at Fresno State Spring 2023 and I thought it would be interesting to organize a show that would include her work with other artists who are focused on narrative story telling as means to find deeper truths about the world we live in through their prints.
Q: You mention how the works emphasize the graphic aesthetic history of storytelling in printmaking. Can you use one of the works as an example of this?
A: Trishelle Jeffery was just hired as an instructional tech at Fresno State in Fall 2023. We are super lucky to have her as a colleague and her prints fit with in the theme, as I began to formulate a list of artists this exhibition seemed like a good thematic fit for her work as well as a great opportunity to share her work with Fresno. Trishelle is a printmaker that I met about two years ago while I was teaching at Frogman’s Summer Printmaking workshop in Omaha. She was the coordinator of the assistants and we had several conversation about the influence of underground comics (Comix) on our work as well as the influence it’s had on contemporary art in general. Trishelle’s print about her experience as a substitute teacher between college and grad school was so relatable because I think many of us have worked jobs that we find unsatisfying or difficult as we work towards our “adult” career goals. The specific print that I’ve copied below succinctly sums up several of her experiences while subbing, both comedic and melancholy, it is a print that successfully tells a specific story while also commenting on a large existential quest for meaning in one’s life.
Q: For people who aren’t familiar with printmaking, what’s your 30-second explanation of the artform and why it’s important?
A: Printmaking is an umbrella term that encompasses 4 different and distinct mediums: Relief, Intaglio, Lithography, and Screenprinting (serigraphy). Each has its own rich history of mark making and cultural significance that can impart meaning to viewers based on their experiences of commercial design and illustration since both those mediums share their earliest histories with printmaking. The medium often impacting the message of the artist, designer, and illustrator.
‘Of Light & Grain’ at Scarab
Stained glass and woodworking are in focus at Scarab Creative Arts. Two exhibitions are paired: “The Art of Stained Glass” by Augustin Melara and “The Art of Turned Wood” by Jeremy Edwards and Joshua Soderlund.
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