Cabinets of Curiosity, one-night only scientifc art show

Craft Center auction concludes today

The Craft Center's 10th annual Gallery Staff Show and Silent Auction concludes Friday (Dec. 2), during a reception from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m.

The show features jewelry, glasswork, textiles, ceramics, metalwork, woodwork, photography, painting, drawing, screen printing and mixed media — all of which went up for bid in November.

Prices generally range between $5 and $100, with most priced under $25. Proceeds benefit the Craft Center's programming and operations.

Up until 6 p.m. Friday, during the reception, all bidding is silent. At that time, live auctions will then commence for any items for which interested bidders are in attendance.

The center and gallery are in the South Silo. Regular hours: 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. Monday through Thursday, 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. Friday, and 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Saturday and Sunday.

More Craft Center news: Registration for the winter quarter is set to begin at 10 a.m. Monday, Jan. 9. More information.

TANA: Open house and opening reception

UC Davis' TANA community art center announced its fall open house and an opening reception at the same time for an exhibition of paintings and prints by UC Davis alumnus Jaime Montiel, the 2010-12 TANA artist-in-residence.

The event is scheduled from 4 to 6 p.m. Saturday (Dec. 3) at 1224 Lemen Ave., Woodland.

The open house provides an opportunity for participants in TANA's fall silkscreen printing workshop to show off their artwork for family and friends, and for interested community members to learn more about TANA and its programs.

The Department of Chicana/o Studies runs TANA, which stands for Taller Arte del Nuevo Amanecer, or art workshops of the new dawn.

Montiel is exhibiting works that he created the last two years, during which time he has been helping as an instructor in TANA's youth workshops.

The artist in residence is from Winters, where he has a studio. He received a bachelor's degree in studio art at UC Davis and a master's in painting at the Savannah College of Art and Design.

More information.

Pritikin to lead Nelson tour

Renny Pritikin, director of the Nelson Gallery, leads a gallery tour next week, showcasing selected items from the university's Fine Arts Collection.

The Nelson ARTfriends organization is hosting the tour, free and open to the public. Starting time is 4 p.m. Tuesday (Dec. 6). The gallery is in Nelson Hall, formerly the University Club.

The organizers said the informal tour will take in the collection pieces that are now on exhibition, including works Paul Cezanne, Marc Chagall, Edgar Degas, Albrecht Durer, Henri Matisse and Rembrandt van Rijn, along with many other noted artists.

The organizers said light refreshments will be served.

For more information, call Katrina Wong at the gallery, (530) 752-8500.

ONGOING EXHIBITIONS

• Birds: A Kinetic Installation — Does the term "kinetic sculpture" fill your mind with images of clanking metal gears or corny water-driven fountain elements? Chico MacMurtrie has made his share of drum-pounding giant robots over the years. But, with Birds, he offers a different vision: a lyrical, even meditative exploration of the flapping of wings — a dozen pairs of them. Driven by compressed air, the fabric wings slowly inflate, flap and deflate over a period of minutes, in eerie grace and silence. Through Dec. 11, Nelson Gallery, Nelson Hall. Hours: 11 a.m.-5 p.m. Monday-Thursday and Saturday-Sunday, and Fridays by appointment.

• Double Vision: New Works by Hulleah J. Tsinhnahjinnie — A "curatorial and artistic collaboration" by Veronica Passalacqua, curator of the C.N. Gorman Museum; and Hulleah J. Tsinhnahjinnie, museum director, associate professor, Department of Native American Studies, and photographic artist. The exhibition combines Tsinhnahjinnie's art with images from the Great Plains Art Museum's photographic archive, specifically images from the late 1800s by Laton Alton Huffman and William Henry Jackson. Tsinhnahjinnie used the images as the basis for new works of digital collage. "Paying homage to the Bison and in respect for the peoples of the Plains, she gives voice, agency and presence to the figures to serve as a protagonist," the Gorman museum website states in describing how Tsinhnahjinnie transformed the archival images from card size up to 5 feet and infused them with vibrant colors — rendering the figures to be undeniably present. "The works in this exhibition address double vision in the form of a political and personal response to the images selected from the museum’s photographic archives," Tsinhnahjinnie said in her artist's statement. "It is my hope that these new works present a visual confrontation, an argument with premise that should be critically reviewed and endlessly questioned." Through Dec. 2, C.N. Gorman Museum,1316 Hart Hall. Hours: noon-5 p.m. Monday-Friday, and 2-5 p.m. Sunday.

• Growing Up in India — Photographic exhibition that explores the culture of India from a youthful perspective. The exhibition comprises the works of three Indian artists: Dinesh Khanna, the exhibition's curator, and Prashant Panjiar and Anusha Yadav, who focus on different aspects of Indian society and culture. Through Dec. 18, Yocha Dehe Grand Lobby, Mondavi Center for the Performing Arts. Open one hour prior to performances, and during the performances, to people with tickets to those performances.

• Gyre: Regarding a Tragedy of the Commons — This exhibition by Robert Gaylor addresses the accumulation of plastic waste known as the "Great Pacific Garbage Patch" in the North Pacific Gyre (a giant, circular current on the ocean surface). The exhibition comprises two parts: photographs and an arrangement of flotsam objects gathered from the North Pacific Gyre, and a video installation titled Kamilo Twisted Waters, a moving mandala that reflects the fouling of the oceans. Through Dec. 2, Design Museum, Cruess Hall. Hours: noon-4 p.m. Monday-Friday, and 2-4 p.m. Sunday.

AT SHIELDS LIBRARY

• Campus Community Book Project: Celebrate the Freedom to Read — The General Library Committee on Diversity assembled this exhibition in connection with this year's book project selection, Sherman Alexie's The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, an award-winning young adult novel and one of the most challenged books of 2010.

The exhibition comprises classic and contemporary works of fiction that share with Alexie’s novel the distinction of being either challenged or banned in the United States.

Says the committee: "The best literature provokes discussion and challenges us to open our minds to the diversity of this common and uncommon thing we call life.' Our individual experiences are both unique and universal. Author Sherman Alexie’s semiautobiographical novel brilliantly captures this paradox."

• The Ground Beneath Our Feet: The Nikola P. Prokopovich Papers on Land Subsidence — Manuscript archivist Liz Phillips prepared this exhibition on the papers of engineering geologist Nikola P. Prokopovich (1918-99)., who worked as a geologist with the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation's Mid-Pacific Region.

He worked out of the bureau's Sacramento office from 1958 to 1986, investigating the geology and geochemistry of statewide water projects, including the Central Valley Project and the Solano Project. He was an avid field geologist and spent as much time as possible on site, collecting his own data. Prokopovich was particularly interested in the engineering geology of the Central Valley Project's canals and dam sites, and in the effects of state water projects and field irrigation on the surrounding landscape.

The collection includes draft reports, memoranda and published writings, as well as nearly 25,000 slides and photographs documenting his work and the land around his work sites. 

• The Spirit of New Orleans: Culture, Community, Community, Catastrophe, Construction — In conjunction with The Spirit of New Orleans series (film and music) at the Mondavi Center for the Performing Arts. The exhibition, prepared by Michael Colby, features items from library collections representing scholarship on the history, music, architecture, culture, practices and, most important, the people of New Orleans.

The Campus Community Book Project and The Spirit of New Orleans exhibitions are designated for fall quarter, and The Ground Beneath Our Feet for fall and winter quarters. All exhibitions are in the Shields Library lobby. Regular hours: 7:30 a.m.-midnight Monday-Thursday, 7:30 a.m.-6 p.m. Friday, noon-6 p.m. Saturday and noon-midnight Sunday. Holidays and other exceptions.

OFF-CAMPUS

• Dreams of Toyland — The Design Program's Dolph Gotelli, a professor emeritus, has another holiday treat for the Napa Valley Museum. In bringing back Dreams of Toyland, the renowned collector offers new vignettes that take visitors to a world of miniature fairies, animals and other delightful creatures in snowy forests, cozy kitchens and intricate drawing rooms. "The exhibition is created to delight and inspire, evoking the wonder and innocent joys of childhood," the museum website declares. Through Jan. 29.