Experience BELONGING at MAC
Right now, through Monday Jan 9 you can take a journey into the feeling of BELONGING at the Middletown Art Center. The gallery is open Thursday through Monday 10:30 to 5 p.m. A sense of belonging is something we humans need in order to thrive both individually and collectively. As we move through our lives, it seems to be an experience that many, many people are longing for more of. In response to this primal need and the seeming absence of it, the topic of belonging has been entering our awareness more and more these days. What is it, where has it gone, and how do we get more of it?
Many people experience the sense of belonging to a place. Whether it is the actual land where they were born, or an experience in nature, pieces like Darren Jekel's “California” remind us of what it is like to feel at home on the earth. For others, belonging is felt in relation to their partner or family, and several artists capture the beauty of belonging to another in their work.
We often feel belonging when we gather in groups, be it a tribe, a political party or a military platoon. A deep sense of brotherhood, memory, and loss are articulated in Rolf Kriken's bronze figures and related objects. Relief portraits of wounded military comrades hang on either side of a memorial tableaux.
Kriken is currently working with the Tribal Advisory Committee to Lake County Museums to design and fabricate the Pomo Family Sculpture commemorating the First People of Lake County's past, present, and future. The public art piece will be installed outdoors at the Courthouse Museum in Lakeport. “I am proud we have selected a world-renowned sculptor that lives in Lake County to complete our sculpture,” said Robinson Rancheria's committee representative, Wanda Quitiquit. Donations to support the sculpture can be made at LCpomostatue.com. MAC is honored to feature Kriken's masterful work in the BELONGING exhibit.
Outstanding in scale and color palette is Doug Volz's epic “Crossing the Great Water”, a 10 by 6 foot canvas that Volz worked on from 1978 to 2022. The piece depicts images of darkness on the right including the destruction of the twin towers, a hijacked plane, hunger and pollution whereas the left side features images of light, families picnicking, children playing, and animals roaming on green grass. A male dancer moves from right to left in nine poses, each donning a different frequency of the color spectrum, forming a strong immersive triangular composition in which the viewer finds additional symbolic imagery.
Perhaps evoking even more emotions is what happens when we don't feel like we belong. Isolation. Discrimination. Loneliness. Separation.
The pain of these shared and common experiences can be felt in many of the pieces on display.
Ultimately, belonging to oneself, to the cosmos, and to the Great Mystery of that which is Beyond is perhaps where all yearning to belong originates.
BELONGING closes at 5pm on Monday Jan 9. We invite you to visit the gallery and explore the sense of BELONGING as humans have, and will continue to ponder, for time immemorial. MAC is located at 21456 State Hwy 175 in Middletown, CA. A holiday sale is currently in progress.
Preview the exhibit and learn more about MAC's work to weave the arts into life in Lake County at middletownartcenter.org