Art gallery director tests the imagination

Alex Coolman

It once wore the intense hues of an African desert. Its walls have

been dressed in turquoise to highlight precious artifacts from the Han

dynasty. Greek masks and textiles have passed through its doors, their

cool colors evoking the Mediterranean.

Under the inventive, cosmopolitan coordination of director Irini

Vallera-Rickerson, the Orange Coast College Art Gallery has tried on the

art of the world like a wardrobe, showcasing student work as well as that

of international artists so effectively that the gallery itself has

become a work of art.

Vallera-Rickerson, who has directed the gallery for the last eight years,

is forced to deal with severe limitations of space and funding, but she’s

an expert at doing a lot with a little.

“We have a really tight budget,” she said. “So you have to come up with

really creative ways to do a show.”

It’s a challenge that Vallera-Rickerson has a talent for meeting. From

“An African Legacy” to “The Gates of Hell: L.A. Landscapes of the 1990s,”

the gallery has put on a number of critically acclaimed shows,

compensating for the venue’s physical limitations with an abundance of

imagination.

Currently, the space is showcasing work from OCC’s fine arts faculty in a

wide-ranging and eclectic show. The walls are covered with photography

and paintings in a variety of styles. The floor is dotted with offbeat

sculptures. If there’s a theme, curatorially speaking, it seems to be

inclusiveness, which is one of Vallera-Rickerson’s favorite concepts.

“From the time I started directing [the gallery],” she explained, “I

really wanted to have a ‘multi’ approach. Not just painting or just

sculptures. I felt it was important to have a variety of approaches and

different styles.”

Over the years, this philosophy has brought in shows on international

art, ancient cultures and contemporary, AIDS-related work. To present

this material, Vallera-Rickerson -- along with her husband, Robert

Rickerson, who teaches an exhibition design course at OCC -- has

transformed the gallery space repeatedly into highly designed and

evocative viewing environments.

For the African art show, the gallery’s walls, which arewhite, were

painted in intense reds, yellows and blues. The masks and textiles that

were the centerpiece of the show seemed to float in dramatic pools of

spotlighted color. Occasionally, Vallera-Rickerson said, she used a

little design improvisation to overcome challenges of operating with next

to no budget.

“The textiles were hung on bamboo,” she explained. “I just got it from a

field, and it worked really well.”

For a section of the exhibit that needed to be cordoned off from touching

hands, Vallera-Rickerson came up with a “rope” made out of twisted

construction paper. A bigger gallery would probably have used plexiglass

in the same situation, she said, but the rope looked terrific anyway.

Vallera-Rickerson’s open-minded approach manifests itself not only in the

type of work she exhibits, but also in the way she views the function of

the gallery. Not content to have the space patronized exclusively by art

connoisseurs, she has encouraged other departments at OCC to take

advantage of the gallery in whatever way they find useful.

Students in the English department of the college now occasionally take a

turn through the space in an exercise intended to inspire them to write

poetry. The sociology department holds a class in the gallery as well. A

chi-kung exercise and meditation workshop also uses the space because, as

gallery assistant Cheryl Schriefer pointed out, “the energy is

wonderful.”

The point of all this, Vallera-Rickerson says, is that the values of a

gallery can influence the values of the larger community. The

inclusiveness she encourages in her space will ripple outward, or so she

hopes.

“We need to represent a lot of different things instead of just one,” she

said. “I really believe that a gallery needs to reflect the society we

live in.”It’s a vision that sounds winningly easygoing, but which is

actually quite challenging, as the current exhibit demonstrates.

The work ranges so widely -- from a nude study to a quasi-cubist

photograph to an ornate hardwood cigar box -- that the viewer is forced

to react to each piece on an individual basis. And though some of the

works are quite accessible, others are, to say the least, packed with

layers of allusion and obscure references.

OCC drawing and painting teacher Roger Whitridge contributed a painting

to the show that features a veiled woman standing in a river that cuts

through a barren, surreal landscape.

The work, Whitridge said, is an allegory for the awakening of the spirit

from the blindness of technology. A bird, which can be glimpsed flapping

its way into the sunset on the left side of the canvas, is a reference to

the Sioux idea of a spirit guide.

Whitridge doesn’t expect most audiences to “get” the painting’s deeper

significance, but feels that the work manages to communicate a sense of

serenity even on the most superficial viewing.

“If nothing else, I hope somebody can look at it and feel the calming

sense of the piece,” he said.

If most of the audiences who view Whitridge’s piece respond to it in this

manner -- admittedly, not the most sophisticated way of relating to art

-- Vallera-Rickerson is satisfied that such a response is preferable to

their not viewing it at all. The main thing, she emphasizes, is that the

works should be a part of the lives of as many people as possible.

In any case, Vallera-Rickerson said, much of what passes for aesthetic

savoir-faire is a barrier to the simple enjoyment of art. In an upcoming

benefit presentation on the art and architecture of the world, she

intends to discuss some of the products of cultures that are thought of

as being “primitive,” work she considers as powerful as anything being

produced by today’s more “advanced” civilization.

“I’m going to show architecture that is done by people who are not

trained in architecture,” she said. “You can see the human spirit in it,

how it’s expressed in art works.”

The presentation will range from the underground churches of Turkey to

the carved-rock temples of Jordan.

“We think of the civilizations as something so different from us, but

actually these people were very sophisticated,” Vallera-Rickerson said.

“Possibly even a little more sophisticated than we are.”

WHAT: Orange Coast College’s Faculty Art Show

WHERE: OCC’s Art Gallery, 2701 Fairview Road, Costa Mesa

WHEN: The show runs through Dec. 9 and can be seen from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m.

Monday through Thursday and from 7 to 8:30 p.m. Thursdays

HOW MUCH: free

TELEPHONE: (714) 432-5039