MHCC faculty exhibit showcases spectacular work

MHCC’s Faculty Art Exhibit, which showcases art from teachers here, continues through Oct. 16 in the Visual Arts Gallery.

Joe Davis is the resident pottery teacher and clay aficionado at Mt. Hood, and has two series in the exhibit. During an interview on campus, Davis pulls up a stool near a workbench to discuss his art. The stool’s legs are covered with tennis balls and there’s a faint layer of dust over most of the room.

“Geez, I got into it (clay) when I was around 19, ” said Davis, setting his elbows on the table. “The pieces I made for the exhibit were actually based off of a series I did a long time ago, and I really liked them, but they got so popular that it was the only thing I was selling,” he said. “So, I had to stop.”

The Visual Arts Gallery exhibit includes two series by Davis: a collection of mugs and a series of dishes.

Inevitably, the first thing a visitor notices  when walking into the exhibit is “Annie’s New Year Kimono,” a nearly 6-foot-tall woodprint draped over a length of bamboo that grabs one’s eye, in the middle of the room.

“The most I could feel justified in verbalizing this work is to say that the piece is about her (the girl in the kimono) becoming one with all the life that’s buzzing around her,” said its creator, MHCC teacher and artist Georganne Watters. “It’s that sense of, Wow, I know what I want to do.”

Davis also commented on the piece, saying it was ”spectacular” and “demanded a lot of attention.”

Watters said she was inspired by the passing of her father a few years ago. She said he was not an artist “but he acted like one,” which influenced her unique style.

“You don’t see a lot of them (woodprints)” Watters said. And some might say it’s even more rare to see it mixed in with the domestic arts, in this case hand-sewn fabric, which she said she picked up from her mother.

Another series Davis and Watters admire is a series of mixed media pieces by Richard Cutshall. Watters described them as incredibly forceful and confident.

“There’s this incredible force that counteracts the abstraction of his work,” she said. “It’s almost as if you’re facing someone riding into battle and they’re just like, ‘WRAAAAWAAGGH!’ It’s that assertive.”

The second of Davis’ showcases are a series of mugs. Davis said that mugs are more complicated than people might think, but that he loves the medium as they’re “immediately intimate objects.”