Pomona Arts Colony opens new exhibit season Saturday
By A. S. Ashley, Correspondent


POMONA - September is traditionally the month of the new exhibit season, and downtown Pomona's Arts Colony isn't missing a beat this Saturday.

During the Second Saturday Art Walk, the 36 art venues in the colony will be in full swing with events and exciting opening exhibits.

Cherie Savoie, of Savoie Hair Salon in downtown Pomona, is launching the new season by producing "Futures," a hair show/fashion extravaganza at the multi-functional space called Night Driving, 296 W. Second St., Saturday at 8 p.m.

The show will include some out-of-this-world hair and clothing worn by 20 super-cool models "strutting their stuff" to the post-futuristic musical menagerie of Franz Keller.

At the dA Center for the Arts, 252-D S. Main St., patrons can view a completely different kind of themed art show in "Heavy Metal," an exhibit not directional in subject, but in material, where artworks are required to be made of metal, or have metallic qualities.

The dba 256 gallery, 256 S. Main St., will host an exhibit of works by Anna Marie Francesco, whose paintings embody bold and aggressive modeling of textual media that becomes wonderfully explosive and colorful at the same time.

57 Underground, 300-C S. Thomas St., features the exhibit "Form and Figure," the works of Mervyn Seldon and Yi-li Chin Ward.

Both Seldon and Ward are veteran members and exhibitors at 57 Underground, and the show seems perfectly appropriate: Seldon, whose paintings conceal forms within shapes, and Ward, whose figurative drawings seek out the shapes within the human form.

Another duo exhibit can be found at Armstrong's Gallery, 150 E. Third St., with simultaneous solo shows of two contemporary ceramic artists.

"Hello Chimera" brings the luminous and genetically altered animal figures of ceramic artist Molly Schulps. This unique body of work displays an exploration of animal sculptures and examines the continuous battle of "high-end" and "low-end" art.

"Clay Street" offers the ceramic social artifacts of Gerardo Monterrubio, exposing the various aesthetics and philosophies of Los Angeles street culture. Breaking through clich art and design, Monterrubio depicts monochromatic scenes of his own stories and imagination onto unconventional physical surfaces.

The SCA Project Space, 281 S. Thomas St., presents "The Great Divide" a group installation by six Cal State Fullerton students exploring the breakdown of the traditional family unit through personal inspection of a domestic space ... "please, make yourself at home."

Lucha Gallery, within Galeria Rustica, 320 S. Thomas St., is having a mouth-watering show called "Comiditas - An Art Exhibit Dedicated to What Nourishes Us." Here patrons can see all the yummy depictions of Latin cuisine, artwork maybe better fit for the eye than the stomach, but delicious just the same.

Bunny Gunner, 226 W. Second St., is continuing its series of exceptional one-person shows with an exhibit of paintings, monotypes, photographs, drawings and collages by the industrious Sioux Bally-Maloof.

Named "The WOW Show", it's the "wow factor" that Maloof wishes to exemplify from her life and world travels in this particular series of works.

The Blue Core Gallery, 558-A W. Second St., is also hosting a solo exhibit, "Mojave Motivation/Desert Wildlife," sharing the wonderfully rendered creatures from the arid world of California's desert plains and highlands by Chuck Caplinger, an oil painter of such deftness and style, you can feel the heat and the fur coming right off the canvas.

For more information and to download a map of all 36 art venues in Pomona's Arts Colony, go to www.pomonaartscolony.com.
A.S. Ashley is a Pomona Arts Colony artist.