By Lindsey Martin and Cheyenne Drury
The James Kaneko Gallery kicked off the spring semester on Jan. 20 with the new show “The Other E Streeters,” a collection of pieces taken from the E Street Gallery in downtown Sacramento.
Cherie Hacker, Sam Tubiolo, Roy Tackmen, Dan Hodapp, Caraina Brown, Larry Love, Christopher Max Thompson and Chris Botta were all featured in the show.
Hacker, Hodapp, and Tackmen spoke to the crowd about the process that goes into making their work and the history of the E St. Gallery at the artist’s reception on Jan. 26.
“The E street started out as a huge warehouse in midtown in 1999 and has since then evolved into a place that is “home for us,” said Hacker, an original owner of the studio.
Hacker works out of E Street Gallery alongside 11 other artists and assembles a yearly show composed of local artists work.
Hodapp described the process of raku firing, where pots are taken out of the kiln at maximum temperature, as “instant gratification” in comparison to a piece made by clay form that takes several days to glaze and fire.
Raku firing was the technique used on two of his pieces in the show.
“I try to use my science background when working with glazes, but there are always some variables you cannot control. I look at these variables as data points and regardless they always lead somewhere,” said Hodapp, who was an environmental science professor at Cosumnes River College for over 30 years.
Hacker went into detail about “Archipelago Spire,” an abstract piece made of eight separate canvases with loads of darker tones of red, blues,and black formed together.
“I laid eight of my canvases on the floor in my studio. I thought it would be interesting to work with the negative space,” she said.
The steel pieces by Tackmen took up most of the space in the gallery’s show and reflected the natural elemental colors of grey, blue, and copper tones. These pieces were designed in geometrical shapes with sharp bold lines.
“They’re semi big steel sculptors and I would like them to be bigger. I taught myself to weld in the last three to four years and that’s about it,” said Tackmen.
“The Other E Streeters” will be showing through February 11 at the Kaneko Gallery, located in the Fine and Applied Arts Buildings room 503, closest to parking lot D.
