FROM EXHIBIT PAGE 3 Exhibit honors Spanish arts
SAMOHI The ghastly festivities started early at one of the oldest art galleries in the city.
The blank white walls in the Roberts Art Gallery on the Santa Monica High School campus were adorned with the deep ruminations of about 60 art students on Tuesday, their thoughts of what they are thankful for on this Earth plastered on a small piece of canvas.
The topic of the student exhibit was not Thanksgiving Day, but rather a rich and ancient Mexican tradition honoring the dead, called “Dia de los Muertos,” or “Day of the Dead” as it is commonly referred to in the United States.
The more than 60 pieces currently exhibited in the 70-year-old art gallery are products of several advanced placement and advanced painting courses being offered at Samohi. The assignment for the annual Dia de los Muertos exhibit is to create a retablo — a Latin American form of art that, in general, is an expression of gratitude, according to Amy Bouse, the chair of the high school art department.
“As the (exhibit) has gone on, the kids have gotten more specific and inventive of what they are grateful for,” Bouse said Tuesday night at the exhibit’s opening.
Inventive is the word to describe how the students chose to articulate their feelings of gratitude.
In one piece, Ellen Herra decided that she is thankful for “Jenny’s camera phone,” creating a collage of photos taken with the camera phone in question. Another student, Kai Landworth, expressed that he is grateful for showers by sticking a shower head on his canvas.
The Dia de los Muertos exhibit dates back about 10 years, when a faculty member, who always created a Mexican alter to give homage to his deceased parents, decided to share the tradition with the students at Samohi.
The retablos — small oil paintings on tin, zinc, wood or copper which depict Catholic saints — has its roots with the Catholic Church, where worshippers were encouraged to bring small portraits of their favorite saints to be put inside the church. Traditionally in Mexico, if a person was in a perilous situation, they would pray to their saints to be rescued and would commission an artist to paint a retablo as a form of gratitude.
“In that spirit, the retablos that were in our gallery by the students are ones that give thanks,” said David Wood, the Roberts Art Gallery director. “(But) most of our kids haven’t been in a peril situation yet.”
In creating their own retablos, at least one student maintained the Dia de los Muertos spirit in honoring the dead.
Hanging in one corner of the gallery was a copy of a lithograph piece made by Rosie Archorn-Rubenstein’s grandfather who died recently. The Samohi junior isn’t sure when her grandfather created the piece, nor his intentions in what it represents, as the artwork shows two people hugging each other.
“To me, it’s representative of two people who are incredibly close,” she said. “They’re probably not romantically involved, but they’re two people that are inseparable.”
Some paintings are left open to interpretation.
Dean Schneider painted, perhaps, one of the most puzzling pieces — a giant monster about to consume a group of people standing on top of a cliff. Some believe the piece speaks to global warming or the apocalypse, said Schneider, who conceived the idea in his dreams.
“Whatever you take from it,” he said.
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on November 1, 2007. Read the original PDF.