MFA Season is here!

What a great time of the year! San Jose State’s MFA show Lift Off is installed in our Main gallery until June 13 and several MFA exhibitions are currently open throughout the Bay Area. Executive Director Cathy Kimball and I headed to Oakland and San Francisco last Friday to check out the Mills and CCA shows. The bottom line: check out the Mills show.

Walking into the Mills College Art Museum,  we were awed by the ambitious sculpture with walls made out of tissue paper (among other materials) by Modesto Covarrubias.

"Futility Tower" by Modesto Covarrubias

I loved how the floor and ceilings of the Museum seemed to hug the sculpture in place. Walking around it, we discovered an entrance to go inside the work (too much fun!).

A view inside the sculpture

We also  admired the obsessive-compulsive cut-out text works by  Annie Vought (how long did this take her to do?):

Annie Vought

Does anyone have insight in the phenomenon of making knitted cozies in public places? Regardless, we were tickled by the  knitted cozies Esther Traugot made for stumps, branches and seeds.

Esther Traugot

I have a certain fondness for absurd landscapes of people’s front yards and completely appreciated the tightly composed and humorous images by Leigh Merrill:

Leigh Merrill

All in all, this show is definitely worth making the trip to Oakland before it closes May 31.  I still have more updates in store about the CCA and SFAI shows. Stay tuned!