Artists Play With Their Food

Like a chef carefully plating a meal, an art exhibit curator must arrange all the individual items to look their best on their own and as one piece of the greater whole. At the Cabrillo Gallery, that job belongs to gallery director Tobin Keller. Keller was responsible for arranging the gallery’s latest show, Tasty: Artists Playing With Food.

“My goal is always is to make every single artwork look good,” said Keller. “That’s my part and that’s a challenge. How do you make everything look good? The decision process is made pairing different things together. Each section of the gallery is considered as a compound part of the whole design.”

The show, which opened Oct. 3 and runs through Nov. 4 on the Cabrillo College campus, features work from 33 artists exploring food through paint, photography, sculpture and multimedia. Guest curators Gayle and Joe Ortiz, of Gayle’s Bakery in Capitola, selected all the featured pieces. With several artistic projects to their own credit, the Ortizes wide-ranging involvement in the community brought out a sizable crowd for the show’s opening.

“The opening reception was one of our largest receptions I can remember in recent history. It was amazing how many people turned out,” said Keller. “The response has been great. People love the theme of the show. They love the content of the show.”

Several local artists contributed to that content, including Mary Altier, Ed Penniman, and Eva Bernstein. For Bernstein at least, her spot in the show was unexpected.

“I was surprised to get into the exhibit,” said Bernstein.

But that is a statement more of style than artistic skill. Bernstein’s work tends to the abstract and non-objective and she figured most works for this show would be more direct representation. Her two pieces selected—monotype prints, a one-off print made with ink on Plexiglas, did not even start as food images. The pressure applied to the paper moves the ink so that artist does not know exactly how the final image will look.

“When I pulled my paper off my plate, the totally abstract work I was doing, looked like food. So when the call for Tasty came out I had these pieces,” said Bernstein. “I just went ‘Whoa, I have these pieces, they kind of look like food so why not try to be in this show?’ I knew it would be a good show because I know the gallery. They take real care in their jurying and Tobin Keller does a fantastic job curating.”

It is a challenge to curate a single artist’s show but even more so for an exhibit featuring many people’s artwork. But Keller enjoys that challenge and is pleased with the final result.

“In the end, everything fit just right. That’s our goal,” said Keller.