Lumpen by Julia Couzens and Ellen Van Fleet

Hoo boy, did I have to think this one over for a good, long time.

That's right, it's time for my long-awaited verdict on the Robert Else Gallery installation, Lumpen, and after chewing on it like so much granola for a week now, I've finally managed to collect my thoughts on this little show.

See, the artists, Ellen Van Fleet and Julia Couzens, visited Sac State to tell us all about their experiences as artists, how they came upon some of their ideas, and what the overall concepts common in their works happen to be. But don't let me hog the mic, let me pass it along to Van Fleet for you.

Sometimes it's just better to let the artist say it herself. That doesn't make me lazy, I swear!

This is a diagram of how to construct the sculpture in the above video.

 Where Van Fleet's art is very spontaneous and emphasizes the unexpected and temporary beauty in things like shadow and movement, Couzen's work is more focused on linear shapes and grids, albeit warped in interesting ways. Though she also works with a variety of materials, particularly textiles, she said much of her art starts out as a drawing or is at least planned like a drawing.

Linear forms, you say?

Grids, huh?

Yeah, I think I see what she's getting at.

Between the two, I found I preferred Couzen's art, since I'm a bit more familiar with drawing than sculpture, but one thing is certain--seeing the artists and listening to what they had to say definitely helped me appreciate and understand what they were trying to express in Lumpen. See, the idea was never to convey some hidden message. It's simply a celebration of textures, shapes, and unusual compositions meant to tease the eye and entertain the mind. It is, quite simply, art for art's sake, drawing the viewer in by nothing short of the sheer magnetism of visual art.

After the presentation, the artists had a Q&A session, allowing us to ask them something that had been floating around in our heads while listening. I decided to ask why they used materials that didn't seem to be too sturdy and how they planned to preserve them, if at all. Van Fleet's answer was that she had no plans to preserve it and people could do whatever they wanted with the remains. Couzens simply insisted her works were sturdier than I thought.

After that, we had the opportunity to return to the gallery and take a second look at the art. I decided to do exactly that and see if I could find the traits they cited in their work for myself. Of course, this meant taking lots and lots of pictures in order to point these things out to you, the readers.

Honestly, it's still baffling to the layperson, isn't it?

 The really fun part, of course, is that my stupid camera's battery died on me in the middle of this. I managed to take about three pictures and this was the only one that was only a little terrible. Usually, I take several shots of the same thing and narrow it down, but no such luxury here. The lesson here, kids, is always keep a spare charged battery on you.

Don't be melacritic. Be smarter than melacritic.

So after all that cogitation and agitation, I bet you're all at the edge of your seats, wondering what I'm going to rate this installation. Actually, no I don't, but I still need to rate it either way. Frankly, it's a conundrum, because the plain truth is I just don't like this art.

There, I said it.

I like the idea of the art. I like the artists. I just don't like the art. To me, it looks like a confusing mess and even after hearing what they have to say, I don't think what they had in the show was their best work. I really, truly, in the bottom of my graphite-filled heart enjoyed the art in the slideshow so much better than anything I saw in the installation. That being said, I'm giving Lumpen the rating of S'mores.

No, this is not me flaming the artists. Chill out.

"What gives, melacritic?" I hear you say. "Why rate this so high if you don't like the art?"

The answer is actually very simple; art is subjective and what I dislike and find confusing and dull might be enchanting and fascinating to others. Just because it wasn't my cup of tea doesn't make the art bad. Lumpen made me think and reconsider and work toward a conclusion outside of my immediate reactions, and for that, I have respect for the artists and their creations.