Enticing Art -- Galleries Offering Artworks Priced To Fit Nicely Under The Tree

With Christmas right around the corner it is not surprising that several of Seattle's art galleries this month are enticing art lovers with baubles, bangles, prints and photographs priced to put under the Christmas tree. Sure the objets d'art are more expensive than flannel pajamas or cologne, but a lot less than, say, a four-wheel-drive Jeep.

At William Traver Gallery, one of Seattle's most talented jewelry artists has a show of a dozen necklaces and brooches that comment, often with humor and irony, on human nature. Nancy Worden's exquisitely crafted pieces include a brooch called "Nights in Shining Armor," in which she has embedded a pink condom in a silver setting and added a tiny silver knight, who looks like a gladiator, and a tiny silver Lifesaver candy. The piece was inspired by everyone's dream of finding someone to take care of you, she said, a knight in shining armor. "But really," said Worden in a recent interview, "there is no such thing. This is what you get."

There is also a necklace called "The Seven Deadly Sins," and one called "The Family Fortune." In both she has used eyeglass lenses as settings to hold found objects, one of her trademark techniques. In "Seven Deadly Sins" the oval lenses hold bits of a charge card, to represent avarice, and Hershey Kiss wrappers for gluttony. On the reverse side of the frames are photos of famous people she thinks personify each sin. Greed is represented by Imelda Marcos; avarice is Leona Helmsley.

"The Family Fortune," Worden said, is a reference to some nomadic tribes, in which the women literally wear the family's wealth in the form of jewelry. In that necklace the eyeglass lenses are filled with delicate gold colored Almond Roca wrappers with gold wishbones between each lens. Like much of Worden's jewelry, the necklace has an art nouveau look about it, with its curving lines and rounded edges. It is made of 18-karat gold, which she says she is using frequently these days, with silver and another of her favorite materials - glass taxidermist's eyes that look like lovely amber and brown stones.

Like many contemporary jewelry artists, Worden likes to use found objects ranging from condoms to photographs. Unlike many who throw all sorts of odds and ends together with a little glue or soldering, Worden never loses sight of the aesthetic integrity of the piece. The pieces are cohesive, self-contained artworks that happen to be in the form of jewelry. Prices range from $900 to $1,200 for brooches and $3,800 to $5,500 for necklaces.

At Mia Gallery, well-known New Orleans metalsmith, designer and sculptor Thomas Mann has a show of necklaces, sculpture and multi-media pieces in his characteristic, self-described "techno-romantic" style. The pendant necklaces in this show look like the collaboration between an architect and a medieval metalsmith, with his usual intriguing results. This show also has a political angle, as the centerpiece is five necklaces suspended in front of plexiglass boxes filled with grain and imprinted with images of malnourished people. Accompanying text discusses the waste of industrialized nations vis a vis the starvation too common in undeveloped nations. The show is called "Food for Thought" and is touring the U.S. A different group of necklaces by Mann is displayed nearby; those sell for $900 to $1,200 each.

Mia Gallery is also showing a collection of 19th- and early 20th-century jewelry from India that will appeal to anyone who admires ethnic jewelry. The big necklaces, earrings and bracelets are for sale starting at about $400 for some pieces. Fans of art jewelry should also note that the gallery next month will mount its usual December show of jewelry by local art jewelry makers. Coming on the heels of the last month's show at Facere of art jewelry by renowned local artists Ramona Solberg and Ron Ho, it continues to be a rich season for art jewelry.

At Greg Kucera Gallery, Kucera's big coup is a show of drawings and drypoint prints by Jim Dine, one of the nation's most revered living artists. A consummate draftsman, Dine has always been known for his drawing, even in the '60s when he was associated with the pop-art movement. (His newest work, shown recently in New York, includes beautifully drawn charcoal and pastel flowers and plants.)

The show at Kucera Gallery is made up of two series done in 1972. One is called "Thirty Bones of My Body," and is 30 drypoint prints - which refers to the process of scratching directly onto the printing plate - published in an edition of 10. The prints show precise, perfectly executed drawings of tools, small kitchen utensils, and personal objects. There are barber's scissors and a cheese slicer, a pencil and a paintbrush. Dine's family ran a hardware store when he was growing up and throughout his career he has often used tools and hardware store implements as intimate references to himself.

The one quirky aspect to the drawings - which makes them even more personal - is that many of the tools seem to be sprouting hair. Until he shaved his head a few years ago Dine was often recognized by his hirsute appearance. The prints are $1,000 each, unframed.

"Fifty-two Drawings (for Cy Towmbly)" is also on display, though not for sale. Seattle art patron Virginia Wright owns the series, which Dine drew as a tribute to Towmbly, the abstract artist. These also show hand-held tools and utensils, though they are presented with more shading and density. Together the two sets offer a rare opportunity to see draftsmanship by one of the art world's leading practitioners.

Also on display at Kucera Gallery are portfolios and suites by William Wegman, Terry Winters, Donald Sultan and Richard Diebenkorn. Of these, Wegman's are bound to be the crowd pleasers. They are small, black and white photographs of his famous Weimaraners, posing, unmistakably, as alphabet letters, numbers and punctuation symbols. It's hard not to chuckle looking at an overhead shot of four dogs lying on the floor in the shape of a "Q," or lolling on their sides in perfect double crescents to make quote marks. The photos are $600 each and will be up through December, when Kucera is bringing in Wegman's "Cinderella Suite," which sets the dogs in decidedly more fantastical environs.

The G. Gibson Gallery this month makes an exception to its philosophy of showing photographers by showing the lush oil paintings of Seattle artist Randy Hayes. The gallery said it decided to show Hayes' work because he paints in a realistic style and bases his paintings on photographs that he shoots as studies. In cooperation with G. Gibson, the Fuel Gallery is also presenting Hayes' work from the same period. Since many of Hayes' paintings are large - some are 8 feet by 6 feet - the joint show makes it possible to show a more representative grouping.

Hayes' broad theme is the exploration of cross-cultural images and behaviors, caught in moments of vague tension. In a painting at Fuel Gallery, Western businessmen wait uneasily at a table in a Bangkok restaurant. Exotic vegetation and Southeast Asian statuary suggest that the men are out of place, and no one seems to be coming to welcome them. Hayes' point of view in such work is more than a little voyeuristic.

In other paintings, such as "Woman in Kutch," at G. Gibson Gallery, the face of an Indian woman is painted in the center of a collage of photos of Indian village life. Though it is her world, the woman still seems remote. Hayes is a compelling practitioner of the kind of stylistic realism associated with such artists as Eric Fischl and Robert Longo and it is no wonder that a gallery that specializes in photography would exhibit his oil-on-canvas snapshots of human behavior.

Not be to missed at G. Gibson, which has recently expanded and now has a spacious back room, is a display of nine photos by Berkeley, Calif., photographer Jillen Doroan. The 27-year-old is a self-taught photographer who chemically alters silver gelatin prints to achieve beautiful, dreamy, silver-toned prints laced with pinks and bronzes. In the series on display Doroan shot photos at a public bathhouse in Budapest. Steam rises, water moves in pink whorls, and women in swim caps seem to move silently through the luxurious old architecture of the baths. Doroan has the eye of an impressionist painter and is clearly a young photographer with a bright future.

Other appealing shows this month include bronze sculpture by Gerard Tsutakawa at Foster/White Gallery, and luminous mixed media works by George Chacona at William Traver. Some of Tsutakawa's fabricated bronzes have a biomorphic look about them - like sculptural versions of Joan Miro's amebic figures - with smooth holes placed where an eye might be. Others are explorations of form and space. Chacona uses historical and classical Greek imagery to create aesthetically lovely works that comment on morality.