Some artists are world-describers, tirelessly reconfiguring surfaces, objects and spaces to resonate on a particular frequency. That's how it is with Nancy Tobin, whose installation CRy-Baby is on view through March 1 at College of the Redwoods. Subtitled "A comedic installation exploring the connections between space, past and future selves," the work delivers. "We're very excited for Nancy Tobin's CRy-Baby to be the first exhibition in the new Floyd Bettiga Gallery at CR's Creative Arts Complex," Gallery Director (and Journal contributor) Lindsay Kessner stated. "This opening exhibition highlights relationships we aim to nourish between the vibrant CR art community and the larger art world of Humboldt County." Tobin has exhibited extensively in recent years, making installations on city streets, in galleries and pop-up retail spaces, in hotel rooms and her own home, outside at the Outer Roominations site-specific sculpture festival and indoors at the Morris Graves Museum of Art. At College of the Redwoods, she has created a softly illuminated, corner-less room/womb that's part boudoir and part theme park, reinventing this space as an outpost of her own creative sensibility. Imagery is playful and domestic, much of it stitched together by the artist from fabric cutouts. The fabrication is superficially naive and strictly DIY. Clouds are made from vigorous scribbles of extruded foam insulation applied to wire armatures. A Barbie sleeps in a rainbow-shaped bed made by stuffing a length of violently colored crochet and tacking it to the wall. A flat, linear depiction of the house where the doll sleeps gives way to a pillowy surface made up of individually stuffed and sewn fabric pods. The environment radiates love for the late 20th century's shiny, synthetic, domestic detritus — from polyester crocheted doilies to plastic hula skirts to quilted bed jackets to floral-print tube socks. Drifts of white felt on the walls look like snowscapes; faux foliage evokes the desert. The whole zany, corny, giddy, messy and excessive experience describes an interconnected way of existing that's unabashedly maternal. Entities are mutual interdependent. Umbilical cords (which are everywhere) don't get cut, they get bedazzled. Surfaces are undisciplined: soft and lumpy, quilted and cushioned. Boundaries are porous: Childhood memories bleed into adult forebodings and Okinawa segues into suburban Southern California. When she's not making installation art, Tobin curates women's and men's wear at her Arcata boutique Vintage Avenger. She has a connoisseur's eye for the decor elements that crowded late 20th-century…
Some artists are world-describers, tirelessly reconfiguring surfaces, objects and spaces to resonate on a particular frequency. That's how it is with Nancy Tobin, whose installation CRy-Baby is on view through March 1 at College of the Redwoods. Subtitled "A comedic installation exploring the connections between space, past and future selves," the work delivers. "We're very excited for Nancy Tobin's CRy-Baby to be the first exhibition in the new Floyd Bettiga Gallery at CR's Creative Arts Complex," Gallery Director (and Journal contributor) Lindsay Kessner stated. "This opening exhibition highlights relationships we aim to nourish between the vibrant CR art community and the larger art world of Humboldt County." Tobin has exhibited extensively in recent years, making installations on city streets, in galleries and pop-up retail spaces, in hotel rooms and her own home, outside at the Outer Roominations site-specific sculpture festival and indoors at the Morris Graves Museum of Art. At College of the Redwoods, she has created a softly illuminated, corner-less room/womb that's part boudoir and part theme park, reinventing this space as an outpost of her own creative sensibility. Imagery is playful and domestic, much of it stitched together by the artist from fabric cutouts. The fabrication is superficially naive and strictly DIY. Clouds are made from vigorous scribbles of extruded foam insulation applied to wire armatures. A Barbie sleeps in a rainbow-shaped bed made by stuffing a length of violently colored crochet and tacking it to the wall. A flat, linear depiction of the house where the doll sleeps gives way to a pillowy surface made up of individually stuffed and sewn fabric pods. The environment radiates love for the late 20th century's shiny, synthetic, domestic detritus — from polyester crocheted doilies to plastic hula skirts to quilted bed jackets to floral-print tube socks. Drifts of white felt on the walls look like snowscapes; faux foliage evokes the desert. The whole zany, corny, giddy, messy and excessive experience describes an interconnected way of existing that's unabashedly maternal. Entities are mutual interdependent. Umbilical cords (which are everywhere) don't get cut, they get bedazzled. Surfaces are undisciplined: soft and lumpy, quilted and cushioned. Boundaries are porous: Childhood memories bleed into adult forebodings and Okinawa segues into suburban Southern California. When she's not making installation art, Tobin curates women's and men's wear at her Arcata boutique Vintage Avenger. She has a connoisseur's eye for the decor elements that crowded late 20th-century…
