Today at 6:00 p.m., the City of Coronado and the Cultural Arts Commission will unveil the 2016 People’s Choice Exhibition in the Coronado Community Center Gallery. Affectionately known as the C3 Gallery, the space officially opened in November 2015 in celebration of Coronado’s 125th Anniversary. Located in the Coronado Community Center at 1845 Strand Way, this exhibition space features the work of local artists for display and for sale.
The 2016 exhibition will feature the top three artists in the juried Visions of Coronado Exhibition as voted by the people who attended the gallery opening in November. The three artists chosen for this exhibition are Uwe Werner, Kelly Schnorr, and Pamela Murphy. To learn more about them, read the interviews below.
An Artist’s Reception is scheduled for Wednesday, April 6, 2016, from 6:00 to 8:00 p.m. in the Nautilus Room at the Coronado Community Center. The event is FREE and Open to the Public.
Uwe Werner
eCoronado: Can you tell me your Coronado story? How long have you lived here, and how has your art been a part of your life in Coronado?
Uwe: I was very lucky. Originally, I am from Germany. I moved here as a child in 1952, went to University of Washington in Seattle, and then in those days they had the draft. I didn’t want to go Army, so I went Navy.
I had been in Vietnam for three years, and during my last year in the service I lived in Coronado. I was living at the Oakwood Apartments with my wife and was painting on my patio. Then, in 1969, I found out about the Coronado Art Association, and I started showing in the park. Eventually I ran the show for about five years (1973-1977). In 1977 I opened a gallery in the Coronado Plaza, which I ran for 11 years before we took over the furniture store where the La Avenida was. We were there for about eight years. In those years I had also been in many galleries in Coronado, La Jolla, Houston, all over.
eCoronado: What type of art do you produce? How did you get started?
Uwe: I paint in acrylics, and my style is realistic. I have been doing this for 45 years. I have some pieces in my home that I refuse to sell!
eCoronado: Can you tell me your Coronado story? How long have you lived here, and how has your art been a part of your life in Coronado?
Kelly: I’m pretty new to Coronado in that I just took over the position at CHS as the ceramics teacher at the beginning of the school year. My Coronado story is really brand new!
My art story is way longer. Even as a kid I was really artistic, I liked to draw a lot, make things, smash things, and look at them. In high school I did a lot of photography and animation, but I didn’t take ceramics until college.
For me, ceramics is three-dimensional drawing. I sketch things out simply, and then I can draw them and edit them, and I like to go through stages of layers of color and texture. I loved ceramics because I started thinking more and more about what my experience was with clay. Growing up, we had important family dinners on special china, and my grandmother collected the Hummel figurines. It’s pretty kitchsy stuff but it’s family-oriented, and I was always attracted it. I love that ceramics goes back to ancient history, and we learn about our history by looking at the ceramics that people made, that’s how we learn about people before us. I love the process, I love the people.
I got my Bachelors of Fine Arts in ceramics in 2006, and then got my MFA from SDSU. I pretty much just worked and lived in the studio for three years, and I showed a lot. I got a job at Palomar College (Vista, CA) as a tech for their ceramics studio, but I got burned out on it, so I decided to pursue a teaching credential. I continued to teach at a high school while getting my teaching credential, and then the Coronado job came up.
It feels like every day I have to pinch myself, I feel like I won the lottery, just to be teaching in Coronado! To get everything I ever wanted all at once made all those really hard years before worth it. I was questioning all of my choices at one point, and then this job came up, and I went after it with fervor, and it finally feels like I landed where I should be.
I have seen studios across the country, worked in a studio in Denmark, and I have seen world-class studios in Maine and Colorado, and the studio in CHS is one of the best, if not the best in SD county, in terms of the way it’s designed and set up. I also really love the students. They are so sweet and hardworking and kind. They remind me of high school because I went to public school too. I have always been a crazy hard worker, and when I see kids working that hard for their education, or trying so hard to make something for me, that is the happiest I’ll ever be, when I see you pushing yourself.
eCoronado: What type of art do you produce? How did you get started?
Kelly: My grandmother’s china cabinet was a huge influence on me, I loved to look at her precious little things. In college I loved to go to thrift stores and look at tchotchkes and kitsch — cheap, bad, overly sentimental ceramics! I knew I liked that stuff, but I was also really interested in suburban sprawl at the same time. I made a ton of work based on urban sprawl: earthy bases, and hundreds and hundreds of little houses stacked on top of each other. Then I started playing with mixing in chunks of broken pieces of cups and tchotchkes; this is the stuff we’ll dig up one day.
With grad school I wanted to push this idea of Grandma with the urban landscape. I made a lot of work that had to do with growing up in suburbia: on the facade all is the same, but inside is really different. Eventually I also became interested in the things we buy and the things we throw away. This is a consumer culture, and I became interested in the things we use for a few minutes and then throw away.
Recently I’ve been more into functional pottery. In the past I was a potter but mostly made sculptures, but now I am trying to create things that people can buy and use every day, but that still has some of my sense of humor.
Kelly: I was so flattered when they picked me! The curators told me that of all the artists to choose from, I was the one that got every jurors’ vote. I am super grateful and thought it was so thoughtful.
eCoronado: Can you tell me your Coronado story? How long have you lived here, and how has your art been a part of your life in Coronado?
Pamela: The first time I lived in Coronado was in 1959; my dad was an aviator in the Navy and stationed in a carrier off North Island. I went to Sacred Heart for four years and graduated from 8th grade there. I thought I had died and gone to heaven here in Coronado!
We moved back to D.C. and it felt like an exile — no freedom, no beach — and so my dream was always to come back here. When I met my husband, he was a Navy SEAL and I was also in the Navy as a clinical social worker. My husband wanted to go back to Coronado, and we got orders to San Diego and eventually bought a house here. I have been here ever since, since the 1990s.
As for my interest in art here in Coronado, I had always been a drawer, but never a painter. Unfortunately right after Sept 11, my father died, and then I brought my mom back to live with us in Coronado. When she died, it was a wrenching loss. My mother had been a painter, I had watched her do that over the years and I loved going to her classes. I saw an article about Coronado’s adult education classes at the high school, so I took a painting class, and I’ve been painting ever since. I was also working at the time as a psychotherapist, so when I retired from that I started painting every day. It’s a lot of practice and a lot of doing!
eCoronado: What type of art do you produce?
What is exciting about the Coronado Arts Commission in general — and the People’s Choice exhibition specifically — is that it really is promoting local artists here. The Arts Commission’s professionalism and initiative is amazing. I think it’s a great addition to Coronado, and the People’s Choice is a huge bonus for me because people are recognizing something I do. I think the whole venue is something that Coronado hasn’t had, and I think it’s a great addition to the community.
