Public Can Get a Glimpse of Artistry in Motion at Studios in Santa Monica

With all due respect to galleries and their carefully hung shows, there is something to be said for glimpsing artists and their work in their creative settings--in the thick of idiosyncratic studio messes, of paint jars and half-finished sketches.

The Venice Art Walk is one such opportunity for the public to encounter artists in their natural habitat. But condensed as it is into two days, it can become something of a mob scene, and the distances between studios can make the walk rather more of a trudge.

This month, there’s a smaller-scale alternative under one sprawling roof. Throughout September, Santa Monica Fine Art Studios is issuing an open invitation to drop by its 10,000-square-foot facility, a novel school-cum-studio that is the workplace of 25 artists.

Ranging in age from 16 to 85, some are professional artists-in-residence with gallery representation. Others are avid amateurs drawn to the combination of classes and round-the-clock studio space offered.

Santa Monica Fine Art Studios was founded 4 1/2 years ago by its two instructors, the sculptor and painter Yossi Govrin and painter Ute Gruenwald. “The idea came out of our own need for studios,” Govrin said. “It’s really expensive to go out and get a studio just for yourself.”

Instead, they found not only studio space but founded a school.

“We felt that if you start a painting and you work on it once a week--that’s not enough,” Gruenwald said. “So we had the idea to combine classes and studio space so that people can keep working.”

Participating artists work in private spaces or in their own allotted portion of a large common studio. Govrin and Gruenwald have their own studios alongside.

“A lot of sharing goes on here between people who are very advanced and people who aren’t,” said Heather Powell, a relative newcomer to painting, who was working at her sun-splashed space under a studio skylight. “It’s a chance to see people in process.”

For Gruenwald and Govrin, such exchange is part of the point. “If we wanted to make a lot more money, we could run classes with a hundred people that come and go--but then we would become administrators,” Gruenwald said. “We keep it small because we want to be artists. And I think that if you are a student, and you’re standing there having problems with your art--and your teachers are also there having problems with their art, then it’s really like artists working together.”

Santa Monica Fine Art Studios, 1834 Franklin St., Santa Monica. (213) 453-3632. “Meet the Artists” open house through September; 11 a.m to 5 p.m. Monday through Saturday.

A CAUTION-ARY TALE?: From the outset, Boulder artist John Wilson’s show “The Reagan Years Plus Two and Other Ethical Issues” was meant to be provocative. But neither the artist nor gallery owner Sherry Frumkin would have predicted that it would become controversial even before it opened--when three local publications rejected an advertisement illustrating a piece in the show.

Wilson produces small-scale sculptural installations satirizing religious and political topics that he culls from newspapers, magazines and the general cultural climate. Constructed of painted ceramics and wood, they bring to mind three-dimensional political cartoons.

To advertise the show, Frumkin included a photograph of a Wilson piece from the Reagan era titled “The Triumph of Nancy.” On a gilded processional carriage, Nancy Reagan is perched flirtatiously on the lap of a ram. (The goat, Wilson explained, has long been used to represent the devil.) The carriage is strewn with miniature photographic depictions of Tarot cards; it is pulled by a green frog with Ronald Reagan’s face.

“The idea,” Wilson said, “was that she’s courting the devil by going to fortunetellers.” He added that it was inspired partly by news stories about the former First Lady’s reliance on astrology and partly by a published photograph that Wilson once saw of Mrs. Reagan posing in the lap of the actor who plays “Mr. T” on the television show “The A-Team.”

Angeles and California magazines and the daily trade paper Hollywood Reporter refused to run the ad. It was accepted by the monthlies L.A. Style and Los Angeles, and the art publications Art in America and ArtScene.

Frumkin said Perry Grayson, publisher of both Angeles and California, told her the ad would offend readers. From the Hollywood Reporter, she said, word came back that the ad would not run because of political considerations.

Neither Grayson nor Hollywood Reporter President Robert Dowling were available for comment.

Frumkin, who is active in the American Civil Liberties Union, said she felt the refusal of the publications to run her ad was evidence of subtle inroads being made into the private arena by recent censorship controversies involving public funds for art that some deem offensive or obscene.

“I think there’s an atmosphere that has been created by Jesse Helms and the culture police,” she said. “Magazines that might have thought, ‘This is provocative’ are saying, ‘Oh, what’s going to happen? We’ll be a target.’ Borderline issues are becoming problematic, and that’s very scary for this country.”

Wilson said he was surprised that it was not even a piece targeting religion or featuring nudity that was rejected, but rather a political piece involving an ex-President. Other pieces in the Wilson show comment on Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker, Jerry Falwell, Pope John Paul II, Russian dissidents, Chief Justice William Rehnquist and the Rev. Sun Myung Moon, among others.

“The Reagan Years Plus Two and Other Ethical Issues” through Sept. 29 at the Sherry Frumkin Gallery, 1440 9th St., Santa Monica. (213) 393-1853. Open 11 a.m to 5 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday.