Playing Creatively : Longtime filmmaker Jules Engel’s abstract art, sculpture reflect his delight in the process, which he says ‘relaxes me’

Abstract artist and filmmaker Jules Engel has been the director of CalArts’ experimental animation program for more than 20 years. When he teaches, he tells students not to be afraid to play while they create.

“You must do art with some kind of joy,” even if the subject of the piece is serious, he said. “I enjoy doing art. It relaxes me.”

Engel’s recent sculpture and painting at Tobey C. Moss Gallery reflect his delight in the process.

Using wood painted white with accents of red, he has made small, droll sculptures of Southern California domiciles, including “Condos” and “Duplex.” In his interpretation of “Hillside Living, Beverly Hills,” the deck chairs are already on their way down the hill, and it looks as if the house is not too far behind. In “Baby Sitter,” it is the house that rests in the rocking chair.

“They are light and fun, but they still have a good sculptural presence. I like architecture because it relates to my work,” Engel said, explaining that he began doing drawings with lines, circles, squares and triangles in high school before he ever saw an abstract painting. When people ask him why he has not painted landscapes or people, he said, “I did what I did because I had no choice. You come ready-made.”

“Merce Cunningham and the Computer,” another small sculpture made of wood, presents abstract figures of dancers poised to move with mechanical precision. He said he did the piece in response to learning that Cunningham has been working out choreography on a computer.

Engel is not opposed to using a computer once in a while. His 1985 “Arts and Architecture” is a computer-generated image.

His most recent work, 30 acrylic-on-paper paintings in “The Meadow Series,” come out of his summer vacations with friends who live in a forest on Vashon Island in Washington. “When you look closely at the forest, you come up with abstraction. It loses its shape, character and size,” he said.

Layering various shades of green with highlights of one other color, such as blue, pink, yellow or orange, to signify flowers underneath the foliage, he creates a sense of depth and rhythm in his meadow environment. The mood is peaceful in the room where they are displayed.

Engel is working on an animated film of “The Meadow.” Arriving in Los Angeles in the late 1930s, he has always worked as a film animator. He created the Russian and Chinese dance sequences of Tchaikovsky’s “Nutcracker Suite” in Walt Disney’s “Fantasia.”

Accompanying Engel’s newest work are paintings, drawings and prints from the 1940s through the 1980s, and a video that presents four of his animated abstract films: “Train Landscape,” “Wet Paint,” “Accident” and “Shapes and Gestures.”

“Jules Engel” at the Tobey Moss Gallery, 7321 Beverly Blvd., Los Angeles, through March 14. Open 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Tuesdays through Saturdays. Call (213) 933-5523.

Ruth Mayerson Gilbert, 83, began her photography career only 20 years ago. She chose to photograph what she witnessed in various locales in Europe, where she lived for two decades, to express her feelings about what she saw.

Three series of her black-and-white photographs are on view at Jan Baum Gallery. “Sight Unseen” documents Parisian butchers in hooded professional garb, going about their business of delivering beef and pork carcasses to market.

At times, the photographs are like classical religious paintings, the carcasses serving as crosses to bear on the butchers’ backs. In other photographs, these men seem to be caught in the middle of a graceful dance. Mayerson Gilbert’s chiaroscuro effect contributes mystery, drama and the feeling of movement to these stills.

Her series of images taken in museums do more than just snoop on people looking at art. In these photographs, an emotional and/or physical resemblance occurs between the viewer and the figures in the painting.

“The Card Players” series was shot in the public squares of Italy, where aging, serious men wearing caps play cards. Some of them look directly at the camera, irritated by her focus on them. Others are too engaged in their game to notice her. A slight blurring of some of the images generates a sense of movement.

The gallery has also hung a few color photographs from Mayerson Gilbert’s 1991 trip to the former Soviet Union. She had been invited there to take part in a gathering of women photographers.

Mayerson Gilbert does all of her own printing and retouching.

Also in the gallery are sculptor Jim Lawrence’s small painted wood tableaux.

“Ruth Mayerson Gilbert: Photographs” at Jan Baum Gallery, 170 S. La Brea Ave., Los Angeles, through March 28. Open 10 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. Tuesdays through Saturdays. Call (213) 932-0170.

In the mid-1970s, actor and model Bill Overton wandered into an antique shop in Massachusetts. Rummaging, he found drawings from the pages of the New York journal, Harper’s Weekly, which depicted black people in the late 1800s.

From that moment on, he had to know more about those drawings. He scoured antique stores around the country for images from that magazine and other press sources, intrigued with the characterizations of 19th-Century black people in America, and messages about them. Some of the drawings were done by famed political satirist and cartoonist Thomas Nast.

About 60 copies of the actual pages of Harper’s Weekly in his collection are on display at the Santa Monica College Photography Gallery. These ektagraphs (prints made from wood carvings), produced between 1862 and 1886, cover a wide variety of aspects of black people’s lives during a period that included the Civil War and Reconstruction. Although many of the images are caricatures, some realistically portray historic events. Others present proud individuals living anything but stereotypical lives.

A series of drawings about the people of “Blackville” present twins who marry in a double wedding ceremony and go off to Europe for their honeymoons. This family celebrates the Fourth of July and New Year’s Day, as well as welcomes its first-born back home from college.

Joy Williams, coordinator of Santa Monica College’s African American Collegian Center, sees the exhibit as a catalyst for a dialogue about our history and the role the press plays in molding people’s opinions.

“When you see these images, what do you see? What do they evoke within you? Is it real, or is it programmed in you? Does it make you laugh or cry, feel proud or ashamed?” Williams said.

She said she is sure of one thing. The people who drew them knew black people. “We should use art to come to a common understanding, for racial harmony,” she said.

“Ektagraphs from Harper’s Weekly” at Santa Monica College Photography Gallery, in the library at 17th and Pearl streets, Santa Monica, through March 14. Open 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. Mondays through Thursdays, 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Fridays, and noon to 3 p.m. Saturdays. Call (310) 450-5150, Ext. 9753.