For Mom, A Taste of ‘Sugar ‘n’ Spice’

Like most holidays, Mother’s Day is overrun with simplistic images.

According to the greeting cards, motherhood is serene, simple, self-effacingly sanguine.

Gone is the memory of a woman with baby barf caking her favorite blouse, with a very bad report card in her hand, with worry lines driven into her forehead during those rebellious years.

For one day, Mother becomes the idealized embodiment of virtue: peacemaker, confidante, guide, wellspring of unconditional love.

On this day, you will not, even in memory, hear your mother shrieking at you to get your little fanny home.

This is not necessarily a bad thing.

We’re not knocking Mother’s Day, really. But this year, Best Bet would like to suggest a reality check.

You came from the body, the desire, the concern of a woman. And you may be able to get in touch with her again through the work of 13 women artists now showing at the Long Beach Museum of Art.

It’s worth a try, anyway.

The somewhat ironically named “Sugar ‘n’ Spice” exhibit at the museum wasn’t intended as an ode to motherhood. But it is an exploration of women and female imagery.

Some of the work needs no explanation. Lauren Lesko’s sculpture--including a well-shaped corset with a rabbit-fur trim--is intensely female.

And Laura Parker’s installation--a lace tablecloth with sand-silhouette place settings, backed by a wall of framed contraceptive advice from days gone by--may seem obvious at first. But look closer at what else she has framed and catalogued. In “Findings: A Cleaning Document,” Parker has made the contents of a dustpan into another kind of science, the archeology of days spent keeping house.

And, in case one forgets that women have a sense of humor, there are Judie Bamber’s paintings and mixed-media pieces. Consider, for instance, the perfectly formed, tiny dead goldfish centered on a large canvas. The title of this piece is “Oh Come On, It Doesn’t Hurt That Much.” An oil-on-canvas still-life of canned raspberry is titled “The Bad Seed.”

Other noteworthy works include video, sculpture, mixed media and--believe it or not--frosting. This you must see.

So here’s your Best Bet this week: Go to the Long Beach Museum of Art’s current exhibit, “Sugar ‘n’ Spice” and look at where you came from.

The museum is at 2300 E. Ocean Blvd. The exhibit will run through May 23. Museum hours are Wednesday through Sunday, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., and until 8 p.m. on Friday.

Admission is $2 for adults, free for children and museum members. Information: (310) 439-2119.