Behind the Canvas: Study of Artists’ Studios

Most people’s notions of what artists do in their studios--and what those places look like--probably owe more to Hollywood than to reality.

In fact, like any frequently used room, a studio reflects its owner’s personality. Some artists are hoarders, some are minimalists; some are messy, others are fastidious.

At John Wayne Airport through May 5, “Accumulation/Creation” is an attempt to show how the working habits of seven Orange County artists are reflected by the kinds of objects they keep in their studios.

It was a creative idea on the part of cocurators Richard Turner and Maggi Owens of Chapman University’s Guggenheim Gallery, but it suffers from several problems.

One limitation is that both the studios-in-miniature and the artists’ works had to be squeezed into plexiglass wall cases. Coupled with evidence that some artists don’t seem to keep interesting stuff on hand and that much of the finished work isn’t particularly compelling, the show as a whole doesn’t live up to the intrigue of its premise.

The most artful presentation is by Cornelius O’Leary, who typically made a conceptual piece out of the very idea of trying to show the difference between odd piles of castoffs in his studio and finished work.

One of O’Leary’s cases, titled “Raw Materials,” holds a workaday array of objects--coils of metal tubing, wire and rope, stacks of plastic and metal bottle caps--behind a murky piece of plexiglass resembling the painted-out windows of a site undergoing construction.

The next case, titled “Finished Materials,” is a dramatic contrast. The only object in it, set against a spanking white backdrop and seen through a clear vitrine, is a tiny toy sheep. On its head is a dead wasp whose dangling legs look rather like a droopy beard. Exquisite and incongruous, this piece makes a mockery of the idea of art as a “useful” occupation.

Rather than representing a straightforward solution to a problem--something you simply tackle with the right tools--the miniature mutant (made of two kinds of “finished” materials, a dead insect and machine-stamped plastic) embodies the collision of hoarded objects and an artist’s darkly playful humor.

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The most personalized studio miscellany--a mingling of useful and decorative objects neatly stashed in jars and tubes--belongs to Lynn V. Kubaseck, who nonetheless saves more unusual items for an installation she calls “Parts Case.”

Kubaseck’s trademark severed dolls’ legs appear in this piece, along with a pink police notice referring to an incident of domestic violence (“request for no prosecution”), Angels tickets, photos of children playing, an altered advertisement featuring a bride and an array of food, and a child’s note.

Unfortunately, however, Kubaseck’s mosaic of family dysfunction and her display of inflated and bound black hearts from another project is overshadowed by the emotional vividness of a couple of her raw materials. One laboriously printed child’s letter reads, “First this shamrock will not change my life! . . . if I wished and wished for money I would be a rich little creep. . . . “

For the most part, the other studio samplers offer few surprises. Carol Saindon, who juxtaposes macrocosmic night skies and microcosmic ocean imagery in her silvery drawings, amasses photographs of both celestial and aqueous imagery, makes lists of evocative words and collects water-worn rocks and the odd sand dollar. Only one item is a puzzle in this array: a delicate cloth with Sanskrit script.

Some viewers may be surprised to see that Rudy Vega apparently stocks his studio only with books (ranging from Ansel Adams’ “Classic Images” to Bill McKibben’s “The End of Nature”) and road maps of Western parkland. But his concern in the project on view, “Scenic Point”--an extended photographic study of the behavior of tourists at U.S. national parks--is not photography per se but human behavior, visual tropes and national identity.

Other artists in the show are Nancy Mooslin, Scott Katano and Sandra White.

* “Accumulation/Creation,” at John Wayne Airport, 3151 Airway Ave., Costa Mesa (opposite Gates 1-4 and 11-14). Free. Hours: 6 a.m.-11:30 p.m. Through May 5. (714) 252-5171.