Seeing What Develops : ‘Pinhole to Pixel’ Survey Exposes Photographer’s Eye for Invention and Discovery

A pinhole photograph--taken by a homemade camera in which a tiny hole substitutes for a lens--reveals a dreamlike world where everything is equally soft-edged, no matter how near or far from the camera, and any moving object becomes an elusive ghost.

In an era that prizes eccentric imagery, it is no wonder that a number of contemporary artists have returned to this old-fashioned, long-exposure method of making eerily unreal photographic images.

Peggy Jones, who teaches photography at Orange Coast College in Costa Mesa, is well known locally as a pinhole enthusiast, equally adept at seeing the camera-worthy potential of unlikely materials and of exploiting the built-in distortions of the medium.

“From Pinhole to Pixel,” a 13-year survey of Jones’ work running through Oct. 10 at the college art gallery on campus, displays a fairly consistent level of invention and discovery, though her talent for striking and appealing visual effects often supersedes her ability, or willingness, to reveal the deeper implications of her themes.

While studying printmaking and sculpture at UC Irvine in the early ‘80s, Jones built a pinhole camera out of cardboard with which she made improbable self-portraits reminiscent of Duane Michals’ dreamlike imagery but without his psychological emphasis.

This led to a 1984 series of witty sculptural cameras that photographed similarly themed objects (the Camel cigarette-package camera produced a tiny, slot-shaped image of a lit cigarette; a wood box containing a red plunger photographed the U-shaped kink of a plumbing pipe).

Nearly a decade later, Jones made a set of robot-like cameras out of pieced-together Styrofoam packing cases to photograph her “Black Hole” series. These spacey, radiant globe shapes emerging from black voids seem poised between a straightforward fascination with outer-space imagery and sci-fi kitsch.

With a large, handsomely crafted wooden pinhole camera, Jones shot a portion of Isamu Noguchi’s “California Scenario” sculpture garden in Costa Mesa. Flattened, elongated and rendered in a dull stony gray, the Japanese American artist’s sunlit pyramids are transformed into a pitiless stage set for some existential drama.

Aspects of Japanese culture occupy an increasing proportion of Jones’ recent work. Using a multiple-aperture camera made by poking pinholes in each compartment of a plastic chocolate box tray, she made “Self-Portrait With Jizo,” a set of small, circular photographs.

Half of them show her bowing to some unseen object; the other half are images of a Jizo shrine (dedicated to the souls of dead children) seen in miniature, as if through the wrong end of a telescope. Repetition, distortion and the disorientation of her body position relative to the shrine evoke a strong feeling of tension and disquiet.

Jones’ color photographs of the shrine and scattered offerings left by worshipers are disappointingly straightforward and large-scale for an artist who works best in dreamy miniature.

More successful are atmospheric fan-shaped, fan-folded photographs of bits and pieces of Japanese architecture, mounted on scrolls made from printing Japanese wrapping paper patterns onto Cyanotype-sensitized lengths of dyed silk.

The “pixel” in the show’s title refers to Jones’ mischievous computer alterations of antique and contemporary images (ranging from a 17th century engraving to a tabloid photograph). But her most distinctive work is disarmingly low-tech: a deliberate stepping back from the sophistication and speed of contemporary life to look afresh at the world.

* “From Pinhole to Pixel,” Orange Coast College Fine Arts Gallery, 2701 Fairview Road, Costa Mesa. Hours: 10 a.m.--3 p.m. Monday-Wednesday; 10 a.m.--3 p.m. and 7-8:30 p.m. Thursday. Free. Through Oct. 10. (714) 432-5039.

‘Weavers’ Loses Its Threads

Months ago, in a roundup of upcoming exhibitions, this column listed a weaving show at Cal State Fullerton under the heading “crafts.” It took only a few days for a letter to arrive from an aggrieved reader: How could I be so obtuse as to persist in calling a recognized art form a “craft”?

There isn’t room in this column to take on this venerable and thorny issue, which springs up again now that “Timeless Tradition / Present Meanings: Contemporary Art by Women Weavers” has come to the university’s Main Gallery (through Oct. 10).

The short answer is that stimulating art can be made from any material, by any process. But work with craft origins doesn’t make a convincing case for its bid to be considered contemporary art when it seems trite in its expression--no matter how much expertise and labor went into its creation or how much tradition it incorporates.

Graduate museum design students Victoriana DeRaita and Rebecca Hernandez, curators of this exhibition, have gathered work by 10 female weavers, mostly quite obscure outside the field, with the exception of Lia Cook, a veteran of many international shows.

By confining the show to the work of women specifically trained as weavers, rather than simply looking for work that incorporates woven elements, the curators have needlessly undermined their weaving-as-art theme. (The same issue obtains in photography: The best shows tend to treat it as merely another form of adventurous contemporary art rather than as a specialized technique.)

The opening lines of Hernandez’s catalog essay--”Through art we celebrate ourselves, the qualities that make us unique in the world . . . “--unfortunately do not inspire confidence. Such are the flabby platitudes that lead to vacuous art.

As it turns out, few of the works in “Timeless Tradition” have more than the most banal relationship to contemporary feminist, or any other, issues. The pieces tend to be pleasing to the eye--colorful, richly textured, well-structured--but bland. Even as attractive objects the weavings do not impress by virtue of novelty, sensuous allure or fresh use of symbolism.

The materials used are overwhelmingly traditional, with a few timid forays into foil and plastic; the impressions produced are mostly cozy and conservative. This is the sort of work that tends to wind up on corporate walls as a symbol of customer-friendly good taste.

A few pieces are somewhat tougher, but even they seem to be fighting--rather than slyly undermining or freshly reinterpreting--the decorative aspect of the wall hangings.

Consuelo Jimenez-Underwood, who is concerned with issues of Latino identity and assimilation, incorporates maps, border freeway signs and images of the Virgin in “Sacred Jump,” a weaving covered with a loose net of gold wire. But the prettiness of the piece gets in its way, unintentionally turning a political and social issue into mere background music.

Tellingly, the two strongest works in the show are intimately related to traditional art media. Emily DuBois’ series of small black abstracted images bordered by burlap-like fabric has an elegantly nuanced draftsmanlikequality. Cook’s weavings form images of fabric touching skin--a loincloth on a slim torso, hands grasping a piece of drapery--self-consciously emphasize the tactility of woven cloth.

In catalog essays, the curators and guest writer Jan Janeiro offer a compact--if somewhat repetitious--outline of the historical context of weaving. Given their perspective, rather than isolate a few examples of traditional weaving in the adjacent East Gallery, it might have been a better idea to base the show on a directly comparison between the weaving of various ethnic communities and contemporary American work.

For example, what is it about the weavings of Ramona Sakiestewa, a member of the Hopi nation, that reflect her heritage, and how exactly do they differ? This is the sort of question a viewer versed in art but not fiber history finds puzzling indeed.

* “Timeless Tradition / Present Meanings: Contemporary Art by Women Weavers,” Cal State Fullerton Main Art Gallery, 800 N. State College Blvd. Hours: Noon-4 p.m. Monday, Tuesday and Thursday; 3-7 p.m. Wednesday; 2-5 p.m. Sunday. Free. Through Oct. 10 (714) 773-3262.