OMFG

Sometimes the kids get it right. There’s just no other way to describe the Expressions West Show at the Coos Art Museum.

Don’t make excuses, don’t forget to set the DVR, don’t waste a single moment, get to the museum and be waiting when the doors open. In the first place, you’ll have to see this exhibit more than once to even begin to grasp all there is to see.

Oh, you think there might be meaning in the works that you, being a gifted artist and brilliant creative person, have a special insight into and can swallow it all in one gulp. Get over yourself. This ain’t the Big Brother House, we’re talking real art.

This Friday, from 5 – 7 you get to see one of the best exhibits the Coos Art Museum has hosted in the last five years. There’s color, drama, excitement, mystery and that’s just the staff, you should see the art.

But wait…there’s more. Figures By Four in the Atrium Gallery will rock your world. Okay, you know I like people and I like girls and I like nekkid girls and it is true that this exhibit has all that, but it also has wonderful images, crafted by skilled artists, filled with dramatic strokes, and vivid pallets and accurate draftsmanship.

Nothing strikes the eye wrong faster than a figure poorly drawn. We spend all of our lives staring at human beings, some of it not reflections in a mirror, but actual moving people. Get one arm in the wrong place and you have Picasso, without the intent, craft or brilliance.

None of that mars the Figures By Four exhibit. The bodies recline, bend, stretch, flow and twist with all of the correct play of muscles, covered by fabric which shifts and drapes like, well…fabric.

Take a look, if you dare, you’ll want to toss your paints and canvas out the window. Sure masters like Monte Rogers will have nothing to fear, but I’m still quaking.

And then there’s the work of the Oregon Coast Photographer’s Assn. should I say more? Okay, add your camera to that pile you’re tossing out the window. The images are startling; not because of distortion or subject, but more the incredible wonders captured in those tiny slices of time a camera steals from life.

I got a preview and left with my head fuzzy and my eyes watering. The shock of greatness does that to you.

Rise, gather up your bed and go to the Coos Art Museum’s Expressions West show. You’ll wonder how I could have been so negative about it.

And yes, I’m still pissed I wasn’t eligible.