The final product of Atkinson Gallery’s newest exhibition, “Design At Work,” will be a complete surprise; even to its featured artists.
Sally McQuillan, textiles, Jeff Shelton, architect and Tom Stanley, graphic design, are all of the artisans slated to display their work collaboratively. However, they have never met each other or discussed any logistics for the show. “We don’t know where we are going with this,” said Shelton.
Those details aren’t important in relationship to the ideas behind the art expose: to show students of the arts how to apply art in the commercial world, and illustrate other venues for their artistry.
Director of the Atkinson Gallery, Dane Goodman has given them complete artistic license to choose what they are going to put on the walls and how they are going to arrange it. Goodman specifically chose these artists’ work as examples of how design informs our world at every level, through fabrics, media images and buildings in the environment.
McQuillan has designed out of Rauol Textiles in Santa Barbara since 1981 and has sold her work internationally in Mexico and London.
She doesn’t use computerized models to print her designs on the fabric. They are meticulously drawn and screened by hand. McQuillan has received an award for her textile designs from Elle Décor.
Tom Stanley is a local graphic designer whose work has graced the sides of city buses and his logos adorn children’s clothing. He branded the look for the retail store, “This Little Piggy Wears Cotton”.
Jeff Shelton is a local architect who says he hopes the show will inspire students to be excited about architecture and design. “People have been weaned off the idea that architecture can affect their lives,” he said.
He said that he plans to put his architectural renderings and blueprints on the wall in his section of the gallery with stick-pins, resembling his own downtown studio.
According to him, design is omnipresent in the world. “Every single thing, from clothes down to the pen you write with is someone’s design,” Shelton said.
With this design exhibition, he said he hopes to impress upon City College students the idea that all art forms have their place in the world and each one depends on the other to be good. “Hopefully this show will turn on a switch in students minds,” Shelton said.
The opening reception is Friday, Nov. 18 from 5pm to 7pm.