The Castaway Island Gallery of Rhan Wilson

Imagine an island where all the earth’s reusable items wash upon it’s shore, and from that incredible resource emerge a race of creatures who create their own culture, royal court and deities.

Santa Cruz artist, Rhan Wilson has not only imagined such a place, but has created many of its inhabitants as well, all from materials that he realized were still too useful to have simply thrown away.

Rhan calls these creations “Castaways", their Gods “Jugheads”, and has brought them together for you in this art exhibit entitled,"From the Temple of Castaway Island."

"I felt something watching me..." he says as he describes his first vision of a "Jughead." He had been camping, and while sitting 'round the fire became aware of a water jug sitting on the picnic table; it's chiseled jaw, deep set eyes, and week old beard watching him and his companions.

"Jugheads are fully wearable masks, too" he says, and has worn them in performances as percussionist with Oscar winning documentary subject, THOTH.

Rhan has created pieces for various local shows, including Pipa Piñon's "The Doll Box," and Paula Bliss' "Earth Day Celebration" show at DeLaveaga Elementary School, creating giant guitars, light switches, skulls, and other miscellaneous oddities.

REVIEW

Walking into V Mudra Studio for "90% Recycled," a mixed media show featuring local artists, I thought I might be in the wrong place. I expected to see the usual recycled materials: soda cans, glass bottles, milk cartons.

Instead I saw tribal-looking masks, sculptures and colroful collages. Owner V Mudra obligingly guided me through the pieces, pointing of the recycled elements: wine corks, paper,old cloth, toys and plastic jugs. The artists have literally transformed these cast-off items, making them almost unrecognizable.

V Mudra received her inspiration for the exhibit when, at a yard sale, she stumbled upon the art of mother and son artists Rhan Wilson and Paula Pidgeon. She said their pieces gave her goose bumps.

Five different artists contribute to this exhibit, each one bringing a different impact to the show. Wilson's "Spring Shaman" mask looks like something one would find in the ancient civilizations exhibit in a museum. It incorporates a plastic jug, strips of cloth, beads, frayed rope and pieces of a vegetable steamer.

Armando Troche's sculpture "Dawn of a new Species" gives life to old records and Emily Hammergren contributes a book induding newspaper clippings of deceased soldiers from the war in Iraq, accompanied by a moving poem. This is but a sampling of the remarkable pieces on display at Mudra's studio. These talented local artists have certainIy put a new spin on old material. KQB

Take a whirlwind ride to the world of Rhan

By SHELLY MERON SENTINEL STAFF WRITER

Talking with Rhan Wilson feels like some sort of wild carnival ride. He is leading you through a maze, surrounded by mirrors, col-ors, textures. You are bombarded by creative ideas, physical images and stimulating sounds. But in a good way.

Sometimes it seems like Wilson's creativ-ity is too big for his body or his brain, like he is just about to exceed their capacity. This immense amount of imagination seems like it could literally drown a person, and it takes somebody like Wilson to make sense of it all.

But before he could make sense of all these ideas, create something concrete and get it displayed, he had to sift through something else: piles of items most of us would consid-er trash; items Wilson had been collecting and saving because he didn't have the heart to throw them away.

"For as long as I could remember, I have kept materials," he says. "I just can't see them getting thrown away. I think it's very waste-ful when people get tired of something and just throw it away. I really hate to waste materials."

The materials Wilson is talking about are toilet paper and paper towel tubes, various bottle caps and random pieces of plastic, among other things. After collecting these items for so long, Wilson had to start think. ing about what to do with them.

"It started to get to me, why am I collect-ing these things and what am I going to do with them?" he says. "So, I thought, 'If I glue them together, I'll have one piece instead of a bunch of little pieces,' " he adds with a chuckle.

Wilson began to papier-mache and paint his pieces for a more finished look, which takes them to a place beyond the usual, recycled art. "I got a comment from a guy once who said he thought he would see the typical old cans, the typical recycled art work (at my art show)," Wilson says. "And this is a lot more finished, I believe."

The more polished look of the pieces is not the only thing that makes Wilson's artwork unique. The pieces are all part of a story, a mythology Wilson has created, another product of his fruitful, whirlwind imagination.

This culture is called Castaway Island, named after the materials that would normally be cast away into the garbage. It includes creatures Wilson calls "Castaways," named for the same concept, and their deities, the "Jugheads." The Castaways have full bodies, or something like it, and represent the first inhabitants to emerge on the island. The Jugheads are masks but they are also the gods of this culture, themselves created by the Castaways.

The inspiration for this mythology came to Wilson unexpectedly. "I really didn't intend it this way. I made the masks, and I thought they were kind of cool," he says. "I didn't think up the culture until I thought of what I would name them for an art show.' It sort of just developed into a mythical land.

These things kind of develop as they're created." He says he came up'with the name Jughead after seeing an image of a face in a water jug, a face with, deep set eyes and a week-old beard staring at him and his friends from the shadows of the water.

"If I look at something the right way, I can see a face in it," Wilson assures me.

And he doesn't stop with these faces. He is a multifaceted artist, occasionally creating pieces and sets for events and theater performances in the area. Wilson also plays percussion and guitar, often with another local artist, THOTH, a violinist and performance artist with his own created mythology and language. THOTH was the subject of an Oscar,winning documentary in 2002 directed and coproduced by Sarah Kernochan.

Wilson isn't afraid to combine these different facets of his artistic self. His art show reception at the V Mudra Studio in Santa Cruz included a musical segment performed by him and Rick Walker, another local artist who specializes in looping, a technique that involves recording and replaying bits of music to create multiple layers of sound. "It's a whole other bit of artwork," Wilson says of the musical performance.

On the surface, Wilson's work can seem strange, overwhelming or chaotic. But there's a method to his creative madness, a method that, upon close examination, settles into something sensible without losing its uniqueness. "I tend to like odd and interesting artwork, as opposed to realism," Wilson muses. "I'm not really a realistic kind of artist."