In anticipation of the soon-to-be completed recreation of Kent Twitchell’s mural of the ‘Old Woman of the Freeway’ on Valley Institute of Visual Art (VIVA) gallery’s west wall, VIVA is honoring six women who have managed to succeed as artists, overcoming the cultural barriers and biases of the dominant male art world. In conjunction with The Southern California Women’s Caucus for Art, VIVA presents ‘Women of a Certain Age,’ from January 17 through February 10 at the gallery, 13261 Moorpark St. in Sherman Oaks. Palisadian artist Joan Vaupen was invited to participate in the exhibition, not because of her age, but because of her exploration of nontraditional media, which many women have chosen, feeling excluded from the male-identified fields of painting and sculpture. All of these artists work in nontraditional media, assemblage, watercolors and mixed media. They also share an interest in political activism and community service, which visibly imbues their work with powerful meaning and inspiration. Vaupen turned her attention to making art full time 15 years ago, after retiring from teaching in the Santa Monica school district, where she also administered the elementary art programs. ‘After I retired, I used my pension money to support my studio at Santa Monica Airport, and over the years have compiled a lot of work,’ she says. Fifteen of her pieces, which form a retrospective of her work, will be exhibited. Born in Seattle, Vaupen graduated from Central Washington University with a degree in art and, midway through studying for a master’s degree, found her first job in Japan, teaching arts and crafts to civilians who worked for the military. She returned to California in 1960 and eventually moved to the Palisades at the end of that decade while also finishing her master’s degree in painting from Cal State L.A. Her passion has been exploring alternative materials, and experimenting with ways of doing things ‘better or differently.’ Often working outside the boundaries of canvas and paint can be challenging. When, for example, Vaupen was making her Plexiglass fortune cookie series, she heated the Plexi in order to bend it. ‘It is always a challenge, hoping it won’t break while coaxing it to bend, because Plexiglass remembers flat,’ Vaupen says. Most recently, she has been working with industrial titanium, which, while valued for its tensile strength, is almost impossible to cut. When trying to clean it, Vaupen used a burr, creating a moire, which she then blasted with heat to produce a rainbow of colors in a beautiful pattern. Vaupen will also include a number of her trenchant political commentaries, including ‘Hollywood Smoke House,’ which lambastes the movie industry for promoting smoking on screen. ‘Today they’re still paying movie stars to smoke,’ she says. In another painting, ‘Gold Star,’ Vaupen presents the American flag, with one gold star in the field of blue. The red and white stripes lay in wavy horizontal lines like bandages covering dead soldiers’ faces.
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