Gallery Celebrates 50 Years of Long Beach Artist's Work

From a press release:

The public is invited to celebrate the life work of Long Beach artist Slater Barron at the opening reception of her exhibition, MORE IS MORE, A FIFTY YEAR SURVEY, on Saturday, Oct. 4, 7-9 pm, at Stone Rose Gallery, 342 East Fourth Street, Long Beach,.

Slater Barron works in many media, choosing the medium which best transforms her concepts into art, including installations, collage, books, assemblage, paint and performance, and, perhaps best known, dryer lint.

Because of the unusual nature of her work in dryer lint, Slater has appeared on a variety of television shows including the Tonight Show with Johnny Carson, Real People with David Ruprect and was featured on Visiting with Huell Howser in 1988, with a follow up in 2007.

Much of Slater’s work is of social commentary, but the other side of life’s humor shows up repeatedly. Her work is usually about her personal beliefs and experiences.

“Fifty years ago, while living in France, I took oil painting classes and became hooked on art. Now I conclude, and am surprised to find, that my life’s work is also my life story, ”Slater said.
“I switched to acrylic paint and watercolor when my personal life became more complicated and I needed instant gratification or, often, instant failure,” Slater said.

As a naval officer during the Korean Conflict and the wife of an officer deployed during the Vietnam War, Slater personally knows the pain of war and has several pieces that touch on the human costs of civilization’s too many wars.

“One of my series, with metal leaf and off-black textured paint, shows the light in the darkness, and was influenced by the light I saw behind my eyes as I psychologically prepared for lung cancer surgery,” said Slater.

“In the ‘70s, when laundry duty for my four teenagers interrupted my painting time, I switched to using dryer lint as a medium so that the chore became a positive part of my work,” she said. During this time, Slater became best known for her large, social commentary lint installations, some of which were shown at the annual Magical Mystery Tour at Barnsdall Municipal Art Gallery in Los Angeles and on the Johnny Carson Show.

As both of her parents began suffering from Alzheimer’s disease, her challenge was to make the lint speak as a faded memory or a disintegration of persona, and to tell the story of how the disease affected her family. In 2007, Slater published “Remembering the Forgetting,” her memoir about the art she made to help her cope during her parents’ illness.

Examples of Slater’s work are in many museums and private collections throughout the world, including Ripley’s Believe It or Not Museums which collected more than 30 dryer lint pieces and commissioned celebrity portraits, including Princess Diane.

Slater’s resume includes at least 30 selected solo exhibitions and more than 100 group exhibitions nationally and internationally since 1975. Her dryer lint candy, a homage to Huell Howser, is titled California Gold for Huell, and is on display in the Huell Howser Museum in the Leatherby Library at Chapman University. Interviews with Slater have appeared in many newspapers and magazines including Art in America, Southwest Art Quarterly, Time, and People Magazine.

Slater was honored by the city of Long Beach as the Distinguished Visual Artist of the Year,1987-88, and was presented with a Certificate of Recognition from the City of Los Angeles in 2007. She was selected as the Long Beach Artist for the first Senate Contemporary Art Collection Exhibition in the California State Capital in 1997-98.

Having taught art and design courses for 25 years, Slater continues to do workshops and lectures about her work. She is still very active in the studio and in the art community.

“Even now, I encourage studio visits as a way to connect with the world and to continue a mutual education process,” Slater said.

Slater has a degree in sociology and psychology from Susquehanna University, a second B.A. in Studio Art from University of California, Irvine, and an M.F.A. from California State University, Long Beach in Studio Art.