Populist Art in Pescadero Rises Again

2011 may be the Year of the Rabbit, but in Pescadero, it might be remembered more as the Year of the Fish-Goat.

For two weekends starting tomorrow, the exhibit "" will take over an empty lot in downtown Pescadero, filling it with a spiral array of multicolored and textured goats fashioned from a range of materials. Live music, children's art activities and food and drinks will also be part of the mix.

Conceived by local artist group Arte Motu (Latin for "Art-Quake"), the show is designed to make art "accessible to the public," group founder and artist Rosanna Petralia said yesterday while setting up the exhibit alongside a crew of volunteers.

"I envision this exhibit as a citadel within a town...a town within a town," Petralia said, referring to Sicily, Italy, the place she grew up, as inspiration. Such vision appears to be line with that of Arte Motu, which aims in part to "promote a sense of place through art."

Petralia, now a Coastside resident who lives in White House Canyon near Año Nuevo, said she founded Arte Motu in 2009 as a way to get artists together as well as to create activists for community art.

"An exhibit in the outdoor dimension makes it visible and accessible to all," Petralia said. "You don't have to go into a gallery, and anyone who wants to enter the exhibit can do so - and in any direction they want," she said, noting that housed galleries suggest a direction to the way a person experiences an exhibit, but showing the works in an open lot gives viewers the freedom to roam from piece to piece in whatever way they wish.

Petralia also said that the show was organized as a way to increase the number of art exhibits in town. "There aren't many opportunities to show work here," Petralia added, mentioning that the Pescadero-based South Coast Artists Alliance holds one show a year. In February, Arte Motu erected a series of decorative hearts prominently displayed (guerrilla-style without any formal explanation or prior notice) along South Coast roads (click for a photo gallery published by Half Moon Bay Patch).

In addition to works by ten Arte Motu artists, students in Anne Ingraham's class at Pescadero High School will also be on display. "The students are really shy about it," said Petralia. "This is the first time they've done anything like this."

"Capradero: A Lot of Fish-Goats" follows Arte Motu's 2010 show titled "Capradero: A Lot of Goats." The title was inspired by the fact that a fair number of Pescadero's residents are goats -- from those at Harley Farms Goat Dairy to the herds housed at nearby farms. The "Fish-Goat" theme for this year was inspired on several fronts, inlcuding the facts that the "Pescadero" in Spanish means "fish monger," and that the town is home to native fish species such as steelhead trout and Coho salmon located in Pescadero Creek and Butano Creek. To illustrate the concept, the 2011 poster features a creature with the head of a goat and a body housed in a shell (see media box to right to view poster).

In the five months' time that the group has been preparing for the exhibit, artists fostered an exchange of not just tools and materials, but ideas and strategies on how each could create the goat that each artist envisioned, Petralia said.

"The show is a challenge for local artists to do work in 3D," she said. "Most are painters...so what you see here, the majority are experiments," she said.

"Capradero: A Lot of Fish-Goats runs from May 7 - 15 on Stage Road in Pescadero and is open to the public from 10 a.m. - 6 p.m on weekends. Music will accompany the exhibit on May 7 and 15 (free), along with children's activities, food and drink. Arte Motu members and Pescadero High School students will be selling their work on display. Twenty-five percent of the proceeds will go towards Arte Motu, and an identical percent of proceeds will go to Pescadero High's art program from sales of all student works.