Mary M. Mazziotti - Do we expect too much of our food? Can it make us happy, healthy, young, sprightly and desirable? Yes! Yes!

The paintings of “The Importance of Food” present food and drink assparkling, fulfilling treasures, and explore our complicated relationship with the things we eat. It seems an obvious choice to replace the food images in these paintings with glitter, beads, fur and luxurious fabrics. This is not food --- it’s opulent ambrosia that glimmers and sparkles.

A model gazes at a bottle of sauce in erotic rapture… scrumptious chefettes present huge bowls of glittering batter…a mother and son on a picnic choose from a banquet of radiant delights. Surely this can’t be the same food that you and I eat?

Golden beads, fur and rich tapestry seem only fitting for these gods and goddesses who promise that we, too, can enjoy the same gratification if only we will buy and eat!

John Davis - I create three-dimensional works that play out a dialog between the natural landscape and the urban. I am interested in activities, materials, processes that are associated with a connection to the land. This could include driving or walking through the landscape; surveying, measuring, making recorded observations; searching out and collecting materials.

My artwork will make a reference to the land in these ways. I might take natural elements collected from the land and shape them to take their place in a fabricated work. This could mean partially machining a raw piece of wood that is combined with welded steel, cast concrete, resin or other industrial material. My work could also make reference to a place in the landscape or an activity such as measuring that could occur within the landscape.

In addition to my formal exploration with this theme, I am producing a series of works based on site-actions. These are typically studio fabricated elements that are dragged down remote dirt roads while plotting the location and distance of the drag action. These elements typically include material native to the area of the site-action and may make reference to the site in other ways as well. This series began at the U.S. / Mexico border in remote southeastern Arizona and proceeds north towards the ultimate goal of the Canadian border.