“Seachange” at the CACGV Gallery

 UPDATE: I went to see Seachange Thursday night and spent an enchanting hour scrutinizing this carefully crafted, inventive, whimsical world made of (in no particular order): pot scrubbers, cast off  bath mats, crocheted doilies, frayed rope, glove fingers, ruffles, lace, old mini light bulbs, jelly sandals.

If you have children (as long as they are old enough to NOT TOUCH – it’s hard, trust me) please consider a trip to view this amazing world that will transport you to another place and time.

Seachange transforms the gallery into a drowned post-global-warming living room now overgrown by a “coral reef” of creatures created entirely from recycled clothing and household junk.  The work is composed of hundreds of individual corals, “fish”, and bizarre marine creatures fabricated from doilies, hair curlers, brushes, plastic scrubbing pads, feathers, bath mats, shower caps, baseball cap mesh, crocheted tuques, plastic “jelly” sandals and other cast-offs–there’s even a boys’ rigid black plastic athletic cup “crustacean.”The breeze from an electric fan keeps the plastic shower cap medusas and the feathery tendrils of the reef gently moving.  In short, lots of fun!The installation is made up of hundreds of component parts, mostly held together with unseen straight pins, so it takes several days to create this magical little world.    Surreal, gently thought-provoking, and quite lovely, this particular work is, to quote one reviewer, “so damn much fun to look at.”