“Hardware: A Love Story”

Published 3:49 pm Monday, December 14, 2009

The Sammamish Arts Commission has put on several great shows in the Commons Gallery at City Hall, but perhaps none of them is as inventive and compelling as “Hardware: A Love Story,” which opened last week.

Local artists Larry Calkins and Carla Dimitriou have managed to put together an exhibition of sculpture and painting that is both primitive and of an age ahead of us. At times you feel like you are in a museum, looking at the hand-carved artifacts of New Guinea, or coastal Africa.

And then it turns playful.

The colorful figures are like totems of their time, and borrow from these ancient sources.

There is modernity in them, and modern evil too, a creepiness. Some of the sculptures particularly are downright spooky, but it is a show that will definitely attract as many toddling admirers as older ones.

The rough, brutal nature of the works goes well with the theme of the show – the hardware store. Calkins and Dimitriou, like many artists, spend a lot of time searching for the right materials, and the inventiveness of the show is a tribute to the bounty found in a good, local hardware store.

It is tribute also to the ability of good artists to see the beginnings of animation where others might see just plain function.

It’s a great show. You should check it out.

“Hardware: A Love Story,” is now on display at Sammamish City Hall.