Art gallery ‘Toteally Awesome,’ eco-friendly

The Dutzi art gallery is host to the handprinted tote bag exhibition, "Toteally Awesome" that raises environmental and consumer culture issues with colorful shoulder bags.

The BFA printmaking students display 33 handprinted tote bags of different sizes and styles that show the use of print mediums, such as silk screen, stencil, relief, collage and lithograph.

The tote bags represent different issues the artists decided to touch on and also present a great show to the public with its color, textures and geometric designs.

"The theme of the exhibition was a commentary on the no plastic [bags] rule of Long Beach," said Marcus Thibodeau, third year BFA Print Making major. "Long Beach retailers don't give out plastic anymore, charge for paper bags and offer reusable totes instead of paper or plastic."

Thibodeau's pieces consist of four tote bags with images of plastic bags on one side and paper bags on the other.

Although the images on the totes look computer generated, Thibodeau used the silk screen medium and used several colors layered on top of each other to make the images as realistic as possible.

"I think it's kind of neat to see the different totes, a pretty basic everyday utility turned into art," said Eva Kozachenko, who visited the art galleries from San Diego on Sunday. "I can tell the moods and angles that created each piece. I really like it."

The meaningful totes explore negative space and color variance, while reinforcing the theme of the exhibition and making the tote bags, a common utility, something artistic and aesthetic.

Tote bags displayed in the exhibit are of all sizes, colors and styles, including reversible and collages. Some tote bags have mixed-media, which adds an extra layer of texture to the piece.

Many of the artists' inspirations were drawn from the environmental and meta-consumer issues that were the theme of the exhibit.

Some artists did not follow any theme at all, such as Ivy Leighton, fifth year BFA Printmaking major.

"I was inspired by pacific north western Native American art," said Leighton. "They have a reverence for animals and trees as spirits. I was thinking of the animals."

Leighton is one of the many artists featured in the printmaking program's exhibit and she plans to print her environmentally-sensitive tote design on T-shirts and more tote bags and sell them to the public.

Each tote bag has a different meaning to the artist and a different meaning to the viewer. Although they may be different, both perspectives agree that the totes speak quite loudly to the issue of recycling plastic and paper bags.

Fans of the student art galleries can view and purchase the available pieces at the art department's annual Holiday Art Sale on Dec. 4.

For more on the BFA printmaking exhibit visit the student art galleries between noon to 5 p.m. by the Fine Art buildings Sunday through Thursday.

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