Feasting on the World Online Gallery

abstract painting by Gene Holtan on view at M.K. Contemporary Art Gallery in Santa Cruz, CA

A Host of Propensities

36" x 48"
acrylic on canvas
$3,600

Gene was always thinking, and he thought out loud. I loved his voice, and the lavish alchemy of his mind. He said, defensiveness keeps us from finding out what really is. The wonder is that when we allow ourselves to see what’s real, it doesn’t damage us. We both watched a mockingbird in a crabapple outside the window. Gene said, what I haven’t thought of yet is always better than what I’m thinking now.

from AMERICAN ANALECTS, by Gary Young

All Variables Have A Probability of Being

60" x72"
acrylic on canvas
$8,250

Gene said, it’s impossible to be honest with yourself; it isn’t achievable for anyone. The world is incomprehensible, and our defenses defeat us. I asked him, isn’t there anything we can believe in? Of course, he said, but it should be something arbitrary. He gazed out the window—ah, clouds.

from AMERICAN ANALECTS, by Gary Young

Always A Way to Understand

68.5" x 68.5"
acrylic on canvas
$8,950

Gene once confessed that when he was younger, he’d had a terrible temper, and often flew into a rage.
couldn’t imagine it; I had never seen him the least bit angry. Gene said, after my wife died, my anger left me. He said, she hadn’t been the source of my anger, but when she wa gone, anger was one of many things that died in me.

from AMERICAN ANALECTS, by Gary Young

Another Configuration

29" x 33"
acrylic on canvas
$2,000

For Gene, the authority of mark-making was a comfort. He said, it’s exhilarating to be available to your own inquiry, to create your own map, to say, this is me. It’s of no use to the others, and it can’t be explained. That’s its value.

from AMERICAN ANALECTS, by Gary Young

Bit of a Determinant

34.5" x 45"
acrylic on wood panel
$3,250

I saw a snowy egret standing on a mat of kelp, bobbing with the swells and the tide. There were sailboats, fog on the far side of the bay, a little chop beyond the point. When I told Gene, he said, it’s an astonishment that each day is different from another, that things are inconsistent day-to-day.

from AMERICAN ANALECTS, by Gary Young

abstract painting by Gene Holtan on view at M.K. Contemporary Art Gallery in Santa Cruz, CA

from AMERICAN ANALECTS, by Gary Young

Considered as a Chance

36" x 48"
acrylic on wood panel
$3,600

Gene kept painting after Elizabeth died, but said, I’ve lost my audience. He said, at least I haven’t lost interest in a conversation with the work, but there’s no reason for doing it, and who’s doing it is unknown to me.

from AMERICAN ANALECTS, by Gary Young

Discovery Of It's Ends

16" x 12"
acrylic on canvas
$500

The boy rode his bike to the artist’s studio every day after school to watch him paint. Sometimes there was a nude sitting in the middle of the room, and the boy studied her quietly from a chair in the corner. Years later, he bought several paintings from the old man, and remembering those days lost in the model’s flesh, asked to buy one of his nudes. There aren’t any, the old man said. I’ve never painted a nude. But the model, he said. Oh, she was just there to look at.

from THAT'S WHAT I THOUGHT, by Gary Young

Each Subset Can Be Translated

36" x 48"
acrylic on canvas
$3,600

Gene said, if your ideas are good enough, your students will carry them forward. An old student of mine once showed me a beautiful, handbound book filled with notes she’d taken in my class. She opened it and read: Our devotion is to truth, not to facts. You compete against the dead for the attention of the unborn. Inability is where genius flowers.

from AMERICAN ANALECTS, by Gary Young

Feeling is What Counts

67" x 66"
acrylic on canvas
$8,500

Gene believed there’s virtue in being incidental and
embracing the achieved accident of who you are. I’m not so sure. Fruit ripening on the branches of the apricot and plum promise sweetness; it’s easy to forget that within each tender fruit, there’s a stone
at its core.

from AMERICAN ANALECTS, by Gary Young

Hither to Unknown Sensations

60" x72"
acrylic on canvas
$8,250

When Elizabeth had died, Gene told me about two stars seen orbiting i tandem. They revolved in perfect symmetry, on around the other, but their locked orbits became unstable, and the stars spun out of control. One star fell into a black hole, and the other was flung deep into space. I know Gene identified with one of the stars, but I couldn’t begin to imagine which.

from EVEN SO: NEW AND SELECTED POEMS by Gary Young

In the Name Of What

34.75" x 45"
acrylic on wood panel
$3,250

Gene insisted that the real cannot be measured, that whatever relies on scale is false. He said, we wrestle with an inability to mine ourselves; it’s difficult to do, though in your poems you’ve found a way to do it. The clarity of the interior can’t be suppressed. The moon stacks its dishes in the sink.

from AMERICAN ANALECTS, by Gary Young

No Hiding Place

36" x 48"
acrylic on canvas
$3,600

We walked past the jail where a woman shouted to someone waving from the window of his cell. At the corner of 4th and Broadway, a sign on a shuttered bar said, Goodbye—and thanks to our loyal customers. Delivery trucks had snapped the lower limbs off the sycamores that lined the street, but the leaves high above rustled in a breeze coming in from the bay. Gene and I stepped into his lobby. An orchid sat on a brushed steel shelf. The elevator opened, closed, and when it opened again, we were at Gene’s door. Elizabeth’s hat and scarf were still hanging in the hall. That’s where she died, where Gene had asked, are you leaving me, and she’d said, yes.

from THAT'S WHAT I THOUGHT, by Gary Young

Obscurely Sensed

48" x 69"
acrylic on wood panel
$6,900

Each moment blossoms, stutters, and takes its place in the past. Bees sip water from the moss at the edge of a pond. Scarlet oaks tremble in a breeze. Night falls. I held Gene’s hand while he was dying. He fell asleep, and when he woke, his mouth tightened, and he started to cry. He didn’t cry because he was dying, he cried because I was there, and would have to watch him die. Outside, the sea was going up in flames.

from AMERICAN ANALECTS, by Gary Young

Opportunities and Chances

48" x 60",
acrylic on panel,
$6,000

Elizabeth fed me—pasta with anchovies, lentils with sage—always a different dish. Gene talked: about love nests, the prairie in winter, and how once, as a child, he’d determined he was God. We sat at a table and looked out at a gingko and a locust, and in spring, a crab apple blossomed beneath the upstairs window. There were paintings on every wall, ceramics on every shelf, and ﬂower —orchids, zinnias, asters. Elizabeth once made a salad with spinach, walnuts, blue cheese and pear. Then she picked a daylily from a bouquet on the counter, chopped it and sprinkled it over the greens. We spent years that way, feasting on the world.

from PLEASURE, by Gary Young

The Incontestable Author

36" x48"
acrylic on wood panel
$3,600

When Gene decided to devote himself to painting, he took his prints, and dumped them at the landfill. A dozer was pushing them into a large pile of refuse when the driver said, hold on, that looks like real art, and pulled them out of the trash heap. Gene had never been prouder; it was the best review he’d ever received. Gene said, art is outside of purpose. You take what you need without knowing that you’re taking it, and without knowing that it’s what you needed.

from AMERICAN ANALYTICS, by Gary Young

Things As They Are

60" x72"
acrylic on canvas
$8,250

When Gene could no longer hold a brush, he moved into a small house without a studio. One of his old paintings filled the wall above the kitchen table, and I would study it whenever we sat there and talked. Gene’s work encouraged contingency and interruption. When lines or fields of color collided, he embraced the unexpected rupture of his intentions. Gene said, in old age there’s no longer a need to defend oneself. The metaphor we create for our own survival is difficult to dismantle, but not impossible. He said, I know that this is a prelude to dying, but the vapor of imagination is intoxicating, and the days indescribably beautiful. From my seat, I could see the slips of paper that Gene had taped to all the cabinets in his kitchen. One said, plates, another, bowls, and on the silverware drawer, silverware.

from AMERICAN ANALECTS, by Gary Young

Things Which Do Not Depend On Ourselves

36" x 48"
acrylic on wood panel
$3,600

Gene was talking to a man on the street, and later said, I recognized his face as he spoke, but I’d forgotten his name. Thankfully, he started telling me stories about himself, and they reminded me who he was.

from AMERICAN ANALECTS , by Gary Young

Feasting on the World is an inspiring exhibition featuring the dynamic abstract paintings of Gene Holtan, paired with poems by the celebrated Santa Cruz poet Gary Young. Gene Holtan (1930-2016), a prolific artist and illustrator, left an indelible mark on the California artistic community. His illustrations, and particularly his caricatures, garnered attention by such publications as the Saturday Evening Post, Ladies’ Home Journal, Good Housekeeping, and The New York Times. His artistic career spanned decades, and his illustrated works ranged from books on history, to bird watching, to children’s books. After relocating to Santa Cruz in 1974, Holtan transitioned from commercial illustration to focus on fine art. The last fifteen years of his life, Holtan moved away from his signature narrative style to devote his full attention to abstract painting. Holtan collaborated throughout much of his life on projects with his partner, fellow artist and potter, Elizabeth Sanchez. Together, they pursued a life dedicated to art and adventure.

This exhibition also celebrates the release of Gary Young’s (1951-) latest poetry collection, American Analects. In this work, Young reflects on life, death, and his profound relationship with his mentor and friend, Gene Holtan. Inspired by The Analects of Confucius, American Analects meditates on resiliency, exploring themes of loss, friendship, and the joy of what endures. Young’s newest collection of prose poems honors the shared human capacity to inspire, comfort, and nurture. Young is the author of several other books of poetry, which include That’s What I Thought, winner of the Lexi Rudnitsky Editor’s Choice Award from Persea Books; Taken to Heart: 70 Poems from the Chinese; Even So: New and Selected Poems; and No Other Life, winner of the William Carlos Williams Award. He is the recipient of many honors, including the Shelley Memorial Award from the Poetry Society of America, and grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities and the National Endowment for the Arts. Young was the first Poet Laureate of Santa Cruz County, and in 2012 he was named Santa Cruz County Artist of the Year. He teaches creative writing and directs the Cowell Press at UC Santa Cruz.

Sponsors and Collaborators

This exhibition is presented by M.K. Contemporary Art and generously co-sponsored by: The Humanities Institute, UC Santa Cruz, Special Collections & Archives; UC Santa Cruz, Santa Cruz Museum of Art and History; Bookshop Santa Cruz; The Hive Poetry Collective; and Santa Cruz Public Libraries.

M.K. Contemporary Art Gallery Events

Opening Reception - First Friday, December 6th, 6 to 8 pm
Book Launch & Poetry Reading by Gary Young, December 8th, 3 to 5 pm
First Friday January Reception, January 3rd, 6 to 8 pm

Santa Cruz Museum of Art & History

Pop Up Exhibition in the MAH's Atrium, Dec. 6th - 8th, 12 to 6 pm (Open Until 9 pm on First Friday, December 6th)

Capitola Library

Permanent exhibition of paintings from the Capitola Book Cafe

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