ART FRAMES COLORFUL LIFE OF SAROYAN
By Felicia Cousart Matlosz
The Fresno Bee
05/09/08 17:04:01
Writer is the inspiration for Carol Tikijian’s art museum show.
Artist Carol Tikijian’s 15-year journey via a black-and-white dotted
line has led her to the planetary steps of William Saroyan.
In a vivid contemporary exhibit at the Fresno Art Museum, Tikijian’s
six door-sized, gold-accented mixed media panels — as well as her
intricate black-and-white drawings — thrive against the deep-hued
red walls of the gallery. One panel is called "Come On-a My House,"
a cozy memory of an Armenian grandmother’s home: a red Persian rug;
pomegranates piled in a large, antique pot; a small kitchen device
used to make Armenian coffee; and a quilt popping with small squares
in all kinds of color.
Of course, that title also is the name of the famous Rosemary Clooney
1951 hit song written by Saroyan and his cousin, Ross Bagdasarian. As
you spend time in the exhibit, the lively tune plays in a regular
rotation. Clooney’s warm voice is a connective point for this art that
is a biographical take on the famous writer, his Armenian ancestry
and his world.
The other link flows from Tikijian’s black-and-white dotted line. She
says she started using the line as a metaphor for a journey or a
path. So, in this show, it follows Saroyan’s path. It’s there, running
down the right side of "Come On-a My House." Or providing a large
circle for a floor installation marking moments in Saroyan’s life.
The exhibit, which ends Sunday, is called "Why Abstract? William
Saroyan’s Dotted Line." The term "Why Abstract?" is the title of
a 1945 book mostly written by Hilaire Hiler (sounds like, as Time
magazine once said, kill-care smiler). Hiler was many things, including
a painter, a musician and a psychologist whose paths crossed with
Saroyan. Tikijian says that Saroyan contributed to the book, writing
about how artists feel more deeply and sense things more deeply.
The show comes in a year celebrating the centennial of Saroyan’s
birth in Fresno in 1908. Tikijian’s aim is that visitors leave the
gallery with an enhanced insight into Saroyan.
"I don’t expect people to understand what I’m doing cold," says
Tikijian, who has been an exhibiting artist for more than 30 years
and is a member of Gallery 25 in Fresno. "I know that’s not going to
happen, but if they just glean an essence that might lead them toward
an understanding — of, in this case, William Saroyan — that’s what
I hope to do."
Tikijian’s art here is accessible. "I like art that is open-ended,"
she says. "I like people to bring their own interpretations to it.
Oftentimes, I’m pleasantly surprised by what someone gets out of it
that I didn’t put into it intentionally."
The exhibit sprung from an invitation by Jacquelin Pilar, the museum’s
curator. "Carol has such an immediate sense of living life in a full
way," says Pilar, who adds that there’s a "real vibrancy" to Tikijian
and her art.
Pilar says visitors "absolutely love" the exhibit. It also will be
shown in the fall at a Merced arts center.
"Her work is expressive, and I felt that she brought to this work
the kind of characteristics that Saroyan also brought to his work."
Which brings us back to "Come On-a My House." Tikijian says she was
thinking of what her grandmother’s home was like in creating the
panel. And Saroyan is there, not just in the title of the song he
co-wrote or in the lyrics painted in the background, but physically as
well. A framed photo of him as an older man sits on what looks like
the end of an aged, narrow white-wooden table. Next to the picture
is a glass jar of pennies.
Tikijian, who did a lot of research for her exhibit, explains the
pennies connect to Saroyan’s brilliant short story, "The Daring Young
Man on the Flying Trapeze," about a young writer dying of starvation.
She says the main character finds a penny in a gutter and wonders
how many pennies it takes to stay alive.
Those are the kind of layers that deepen this exhibition. The floor
installation, for example, includes a Saroyan bicycle on loan from the
Fresno Metropolitan Museum, and two piles of earth, one from Fresno and
one from Armenia. Tikijian says his ashes are buried in both places.
"It is like the beginning and ending of his life," she says. "And
earth is an important part of his writing. He talks about the earth
and being from the Central Valley."
There also is a crate of lettuce, marking the time Tikijian saw
Saroyan. She was a student at California State University, Fresno,
in the early 1970s. Saroyan spoke to a club to which she belonged, and
several agriculture majors were there as well. She remembers Saroyan
spoke in support of farm labor leader Cesar Chavez’s lettuce boycott,
and the ag students stomped out: "It really stayed with me."
The gallery is divided into two spaces. Nine exquisite and intricate
black-and-white drawings line the walls toward the back. They feature
circular and labyrinth patterns — representing, for example, Saroyan’s
bicycle wheels and travel, meditative journeys and direction. Feathers
symbolize him as a writer and a free spirit. His written words also
are incorporated into these designs, as they are in the panels.
It was important to Tikijian to present a fully dimensional Saroyan.
Hence, there’s the black-and-white dotted line looping around a pair
of female legs adorned with a youthful black polka-dotted gold skirt
in "Double Helix." The panel reflects aspects of his personal life,
chiefly his relationship with his two children and their mother,
Carol Marcus, whom he twice married and divorced.
There’s also the homage to Armenian people in another panel that
evokes their spirit and strength. The piece includes a powerfully
written passage by Saroyan about his ancestry; the number 1915,
which is the year that the Armenian genocide started; and a pair
of black boots representing those forced out of their homes and,
in many cases, to their deaths.
All these aspects are elements in the 72-year timeline of Saroyan’s
life. As Tikijian says: "I wanted to show a complete William Saroyan."
The reporter can be reached at [email protected] or (559)
441-6428.