While horror movies often give dolls and clowns a bad rap, local artist Jasmine Gonzalez is shedding some neutral light on the latter, but with inspiration from a peculiar artifact from both groups.
A few months ago, Gonzalez attended an estate sale where she found a vintage brochure that highlighted a club dedicated to crafting clown dolls and clown teddy bears.
“It was such an odd find,” Gonzalez said of the 1970s-ish relic. “There’s a photo of a woman posing with what looks like a bunch of children, and then you look closer and you realize they’re all dolls surrounding her.”
These types of photos and other elements of the brochure—full of clown imagery that strikes an eerie balance between creepy and jovial—inspired the artist’s new clown-centric mixed media exhibit, currently on display at Eye on I, a restaurant and art space in Lompoc, where it’ll remain on display through the end of June.
Gonzalez described the month-long showcase as “a collection of some weird and funky clown-related stuff that I’ve been working on,” with many collage pieces incorporating snippets from the brochure she found.
“Some of the images I’ve actually been playing with, either duplicating or manipulating, and then incorporating in these pieces,” said Gonzalez, who hopes the exhibit will grab the attention of passersby, whether they love or hate clowns.
“I’m planning to stop people in their tracks, whether that’s good or bad,” the artist said with a laugh.
For one of the artist’s collage pieces, Gonzalez experimented by dragging a profile of a clown’s face up and down a scanner, which elongated the clown’s visage to surreal proportions in the ensuing prints.
“I started dragging and playing around with it [on the scanner] to see what it would do, and it created some pretty terrifying images,” said Gonzalez, who adds colorful nonclown flourishes, such as butterflies and other symbols, to some works in order to pull the viewer’s focus in a different direction, “almost to confuse the person, but in an intriguing kind-of-creeped-out-but-you-think-it’s-OK kind of way.”
“I just like things like that,” Gonzalez said. “If it’s something that can pull me out of the monotony of my autopilot throughout my day … that intrigues me.”
While the Eye on I exhibition runs through the end of the month, Gonzalez—who also works with photography, upcycled fashion, and jewelry—has ongoing displays and works for sale at Jupiter’s Spark and South Side Coffee Co., both in Lompoc, where the artist has lived for the past seven years.
“When I first moved here, I was saying it was my quarter-life crisis. But really, it was just that I needed a big life change, a big pivot,” said Gonzalez, originally from Orange County. “I was looking for a new adventure. I had friends who had moved up here for the wine industry. … I visited a couple times and fell in love with it.
“It’s definitely a hidden gem of a town,” the artist said of Lompoc. “The art scene is still very small, but we’re looking to cultivate it and make it bigger.”
Gonzalez and Anna Look are the co-founders of The Pot Mamas, a social club that organizes various art events in Lompoc throughout the year, including the monthly Lompoc Art Walk (which occurs at various venues on every first Thursday).
The goal of the club is ultimately to create “event spaces that can bring people together and celebrate the arts,” promote support for local artists, and provide those artists an outlet “to socialize outside of Instagram” at art receptions and other festivities, Gonzalez said.
“It’s important to find people like us,” the artist said. “Literally, the social club is about … ‘What do we want to do? Let’s do that.’ Let’s just throw all these parties, and that way I can go to them.”
Arts Editor Caleb Wiseblood loves clowns, especially the scary ones. Send red balloons and joker cards to [email protected].
