Location Gallery is adding a birdhouse to the funky old shack with 'LOVE SHAX' exhibition

Birdhouses — maybe you built one as a family project for the back fence, or perhaps you and your scout troupe built them while earning the nature merit badge. Maybe, just maybe, you even painted and sold a couple dozen as a fundraiser to travel to Colombia to study migratory birds’ wintering habitats.

Birdhouses bring to mind hope, happy past-times, home and bright futures.

And this ethos is the exact aim of gallery director, Peter Roberts, in curating, “LOVE SHAX,” the latest exhibition at Location Gallery opening this Saturday and running through December. A portion of all sales goes directly to support First City Pride Center.

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October is widely recognized as Pride month to coincide with October 11, National Coming Out Day. In support, Roberts invited local LGBTQIA+ artists to be part of a show with birdhouses central to the exhibition.

“These structures as a concept fit within the themes of safety, shelter and home, and these are important especially for members of the LGBTQIA community,” emphasized Roberts. “Following that, I thought, wouldn’t it be cool to do something with birdhouses that also plays on the song, “Love Shack,” the first big hit of the B-52s, which is pretty much an all-gay band.”

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Roberts then reached out to an eclectic mix of artists, asking them to choose in multiples of three, up to 12 total, a number of birdhouses they’d like to make. The only creative guidance was, “you be you.” 26 artists accepted, coming up with 150 individual birdhouses, all uniformly 4.33 inches tall and 3.46 inches wide, ranging from $75 to $200 each.

Melody Postma, a 1988 SCAD grad, weaves midcentury pop culture into 2D mixed media. Her work often juxtaposes images like 1940s cartoon fighter jets flying over double prints of pistol wielding cowgirls. Postma also draws from print media to create layers of typography that shift in textual meaning. The work is often bright, punctuated with primaries red, yellow and blue.

“For me, it was about color and being colorful — it’s a Pride show, and I wanted to make these wonderful art houses, well, for birds,” chuckled Postma. “I took elements of my artwork and re-cast them on the houses with lots of color and pop.”

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For “LOVE SHAX,” Postma created six pieces in her signature style. One features a buoyant pairing of Wonder Woman and Mickey Mouse, and all employ bold retro colors with cherry-red balls at their bottom corners “to really anchor and set them off as homes.”

For local art and social justice icon, Calvin Woodum, the exhibition is a means to engage with a 3D object in the way he works with paint on a flat canvas. Woodum doesn’t use a brush — he drips, splatters and splashes from re-purposed plastic bottles. The work is less about control and more about how the process of becoming is what actually creates a the final piece of art.

“My universal message is you don’t have to be in control — in fact, we aren’t in control,” said Woodum. “This is all in the unknown, and I let the paint create the shapes, tell me what it wants to do, and let the painting tell what it is about.”

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Woodum created six birdhouses exploring the physical interplay of paint within a color palette of black, white, blue and yellow. He further emphasized, “Location Gallery shows are diverse, well-received, and a fun group of people. I’m looking forward to being part of something that celebrates creativity of artists in the city.”

17 years running Lincoln Center’s costume department helped veteran theatre professional, Lynn Bowling, refine his penchant for drama and whimsy. A self-professed artist-outsider, Bowling, now retired, was thrilled to be invited as part of the LGTBQIA community. Taking inspiration from late 18th century women’s fashion, he went to work on a trio of pieces reflecting the effusive opulence of the period. One is a bride-white birdhouse with chapeau of ivory curls, pearls and three-masted sailing vessel.

“I’m calling them ‘Marie Antoinest,’” professed Bowling. “Wackiness must be at the heart, whimsy makes it all fun. But seriously, what I really admire about this is how the show includes a mix of people. No one has seen my work before, and here I am alongside well-established artists and other lesser-known locals like me. It’s an exciting idea for an exhibit.”

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In 2017, Bowling was key in fundraising for and opening the LGTBQ Center on Bull Street, which in 2020 unified a range of services to become First City Pride Center.

Maxx Feist, a full time visual artist who likes to “paint bright things with dark subject matter,” routinely makes monsters in palettes and shapes reminiscent of Dr. Seuss or “Rick and Morty” animations. Feist, who sells work across the South, also likes to challenge the viewer’s interpretation of the world.

“We’re living in such a polarized time when “either/or” and “black and white” are the only options for understanding,” said Feist. “In my work, if you look and see monsters, they are there because if you look for scary, you will see scary. I try to help people see that what seems frightening is actually much less so than what they think.”

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For “LOVE SHAX” Feist made nine houses and called the collection, “Beastie Boys,” in honor of its monster-ly subject matter. In November, Feist participates in a group show at “Notch 8,” in Portland, Me, and then in March commands a solo exhibition at the Sentient Bean in Savannah. “Bright color for dark times” is slated as the show’s theme.

“In part with this curation, I wanted to emphasize that art is accessible for both creator and observer,” mused Roberts. “Insofar as a Pride parade, ours is here on the gallery walls at Location, and it’s something you can touch, feel, hold in your hand and interact with. These elevated birdhouses are portable and make great gifts for the seasons ahead.”

This article originally appeared on Savannah Morning News: Savannah GA art galleries: LOVE SHAX at Location Gallery