A new Petaluma Arts Center show focuses on artists’ base materials and their tools

Grasping the substance of art…

The memorably impressive “Art of Materials” exhibit, a new show at the Petaluma Arts Center, brings together 13 artists who prefer working with other media to painting on canvas — metals, cement, clay, fabric, industrial felt, cork, wood, rock and so on. The show explores two questions: Why does an artist choose a particular material? And how does the choice reflect what they want to say?

This is the realm where art meets the blue-collar world of physical labor, the kind you need tools for (and often gloves: see sidebar on The Glove Project). Appropriately, an adjoining exhibit in the center’s North Gallery, “Tools as Art,” features art about tools. While the main show is curated by Lisa Lightman and Vicky Kumpfer, the Tools show is curated by Petaluma artist Cat Alden, who also has a piece in the exhibit.