Dec 30

Dec 30 Elizabeth Herring: the Conceptual Art of an Ojai Girl

Written by Cassandra C. Jones | Photos by Simons Finnerty | Additional photography provided by The Basic Premise and the artist

When an artist requests a "studio visit," a gallerist might expect an actual studio to visit, a structure of sorts where the artist presents their works in progress or finished masterstrokes. That is what those two words in that order imply. But semantics don't always have a stable footing in the realms of conceptual art. A show-and-tell of creative acts can happen anywhere, say, the back of a car, curbside, in front of a small-town bookstore.

*CAPPUCCINO CAFE INFLUENCERS* from **eclaireherring.com**

That is what was happening when Elizabeth Herring pulled her 2006 blue Prius up next to the famed Bart's Books in Ojai, CA, on a sunny day in June of 2019. There, she met Teddy Nava and Matt Henriksen, the curators of The Basic Premise, a local gallery on the east end of downtown.

Herring grew up in Ojai, and her parents have lived in the Valley since she was three or four years old. After receiving an undergraduate degree from NYU Gallatin School of Individualized Study in 2013, living abroad in Berlin for a few years as a photographer and social media manager, Herring had returned to her hometown to attend her high school reunion at Oak Grove School.

She had recently started thinking about applying to MFA programs and had settled on pursuing a career in contemporary art. With that intention in mind, she had been making scarecrow assemblage sculptures that she was calling "Cappuccino Cafe Influencers." She packed a bunch of them up in a suitcase with some other crazy knickknacks and brought them back with her to Ojai. Then she set them up inside the hatchback of her car and in her backseat, strapped them in with seatbelts like they were her well-behaved but eclectic children, and headed to Bart's Books to present her mobile studio and pitch her conceptual ideas to Nava and Henriksen.

Herring also showed the two gallery owners images of her actual studio in Berlin on an iPad. It was a fast-paced conversation, and they flipped through her pictures quickly but seemed far more interested and excited in the freaky scarecrows sitting quietly in her car. Her anatomical creations had two magical ingredients that excite most contemporary curators; they were big and weird.

In January of 2020, Herring left Germany and came back to Ojai in anticipation of either settling in NYC or LA, depending on where she landed for grad school. She interviewed with CalArts on March 12th, the day California started shutting down due to COVID. She accepted a spot in their program but little did she know she would spend her first year of classes on Zoom. With no reason to be close to campus, Ojai, once again, became her home.

Around that time, faced with the reality of closing their gallery to the public, and in the interest of public safety, Nava and Henriksen invited Herring to conceptualize and create an installation in their storefront window at The Basic Premise Gallery. The opportunity to make a public artwork, viewable only from the street, would be Herring's first solo exhibition as a professional artist in the United States.

ELIZABETH HERRING — HERRING IN HER STUDIO AT CALARTS. PHOTO BY SIMONS FINNERTY

The Ojai Valley had changed so much since she was a child. And like anyone who grew up here, she lamented the transformations that had taken place while she was away. Plus, having returned, right at the start of COVID, when everyone's "normal" way of life was in flux, those shifts seemed more intense to Herring. Freshly riled up and agitated about how much more touristy it had gotten in the Valley in recent years and how many more people were flooding into town to get out of LA during quarantine, Herring decided to lean into that discomfort by creating a hyperbolic Ojai gift store. Aiming to draw attention to the changing times and her nostalgia-ridden anxiety Herring set out to design a terrible, insane, Ojai-specific specialty shop, with the expressed intention to piss everyone off and cannibalize Ojai culture. Her installation was called Ojai City Gift, and it opened to the public on September 19th, 2020. In that same week, Herring started remote learning at CalArts.

The idea of Ojai City Gift was simple, but her execution was complex and clever. The objects in her mock store were all subverted in one way or another. As a dystopian take on paradise, the arrangement was laden with inside jokes and unapologetically campy. She wanted those passing by to wonder if the offerings were authentic, consider the absurdity of Ojai tribalism, or foster small-town self-awareness. In doing so, she also poked fun at our modern-day obsession with products, branding, and vapid consumerism.

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Hanging from the ceiling was an LED scroll screen displaying the teachings of the Indian philosopher who started the Oak Grove School, Jiddu Krishnamurti. One quote read, "Life is more important than any dogmas and, in order to allow life its full fruition, you must liberate it from beliefs." Presenting words from one of Ojai's most legendary teachers on a communication device used to attract customers to Pizza Parlors and Outlet Malls cheapened his message and drew attention to the dumbing down of society as a whole.

In the background of the installation stood multiple torso mannequins wearing t-shirts with pithy sayings like "What would Jiddu?” “I grew up in Ojai and all I got was priced out of the housing market," and "Enjoy the Ojai Valley Quickly." There were also hand-drawn gravestone cut-outs to commemorate beloved restaurants that had closed, like Ruben's and Carrows. Of course, there is an irony to critiquing the rise in property values and business displacement in an art gallery. After all, it is a venue that stands to benefit from the influx of wealth and a more affluent clientele. But that is just the kind of self-aware cynicism Herring set out to tackle in her big debut.

A rotating postcard stand offered an assortment of wistful Ojai scenes Herring had photographed around town. These images included an "Ojai City Limits" street sign that had fallen over, a high-end storefront display obscured by reflections of the street on the windowpane, and more frivolous Ojai-related swag. There were also fake books strategically placed around the shop, like a classic black and yellow instructional manual titled Ojai for Dummies and a swamp monster novel named It Came From Wheeler Hot Springs.

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Ojai Turtle Conservancy — *OJAI CITY GIFT*

Slapped on the window was a sticker that read "Turtle Conspiracy," which was an obvious nod to how hard it is to access the mysterious and enticing Ojai Turtle Conservancy, unless, of course, you are someone of note. But my favorite object, given that no one could actually go inside Herring's Ojai City Gift installation, was a classic "Will Return" clock suctioned cupped to the glass that, aptly, had no hands. Cleverly, this confirmed that no one was coming to let you in and could very well have been a symbol for the entire first year of COVID.

Herring had hoped her satirical art installation would ruffle some feathers, but, for most, it came off as charming. And in the end, Herring's lexicon of wit and levity, for all who were lucky enough to pass by and take notice, was a beacon of light in a dark time.

e claire herring by simons finnerty — an artifact from *cappuccino cafe: outpost.* PHOTO BY SIMONS FINNERTY

Herring is now in her second and final year at CalArts where she attends classes in person, has a studio on campus, but still lives in Ojai and commutes. In her thesis year, she is thinking about how a community can thrive within spaces that aren't home or work and is chipping away at an art installation involving a cafe in a garden. The working title for this new sculptural environment, which will be part of her thesis show, is "Cappuccino Cafe: Outpost." It will include assemblage sculptures that resemble plants coupled with elements of photography. The exhibition will open around the same time as her graduation and be on view from March 12-19th, 2022.

After she graduates with her MFA degree in May, Herring has plans to continue working with The Basic Premise guys, but this time in a curatorial role. They are putting together a group show titled "The Ojai Jail Arts Initiative" (acronym OJAI). with a crew of conceptual artists who have strong ties to the Ojai Valley and Ventura County. The site-specific exhibition will be inside the old four-cell jail, located in a small freestanding building, next to the bike path and behind Libbey Park tennis courts. The three curators will invite eight artists to consider the aesthetic and social nature of the site and its specific history within the context of current art world trends. They have received partial funding for this project through the Ojai Arts Commission and will utilize the Carolyn Glasoe Bailey Foundation for support. The team will also work closely with the Historic Preservation Committee to safely install artwork inside the historic site. COVID willing, the exhibition will take place for one week in the Fall of 2022.