Soft Wear

If you’ve ever felt like a stranger in a strange land, you’ll completely grok Frolics and Frippery, a new exhibit of “intimate objects for the body” created by area artist Janice Jakielski, opening today at Vertigo Art Space. The soft-sculpture objects — cloth goggles, hearing devices and other wearables — were conceived to block out or heighten the senses, thereby imitating the sensations of being out in the world. “I got interested in the way awareness becomes tightened when you go to a place that’s out of your comfort zone,” says Jakielski, a world traveler who hopes to evoke those shifts in perception with her hands-on works. The artist relied on what she calls her “magpie aesthetic” to assemble the pieces from everyday recycled objects, textiles, hot glue and cardboard, but the real fun begins when people put them on. “It’s not like something in a gallery; there’s usually no opportunity to put on a piece of art and walk around in it,” Jakielski notes.

You’ll have a chance to do so at tonight’s opening reception from 6 to 9 p.m. at Vertigo, 960 Santa Fe Drive; admission is free. Or, if you’re content to just look, Frolics continues through August 2; for details, go to www.vertigoartspace.com or call 303-573-VERT.
July 18-Aug. 2, 2008