When is a root not a root, yet remains rooted?
That’s the question Ashley “Q” Quast, a 3D design faculty member who uses they/them pronouns, explores in eight sculpted forms made from driftwood, seaweed, and sand dollars gathered along Pacific Northwest shores. On display in the Administration Building lobby gallery, “these works trace how form and material record touch, time, and erosion,” Q wrote in the artist’s statement accompanying the show, “exploring how transformation itself can hold both presence and absence.”
Q is a Southern Oregon native and former Sonoma County winemaker turned post-studio artist who recently moved to the Seattle area to teach sculpture and 3D design at Shoreline College. Post-studio artists move beyond the traditional studio environment, engaging with the outside world and collaborating with artists outside their usual spheres.
Q’s interest in the materials they work with for Holdfast began early in life. “I grew up tide pooling,” Q said, describing the origin of their “built-in observation of the natural world.” As a working artist who divides their time between teaching emerging artists and creating new work to advance their own, Q doesn’t see “a lot of separation between art and life.”
The works created for this show explore and expand upon themes covered in foundational art classes like 2D and 3D design here on campus. Staid vocabulary words such as “figure/ground,” “juxtaposition,” and “assemblage” come to life under warm track lights that bathe the sculptures in a permanent golden-hour glow, casting deep shadows that whisper their own stories. “It all begins with the basics in visual arts—line, repetition, pattern, color, and texture,” they said, gesturing toward the works arrayed on the walls and perched on pedestals. In that moment, it’s easy to see the shift from Q the artist to Professor Q, guiding students through the same visual language that shapes their own work.
Q’s sly sense of humor makes its way into their sculpture—in the works themselves but mostly in their titles, which they put a significant amount of thought into. For instance, the fluffy lump of unbleached cotton and adhesive that sprouts from the gallery wall, titled Littoral Form, evokes an accumulation of shoreline foam—that’s the pun—washing up. The sculptor’s humor is subtle, rewarding the gallery viewer’s quiet contemplation (or consultation with a dictionary or nearby English major) with a wry chuckle.
”I wanted to pay homage to the artists who paved the way for me to be able to work in this really free, ephemeral, loose, provincial nature.”
Another piece consisting of succulent seaweed and thread molded in plaster, titled Accretion (Thanks to Eva Hesse), is, Q says, “a thank you to my foremothers in the contemporary arts.” Eva Hesse, an early post-minimal sculptor of the 20th century, created works that have begun decaying with age; some are no longer presentable. The artist addressed their loss head-on, explains Q: “Hesse said, ‘It wasn’t meant to last forever,’ and so I wanted to pay homage to the artists who paved the way for me to be able to work in this really free, ephemeral, loose, provincial nature.”
The 1000 Building is currently Shoreline College’s only curated space outside of the 2000 Visual Arts Center, which hosts student work. Gallery Director and photography professor Zach Mazur is seeking to secure funding and support for additional galleries in the PUB building and across campus—an opportunity for artists and art lovers alike.
Holdfast—named after the botanical term for a root-like structure aquatic plants rely on for stability against currents and tidal surges—runs through Dec. 4, with a closing reception from 4 to 6 p.m.
