On Sept. 1, the reception for the Colorado Mesa University Gallery’s latest exhibition The Wishbone, The Jawbone, and the Backbone, a solo show by Laura Grossett, was held. Grossett is an artist, printmaker and teacher from Fort Collins, as well as the founder of Mad Deer Press. Much of the work in this show was newer work made with heavy political themes in mind, so people interested in political science might find this show very interesting. The work in this show uses aesthetics to its advantage to portray powerful themes throughout Grossett’s work.

This show features a few large-scale installations, including one spanning three of the gallery’s walls. The piece, Rise Up, is made up of a large number of screen printed birds on mylar in both red and brown. They’re arranged as if they’re flying all around the front of the gallery. The piece features several birds in various positions of flight, some even looking out to the viewer.

Grossett’s large scale installations are set up to tie the show together, as shown by one of her other large pieces Ascending Swarm. This work is screen printed on recycled paperboard and nailed to the wall, with messages from various members of the workforce. The idea of the work is to represent the struggle of classism and the plight of the working class as they struggle to live on minimum wage.

The messages bring up some core issues with the job force, like the quote that reads:“I worked at a business that would routinely fire employees (when they left on holiday or took a week off to visit family) and then re-hire them so they could avoid having to talk about raises because nobody had technically been with the company long enough to qualify. We were paid minimum wage so we really could have used those raises.”

There’s over 50 bees and quotes incorporated into this installation, and that the idea of herd mentality is addressed here as well. Despite all these terrible things being talked about, the bees appear to keep moving along their path, as if they had no other choice. While some of the messages are a bit obscured by the bees themselves, this was a very powerful piece that certainly stands out on the show floor.

Grossett also mentioned that while the political theme in her show is pretty overt, “some pieces probably [fall] into the territory of political cartooning,” she said in reference to a few of her ink on yupo paper works. One of these pieces was The Coils of Capitalism Squeeze and Squeeze, which features the likenesses of numerous politicians being ensnared by snakes. The snakes are labelled with words throughout the work such as “Oil, Coal and Gas” and other commentary on big businesses. The snakes also appear to be moving their tongues, which also have phrases written on them, through the ears of the people in the work as if it were feeding them ideas. This work attracted a lot of attention at the reception.

This show will be running until September 29th, at 437 Colorado Avenue. The next opening will be held on Friday, October 6th and feature the work of several ceramicists from out of state.