'Patterns, numbers, secrets, and stories' 

Frame Works is exploring philosophical and metaphysical ideas with “Time Space Place Shape,” an exhibit featuring the unexpectedly whimsical musings of four local artists on the mysterious concepts that govern existence as we know it.

• ARTWORK BY DEB SPATAFORE
• EARTH : Deb Spatafore, whose piece Earth is pictured, is one of four artists exploring big themes in Frame Works’ show “Time Space Place Shape.”

While these themes are universal, they’re darn near impossible to define with words, which is why Beryl Reichenberg, Meryl Perloff, Julie Frankel, and Deb Spatafore have opted for assemblage, painting, and sculpture.

Reichenberg’s Family History ruminates on the swift passage of time; an apparently typewritten description of the artist’s lineage rests opposite a grid filled with black and white photographs and memorabilia in miniature. In Spatafore’s Earth, a portrait of a youth, reminiscent of something out of the Italian Renaissance, is superimposed over a calendar depicting the numerals 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34—the first of the Fibonacci sequence, those simple numbers which dictate the unfurling of a fern; the perfect spiral of a nautilus shell.

The exhibit is described in press materials as a collection exploring “patterns, numbers, secrets, and stories,” elaborating: “Like cardinal directions, Time Space Place and Shape are the coordinates that direct us to where concepts merge and traverse. The crossing of Time and Place allow old and new to exist on the same place, and Space and Shape coalesce in a geometric world of boxes and squares. Time imposes a repetition to Shape, and Place brings a personal perspective to Space.”

You’re blowing my mind, Frame Works! To get a fix on this show for yourself, enjoy an artists’ reception by allowing the following space/time coordinates to intersect: Friday, Aug. 3, from 6 to 9 p.m. (in conjunction with Art After Dark) at 339 Marsh St. in San Luis Obispo. The show hangs through Sept. 27. ∆