Read our spring exhibitions preview.

The Nelson Gallery will be open from 5 to 7 p.m. today (April 13) as a participant in the Davis community’s 2nd Friday ArtAbout.

The gallery is normally closed on Fridays, so the event this evening offers a special opportunity to visit and to do so after the regular closing time of 5 p.m.

Not only that, but Nelson Director Renny Pritikin will lead a tour and give a talk from 5 to 6 p.m., taking in the exhibitions Dreams of the Darkest Night and Bruce Guttin: Headwear Improvisations by a Sculptor (see descriptions below) as well as selections from the Fine Arts Collection. Pritikin’s talk will focus on two additions to the collection: works by Packard Jennings (mixed media with video) and Katherine Spence (mixed media sculpture).

Admission is free, as always, and light refreshments will be served.

NEW THIS WEEK

• Design by Design — Annual exhibition of students' work in a  juried competition that presents a lively survey of student talent and creativity reflecting the multidisciplinary breadth of the Department of Design. Through May 5, Design Museum, Cruess Hall. Regular hours: noon-4 p.m. Monday-Friday, and 2-4 p.m. Sunday.

Design by Design's closing day coincides with the Oh! Design open house, 1 to 5 p.m. Saturday, May 5, Cruess Hall, off Howard Way at the north entrance to the campus.

The organizers describe Oh! Design as a time "to reconnect with faculty, staff, students, friends and alumni; visit our new building; and celebrate our departmental status."

"We will remember Walker Hall and the beginnings of our department, showcase the work of students, faculty and alumni, celebrate our accomplishments, and look forward to the continued growth of design at UC Davis," the invitation states.

The program includes guest speakers and alumni speakers and a timeline of the department's history, and provides an opportunity to network with professionals, and meet faculty and staff, past and present. Refreshments with a Cinco de Mayo theme will be served, the organizers said.

Studios and labs will be open, along with the Design Museum. And visitors can take the short walk to Memorial Union, where they can visit the new Aggie ReStore, stocked with arts and crafts materials, clothing, school and office supplies, and lots more —  all saved from the landfill.

The inspiration for the Aggie ReStore came from Ann Savageau, associate professor of design, who says “waste” isn’t really waste at all, but a source of endless creative possibilities, as demonstrated by the students in her “Sustainable Design” classes.

"Join us for a fun and engaging afternoon, with a lively trip down memory lane and a chance to participate in shaping the future of the Department of Design."

The department has asked for online RSVPs.

Have photos you care to share? Click open the invitation and scroll to the bottom for instructions.

For more information, send an e-mail to ohdesign@ucdavis.edu.

ONGOING EXHIBITIONS

• Dreams of the Darkest Night — So, you think photographs don’t lie? Well, not when digital technology has utterly transformed the ability to make photographs do pretty much anything the artists want them to. Not only that, but the Nelson describes a trend in which photographers no longer feel any obligation toward or even have much interest in reflecting objective reality. In this exhibition, Vanessa Marsh and Sean McFarland present separate suites of nontraditional artworks. Marsh makes sophisticated photograms (images made on photo paper without the use of a lens), creating a sense of dread, showing varieties of calm before the storm. In McFarland's most recent body of work, he presents large color images from nature that are very dark, almost all black, giving the viewer the feeling that he or she is glimpsing a dream in the depths of the darkest night. Through May 27, Nelson Gallery, Nelson Hall. Regular hours: 11 a.m.-5 p.m. Monday-Thursday, Saturday-Sunday, and by appointment on Fridays.

• Bruce Guttin: Headwear Improvisations by a Sculptor —  Guttin, a UC Davis MFA alumnus from the early 1970s, had an interest in headwear even when he was a sculptor working in wood. He now designs extremely simple, inexpensive and charming hats for his own use. The Nelson commissioned Guttin to make a selection of these hats; included will be related drawings and a sculpture. Through May 27, Nelson Gallery, Nelson Hall. Regular hours: 11 a.m.-5 p.m. Monday-Thursday, Saturday-Sunday, and by appointment on Fridays.

• Steeled — Works by Anne Compton, blacksmithing and welding instructor at the Craft Center. Through May 4, Craft Center Gallery, South Silo. Reception for the artist, 5-6 p.m. Sunday, April 22. Regular hours: 10 a.m.-10 p.m. Monday-Thursday, 10 a.m.-7 p.m. Friday, and 10 a.m.-6 p.m. Saturday-Sunday.

• 2012 Student Exhibition — Screen prints from five quarterly workshops (winter, spring, summer and fall 2011, and winter 2012) at TANA: Taller Arte del Nuevo Amanecer, or art workshop of the new dawn, run by the Department of Chicana/o Studies. Through April 20, TANA, 1224 Lemen Ave., Woodland. Call for hours: (530) 402-1065.

• What I See — Watercolors by UC Davis staff member Peter Shahrokh. Through May 25, Buehler Alumni and Visitors Center. Regular hours: 8 a.m.-5 p.m. Monday-Friday, and 10 a.m.-2 p.m. Saturday.

Shahrokh is a self-taught painter, having started seven years ago, and now he is an instructor at the Craft Center.

Holder of a Master of Business Administration from the Graduate School of Management (1999), his primary job at UC Davis is in Design and Construction Management, where he is the commissioning analyst, working with engineers to ensure the university gets what it ordered in capital projects and that they function as intended. He also serves as the commissioning authority on projects for which the university is pursuing LEED certification (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design).

Dateline UC Davis featured him last December when one of his abstract works appeared on the cover of Academic Medicine, the journal of the American Association of Medical Colleges.

• Where They Overlap: Sonya Kelliher-Combs — You will know this artist is from Alaska when you look at her work made from things like walrus stomach, seal intestine, reindeer hide, dentalium (tooth or tusk shell), and elk and moose fur. Indeed, she was born in Bethel and raised in Nome, of a cultural background that includes Athabascan, Inupiaq, and a mixture of German and Irish. Working in mixed media painting and sculpture, and drawing on Alaska's native culture, she blends the organic and the synthetic, the traditional and the modern, with acrylic polymer, nylon thread, glass beads, fabric and ink — in her creation of compelling objects, translucent and ambiguous, work that defies expectations in its cultural richness and conceptual interpretations of shape, form and luminosity. April 3-June 8, C.N. Gorman Museum, 1316 Hart Hall. Regular hours: noon-5 p.m. Monday-Friday, and 2-5 p.m. Sunday.

AT SHIELDS LIBRARY

• The Ground Beneath Our Feet: The Nikola P. Prokopovich Papers on Land Subsidence — Manuscript archivist Liz Phillips prepared this exhibition on the papers of engineering geologist Nikola P. Prokopovich (1918-99), who worked as a geologist with the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation's Mid-Pacific Region. He worked out of the bureau's Sacramento office from 1958 to 1986, investigating the geology and geochemistry of statewide water projects, including the Central Valley Project and the Solano Project. He was an avid field geologist and spent as much time as possible on site, collecting his own data. Prokopovich was particularly interested in the engineering geology of the Central Valley Project's canals and dam sites, and in the effects of state water projects and field irrigation on the surrounding landscape. The collection includes draft reports, memoranda and published writings, as well as nearly 25,000 slides and photographs documenting his work and the land around his work sites.

• "Imagination Turns Every Word Into a Bottle Rocket" — A selecvtion of Sherman Alexie's work as a poet, short story writer, novelist and filmmaker. The exhibition's title (from Alexie's The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven, a collection of short stories), evokes quintessential Alexie, in whatever format he writes, according to the library staff. "His words challenge, inspire and move the reader."

Exhibition prepared by the General Library Committee on Diversity, with assistance from Adam Siegel, Native American Studies bibliographer.

Presented in conjunction with the 2011-12 Campus Community Book Project, Alexie's novel The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian.

• Paper Takes: The Power of Uncivil Words — Materials from the library's Walter Goldwater Radical Pamphlets collection, part of the library's Special Collections. The exhibition debuted last fall as part of the campus's Civility Project, and now Paper Takes is on display in the Shields Library lobby through winter quarter. Looking beyond the bounds of the campus, the exhibition explores the ways in which intolerant views are communicated and disseminated through pamphlets. Paper Takes explores the particular rhetoric supporting race-based hatred, gender and sexuality bias, and political divisiveness, to better understand the dominant discourses that frame some of our most uncivil exchanges. Displaying a selection from more than 17,000 items in the leading collection of “extreme” pamphlets in the United States, this exhibition provides historical depth to our understanding of the language of hate and intolerance, traces of which remain potent today.

Read more about Paper Takes and the Walter Goldwater Radical Pamphlets collection.

• Patti Smith — Another exhibition in conjunction with the Distinguished Speakers series at the Mondavi Center for the Performing Arts. Smith's visit to the Mondavi Center is scheduled for Wednesday, May 9. Shields Library describes Smith as "an important countercultural figure" since her seminal punk album, Horses (1975) — and notes that she has been active as a poet and writer as well as a musician. Just Kids, a memoir of her days with Robert Mapplethorpe, won the 2010 National Book Award for Nonfiction. Works of hers in the library collection include Seventh Heaven, Witt, Auguries of Innocence, Early Work, The Coral Sea and Ha! Ha! Houdini! (all poetry), Patti Smith Complete (lyrics) and Just Kids.

• The Spirit of New Orleans: Culture, Community, Community, Catastrophe, Construction — In conjunction with The Spirit of New Orleans series (film and music) at the Mondavi Center for the Performing Arts. The exhibition, prepared by Michael Colby, features items from library collections representing scholarship on the history, music, architecture, culture, practices and, most important, the people of New Orleans.

The Shields Library presents its exhibitions in the lobby. Regular hours: 7:30 a.m.-midnight Monday-Thursday, 7:30 a.m.-6 p.m. Friday, noon-6 p.m. Saturday and noon-midnight Sunday. Holidays and other exceptions.