Gina Tuzzi, "Love Will Never Do Without You (for Brian Wilson)," 2010. Acrylic and graphite on board. Courtesy the artist.

Nostalgia is the longing for a home that never was; its subject is an idealized place where the troubles of today hold no sway. In paintings, drawings, and sculptures, Northern California artist Gina Tuzzi expresses her nostalgia for California in the 1970s, the era immediately preceding her birth. Mining this imagined past for clues to the present and future, Tuzzi turns to record-album art, family photo albums, and her memories of growing up in Santa Cruz, a California beach town where the spirit of the 1960s and ’70s arguably lives on.

Here, I talk to the artist about a resurgence in hippie culture and imagery in Bay Area art, her love of Neil Young, and how art school convinced her that  “nostalgia” was a bad word.

Victoria Gannon: Why is 1970s culture and imagery so important in your work?

Gina Tuzzi: My parents moved to the coast in 1975 from the Central Valley and immediately got heavily involved in van and Harley culture, and founded Santa Cruz Vans in 1975. I grew up on the west side of Santa Cruz during the ’80s, when competitive surfing was huge. My parents would go on these van runs with hundreds and hundreds of people who were living in these custom vans. So this idea of nomadic living was very much what I understood Californians did when they turned twenty. This was my idea of what I was going to do; I was going to go on this big van adventure, because that’s what my parents did. I think that’s where a lot of this comes from.

That’s one of the reasons this whole ’60s and ’70s counterculture trend is so fascinating to me, because I’ve always been interested in that time period.

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Today marks the observance of Day Without Art, a day when the arts community takes the time to remember and respond to the AIDS crisis and its impact worldwide. Day Without Art unites cultural organizations, community groups, schools and individuals around the world in observance of the AIDS epidemic and the toll it has taken on the arts community. December 1, 2010, also marks the 22nd anniversary of World AIDS Day. World AIDS Day is devoted to increasing awareness, fighting prejudice, raising money for various AIDS organizations and improving education.

Teachers can get involved in Day Without Art and World AIDS Day by engaging in a variety of activities with students- today and throughout the holiday season. As a matter of fact, especially during the holiday season. For example:

• Raise awareness of HIV and AIDS in your area through a poster or ad campaign.
• Wear a red ribbon and ask others to do the same. Start conversations about why you’re wearing it.
• Talk with students about the importance of protecting themselves and their partners.
• Volunteer time at a local AIDS organization.
• Raise money for a class or school-wide contribution to an AIDS organization such as amfar.org
• View and discuss the film Last Address by Ira Sachs

Making a special effort today and throughout this month to become active with students in the ongoing fight against AIDS can lead to, among other things, more meaningful relationships with those we teach, as well as broad dialogue about the effects of the AIDS crisis and the art it has inspired.

I guess you could say my thesis came to me in the guise of an email from one of my favorite galleries in Chicago, the Catherine Edelman Gallery. There was an invitation to an opening for Chicago photographer, Elizabeth Ernst. After looking at her work on their website, I knew I had to attend with Canon Rebel and notebook in hand. I knew also I would have to manage to speak with her, asking her about the possibility of being the subject of my thesis.

What I found instantly alluring about her work were the subjects of her photographs, figures who appeared to be circus performers. I wanted more than anything to know their stories, to enter their world. The resulting meeting with Elizabeth Ernst at the opening went smoothly, she being an approachable woman who expressed a flattery by my interest in her work. I returned the following day for her artist’s talk, gaining more understanding into the work I had photographed and studied closely the evening before.

Elizabeth Ernst, "Knuckles and Lillian," 2010

The exhibition, titled Smoke and Mirrors, reinforces the notion that her work is more than just photography. On shelves flanked by photos sit sculptures she created, pieces that would eventually be shot by the artist with paint applied to the surface. Her process was immediately fascinating: the notion of blurring the lines between painting, sculpture, and photography. But her process became more fascinating after I heard about why these figures existed and in which world they existed: the world of her own creation, The G.E. Circus.

With a visit to Ernst’s studio in the near future, I have begun the foundations of my own study of the history of the circus. My thought in approaching this thesis as of now is to gain some expertise into this history and its people as a way to understand the G.E. Circus, a place with people of the artist’s own creation.

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