"Proverbial You" (November 2-9, 2005 issue of Metro Santa Cruz)

If you happened to catch Star, the movie in last year's Santa Cruz Film Festival about a woman who'll do anything to be famous, then you've already seen LAURA KIMPTON's older sister MARSHA. 'We have quite a different look," says the younger Kimpton. "I'm more earth-based, outdoorsy and grungier. And I'm not interested in fame. I'm more experience-based."

That experience is taking the Aptos-based Kimpton to the Pigman Gallery in San Francisco for "Proverbial Me," a solo exhibition that runs Nov. 3-30. A psychology counselor and educator, Kimpton says her interest in talking to people about getting back in control of themselves is what led to this installation, which is really the work of three people: herself and fellow artists Jeff Schomberg and Jeff Bernstein, who assisted in welding the installation.

"Sixty percent is art. The remainder is 'found art'--everything from junk to antiques. I'd rather go to the dump than check email," says Kimpton, who hopes the installation will entice people to change--and will alert them to the notion of "quadranicity."

"Quadranicity is the idea that we have four sides to our self--the physical, the intellectual, the emotional and the spiritual sides," explains Kimpton, who variously represents herself in the installation through a mannequin that's been shot by a crossbow, a bathtub and a steel tree that's dripping water, and whose branches contain a birdcage, an empty 8-foot steel chair and a 10-foot steel ladder that has water moving up it to an exit sign.

"I hope the installation will help people identify with their inner 'me,' not mine," says Kimpton, who plans to greet people in what she describes as her "living room," when she is present at the show. "And when I'm not, they'll be greeted by a shaking, vibrating woman made of old couch springs."

Visit www.pigmangallery.org or call 415.546.7441.