Julian Voss-Andreae’s steel sculpture “Quantum Man,” foreground, is displayed in the Pacific Northwest Sculptors group exhibit at the Coos Art Museum. World Photos by Alex Powers

COOS BAY — Art, science and theater appear to be a winning combination for the Coos Art Museum.

A grouping of exhibits featuring elements of each opened with a reception that drew more than 250 people.

With a main exhibit of sculptures by Portland-area artists not well-known locally, museum director Steven Broocks credited the uptick in turnout to two of the auxiliary exhibits — “Blow Up,” featuring images photographed through microscopes by a pair of local marine biologists, and Assemblage Art by Ruthanne McSurdy-Wong, set designer for Bandon Playhouse. Those exhibits brought more than the usual art crowd, he said.

“It was one of the most interesting crowds I’ve seen in Coos Bay,” Broocks said. “We had the science people for ‘Blow Up’ and the theater people because they know Ruthanne.”

While the Pacific Northwest Sculptors group exhibit in the museum’s main gallery doesn’t have a theme, it has plenty to appeal to those who come to see one of the other exhibits.

That’s because several sculptors in the group have backgrounds in science or the performing arts, said Susan Levine of Portland, the show’s organizer.

The non-juried show was open to members of PNWS, which includes artists of a wide range of skill levels, she said. Though nothing was excluded, Levine said she did leave out a few things that she thought would be too big — before she saw the spacious Maggie Karl Gallery.

Scientific works

 Among the relatively large pieces included is “Quantum Man” by Julian Voss-Andrae, a former physicist who mainly sculpts models of molecular structures, such as the nearby “Cycloviolacin.” In “Quantum Man,” a series of parallel steel plates are arranged to display a human figure — at least when seen from an angle other than the four sides of the pedestal, where it disappears.

There are several pieces that similarly seem to move with viewing angle — including Lynn Simon’s two-dimensional heated steel works, which aren’t technically sculptures — and a few that actually move.

“Thor’s Hammers” by retired engineer Ken Patton is an interactive piece — pushing on any of four connected hammers makes all of them rotate.

Among Levine’s own work is a working clock, “Retro Horizontal,” with a swinging pendulum.

“I do a lot of clocks,” she said. “Functional work is something people are more comfortable with than (purely) artistic sculptures.”

While most of the pieces physically stand still, movement is something nearly all sculptors are aiming for and a major reason they opt to work in three dimensions, Levine said.

Theatrical works

Many of the sculptors find their movement in dance, variations of which are the most common words found among the works’ titles, such as “Salmon Dancer” by Jim Johnson, a Salem artist who grew up in Coquille; Patton’s “Moon Dancer”; and “Circle Dance Maquette” by Alisa Looney.

Looney is both a dancer and a professional artist whose sculptures focus on dance. Levine recalled going with Looney to karaoke at Old City Hall last week following the installation of the exhibit.

“She was dancing all around the place,” Levine said. “Her first love is dance and her second love is sculpture.”

Another artist, Todji Kurzman, has worked with dancers as a sculptor and with other performing artists in the movie business as an animator. His piece, “Right Feet Major,” features a figure with disproportionately large legs and feet on a small body with a tiny head. According to his Web site, the exaggeration reflects the relative importance of body parts to the brain during activities such as dancing.

Other works

Aside from the themes that link a few of the 55 works by 28 artists, there’s a lot of diversity, both in subject and in medium. In addition to all the steel and bronze, there are works of cement, such as Carole Murphy’s “Unearthed,” and wood, such as Richard Jones’ life-size deer, “Seven Point,” as well as a mosaic and a collage.

The parade of sculptures continues upstairs with Sculptural Works from the Museum’s Permanent Collection, and McSurdy-Wong’s work also is three-dimensional.

Though the opening was a hit, Broocks said he wouldn’t schedule so many sculpture shows at the same time again.

“I used every pedestal we had,” he said.