The Little Things: Featuring Carolyn Robles and Deborah Sliker

The Little Things: Featuring Carolyn Robles and Deborah Sliker

August 22, 2023 through February 4, 2024

Exhibit Overview

Tucson artist Carolyn (Carrie) Robles takes inspiration from the transformative qualities of the Overview Effect in this collaborative exhibition, featuring over 80 oil and pastel paintings by Robles and her mother, Deborah Sliker. ‘The Overview Effect’ is a term used to define the overwhelming emotions felt by astronauts as they gaze back upon our planet from the infinite darkness of space, including feeling humbled, grateful, and forever markedly transformed. In The Little Things, Robles and Sliker seek to transform their viewers with a similar cognitive shift, capturing the change in perspective of an orbital view and applying it to their own community, right here in Tucson. Responding to the seemingly endless negativity of the past few years, including the pandemic, environmental catastrophes, and political turmoil, Robles and Sliker confront our collective anxieties with small reminders of the countless moments that delicately enrich us, fleeting and precious, all too often going unnoticed as we hurry through our lives. Both artists understand that the whole of these small-scale miracles comprise the weight of the human experience, shaping and defining us as we walk through this world. All paintings are done on 3" diameter wood panels.

 "Through this project, I'm reminded that all we have is each other, our animal friends, nature and fleeting moments; moments in time that make up our lives. All of us sharing the earth, our home, interconnected, one organism floating in the vastness of space". - Carolyn Robles

"I've always been fascinated by this awesome place we live, how beautiful this earth is, and feel we need to take the time to really see and experience it with an open heart and open mind. And as fragile as it is, it's also our responsibility to be guardians of our planet and each other." - Deborah Sliker

Earth And Moon From Space

“It suddenly struck me that that tiny pea, pretty and blue, was the Earth. I put up my thumb and shut one eye, and my thumb blotted out the planet Earth. I didn’t feel like a giant. I felt very, very small.” – Neil Armstrong (Astronaut, Apollo 11)

“You develop an instant global consciousness, a people orientation, an intense dissatisfaction with the state of the world, and a compulsion to do something about it. From out there on the moon, international politics look so petty." – Edgar Mitchell (Astronaut, Apollo 14)

 

“You see how diminutive your life and concerns are compared to other things in the universe … The result is that you enjoy the life that is before you … It allows you to have inner peace.” – Edward Gibson (Astronaut & Skylab 4 Pilot)

"When I first looked back at the Earth, standing on the Moon, I cried.” – Alan Shepard (Astronaut, Apollo 14)

Carrie Robles
Carrie Robles
Deborah Sliker
Deborah Sliker