By Luisa Loi
La Conner Community News
Four years after the passing of her husband, R. “Bob” Allen Jensen, Z Mantis still feels his energy erupting from the hundreds of pieces he left behind.
This Saturday, 50 of those works will be exhibited at “SEIZE the DAY,” a show in Jensen’s art studio in Stanwood.
Jensen, who sometimes went by different names such as “Robert Dante,” was a visual artist, sculptor, performance artist and installation artist whom late author and critic Tom Robbins identified as one of the most promising young artists in the Northwest. His multimedia works, which often used unconventional materials like tar paper, salvaged wood and industrial debris, have been featured at the Museum of Northwest Art in La Conner, as well as in the Seattle Art Museum and the Tacoma Art Museum, among others.
To Mantis, Jensen’s creative and rebellious use of different mediums and techniques are reminiscent of the works of Pablo Picasso and Leonardo Da Vinci. She described him as “a provocateur” whose “beautiful,” “intense” and “lighthearted” works were inspired by politics, memory, humor, spirituality and, especially since his father’s suicide in 1971, death.
His students and coworkers at Western Washington University, where he retired in 1997 after 30 years of teaching, may remember him for staging his own funeral at age 40, where he wore mortuary makeup and laid in a coffin he built for the occasion, Mantis said.
Mantis met Jensen in 2004, and the two shared a strong romantic and creative connection.
In the three years preceding his death, Jensen lost 90% of his eyesight, but continued to make art until three days before he suffered a fatal stroke at 87, said Mantis, who experiences “waves of grief” and has found the process of putting the show together particularly difficult.
Yet, he still surprises her: Just in the past month, Mantis discovered 43 pieces that had “fallen through the cracks,” she said; in almost every book he left behind, she would find a note dedicated to her. “I love you darling,” one reads. “You are the light of my life.”
“SEIZE the DAY” will take place from noon to 4 on Oct. 3 at 5815 Pioneer Highway in Stanwood. Half of the proceeds from the exhibition will support the R. Allen Jensen Foundation, which provides students and emerging artists with a dedicated living and work space at the Jensen studio in Stanwood for one to three months.
For more information, visit rallenjensen.com.
Luisa Loi is a general assignment reporter at La Conner Community News.
