Taking Art to the Office : Jillian Coldiron livens up the lobby of the Allstate building in Glendale with clay sculptures and drawings by seven artists.

Art consultant Jillian Coldiron recognizes that people’s busy lives can keep them from taking time to go to art museums and galleries. So she brings fine quality art to where the people are.

During any given work day, several hundred men and women pass through the lobby of the Allstate building at 801 N. Brand Blvd. in Glendale, where Coldiron has been presenting art exhibits for the past four years. This site may seem an unlikely spot to show art of various media, including painting, drawing, sculpture and installations. However, Coldiron sees the 14-story office building’s well-lighted, expansive plaza level as a good space to highlight the work of Southern California artists.

Additionally, the artwork adds a vibrant human element to a rather cold atmosphere created by the interior’s polished granite walls. “The building is granite, inside and out. It needs some liveliness,” Coldiron said.

That is particularly true regarding the current show, “An Odyssey in Clay and Drawing,” which offers an eclectic view of ceramic work by seven artists. Figurative, representational and abstract pieces, some thrown, most of them hand-built, have been strategically placed near windows and walkways to give passersby a good opportunity to notice them--and to touch them.

Richard White’s approximately 2 1/2-foot tall, white earthenware figure, “Ten Gallon” is on his knees, beer bottle in hand, 10-gallon hat upon his head, greeting patrons after they exit the building’s cafe. He’s a man of the West down to his buttons and bolo tie.

The similarly sized but more urbanized youngster of White’s wood-fired porcelain “Mind Grind” sports a backward baseball cap and holds a broken skateboard. White’s brick and brick-clay “Water into Fog” figure appears more meditative and Buddha-like in his cross-legged position.

Karen Sullivan’s delicate, charcoal-fired porcelain “Cage 5,” suggests an emotional as well as physical prison with its fragile bars. Four smaller cages in her series hang on a wall where they convey a slightly less ominous tone.

Ingrid Lilligren’s voluptuous, organic but abstracted torsos indicate limbs, and relate to biological identity.

Patricia Ferber’s large-scale vessels “feel like they are real old,” Coldiron said. Ferber has fashioned cylindrical shapes that seem like parts from ancient machinery and combined them with abstract forms.

Joyce Kohl worked with adobe and steel to create “Turning Point,” whose grid-like top actually turns; and “Twins,” a contemplative piece on symmetry.

When she began organizing shows at 801 N. Brand in 1988, Coldiron was confronted by tenants who did not appreciate her efforts to expose them to art. They made derogatory comments about the work, including the common refrain of “my kid could do that.”

But over time, they began to like having artwork around. Now, when she is between shows and the lobby is without art, they eagerly inquire about the next show.

“With two or three months to have pieces grow on them, it made them more open to an artist’s feelings of pattern, color and expression,” Coldiron said. “I have a sense that I am educating people about art.”

Where and When

What: “An Odyssey in Clay and Drawing.”

Location: 801 N. Brand Blvd., Glendale.

Hours: 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. daily, through Sept. 28.

Call: (818) 792-1139.