“The carport” by David Hector

It was a real treat for me to go to the Sun Gallery in Hayward yesterday to check out art done by local firefighters in a show called “The Hottest Show in Town,” which closes today. Ten firefighters from all over the Bay Area - Alameda, San Jose, Hayward, Oakland - have work in the show.

There’s photography, ceramics, drawings, poetry and well-worn firefighting gear. Not all of the items on display were perfect but there was some really nice photography of hard-working firefighters on duty. A drawing done by Eduardo Ramos called “Dreaming Big,” of a girl looking into the mirror and seeing herself as an adult firefighter, was worth the trip alone.

The gallery is open until 5 p.m. If you miss the show, catch up with the nice Sun Gallery folks Sept. 26 during their fundraising event at Hayward City Hall. There will be Ballet Folkorico dancing by Ballet Folkorico Tlapalli, food and drinks. Tickets are $40 at the door and $35 in advance. You can call Christine at the gallery for reservations (510) 581-4050.

Learn more about the Sun Gallery here, on the gallery’s blog.

Gail Ruvalcaba’s blue vase is just one of the works on display at the Pleasanton Art League’s latest exhibit “Imagination Expressed” which opened this past weekend.

29 artists are exhibiting their paintings, textiles, jewelry, photographs, ceramics and woodwork in the museum’s Phoebe Hearst Room. All of the work is for sale.

The museum is also offering a series of workshops, lectures and demonstrations meant to educate the public about some of the mediums, techniques and processes on display.

I’ve visited downtown Pleasanton’s cluster of art galleries a handful of times and have always thought their local art scene was exceptional. It’s time for a return visit.

For information about the workshops, contact the museum at 925-462-2766. Exhibit hours are 11 a.m.-4 p.m. Wednesday through Saturday and 1-4 p.m. Sunday through Oct. 5. www.museumonmain.org.

“Mother-Load,” 2008, mixed media

“It’s made out of sugar!”

That’s the observation I heard most frequently on a recent visit to Australian sculptor Timothy Horn’s exhibit “Bitter Suite” which is currently on display at San Francisco’s M.H. de Young Memorial Museum through October 12 as part of their Collections Connections program.

Indeed it is. The Cinderella carriage and baroque chandelier, two of the pieces in the three piece suite, are covered in shiny chunks of amber-colored rock sugar. But there’s something dark lurking underneath all that candy. Horn is an artist known for blurring the lines between the beautiful and the grotesque.

I recently interviewed the Chimayo, New Mexico-based artist and asked him a few questions about “Bitter Suite” and its enigmatic subject, San Francisco philanthropist and socialite Alma de Bretteville Spreckels.

Read the rest of this entry »

I run into Oaklandish every time I go to the Grand Lake Farmer’s Market on Saturday mornings in Oakland. I “ooo” and “ahhh” over their T-shirt and hoodie designs and swear that next time I am going to bring more money and buy myself at least one.

Well, I bet they’ll have T-shirts and other cool swag at the multiple events they are hosting this month:

THERE! New Art From Oakland
An exhibition exploring the creative talent exploding in Oakland today. Oakland, long-time host to a vital visual arts community, has recently begun to receive widespread regional and national recognition for the range and quality of its artists and a growing group of new galleries devoted in large part to contemporary art.  Organized by di Rosa Preserve curator Michael Schwager, There! will present a cross-section of contemporary artists who live and work in Oakland and contribute to the energy and vitality of Bay Area art. 
Opening Reception: August 9 from 6-8pm (members preview 5-6pm).
More info: http://dirosapreserve.org/

LAUREL STREET FESTIVAL
Saturday August 9th from 1-6pm along MacArthur Blvd. between 35th and 38th Avenues. Laurel Streetfest is a free family event in Oakland’s Laurel District. Live music, food, shopping, and a Kidsworld with petting farm, pony rides, bumper cars and rock climbing.

Oaklandish Presents: The 3rd ANNUAL RADIO REGATTA
BYO Radio for tunes while boating. 1/2 off of boat rentals + free pontoon rides and gondola service (space limited). Featuring micro FM broadcast by: Bobby Peru, Dj Mar Mar, DjInti, Black Heart, and DJ Basta spinning some summery tunes.  Linden Street Brewery will be serving their Common Lager. Plus a silent auction of unique furniture made by Youth Spirit Artworks- one of our 2008 Innovators Award winners. Sunday August 17th, 12-5pm @ Lake Merritt Sailboat House. 

Support Organic Products, Vicky Tesmer
The portraits splashed on Vicky’s globe display a flourishing sustainable farm and lush growth of nurtured fruits and vegetables.

Thirty-five sculpted globes, part of “Cool Globes: Hot Ideas for a Cooler Planet,” will be on display from Tuesday to Oct. 13 at Crissy Field Promenade in San Francisco. These globes are “designed by renowned local, national and international artists to represent potential solutions to global warming,” according to Cool Globes press.

The globes have already hit Chicago and Washington, DC. Here, they are supported by Toyota, which claims to be the “greenest” car company in the world.

The globes sort of remind me of those hearts all over San Francisco, which I really like. Its neat to see an artist work with a structured canvas and come up with a stand-out visual look for their pieces. And of course, being “green” is so cool now adays.
Here’s another one for your viewing pleasure, a globe that gives suggestions on how to be greener in small steps:

Take Simple Steps, Angela Erikson
The tiny plastic people covering the green globe represent the members of teeniegreenie.org who have committed their lives to making the world greener by simply changing the little things in life.

There’s still a little bit of time to catch photographer Larisa Shaterian’s exhibit at Berkeley’s Photolab Gallery - but not much.

“Introductions: Portraits of Palestinians from the Nablus and Jenin Regions,” a series of silver gelatin prints, stems from a project the third year New York University student recently began with journalism student Mohammed Farraj. Their goal is to introduce viewers to Palestinians through images and words.

Here’s an image from the show:

“Um Ahmed, 2008″

I’ve been meaning to catch this show for some time as I’m really drawn to portraiture and black & white photography. Better get there soon…it closes July 12.

Visit 9 a.m.-6 p.m. through Friday, 10:30 to 2:30 p.m. Saturday. 510-644-1400, www.photolaboratory.com.

American artist Robert Rauschenberg died Monday according to an AP report and  New York’s Pace Wildenstein gallery.

Although known for his assemblage and mixed media works which brought together elements as disparate as bald eagles, mattresses and brooms, the Texas native was equally at home in the theater and dance worlds. He designed costumes and sets for Merce Cunningham and Paul Taylor.

 I always found Rauschenberg’s funky “combines” - assemblage works he began producing in 1953 at the dawn of the Beat era -especially fascinating. His gift for marrying flotsam and jetsam with scribbles and patches of dripping paint has been hugely influential. He was also an excellent printmaker and his collaged, edgy prints are as vibrant and relevant today as they were in the 1960’s.

 I’m thinking of Rauschenberg’s Automobile tire print, his series of “White Paintings,” the erased De Kooning drawing. If you’ve never seen these works, check them out here, here and here.

After a few weeks of silence on this here blog, I am happy to say I am back in action and ready to post all kinds of art stuff for your reading delight. I will first give you a heads up about a cool event TONIGHT at Industrielle Gallery in Oakland.
The gallery is hosting “Kind Women for Womankind: An Art Auction to Benefit Women of Violence” from 7 to 9 p.m. at their space at 33 Grand Avenue in Oakland. The auction includes artwork donated from Bay Area women artists including, Elisa Carozza, Ann Marie Donahue, Lynn Ganser, Maya Kabat, Jessica Serran, Dana Taylor, Charlene Thomas and Mary Younkin, amongst others. Money from art sales goes to CARE.org, a humanitarian organization fighting global poverty and injustice.

If you can’t make it to the show tonight, don’t worry. You can visit the center’s Web site and bid on the pieces RIGHT NOW. Come on. You know you want to.

 This is a self-portrait created by longtime Oakland artist/ printmaker Casper Banjo who was shot by Oakland Police last month.

Banjo was 71.

Apparently, there is going to be a fund-raising event *tonight*  for his family. It’s just $5 to get in and no one will be turned away.

Here’s the announcement from Bay Area muralist Dan Fontes’ blog:

A Community Fundraiser for the Family of Casper Banjo

Friday, April 11, 6:30PM
Swarm Studios + Gallery
560 Second Street, Oakland
$5 donation at the door (no one turned away for lack of funds)

Please join us in celebrating the life and mourning the tragic death of beloved Oakland artist, Casper Banjo.
Shockwaves rippled through the Bay Area art community recently at news that influential printmaker Casper Banjo had been killed. Casper was 71 years of age. An artist and teacher since 1970, Banjo was among the group of local artists who helped define the black aesthetic in visual arts. His trademark was using bricks in his prints, even creating a legendary brick-patterned suit that read “Express Yourself,” and an African-American-themed yellow brick road.

Artwork for this event is donated by members of the art community and will be available for purchase. Contributing artists include:
Milton Bowens
Bill Dallas
Slobodan Dan Paich
Anna E. Edwards
Tom Franco
Dan Fontes
James Gayles
Susan Matthews
Eileen Starr Moderbacher
Rosalind McGary
Frank D. Robinson
Malik Seneferu
Karin Turner
Orlanda Uffre
Amanda Williams
Keith “K-Dub” Williams
TheArthur Wright
and more…
DJ performance! Appetizer delicacies donated by Cock-A-Doodle Cafe, Oakland
All proceeds from this event will benefit the family of Casper Banjo

Our Hearts Are Pained…
Casper Banjo, of Oakland, California was born in Memphis in 1937. After obtaining an Associates Degree at Laney College he earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts and Master of Fine Arts degree from the San Francisco Art Institute where he subsequently taught. He began his art career as a printmaker. His prints have been exhibited nationally and internationally at locations such as the Studio Museum in Harlem, the Museum of Modern Art in New York City, the Smithsonian Traveling Exhibition, The John McEnroe Gallery, the Venezuela Second Biennial Del Grabado de American and a traveling exhibition of the Gong Gallery in Lagos, Nigeria. He also participated in the Very Special Art Gallery’s African-American Artistry, the California Society of Printmaker’s Exhibition at the Triton Museum, The Oakland Museum Collector’s Gallery and the Laguna Arts Museum Prints and Painting Show. His work can also be found in numerous private collections. Mr. Banjo traveled extensively throughout the world, including West Africa, Upper Volta, Benin, Jos, Zaria, Lagos Nigeria, Ghana, Ife, Kano and Ibadan.

I absolutely adore this photo of the tattooed ladies of the Sacred Rose Tattoo shop in San Francisco. It is both classy and edgy. I admit, I am a bit envious of women who get their entire backs inked. I have always wanted to do it but I am too cheap and too chicken.

But this isn’t about me! This is about lovely pieces of art in the “Sacred Rose Family Circus” show opening Friday at the Lucky Juju Pinball Gallery in Alameda.

Lucky Juju is *the* place to go for pinball in the Bay Area and its owner Michael Schiess is hooked up with all kinds of cool cats - from scientists at the Exploratorium to the tattoo artists of Sacred Rose.  Every month, Lucky Juju hosts a gallery show in their modest space off Webster Street. This month, the show is exploring the work of the Sacred Rose artists.

“Waves Tattoo” by Karen Roze

This show is comprised of photos of the artists at Sacred Rose and their own tattoos, plus examples of their work and art, known as “flash” in the trade. It is being billed as a rare treat to see tatto art of a variety of diciplines — Japanese, Pacific Island and American.  And you don’t even have to go to a MEGAHUGE tattoo show at the Cow Palace (which happened last weekend) to see it!

Plus the pinball gallery has active pinball machines from the dayes of yore AND you are supporting a non-profit organization when you go to play. How cool is that?

Maybe you’ll be inspired to cover up some of that prison ink with the real-deal!