Love, Unity and Freedom-Art Show by Salma Arastu at Expressions Gallery in Berkeley

PRESS RELEASE    Love, Unity and Freedom Show Runs: Saturday, January 19 – Friday, March 15, 2013 Show Opening Saturday, January 19, 6-8pm Join us and the Artists for our show opening with music by Lawanda Ultan and Greg Pratt and a guest musician who plays various Persian instruments. Refreshments served. Expresssions Gallery A Fine Arts Gallery in the Ashby Arts District in Berkeley, CA. 2035 Ashby Ave, Berkeley, California, a quarter block from the Ashby Bart Station between Adeline and Shattuck Gallery Hours: Wednesday-Saturday, Noon-5pm, Sunday 12-3pm and by appt. Phone: 510-644-4930, E-mail: expressionsgallery@msn.com The current show entitled: “Love, Unity and Freedom”  is a show about Art and Poetry. Our Featured Artist is Salma Arastu was inspired to create art from the poems of 13th Century Persian Sufi Poet, Melvana Julauddin Rumi She calls her work Poem-Paintings Salma is a Bay Area Artist in pursuit of peace and positive interfaith dialogue through the arts. She creates peaceful and trancelike imagery conveying messages of Love, unity and freedom. Her new exhibition is supported by a grant from the East Bay Community Foundation through its “Fund for Artists.” In addition to her work, we have invited other artists and poets to contribute to the show. Some  artists are both poets and artists, some are artists inspired by other’s poems and some are poets whose work is inspired or interpretive of other artists works. Featured throughout this show are a number of  Free Events: Friday night Literature and Poetry Readings and Open Mike:  The Third Friday of each month from 7-9 PM we have Literature and Poetry Readings and Open Mic: January 18 , 2013 Featuring: Jennifer Arin and Janell Moon February 15 , 2013 Featuring: Eliot Schain and Richard Silber March 22, 2013 Featuring: Gary Turchin and Wulf Losee   NEW OFF SITE LOCATION! Expressions Gallery is expanding to an additional and new site at 371 30th Street in Oakland, Ca. between Telegraph and Broadway across from Summit Hospital Our first show there is called  “Artistic Expressions”. The show opens as of January 23 with hours of 11 AM – 4 PM. Wednesdays - Sundays and runs through March 24,  Lots of gifts and fine art to light up your life or that of another.  Other Off Site Shows: “The 4 Rs: Reuse, Recycle, Redo and Re-purpose” Runs till – February 20, 2013, Mondays – Thursdays from 9 – 4 PM except on holidays at: City of Berkeley, Planning and Development Dept, on the first, 2nd and 3rd Floor 2010 Milvia St. after that“Celebration,Excitement and Joy” will be at the City of Berkeley Planning and Development Dept at 2010 Milvia Street from Feb. 25th through June 26th, 2013  Artwork is displayed on all three floors and access is Mondays through Thursdays from 9 – 4 PM. “Youth Spirit Artworks”: Runs through February 4th. Inspired artwork by at risk youth 16 – 25 who are part of Youth Spirit Artworks, a local non-profit organization passionately committed to empowering and transforming the lives of these East Bay Youth through job training and community art making.1947 Center Street Lobby Gallery, Berkeley, Ca. Open Mon -Thurs 9-4 PM  Art Classes for Children and Adults We offer classes for children and adults in your home, your school, your organization or senior center, at the artist’s studios or here at the gallery. See our flyer for more info about classes and to sign up. Contact our Educational Coordinator, Marge Essel at 510-548-2617  for more information.  We also offer seminars by accomplished teachers and artists in the field and classes for Artists who need to learn how to take, process, size, attach and send digital images of their artwork. We have classes and equipment for your use through or non-proft Arts and Educational Center. www.expressionsartsandedcenter.com. Care to support our Educational Center, you can donate or shop for goods you would normally buy on line at www.optoshopdiscounts.com. All proceeds go to support Expressions Gallery Arts and Educational Center: www.expressionsartsandedcenter.com. Come on by: Whether you are a serious collector, someone interested in learning more about art, or just browsing, you are sure to find something of interest at Expressions Gallery. Expressions Gallery, is more than a gallery, it strives to be an integral part of the community and an arts center dedicated to supporting all forms of art.

Art Show, San Francisco Peace and Hope Reading and Celebration

Art Show, San Francisco Peace and Hope Reading and Celebration

AWE (A Women’s Eye) Gallery,

678 Portola Drive, 
San Francisco, CA 94127

http://blog.awegallery.com/

Elizabeth Hack

Mixed media paintings

February 2 - 24, 2013

Opening Celebration

Sunday, February 3, 2013

1-4:30pm

San Francisco Peace and Hope Reading 2:30pm

Al Young, California poet laureate emeritus

 Dan Brady, Jane Green, Kit Kennedy, Patrice Haan, John Rowe, Vince Storti, Nancy Wakeman, Sherri Rose-Walker, Judy Wells

Harp music provided by Patrice Haan

San Francisco Peace and Hope is an online publication that promotes peace through poetry, writing and visual art.

Visit: www.sfpeaceandhope.com

Gallery hours:

Saturday and Sunday, noon to 5pm and by appointment

Biographies

Al Young

California poet laureate emeritus

Web site:  www.alyoung.org

Dan Brady

Dan Brady was born in New York City, and this may explain a great deal.  His poetry includes the influences of jazz, mysticism, history, politics, love, death and a concern for the human condition past, present and that which is yet to come. He currently hosts the longest running open poetry mic known, at Sacred Grounds Coffee House on Wednesday nights in San Francisco.  Many stories about him have a grain of truth, so it is the sifting that is important.  

Jane Green

Jane Green writes her life in poetry.  With a couple of Pushcart nominations, poems published locally and abroad, open mic readings, and four chapbooks, she's happy to be on the path with the creative process. 

Patrice Haan

Patrice Haan has an ear for melody, a heart for feelings and a gift for lyrics. As well as playing therapeutic music with Healing Muses, a non-profit that provides music for healing in Bay-area hospitals, Patrice is increasingly being recognized for her songwriting and poetry. She was published in the Spring issue of SF Peace & Hope 2012 shortly after the release of Bluest Blue, her second album of original songs for harp, piano, voice and other instruments. Her tunes are often described as "beautiful, gorgeous, poetic and evocative, healing our souls and our heartache with the palpable love and the poetry of the music." 

Kit Kennedy

Kit Kennedy co-authored Inconvenience (Littoral Press, Berkeley) and Constellations (Co-Lab Press, San Francisco) with Susan Gangel.  Beyond the Human Voice:  7 poems inspired by the art of Susan Black is available as an e-book.  While Eating Oysters is published by CLWN WR BKS, Brooklyn.  Work has appeared in SF Peace and Hope, Ambush Review, It’s Animal but Merciful, among others. She lives in San Francisco and is Poet in Resident at the Bay Times and is a member of AWE Gallery Collective.

 www.poetrybites.blogspot.com

John Rowe

John Rowe, Bay Area native, is the author of several poetry chapbooks: At My Wit's Beginning,Winsome Losesome and 15 Years, which previews a full-length collection that's in the works. Manuel Garcia, Jr. says: "John Rowe takes us into the fault lines of the language down to its asthenosphere of infinitely fluid consciousness hidden beneath the brittle commonness of the surface."

JR's poems have appeared in a number of journals and anthologies, and he's honored to be a part of San Francisco Peace & Hope. He's been a frequent award-winner in Artists Embassy International's Annual Dancing Poetry Festival Contests, including a Grand Prize (2002) and a First Prize (2010). He received the Grand Prize in the Bay Area Poets Seasonal Review Contest 2010.

JR is actively involved in the organization and leadership of community poetry events. He's a co-host of the monthly (2nd Fridays) Last Word Poetry Reading Series, held at Nefeli Caffe in Berkeley. For many years he's served as president of the Bay Area Poets Coalition and associate editor of BAPC's Poetalk magazine.

 www.rowepoet.com

Vince Storti

Vince Storti has produced poetry reading series’ at Yakety Yak Coffee House and several other venues.   He recently received a first prize in the midi-poem category awarded by the Bay Area Poet’s Coalition’s Maggie Mayer Poetry Contest. He currently serves on the board of directors Alameda Island Poets.

Nancy Wakeman

Nancy Wakeman grew up on the rocky coast of Massachusetts. She now lives in San Francisco and hosts a monthly poetry salon. She is the author of BABE DIDRIKSON ZAHARIAS: Driven to Win, a biography of the famous golfer, and Shooting Arrows at the Moon, a book of poetry and prose poems. Her work has been published in the Ambush Review, Bay Area Poets Seasonal Review, The Alembic and other journals.

Sherri Rose-Walker

Sherri Rose-Walker is a life-long poet who wrote her first poem at age seven. Her poetry, which she sometimes describes as a throw-back to the English Romantics who, in turn, looked back to the Celts and Anglo-Saxons, is principally concerned with deepening the life of the feminine, and the seasons of the soul.  She has been published in the We'Moon women's wisdom calendar, The Salt Reader, Echoes From the Heart, Blueprint, Bay Area Poets Seasonal Review, San Francisco Peace and Hope, and New Vision (UK).  She can be reached at sherrirose-walker@hotmail.com

Judy Wells

Judy Wells received her B.A .from Stanford and her Ph.D. in Comparative Literature from UC Berkeley. She taught writing in Bay Area colleges before a career as an Academic Counselor for adults at St. Mary’s College of California and as a faculty member of St. Mary’s Graduate Liberal Studies Program.  She currently teaches writing in a special program for freshmen at UC Extension.

 Judy has published nine collections of poetry:  I Dream of Circus Characters:  A Berkeley Chronicle (2010),  Little Lulu Talks with Vincent Van Gogh (2007), Call Home (2005), Everything Irish (1999), The Calling:  Twentieth Century Women Artists (1994), The Part-time Teacher (1991),  Jane, Jane (1981), Albuquerque Winter (1980),  I Have Berkeley, (1979).  She was a featured reader in the Berkeley Poetry Festival in 2006, 2009, and 2011. 

Uncovering an Architectural Treasure in Alameda California

before

after

Uncovering an Architectural Treasure
The Restoration of 1837 Clinton Avenue

Thursday, January 31, 2013 at 7:00 pm

Immanuel Lutheran Church: 1420 Lafayette Street, Alameda, CA 94501
(Parking available at the corner of Chestnut Street and Santa Clara Avenue.)
Free for AAPS members; $5 for non-members

http://www.alameda-preservation.org/rs
510-479-6489

Long-time Alameda restorer and preservationist, Jim Smallman, will share his experiences in the marvelous rebirth of an extraordinary Joseph A. Leonard mansion-scale home.
This two year project included new foundation, structural upgrading, new electrical service and interior rewiring, all new plumbing, major interior repairs, a tasteful new kitchen that blends well with its historic setting, and simply beautiful color treatments, inside and out.
The most unusual aspect of this project may also be the most obvious to passersby.  For nearly fifty years the house was entombed in stucco.  The conventional wisdom might suggest that such a treatment condemns a house to permanent ugliness.  However, there were intriguing bulges and patterns that hinted that much of the original exterior ornamentation might have survived underneath.

Jim will show how the stucco was efficiently removed, and how the underlying Queen Anne ornamentation was brought back to life. He will share his experience identifying obstacles and opportunities in assessing a home’s potential for restoration. Also, highlights relating to costs and strategies, and some tricks that saved money and improved the final result will be revealed.

Jim shares his practical experience acting as his own general contractor, performing project management with the many subcontractors.  He will be available to answer questions, and will distribute a contact list of the craftspeople who worked on this extraordinary project. This is a meeting not to be missed!

Jim Smallman bio

Jim Smallman has been active in Alameda preservation and restoration for more than forty years.  He bought his first Victorian here (2242 San Antonio) in 1971.  This neglected house had been divided into five units and for the next decade he restored it as a single family house.

 Along the way, he became President of the then named, Alameda Victorian Preservation Society, and in that role was instrumental in saving a circa 1880 Stick-style house slated for demolition.  (The Society bought the house for $1 and moved it.)  As an investment, Jim also bought 2246 San Antonio, a much altered Italianate cottage, and restored it.

1833 and 1837 Clinton Avenue were acquired in 1978 but waited until Jim’s retirement for their restoration. 1837 was restored over a two-year period, 2009-2010; 1833 is being restored now.

Jim is a University of California, Berkeley graduate.  He worked fourteen years developing construction management software for Kaiser Engineers, part of the forty years he spent developing industrial computer applications.  After retiring from the industry, he taught mathematics in high school for ten years in Southern California.

Finally returning home to Alameda in 2008, he reconnected with Alameda’s preservation movement and is active today. Jim Smallman and the craftsmen involved with the restoration of 1837 Clinton Avenue received an AAPS Preservation Award in 2010.

The Dichotomy of Art at Joyce Gordon

What: The Dichotomy of Art

When: January 4 – January 27, 2013

Opening Reception: First Friday, January 4, 6-9pm

Artist Talk: First Friday, January 4^th 7-8pm

Where: Joyce Gordon Gallery

406 14^th St (12^th St. Bart Exit)

Oakland, Ca. 94612

Who: Lisa Alonzo, Jonathan Blair, James Gayles and Ruth Tabancay

For more information please contact:

Gallery Director: Eric Murphy - eric.aioakland@gmail.com
Gallery: 510.465.8928

Joyce Gordon Gallery presents “The Dichotomy of Art”, an attempt to examine the interdisciplinary practices among artists, not just of their interchangeable artistic media but also the cross sections of their careers.

In 1976, an art program at Columbia College of Chicago was created to examine and explore the interdisciplinary use of techniques from across the fine, performing and multimedia arts. This diverse media approach previously existed as pedagogies of multi-academia challenged each perpetual field of study, usually for the purpose of reaching a mutual task. This later became a method for art students to expand their use of diverse techniques that explore and push the boundaries for new future terrains of art. “The Dichotomy of Art” pushes these boundaries even further by examining the artwork of four predominantly Bay Area artists whose interdisciplinary practice involve tools commonly used by professionals in the white and blue-collar sector of society that consist of commercial graphics, culinary arts and microbiology.

Lisa Alonzo is a Northern California mix-media painter currently residing in Alameda, Ca. After two years of studying design at Cal State Long Beach, she received her BFA in Fine Art from the Academy of Art University in San Francisco in 2008.

 
Alonzo creates paintings from stock images found online. In creating the image, she mimics the pixels she sees from the image onscreen using a pastry tip normally used for decorating cakes. She makes a "fondant" base out of molding paste and as the "frosting" and apply thousands of very saturated dots or starbursts in a pointillistic manner. Her aim is to make the image look as delicious as possible and title the pieces as cakes to be ordered according.

Jonathan Blair was raised in Monterey and received a BFA in Painting from California College of the Arts.  After getting his degree, he relocated to Los Angeles and was employed by Disney Studios for a number of years.  He then became an artist for other major studios in Los Angeles and created numerous privately commissioned pieces as well.  After living in Los Angeles for over fifteen years, he happily returned to his hometown of Monterey, where he continues to concentrate on his art. 

Blair calls his latest work “iconographic paintings”.  Essentially, he takes familiar imagery and recreates it in a contemporary way.  Marilyn Monroe, Mount Everest, Mother Theresa, Clint Eastwood – all images we recognize, but Blair clearly relies heavily on his graphic arts background, creating paintings that are familiar and a little unsettling at the same time.  Blair says he hopes to “express a sociological message within the content and title of the paintings themselves.”

James Gayles is an International artist and art instructor residing in Oakland, Ca. Gayles attended Pratt Institute in New York, where he studied under renowned painters Jacob Lawrence and Audrey Flack.  He simultaneously pursued careers in both fine and commercial art. As a commercial artist he established himself in New York as a Graphic Designer and Illustrator, becoming Assistant Director of Graphics at NewsCenter 4, NBC-TV.  At NBC he won a television Emmy Award for design and illustration. 

In his recent “Elder” series, Gayles highlight the various aspects of our culture to bridge the gap between generations and to pay homage to the ancestors and elders of various tribes around the world.  This series shows the different and not so different aspects of our society. Adjacent to this series is a collection of his illustrated work that was created for the Bay Area News Group over recent years.

Berkeley artist, Ruth Tabancay works with a variety of fiber and textile media. With a life-long interest in biological sciences, she majored in Bacteriology at the University of California, Berkeley before continuing on to earn an MD degree at the University of California School of Medicine, San Francisco. She then worked in private practice Pediatrics for eleven years before deciding to leave her medical practice to study at the California College of the Arts. After several years of studio classes she was startled to realize that her work contained the formal elements that she had once studied under a microscope.

While her work continues to be largely influenced by microscopic imagery, she uses a range of techniques including computerized Jacquard weaving, felting, embroidery, and hand-stitched tea bags. She is currently a member of Mercury 20, a contemporary art gallery in Uptown Oakland. Her work is in the collection of the Oakland Museum of California.

Curator’s Statement – This autonomy of life expands the realm of our imagination but cannot be mistaken as a new frontier.  Art that is influenced by or involves one’s day-to-day practice has gripped the hands of many predecessors.  Let’s examine Italian born engineer, Ettore Buggati, influenced by a family of visual artists and considered himself an artist and constructor who designed one of the world’s fastest and most elegant racing cars, Buggati (now owned by Volkswagen).  The interdisciplinary advancement of his “art” is a nod to his alternate career as a manufacture of airplane parts used in Buggati’s design. 

For the artists in this exhibit, this Warhol like experience of commercial/working class meets fine art blurs the line between artistic expression and remuneration. In a gelastic expression, I imagine the day Clark Kent can come to work openly bearing the ‘S’ on his chest. However, if any part of this can be described as transmittal, I would have to agree with artist, writer and philosopher, William Morris in stating that beauty and care are inherent in everything that is done and that "art" in fact ceases to exist as a separate entity, and becomes an aspect of everything that we do.  – Eric Murphy

Joyce Gordon Gallery is a commercial fine art gallery located in the downtown district of Oakland California. It exhibits art that reflects the social and cultural diversity of the Bay Area and international artists. The aim of the gallery is to respect the creative pursuits of the individual and seeks to make such work accessible to a broad audience.

Joyce Gordon Gallery    

406 14th St, Oakland, CA 94612     

510-465-8928  

www.joycegordongallery.com