THE CALIFORNIA PRESERVATION CONFERENCE

THE CALIFORNIA PRESERVATION CONFERENCE
Old Roots, New Growth -- Cultivating Communities
May 3^rd - 6^th 

Conference Headquarters: Oakland Marriott City Center

The 2012 California Preservation Conference will be held in Oakland - a city with great beauty, vibrant culture, new industries and innovation.  In just 3 days you will gain a year's worth of education and networking with 125 speakers and 500+ expected attendees.  Don't miss your chance to make valuable business connections, earn continuing education credit

and experience Oakland. 

Educational sessions cover a range of topics such as preservation basics, economic development, new technologies for historic buildings, planning for change, industrial reuse and preservation in the 21st Century.  

Join us in Oakland and you will learn why the New York Times listed Oakland as one of its top 45 places (#5) to visit in 2012.   

Register for the whole conference or by the day

Regular Registration

• CPF Member:  $255
• Non-Member:  $295 (includes 8 mo. membership) 

One-day Registration

Friday:      $125 Members, $145 Non-member

Saturday:  $150 Members, $170 Non-members

Conference Highlights

• More than 30 Sessions, Tours, and Workshops on issues facing California's historic, cultural and natural resources - taught by over 100 expert speakers, plus continuing education units are available for AIA, ASLA, USGBC, MCLE, and AICP!


• Exclusive Tours that highlight Oakland's architecture, landscapes, history, culture and more!


• Special Events at some of Oakland's most historic and architecturally significant venues - including CPF's signature event, the Three-Minute Success Stories!


• Annual Silent and Live Auction - buy something cool or donate an auction item while supporting a good cause! Items often include artwork, antiques, memorabilia, gift baskets, or gift certificates for restaurants, hotels, tours, museums, theater and much more.

Who Should Attend?

Preservationists, city and county planners, architects, landscape architects, community leaders, landmark and historic resource commissioners, historians, archeologists, educators, attorneys, realtors, students, historic property owners, Main Street coordinators, members of Certified Local Governments, developers, contractors, craftsmen, advocates of historic preservation, heritage travelers, and involved citizens.

 

Line, Space and Abstract Expression

Line, Space and Abstract Expression
Curated by Eric Murphy and Joyce Gordon
May 4 – May 26, 2012
Opening Reception: First Friday, May 4th, 6-9pm

Artist Talk: Saturday, May 12th 1-3pm

Joyce Gordon Gallery
406 14th St
Oakland, Ca. 94612
http://joycegordongallery.com/

Participating Artists-
B. Aliza, Pauletta Chanco, Tracy Ricks, Emily Weil

For more information please contact:
Curator: Eric Murphy eric.aioakland@gmail.com 
Gallery: 510.465.8928

Joyce Gordon Gallery and A.I. Oakland presents “Line, Space and Abstract Expression”, an excursion of four abstract painters finding a similar path along the elements of line, texture and plane; becoming voyagers of an alternative abstract expression. These biomorphic paintings all share a common thread of curvilinear lines
and divided spaces or planes as Kandinsky may as well refer to them; however each artist finds their own technique to understand their path regarding the natural. No matter the journey, all four painters utilize the same expression of abstraction; a distillation process of reducing the physical world to its most basic, essential nature so that visceral communication is possible with the viewer.

                                       


Barbara Aliza - Utilizing a variety of natural and acrylic materials, her work explores the complexity of surface, the beauty of imperfection and, ultimately, survival. Aliza’s collection of paintings are inspired by nature’s ability to re-assert itself to survive – a metaphor for our own individual survival. In this exhibit her most recent series – Provenance--emphasizes the transitory and impermanent essence of nature. A point of origin, or provenance, can be seen as a transition from one state to another – again, an affirmation of our individual survival.

                                    
Pauletta Chanco – After an inspirational trip to Death Valley with her husband in January, she started a new body of work that conveys the unique palette of this desert and its raw, stunning beauty and quietude. Time spent roaming and looking at the interconnection of geological forces to create a visual feast of color, shape and form in one place, encourages deep sensations of human vulnerabilities and our overall insignificance in the grand scheme of our existence.  In her current body of work “Sojourn in the Desert” (both oil on linen and her encaustic series), remains the abstracted leaf forms making their reappearance from a previous body of work known as “Clearing the Path for Practice:” Here, indeed, as with previous paintings, the leaves symbolize the vulnerabilities and the cluttering of the mind that lead us astray and away from liberation. The veils and atmospheric realms over the picture plane represent our various mental states both wholesome and unwholesome.


Tracy Ricks - is a self-skilled artist who currently resides in Silicon Valley.  A native Arizonian, Tracy’s first creative endeavor was displayed at an early age.  She has received training in Manual Architectural Drafting and Interior Design. This training allowed her to tap into her God-given talents and create pieces to complement her décor schemes.  From mirrors to masks, her environment slowly began to reflect her passion, culture and ultimately her purpose. This is most evident in her recent series; “What God Sees” in which her framed acylic on mirror paintings create a distorted colorful Paisely path in a Charrette fashion. At one point, the viewer may feel lost in a paradoxical journey around a showroom with Trompe L'oeil objects (via the reflection) that culminates into a simple but yet complex being in which God sees.

Emily Weil – This watercolor and mix media painter enjoys inhabiting The Zone — that inner creative space that likes to express itself without thinking about it. Weil dove into the watercolor palette and then worked into painting with pastel, charcoal and sometimes with a graphite crayon (a big, stubby pencil you can work into with water). Occasionally she works in a few spoons of dirt — especially if it's French!  In Line, Space and Abstract Expression, Weil’s paintings form a liquid dreamscape of color and space and bold black strokes, reminiscent of Japanese Sousho calligraphy mixed with colorful clouds disoriented by the troposphere as gravity takes hold of the watercolor; causing both the trance like state of mind and reality to experience the same dream.

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

Lucky Ladies Launch Party

Lucky Ladies Launch Party 

Saturday April 28, 2012

1-5pm 

http://www.shopluckyladies.com/
Hey, we're having a party!
RSVP and more info: http://www.facebook.com/events/382294165129307/
Postcard by Gwen Harlow Design
Photo by Sarabek Cross

Location-

Rhythmix Cultural Works 

2513 Blanding,

Alameda, CA 94501

www.rhythmix.org

• Schedule- 1:00pm - We are Open - Let's Party 1:30pm - Ahimsa Community Yoga Class 2:00pm - Welcome Announcement by Host Mel Waldorf 2:30pm - Mini Crochet Class by Enchanted Square (Ruth Tillman) 3:00pm - First Raffle 3:30pm - Ruby "Baby" Bennett Performs! 4:00pm - Lucky Ladies Fashion Show 4:30pm - Final Raffle - Don't Miss it - this is the biggie! 5:00pm - Farewell - thank you for joining us! ***Activities*** A Fashion show on the main stage featuring Desiree Salas vintage inspired attire, Gwen Harlow Design Jewelry, accessories from the Enchanted Square and Calliope. Professional photos at our photo booth, a raffle to win awesome Lucky Ladies swag and plenty of opportunities to get to know the Lucky Ladies themselves. Our health and wellness specialists will be on hand to answer your questions, MC Mel Waldorf and Hostess Ruby “Baby” Bennett will provide lively music and merriment! Enjoy light refreshment provided by your hostesses, beer and wine for sale to benefit Rhythmix Cultural Works, and Cole Coffee’s cart will be parked out front! ***Little Dresses for Africa*** http://www.facebook.com/pages/Little-Dresses-For-Africa/108242519205102 Jennifer Serr will be hosting a Little Dresses for Africa sewing event in the Rhythmix classroom. You are invited to join her in sewing sweet little dresses that will be donated to the organization that brings them to girls in need in Africa. Questions about Jennifer’s sewing event jennifer@jenniferserr.com ***Shop*** Bring your cash or credit card and wander our marketplace sampling lush and local all natural body care, hand crafted artisanal housewares, sweet vintage style dresses, adorable hair accessories, playful jewelry, wacky wonderful kitschy collectibles and more! ***Bonus Beats*** We'll be giving out RAFFLE TICKETS to those who dress in their Lucky Ladies Best! Don your Calliope Headband, Desiree Salas Dress, Enchanted Square hat and show your Lucky Ladies Love! ***Who*** The Lucky Ladies are over 12 self-made creative small business owners from Oakland and Alameda. We do: music, skin care, fashion design, sewing instruction, interior/architectural design, felted artisanal products, yoga, web design, estate liquidation, vintage collectibles, nutritional counseling, and photography. Learn more about the Lucky Ladies at http://www.shopluckyladies.com/

Kissing A Stranger; Strangers Kissing; Famous Kisses

We never were

We'll never be

Strangers kissing in the pouring rain

Chasing after your leaving train

 -from Our Song by Spill Canvas

Have you ever been kissed by a stranger or kissed a stranger? Someone you have never met and probably will never even see again?  Yes. I have been. I was the kissee. Three times kissed on my lips-and all took place when I was well past that certain age when I had stopped celebrating my birthdays 'cause there were a whole lot more than 40 candles on the cakes.

All three kissing events were different. One was when I was sitting parked in my car at a Walgreen's, once at a sophisticated, local German restaurant when I was with another man, and the most recent happened at a local outdoor Oktoberfest with my grandkids. I still do not know why I got kissed. All kisses were fast and quite spontaneous. I later did inquire at the restaurant about the well dressed gentleman in his mid 70s who had planted his beer-y lips on mine and discovered from the waiters that this customer had kissed other ladies before, usually when his steins had been too numerous. When I found this out I felt less special and a little jealous!

The famous kiss shown above is a long, passionate one. And they are strangers. Only one of my kiss adventures was similar to this one, darn it. U.S. Navy photo journalist Victor Jorgensen photographed the returning sailor and the nurse in Times Square on V.J. Day August 14, 1945. It is titled 'Kissing the War Goodbye'' and is almost exactly like 'V-J Day in Times Square', a photograph by Alfred Eisenstaedt also taken on the same day and time. 

From Eisenstaedt on Eisenstaedt:

  "In Times Square on V.J. Day I saw a sailor running along the street grabbing any and every girl in sight. Whether she was a grandmother, stout, thin, old, didn't make a difference. I was running ahead of him with my Leica looking back over my shoulder but none of the pictures that were possible pleased me. Then suddenly, in a flash, I saw something white being grabbed. I turned around and clicked the moment the sailor kissed the nurse". 

Years later a few people identified themselves as the strangers in the photo. A nurse Edith Shain wrote to Eisenstaedt in the late 1970s claiming to be the woman in the picture. She related that at the time she thought she might as well let the young sailor kiss her since he fought for her in the war. A Mrs. Friedman also claims to be the lucky nurse caught up in the moment. George Mendonça of Newport, Rhode Island, was identified by a team of volunteers from the Naval War College in August 2005 as "the kisser". George by the way was on a date with another girl when he went on his joyous kissing spree.

Linked forever together in the photographs by both Eisenstaedt and Jorgensen, these two kissing strangers never knew each other or saw each other again. That's art, but then "...a kiss is just a kiss."