DOLLHOUSE: ART AS SERIOUS PLAY
January 15 - February 19, 2022
DOLLHOUSE: ART AS SERIOUS PLAY
Arc Gallery & Studios 1246 Folsom Street, San Francisco CA January 15 - February 19, 2022
Exhibition Statement
Genius is childhood recalled at will. ~ Charles Baudelaire When you were a child you made art, probably lots of it. You, and everyone around you, called that “playing.” Art is part of a child’s normal response to almost any aspect of life. A small child asks an art-teacher what he does at work. “I teach people to draw” the teacher says, and the child responds “You mean they forget?” Within the bounds of an imaginary dollhouse, this exhibition showcases art that uses the tropes of playtime - storybooks, toys, dolls, games, dress-up, imaginary friends, and secret spaces - to explore the serious and playful nature of art-making. The works compel the viewer to recall the joys of make-believe and to appreciate the unique interpretation of “play” that each artist brings to the dollhouse. Priscilla Otani & Tanya Wilkinson, Curators
Participating Artists Afatasi the Artist
Liz Mamorsky
Glenn Caley Bachmann
Kristine Mays
Rosalia Baltazar-Schoemaker
Michael McConnell
Marie Bergstedt
Erika Meriaux
Johnny Botts
Geralyn Marie Montano
Joshua Coffy
Howard Munson
Sas Colby
Tomye Neal-Madison
Diana Elrod
Sean O'Donnell
Miriam Fabbri
Priscilla Otani
Kathy Fujii-Oka
Barbara Pollak-Lewis
Dolores R Gray
Na Omi Judy Shintani
Maribel Guzman, Miriam Munguia & José Nuñez
Liz Steketee
Trudi Chamoff Hauptman & Zachariah Hauptman
Denise Tarantino
Dianne Hoffman
Stephen C. Wagner
Jennifer Jigour
Tanya Wilkinson
J.L. King
Sandra Yagi
OPENING RECEPTION: Saturday, January 15th, 7-9pm
Dollhouse Events Opening Reception Saturday, January 15th, 7:00-9:00pm Artists Talk About Playing and Art-Making Thursday, November 11th (2021) Zoom Conversation - posted online
Dollhouse Zoom Artist Talk I Thursday, January 20th, 6:00-7:00pm Dollhouse Zoom Artist Talk II Thursday, January 27th, 6:00-7:00pm A Doll's Dance A toy performance by Amanda Chaudhary and Play as (serious) Art A special afternoon of interactive performance with Jeff Raz Sunday, February 13th, 1:30-3:30pm Artful Play Mixed media collage paper and bookmaking workshop with Roxanne Padgett Sunday, February 13th, 1:30-3:30pm Closing Reception Saturday, February 19th, 12:00-3:00pm
About the Exhibition Team Curator Priscilla Otani is a founding partner of Arc Gallery & Studios and has curated many exhibitions for Arc Gallery, Northern California Women’s Caucus for Art, and Pacific Center for the Book Arts. She was president of the National Women’s Caucus from 2013–2015 and currently serves on the board of Northern California Women’s Caucus for Art. Otani is a mixed media artist whose works have been selected in Bay Area, national and international exhibitions. Curator Tanya Wilkinson is a Feminist artist and author based in San Francisco. She has curated shows focused on themes of Mythology, Storytelling, Metaphor and Political Activism for the Pacific Center for Book Arts, at the Village Theater Art Gallery in Danville California, for the California Institute of Integral Studies and at Arc Gallery and Studios in San Francisco. Tanya’s own art practice focuses on collage, assemblage, mixed media sculpture and book arts. She is also the author of several books: Medea's Folly: Women's Relationships and the Search for Intimacy (1998), Persephone Returns: Victims, Heroes, and the Journey from the Underworld (1996) and Women’s Dreams and Nightmares (2018). Video Editor Sidney Bricker is a junior at Los Gatos High School with a passion for creative projects. She enjoys photography, digital drawing, and video editing. During the 2020/21 school year, she edited 7 educational art videos for the Art Docents of Los Gatos, a non-profit organization that allows adult volunteers to teach lessons on art history and more to the thousands of students in grades K-8 in the LGUSD school district. Sidney currently writes as a local news editor for her school newspaper, El Gato. Last year she enjoyed exploring video and photo editing as a media editor. She also edited the interview video "A Conversation with Na Omi Judy Shintani" for the Northern California Women's Caucus for Art in August, 2021.
Event Manager Laura Abrams is an artist, writer, and arts manager who has worked primarily in the live arts presenting field. She holds degrees in Art History from UCLA and Arts Administration from NYU. As director of education and community programs/campus liaison at UC Berkeley’s Cal Performances, she developed events designed to nourish interdisciplinary understanding in and through the arts. Formerly the Board President of MOCHA (Museum of Children's Art), Laura has recently joined the Board of the Northern California Women's Caucus for Art and has taken on responsibilities as Professional Development chair. At NCWCA, she participated in the Composing the Future exhibition and has contributed to the monthly newsletter. Her current artwork consists of drawings and mixed media shadow boxes that express a colorful, surrealist aesthetic inspired by nature, folk art, puzzles, and improvisational jazz. Her blog, LA Art Notes centers on creating meaning through artistic encounters. Catalog Designer Michael Yochum is a founding partner of Arc. He currently manages the art consulting practice at Arc and he is the curator of two of their signature annual exhibitions: FourSquared and 48 Pillars. Since co-founding Arc in late 2009, he has worked with many individual collections and corporations, helping them to connect with local artists. While working as a financial consultant, he volunteered with ArtSpan, the largest artist-member organization in Northern California and producers of San Francisco Open Studios. He was the Chairman of that organization from 2009- 2010. Michael studied art history at Middlebury College and ICU (Tokyo); and, he studied Japanese Art History in the graduate program at Columbia University.
World Making by Laura Abrams Conventional wisdom has it that play is the stuff of childhood, When we grow up, we are supposed to leave it all behind. But, artists don’t have to abandon play for “real life.” In fact, artists have the tenacity to take play to a finely tuned level, using their observation and world making skills to create exquisite works of art. As a child, your job is to figure out the world. The word given to this is “play.” With imagination, the tools at hand (crayons, leaves, rocks, a bit of fabric, a toilet paper tube, a feather, a Lego set, an iPad or whatever strikes your fancy), you make worlds. You observe and experiment, you put things together and make up stories. If you are lucky, you spend lots of time in the land of make believe. Remember the feeling? Working with the curators on this exhibition, I had the good fortune to rediscover my earliest love of making dollhouses. It was exhilarating. I realized—emerging from hours of resurrecting long-buried skills and nascent ideas—that the process called “play” when children do it is intimately related to the feeling adults relish as “flow.” Also known as “being in the zone,” flow is the state of being fully engaged and focused. Ideas coalesce, problems untangle, solutions unfold, and there is (maybe) a triumphant resolution. Children at play are similarly engaged and focused while creating worlds, learning to express themselves, communicating their vision to others … It’s like making art. I’d like to take a time out here to acknowledge that many children do not have access to art supplies, toys, or enrichments like music, dance and theater. Family strife, environmental violence, societal upheaval, bullying, deprivation, and loneliness cruelly interrupt this crucial developmental time. But for all kids, those experiencing trauma as well as those more fortunate, even limited access to art can be the catalyst for great feats of imagination that provide order and comfort. As David Bayles and Ted Orland, authors of the influential book on the
process of making art, Art and Fear: Observations on the Perils (and Rewards) of Making Art (2001), explain “artists make a world so that they will have a place to belong.” Whatever the circumstance, these childhood experiences may generate eager artists. Of course, not every child is going to choose to pursue art. But early access to the arts has been proven to improve outcomes in school and life, providing avenues of focus and problem solving that expand into other fields of knowledge and abilities. Teaching artist Eric Booth explains in The Everyday Work of Art (2001) that the same processes that fuel art propel every life path. An accountant or a computer programmer can enter “the zone” just as well as any painter and derive just as much satisfaction from their pursuits. The distinction is that when someone chooses art as a vocation, they persist in the land of play, devoting their energy and expertise towards expressing their views in original works of art. Dollhouse: Art as Serious Play curators Priscilla Otani and Tanya Wilkinson invited artists to reach back into their own way-back machines to the roots of their own creative lives. Fascinatingly diverse works have emerged featuring not only icons of childhood—tricycles, cereal boxes, dolls, costumes—but also sensory memories and evocative images of wholly individual experiences of childhood. I am delighted to have had a small part in this important exhibition that connects the dots between art, flow, and play. It is especially wonderful to see how the artists here have artfully channeled play into serious work. Art is serious play. They knew it all along!
Imagination at Play Priscilla Otani
I meant to do my work today— But a brown bird sang in the apple tree, And a butterfly flitted across the field, And all the leaves were calling me. And the wind went sighing over the land, Tossing the grasses to and fro, And a rainbow held out its shining hand— So what could I do but laugh and go? ― Richard Le Gallienne Dollhouse: Art as Serious Play shows the many ways artists capture the elusive essence of play. The exhibition features images, objects, words, and scenes that relate to generalized childhood; quirky works that provoke flights of fancy; works based on folklore, fairy tales and mythology; and still others that teach us about childhoods unknown. A common thread for all the artists in this exhibition is that the process of making of art is the purest form of play. Have you ever been inspired by the discovery of art created in your own childhood? I remember finding a pile of crayon drawings from kindergarten on a visit to my home in Kobe. At the age of five I believed that birds had four legs. Sadly, I didn’t take the drawings home with me and they were lost when the house was sold. Diana Elrod’s Knights series was based on a line drawing included in a shipment of childhood ephemera from her mother. Her adult versions include greater complexity in materials and colors but the rendition of the knights retain the simple, free-form lines of the original.
Reimagining everyday objects is an essential component of play. Even now when elaborate toys boast new and better features, it can be fun to take objects apart or reshape them. It can take just a small tweak to change the original intention of a commercial object, as seen in Glenn Caley Bachmann’s Tragically Delicious cereal box. His collage transforms the friendly Lucky Charms mascot into who he really is: a ghoulish sugar-peddling leprechaun juggling skulls. Just as children find more magic in packing boxes than in the gift inside, simple, raw materials can be amazing sources of inspiration. Creativity Explored artists Maribel Guzman, Miriam Munguia, and Jose Nunez’s work Untitled is a beautiful wall hanging made from fabric scraps, paint and threads. The artists combined their drawing, embroidery and sewing skills to depict the pretty girl in the center delighting in the abundance of people, animals, and flowers all around her. Many children love collecting things, like baseball trading cards, dolls, stamps and coins. Some leave their collections behind, but others continue their passions into adulthood. Others begin collecting as adults as a new hobby or because they were denied the pleasure of collecting before. Rosalia Baltazar Schoemaker amassed a huge collection of cute Japanese erasers to create Erase Me Not, a simulated confectionery tower topped with female anime heroines. Despite her cheerful sculpture with its abundance of colorful toys, Baltazar Schoemaker was a child denied. She was given a beautiful doll each birthday that was taken away to be displayed out of her reach after a brief period of play. After creating Erase Me Not, Baltazar Schoemaker noticed that she had recreated her childhood memory by placing the figures at the top. But she realized she was no longer powerless. Now she could purchase whatever she wanted and display it however she wished. Perched triumphantly atop the hill of erasers, the Erase Me Not heroines represent her own feminist empowerment.
Some artists favor objects that less imaginative people might label as “junk” over mint condition manufactured items. Artists who collect ephemera, obsolete parts, and broken objects see endless possibilities and stories in each object. They love the process of making something marvelous with the aid of tools, adhesives and pure imagination. Sean O’Donnell’s Pipe Dream is a musical instrument that doesn’t play a tune but fills the audience’s imagination with funny, eccentric music. Liz Mamorsky’s family of Coronabots, constructed from obsolete computer components, look ready to march out into the human world. Dianne Hoffman’s A Departure, An Affectionate Melody, and Lucid Dream incorporate broken bits of immediately recognizable objects and images that have been retrieved from the scrap heap and given center stage in their reborn lives. I do not believe in childhood innocence. Dolores R Gray’s childhood recollections come closer to the truth – the occasional wickedness that overcomes good behavior and leads to tearing apart dolls, smashing delicate objects, or stealing someone else's prized toy. After all, even with best friends, siblings and cousins, closeness inevitably leads to fights and arguments. In Mis Fortune Teller and Playing in Mommie Dearest's Closet, Gray reconstructs childhood memories using broken bits of found toy parts and games Her visually striking compositions reassemble her childhood: a jumble of fun times, tomboyish games, and occasionally tormenting a sibling. A superhero costume emboldens the child and the child within. With a quick change into colorful, stretch Lycra, we are invincible comic book heroes, flying in the air, tearing down walls and saving people in distress. In costume, we can also speak more freely. Wearing BLACK SPACE: Afronaut Suit #2, Afatasi the Artist becomes an Afronaut, a Being from the Future, with a mission to go back in time to right the wrongs of the past. She exposes the wrongs visited upon the former African American inhabitants of the Fillmore
neighborhoods and restores the true history behind gentrified San Francisco. The Afronaut Suit wows us with its powerful feminine shape and makes its presence known even when hung empty of human form on the gallery wall. Michael McConnell’s Little Coyote: Adaptive Complexity is from his anthropomorphic Little Animal series. The painting of a boy wearing a coyote mask reminds me of children secretly confiscating their parents’ fur stoles, coats, or pelts for play-acting purposes. I remember my grandmother’s huge leopard skin pelt with its fangs and glittering eyes that terrified me as a baby but later became a favorite dress-up prop. In Little Coyote the boy stands in a relaxed, casual posture and carries a limp toy dog, his quarry. This painting depicts the adaptive complexity of our times: as COVID forces humans into social isolation, a wild coyote can now wander city streets midday to seek its prey. In the realm of transformative possibilities, Kristine Mays’ fantasy crowns, Shine Your Light, Flower Child and Where the Wild Things Are bestow the opportunity for all of us to attain instant royalty. The whimsically titled headdresses remind us of the joy of playing dress up, whether as queens or storybook characters. Geralyn Marie Montano’s Defiant Daughters of the Sacred Braids and Apples is one of the largest works in the exhibit. Two life-size female figures with a barrel of apples between them and some scattered woven vines on the ground are seen from a distance. Once closer, the viewer realizes that the vines are actually shorn braids, the girls are shouting, and the apples spill like bloody tears from the basket between them. In this work, Montano skillfully combines her childhood heritage reclaimed as an adult with researched cultural history. The work depicts Geralyn and her sisterhood of Native American girls who defied brutal attempts to obliterate their culture and beliefs.
There are two theater pieces in Dollhouse. J.L. King’s ABECEDARIANS, a trompe l’oeil painting that features a proscenium stage with a giant blow fly holding up the curtains. On the stage, glass-helmeted boys engage in mysterious activity. The title suggests that the boys are learning the rudiments of something, but we don’t know what that might be. Howard Munson’s MAQUETTE is a colorful parade of Dadaist characters who pop out in turn as the accordion book pages are opened. The geometry and skilled cuts of pop-up books bring surprise, visual delight, and movement into an otherwise static object. In discussing his collages Saturday and Star 69, Johnny Botts describes his fondness for decorating his envelopes for pen pals. He reminds me of how I relied on correspondence to stave off isolation during my grade school summers. Despite the awkwardness of writing to strangers, it was a complete joy to get mail from someone living far away. Botts uses cheerfully optimistic mid-century imagery in his collages, reminiscent of a period when letter writing was something children engaged in to make friends with strangers. At my request, Trudi Chamoff Hauptman created a life-size crocheted doll of her child, Zach, for Dollhouse. I did not consider the discomfort Zach might feel in watching their mother create a life-size image of themself out of yarn. As a collaboration between mother and child, this project went well beyond baking a batch of cookies together. The two agreed to join forces and worked closely to make a remarkable work titled The Twin. At first, this piece reminded me of the sprawling dolls in the Bunny series1 by British artist Sarah Lucas. But Twin is a loving tribute to mother-child collaboration rather than a commentary on female passivity. On the outside of Twin, Zach added a white dragon, symbol of supernatural power, wisdom, and strength, and also placed mysterious tokens and a poem they wrote inside the doll. Trudi and Zach call their creation a gilgul, the Hebrew word for a soul reinvited back to life.
Nostalgia is defined as “a wistful…yearning for return to or of some past period.”2 Nostalgia renders memories warm and fuzzy and wipes the past clean of negative realities. Miriam Fabbri’s nostalgic painting, Raggedy Ann, features the doll’s sweet expression and its slightly faded, floppy body that would mold perfectly into a child’s arms. One imagines this must have been the artist’s favorite, well-played doll. In reality, Fabbri’s attachment to this doll is related to her mother, who acquired it after Fabbri grew up. Some imagery has generational appeal. For Baby Boomers, it’s Stephen C. Wagner’s American Dream series – small house-shaped blocks of wood with sunny, idealized scenes of youthful, homogenous families living in homes filled with modern appliances. In this nostalgic view, family roles are clearly defined and everyone is engaged and happy. For Gen Xers, Barbara Pollak-Lewis’ TV Dinners and Food series bring back memories of quick meals that latchkey kids could heat up and dine when their working mothers came home late. Frozen foods’ simple flavors were palatable for young children and so, looking back, we might nostalgically remember them as “delicious.” The cartoon-like smiley face was designed by Harvey Ball in 1963 at the request of an insurance company. Untrademarked and uncopyrighted, the optimistic ball-shaped symbol became universal, surpassing even Andy Warhol’s ubiquitous pop art imagery. The smiley face’s cachet faded through hyper-commercialism but it has never completely gone away. It re-emerged in the 1990’s as an emblem for rave culture and continues today through emojis. Johnny Botts’ Smiley Series: Yellow restores this iconic image to Harvey Ball’s simple belief in the “power of a smile and a kind act''3 to change the world. Tomye Neal Madison never owned a rocking horse, nor had anyone in her family, but a photograph she found in a second-hand store reminded her of “imagined sentimental moments from books and TV.”4 Her Rockin’ Horse conveys a strong nostalgic moment, as if the child on the rocking horse could
be Tomye. Notice her smile just starting to break out, anticipating imagined adventures she will have on the galloping horse. Nostalgia and memory can intertwine, especially when they relate to someone who made a big impact in a child’s life. Kathy Fujii-Oka’s kokeshi doll in I broke my foot is a touchstone for her beloved mother. Memories and love flow vividly from the small, humble object. Joshua Coffey’s House of the Parrot symbolizes his grandmother, the most important person in his childhood. His painted bird houses represent home and safety, his grandmother’s many kindnesses, and a tribute to her passion for birds. Nostalgia and memory are not the only subjects addressed in Dollhouse. Using toys and dolls, two artists specifically address the current pandemic as a time to be remembered. Both Liz Mamorsky and Liz Steketee felt compelled to document COVID times with works representing a family unit. Mamorsky’s imaginary Coronabot family are toy robot bodies with funny facial expressions to bring a smile or two for the viewer. Steketee’s Wrapped Pandemic Mummy Family have partially obscured faces, something we recognize from the mask mandates of the past two years. Their tightly wrapped and contorted rag doll bodies reflect her own family’s sense of isolation and suffocation during the pandemic lockdown. Marie Bergstedt’s Triker is an installation of a tricycle and a girl covered in doilies and lace. Initially it seems nostalgic, except disquietingly, the toddler-sized figure is headless and armless. This omission represents Bergstedt’s childhood as a foster child when she was prevented from having a say in anything. The toddler’s sturdy legs represent her resiliency, while the tricycle depicts an intermittent means of escape from her unhappy reality. Her triumph in overcoming her bleak childhood is represented by the vintage stained lace. Like old lace and obsolete traditions, her childhood is remembered, but her painful experience has faded and has been relegated to history.
As a child I loved to read anthologies of fairy tales, mythology and folklore because the books were thick and it took a long time to finish them. I was, however, dismayed by slight differences in familiar stories from one anthology to the next. Later I understood that many of these stories originated in oral tradition so storytellers interpreted them freely. So too, the artist. In Cybele, based on Phrygian mythology5 and with a nod to hermaphroditism, Erika Meriaux paints a boyish girl asleep among lionesses and a man in the distance staring at her, hands suggestively in his pockets. Tanya Wilkinson’s two works in the exhibition are based on fairy tales. In Swan Brother, inspired by Grimm’s The Six Swans,6 Wilkinson creates a blood-red background to highlight the white vest frantically woven by the princess to turn her swan brothers back to humans.“ Her Mossycoat is based on an old English fairy tale.7 Here, Wilkinson transforms the magical wish-granting coat into Wonder Woman armor. Na Omi Judy Shintani’s Ghost Whale (Bakekujira), based on a mythical Japanese yokai, is depicted as a scrimshaw on a white glove form. My own Ectoplasmic Kitsunes included in the exhibition originated from the Japanese folklore of shapeshifting kitsune (foxes), here depicted as half human and half fox. The most popular stuffed animal is still the Teddy Bear but rabbits take star billing in picture books such as Peter Rabbit, Velveteen Rabbit and Goodnight Moon. The bunny is recognizable and loveable in Sas Colby’s Greek Bunny, but there is more to this drawing and to her artist book, bunnies on ice & other experiments. The rabbit is Colby’s alter ego, a toy rabbit that engages in human adventures and wild behavior that she may or may not consider out of bounds for herself. Colby uses the rabbit in a similar way that children do, to spin fantastical tales and to work through real-life experiences. And as the rabbit becomes Colby’s alter ego, so does Kathy Fujii-Oka’s kokeshi in It’s Raining. This mixed media piece is a sweet depiction of dolls and toys living in a doll house, but for Fujii-Oka, it also represents the distress she felt about her unrepaired roof each rainy season.
Jennifer Jigour’s delicate watercolor and pen drawings, La Manege Enchante and Gilded Age Romantic Friendships remind me of a Rococo-style romance novel covers that also retain the innocence of Kate Greenaway’s children’s books. Her works revise the fairytale with antidotes against antagonistic females (wicked stepmother versus innocent orphan) and stereotypical male-female romance (woman in distress rescued by heroic man). Gilded Age Romantic Friendships portrays two young women in embrace, their feminine love amplified by the gilded mirrors on the wall, the twined table lamp, and the lush room furnishings. The title of La Manège Enchanté with its feminine article “la” is borrowed from the title of a French children’s TV series, "Le Manège Enchanté"8 (The Magic Carousel). Jigour’s drawing upends the traditional knight in shining armor tale by depicting two women galloping off together as equals on their carousel horses, neither taking a passive or heroic role. Initially the exclusive purview of cloistered monks, “by the end of the Middle Ages, illuminated manuscripts were created for secular use, resulting in an archive of decorated texts in mythology, poetry, and history.”9 Sandra Yagi’s It – Pennywise from her Movie Monsters series blends contemporary popular culture with the decorative flourish of medieval illuminated manuscripts. Children laugh at a clown’s antics much as they do when they watch Punch and Judy violently go at each other with their slapsticks, but they are also afraid. Yagi shines the spotlight on the clown’s deathly white face and scarlet nose to induce the same sort of primal fear that medieval readers felt when they cast their eyes upon an illustration of a skeleton, devil or dragon devouring one of their own. What are some of the ways an artist captures the act of play? J.L. King explores this idea as a central and mysterious focus of her surrealistic painting, ABCEDARIANS, while Stephen C. Wagner incorporates nostalgic images of children playing inside a home in his American Dream series.
Denise Tarantino’s photograph, Motion #2, captures the act of play with more immediacy through the movement of shadows. The employment of vignettes to frame the shadowy children on swings gives this photograph a timeless appeal. With political unrest, social dysfunction and pandemic disease closing in on us I felt an urgency to mount an exhibition that was filled with fun and lightheartedness. With their imaginations, stories and humor, the artists in this exhibition forge a path through the thorny darkness. Viewing these works, we are enchanted once more by fables, fantasy and superheroes of our childhoods. Revisiting these memories we can remake our past, relive happy experiences, heal past hurts and remember to be courageous.
footnotes: 1 https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/lucas-pauline-bunny-t07437 2 https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/nostalgia 3 https://www.worldsmile.org/ 4 Tomye Neal Madison artist statement 5 https://www.theoi.com/Phrygios/Kybele.html 6 https://www.worldoftales.com/fairy_tales/Brothers_Grimm/ Grimm_fairy_stories/The_Six_Swans.html#gsc.tab=0 7 https://www.theguardian.com/books/2009/oct/11/fairytales-mossycoat-philip-pullman 8 https://www.purefrance.com/en/blog/the-magic-roundabout-le-manege-enchante 9 https://www.parkwestgallery.com/what-are-illuminated-manuscripts-and-how-were-they-created/
Afatasi the Artist In her conceptual mixed-media work entitled, BLACK SPACE, Afatasi hones her textile skills and love of Afrofuturism to dispel the progressive and liberal myth of her hometown of San Francisco. This work captures the many ways in which the city has been criminally complicit to the discrimination, minimization, and purposeful erasure; all while honoring the paces, contributions, and hidden histories of the American Decedents of Chattel Slavery (ADOCS), most of whom fled extreme violence and discrimination in the American south, and now call the city their home.
website: www.afatasi.org instagram: @afatasitheartist
BLACK SPACE Afronaut Suit #2 textile & craft 65" x 21" x 22" NFS
Glenn Caley Bachmann What can I say about this piece that might come across in any way profound? I could point out how it relates to the Situationist concept of détournement (defined as ”turning expressions of the capitalist system and its media culture against itself”). In this case, the leprechaun’s insipid expression is certainly ripe for parody, and contrasts nicely with the grim reality of death. It also calls to mind the Mexican tradition of “sugar skulls”—except instead of implying sweetness in death, this imagery suggests this artificial sweetness as being a cause of death. I particularly appreciate the words “Gluten Free” on the box — as if to imply that there’s anything healthy about this chemically addictive junk food snack. But the truth is that I wasn’t thinking about any of these heady concepts when I spotted the empty box that one of my roommates had devoured. It was close to Halloween, and I got a sudden goofy idea to replace the “charms” with skulls, and I was happy with the result!
website: www.urbantextures.net instagram: @glennbphoto
Tragically Delicious collage on cereal box 11.25" x 7.5" x 2" $150
Rosalia Baltazar-Schoemaker My vision of using tiny food-shaped erasers for this sculpture did not surprise me. Food has informed my life and art in many ways, nourishing my mind, my senses, and my soul. The colours, textures and shapes of food always inspire me: I see something new in a fruit, vegetable, or prepared dish on an almost daily basis. But I was not expecting the inspiration behind the dolls that crown my sculpture - that came from a deep, almost forgotten memory from my childhood in Mexico. Every year as Christmas approached, I would get super excited, knowing I would once again get the most beautiful, colourful papier-mâché doll. I would play with it all Christmas day, but at the end of the day my mother would swiftly take the doll away and place it on top of a tall cabinet, to protect it with all the other dolls that had ended up there after each Christmas. This somehow made me feel like a Mexican Cinderella, as if I was only given a brief time as a princess. Every now and then I would sneak into my mother’s room, pull up a chair and bring the dolls down from the cabinet to play with as I had on Christmas Day, feeling that same excitement. When I finished my Erase Me Not sculpture and stood back to review my work, I was filled with strong feelings of déjà vu. I immediately recognized that I had placed all of the dolls on top, out of reach, only to be admired and not touched. It was a reminder that the essence of an artist’s existence is emotional memory. We come to a place of creation with our whole selves, past, present and future, fueled by inspiration that is sometimes beyond our own conscious imagining.
instagram: @rosaliabaltazardeschoemaker
Erase Me Not steel, Bondo, Japanese manga dolls, Japanese erasers 37" x 24" x 26" $6,300
Marie Bergstedt Triker represents a serious memory of childhood play. During the peddling years I was switching back and forth between my birth mother and the home where I resided with eight foster children. I felt completely without a say in my life and rarely spoke aloud. When I was with my mother, I was dressed up much like a princess doll, posed, and commanded to look happy for the camera, but without a true smile or a head on my shoulders. Inside myself, I knew where my super-power lay. I took advantage of every moment astride the throne of a tricycle, pushing the pedals and steering with all my might. With herculean strength, I plowed through all obstacles, magically transforming myself into a person of consequence. With art I am playing the same toddler game, pushing through memories and current barriers one pedal at a time in the doll house which is our world.
website: www.mariebergstedtartist.com instagram: @marie47bergstedt
Triker
Girl: new and antique cotton crochet, wire, gut, acrylic paint Tricycle: cotton crochet, buttons, artificial sinew, recycled parts of metal tricycle, reconstructed antique doilies Girl: 32" x 14" x 13" ; Tricycle: 24" x 26" x 21" $1,800
Johnny Botts When I was a kid, I created a lot of collages, decorating envelopes that I’d send through the mail, and I have returned to making collages since joining Collage-a-Rama at Arc Gallery. Throughout the pandemic, I have been making small pieces that have been easy to mail to buyers. I like to find creative ways to re-use old materials in my art, and created the texture in my smiley face piece using sheets of paint peeled from roller trays.
website: www.johnnybotts.com instagram: @johnny_botts
Smiley Series: Yellow acrylic, glitter and epoxy resin on reclaimed wood 8" diameter x 1.25" depth $200
Saturday collage on wood 4.75" x 4" $40
Star 69 collage and epoxy resin on reclaimed wood 6" x 4" $80
Joshua Coffy As a young boy I spent a lot of time at my Grandmother’s house and she was a woman obsessed with birds. She was also one of the kindest and gentlest people I have ever known. Being at her house always meant warmth, safety, and shelter. In my daily life now as an adult I strive to emulate her kindness and compassion for others. She was one of the first people that encouraged my artwork so in turn I paint colorful birds as a tribute to all that she was. It’s one way that I carry her with me. For me the birdhouses are a symbol of home. But that doesn’t necessarily mean your dwelling as much as where you feel like yourself. Painting is where I feel most like myself.
website: undersong.com instagram: @giftprolific
House of the Parrot acrylic & mixed media 8" x 8" x 10" $350
Sas Colby bunnies on ice & other experiments I began drawing the Bunny in 1997 as a daily meditation, attracted by its shape and vulnerability. Soon the bunny evolved into an alter ego and I deployed him in diverse environments and sent him out in the world for adventures. Then he attracted a companion, a one eared “bad” bunny, the shadow figure, who challenged the narrative, often getting into compromising situations, more like real life. In this book, the bunny celebrates Obama’s election, he floats in dreamscapes, has a smoke, becomes a tattoo on a sexy leg, and is an over dressed tourist with a camera in the desert. In the final image he sprouts pink wings having taken me from a sad place to one of curiosity about life’s potential. Now the Bunny leads and I follow. Greek Bunny The original Bunny, from which this drawing is made, is a miniature rubber figurine, about 3 inches high, bought in a resale shop for 50 cents. I began drawing the Bunny every day as a kind of meditation, finding it instructive, altering the scale and rediscovering the form each time, and turning the Bunny into an alter ego. This drawing was made after a trip to Greece, and Bunny strides through a field of dried flowers amidst a Snake Goddess from Crete, pottery, and a bunny-eared Cycladic figure. Wherever the intrepid Bunny goes, others follow.
website: www.sascolby.com instagram: @sasu.san
bunnies on ice & other experiments accordion fold book, 16 panels digital print of original collages, on Hahnemuhle Photo Rag paper, with plexiglass slip case. 6.5” x 88” full spread; edition of 12/4 available $400
Sas Colby
Greek Bunny pencil on paper with dried flowers 25” x 33” framed $1,800
Diana Elrod Years ago, my mother sent me several scrapbooks with ephemera she had collected throughout my childhood years – a lock of my hair, awards, letters I wrote, and some of my artwork from various ages. About 5 years ago I revisited those scrapbooks and was particularly smitten by a little knight I had drawn when I was not quite six years old. In my art practice, I have since drawn additional versions of the knight in various ways, and have incorporated these drawings into paintings, ollages, and other mixed media work. Although I don’t know exactly what compelled me to draw him in the first place at the age of almost-six, I now see the little knight as a protective force, quiet in his strength.
website: www.dianaelrodart.com instagram: @delrodus
“and a little knight shall protect thee - center” mixed media 6” x 6” $125 each; $350 triptych
“and a little knight shall protect thee - left” mixed media 6” x 6” $125 each; $350 triptych
“and a little knight shall protect thee - right” mixed media 6” x 6” $125 each; $350 triptych
Miriam Fabbri Raggedy Ann appeared on the second floor steps of my family home sometime long after I had moved out. When I returned for visits, I would see her sitting about halfway up the staircase as I went to and from the second floor. I never thought to ask my Mother how she acquired the doll or why she placed her on the stairs. But Raggedy was one of the treasures that I chose to keep when the family home was sold. Now she sits on my bookshelf where her silly grin and wide, innocent eyes always remind me of Mom.
Raggedy Ann acrylic on paper 16" x 12" $1,200
Kathy Fujii-Oka I Broke My Foot As a young child, I enjoyed playing with my mother’s collection of Japanese wooden Kokeshi dolls. She loved her small dolls and admired them immensely. The doll in this painting is one I have favored since childhood and throughout my life. Tiny, feminine and delicate, she is approximately five inches in height and has a broken foot from being dropped on the floor. After my mother passed, my sister and I shared her intimate collection. This painting symbolizes the absence and presence of her spirit. Creating this piece helped me to reinforce my relationship and memory of her, as well as offering a tribute to her legacy. It’s Raining While living in San Francisco some years ago, I began to experience water intrusion in my newly renovated condo. I was on the ground level, and it was a corner unit. As the years passed, the leaking became worse and each winter, the leaks returned. I felt surrounded by water, seeping into the ceiling, dribbling down the interior windows and onto parts of the wood floors. Lots of plugging and patching took place, but it was only a temporary band aid and I endured many sleepless nights. In December of 2014, there was a torrential rainstorm that was referred to as California’s, “Storm of the Decade”. It was powerful and caused a lot of damage in SF and beyond. Every single window in my unit leaked, and puddles were everywhere. I literally felt like a caged bird underwater and treading water. Additionally, several other units in my building experienced the same. Two years later, a new roof was installed on our building and the water leaks ceased. It was a huge relief and subsequently I moved out. I am now enjoying my new home on the top floor and have peace of mind.
website: www.kathyfujiioka.com instagram: @kathyfujiioka_artist
I Broke My Foot oil on wood 36" x 24" $2,500
Kathy Fujii-Oka
It's Raining mixed media on moab paper 16" x 21" $500
Dolores R Gray Discarded love in a Doll House Playing with dolls is a recent art adventure for me. As a young girl I was the quintessential tomboy interested in building forts, treehouses, derby boxcars, playing Indians and cowboys, and drowning my younger sister’s dolls in the rain barrel. The fun of drowning dolls has not abated. I have reawakened a guilty pleasure in creatively torturing Barbie and the fifties representation of the perfect feminine form. The fact that this plastic doll remains an icon in feverish childish dreams and fantasies instills in me the wicked desire to tarnish the image. Over the last few years my hunt for dolls has expanded to include antique porcelain, bisque, plastic, paper and clothe dolls. Using doll parts to tweak my fun and games assemblages. I am always looking for ways to manipulate an adventure in doll play that still excites the wicked kid in me. In 2018-19 I set myself a challenge to create 25 small assemblages using the plethora of dolls and items I had collected over years of flea market hunting. My playtime began with small boxes the perfect house for mini dolls and doll parts and twisted movie titles. I have sliced and diced doll heads, stitched them together like Frankenstein, and bottled them
website: www.doloresrgray.com instagram: @doloresrgrayartist
Mis Fortune Teller assemblage: bisque doll hands,s fabric, marble, tarot cards, beads, framed 9.5" x 7" x 2" $1,200
Dolores R Gray
Playing in Mommie Dearest's Closet assemblage: crochet dress, paper doll, buttons, framed 9.5" x 5" x 2" $1,200
Maribel Guzman & Miriam Munguia & José Nuñez Collaboration at Creativity Explored
Maribel Guzman Guzman is focused and perfectionistic when in the studio, creating iconic drawings and detailed paintings, which combine figures and animals in dreamlike scenes. The subject matter typically tells a story, with family groups, lush gardens, or interiors, all drawn with a sure line and filled with vibrant colors. Her narrative style translates well to other media, including embroidered textile works and ceramics. Miriam Munguia (1955-2021) A former laundress in her home country of Honduras, Miriam Munguia was instantly attracted to tapestries, quilting, and weaving upon joining the Creativity Explored studio. She was a dedicated worker, meditatively sewing together baskets, assembling complex figurative tapestries, or embroidering quilts with lyrical, meandering lines. Being deaf and mute, Munguia’s art practice served as an effective tool to connect with her community. Graphic forms, which often represent people, houses, animals, and tropical plants, took inspiration from her native home in Honduras, and the people she surrounded herself with here in San Francisco. José Nuñez José uses a simple, assured stroke to delineate the shapes of his subjects, which he often repeats or elongates to fill the picture plane, giving his work a complex graphic arrangement. The flora and fauna of his beloved El Salvador occupy a large portion of his attention, his work often depicting memories from time spent alone in the countryside taking care of his family's cows. Out of those memories also come artistic investigations of mythological subjects like cadejo, a shadow dog that hunts at night and used to terrify him.
website: www.creativityexplored.org instagram: @creativityexplored
Untitled assemblage: mixed media and embroidery on fabric 55.5" x 39" $1,200
Trudi Chamoff Hauptman & Zachariah Hauptman Trudi Hauptman (she/her) makes art quilts and textile sculpture; Zachariah Hauptman (they/them) specializes in poetic fiction. The Twin is a collaborative work contesting and exploring the nature of relationships, (self-)perception, and the division between experiential and internal memory. Intended as a rhetorical "twin" to Zach, by inviting them to collaborate, the replica is transformed from Trudi's construction of Zach's body into an intimate manifestation of personal interiority both true and unknowable. The external form (based off a child's "life-sized" crocheted doll) is familiar, albeit altered by its encounter with adulthood, as a vessel for powerful potentials. The internal space holds room for both heart and soul in the form of poetic tokens, which Zach hid inside the body of The Twin. Mother and child explore the layered iterations of childhood, parenthood, and identity through building a toy which is not meant for, but is a mirror of, play. The Twin investigates the tenuous possibilities of truth projected onto selfhood. With foundations in the golem story, and Plato’s allegory of the cave, The Twin is a replica transformed through shared hands into a gilgul, a soul re-invited into the physical world to continue its work.
website: instagram:
Hangingbyathread1.wordpress.com @hangingthread
The Twin crocheted yarn, polyester Fiberfil, wire, bamboo rods, handmade cotton costuming and accessories, paper, beads 56" x 15" x 5" $2,500
Dianne Hoffman I have a tendency to personify inanimate objects and feel genuine compassion for those that are damaged or disregarded. I see potential in broken bits and find beauty in rust and erosion. The older an object, the more haunting and alluring its ghost. Assemblage art allows me to indulge these concepts by creating dimensional worlds of allegory where tall tales are told, jokes are cracked, emotions stirred, and poems imparted. My treasure hunt is rummaging through thrift shops, flea markets, reuse centers, garage sales, junkyards, attics and basements for precious baubles, bits and boxes. Sometimes an inspired idea will come upon first sight of an object. But more often I will mull through my neatly organized piles of arbitrary things repetitively placing random items together until something visually clicks and the piece takes hold. For my 2020 Color of Connection series I derived inspiration from the distinctive color palette of admirable assemblage artist, Janice Lowery. With rich jewel tones and whimsical, figurative remnants, I applied my focus towards finding a unifying relationship that created dialogue between each object. In doing so I was able to abstractly portray amiable metaphors that coincided with my childhood consciousness.
website: diannehoffman.net instagram: @diannehoffmanart
A Departure mixed media assemblage 12" x 12" x 5" $400
An Affectionate Melody mixed media assemblage 12" x 12" x 5" $400
Lucid Dream mixed media assemblage 12" x 12" x 5" $400
Jennifer Jigour I am the Artist with the Golden Paintbrush, born and raised in the Bay Area. I create what I want to see become a reality. Love, freedom, unity, and growth are key to what inspires me to create, as well as images of time, and the blending of history with fantasy. In Dollhouse, I present to the viewer visual candy and playful ideals in watercolor and pen on paper. Draped in time periods long past, previously confined in sexuality, reimagined with an essence of carefree innocence and romantic friendships. My paintings playfully break boundaries and invite the viewer to play not only what could have been, but also, what can still be.
website: www.jenniferjigour.com instagram: @jenniferjigour
Le Manège Enchanté watercolor and pen on paper 14" x 11" framed $550
Jennifer Jigour
Gilded Age Romantic Friendships watercolor and pen on paper 14" x 11" framed $550
J.L. King I remember spending entire days with my cousins using any household non-breakable objects we could find to imitate real world scenarios we were exposed to. A game of make-believe is center stage in my piece titled Abecedarians with forts and boxes that imitate the cityscape that lies ahead while the abecedarians set their attention in three different directions.
website: www.jlkingart.com instagram: @j.l.kingart
ABECEDARIANS oil on linen 20" x 16" $2,000
Liz Mamorsky My CoronaBots were created during the COVID 19 pandemic, and were a great comfort to me during the lockdown. Fortunately, I was well, and found solace in creating these smaller pieces from electronic detritus that I have been collecting for years. They are more intimate than my larger Artbots, and have a certain sense of humor to them. I think of these 4 pieces as a family, if you will.
website: www.lizland.com instagram: @lizland_studio
Green Onesie reclaimed materials wall sculpture 30" x 13" $1,250
Analog Annie reclaimed materials wall sculpture 27" x 14" $1,250
Beaky reclaimed materials wall sculpture 19" x 10" $450
Binky reclaimed materials wall sculpture 11" x 7" $350
Kristine Mays “Ah, what sights and sounds and pain lie beneath that mist. And we had thought that our hard climb out of that cruel valley led to some cool, green and peaceful, sunlit place--- but it's all jungle here, a wild and savage wilderness that's overrun with ruins. But put on your crown, my Queen, and we will build a New City on these ruins.” ~ Eldridge Cleaver The crowns offer the opportunity to view oneself in a different light, to play, to explore thepossibilities of a new world, to harness one's own power in order to create change.
website: kristinemays.com instagram: @kristinemays
Shine Your Light wire 16" x 23" x 4" $300
Flower Child wire 12" x 7" x 7" $300
Where the Wild Things Are wire 9" x 8" x 8" $300
Michael McConnell Many cultures have assigned specific human characteristics onto animals, this method of anthropomorphism is explored in the Little Animal Series. The Children personalities are portrayed in “animal masks” correlating to those meanings given to those animals by different cultures. These masks can be seen as the children “acting” like those animals or the personalities that the children are being raised as.
website: www.poopingrabbit.com instagram: @poopingrabbit
Little Coyote: Adaptive Complexity acrylic on wood panel 48" x 24" $1,200
Erika Meriaux The cult of Cybele has its root in Phrygia, but she was familiar to the Greeks and had connections with Greek gods. She was raised by lionesses and was the keeper of the key of richness. A story says she was napping in the shade of trees when Zeus noticed her. Watching her rest so peacefully, he felt aroused and masturbated. Agditis, a hermaphrodite, sprang from the semen that spilled on theground. The gods, convinced that he represented a serious threat to their power, emasculated him, and from his blood sprouted an almond tree.
website: www.erikameriauxart.com instagram: @classicmyths
Cybele oil on linen 42" x 58" $5,000
Geralyn Marie Montano This installation of life sized mixed-media, doll-like figures, apples, and braids is my playful way to use art to bring to light the serious topic of Indian boarding schools, as well as revealing a little known term, “apple”. The term “apple” can be used in a humorous or derogatory way to describe a Native considered by others to be “white” on the inside due to a loss of Native culture through assimilation, or being a Native of mixed descent. The origin of this term is in direct relation to the ideology of Indian boarding schools. A loss of culture started with the first Indian boarding school, Carlisle Indian Industrial School. It was founded in the late 1800’s by Captain Richard H. Pratt who coined the term “Kill the Indian and save the man” to express the assimilation goals. The school sought to brutally and systematically strip away tribal culture. At Carlisle, the goal was to “Americanize” the Native students. It began by recruiting or kidnapping Native children to enroll in the schools. Once they arrived, the assimilation started with cutting off their long braids, forbidding them to speak their Native language and forcing them to wear american fashion. Indian boarding schools were a traumatic experience that touched all Native American families, including my own. My Dineh father and mixed Native descent mother were already assimilated by the time I was born. Therefore, I grew up estranged from Native culture. I was raised to embrace mainstream “American” culture. As an adult, I became curious about my heritage and began to research Native culture, history, and contemporary issues Native women face today. Learning about my culture has inspired me to create art work to bring Native Culture to the forefront where today we are being acknowledged as contributing members of communities nationwide, not relegated to the past. website: www.geralynmontano.com instagram: @geralyn_m_montano
Defiant Daughters of the Sacred Braids and Apples mixed media: ceramic, wood, fabric, synthetic hair, plastic apples installation 66" x 68" large figure 66" x 27", small figure 54" x 20", center barrel 10" x 20" inches $35,000
Howard Munson The accordion book structure invites theater play for pop-ups. My inspiration evolves from early avant grade theater, Dada, Bauhaus, the 1920’s. This book was inspired by the maquette costumes designed by Carl Schlemmer for the ballet Figural Cabinet in 1922. I took the liberty to design my own costumes. Imagination plays a key role in the construction. One can play a role in the production and relive in your imagination what it was like.
MAQUETTES artist book - mixed media 8.25" x 11.5" closed, 8.25" x up to 45" variable, open $750
Tomye Neal-Madison While browsing in a shop that has a receptacle full of black and white period photos, (images depicting a few decades ago) the photo of a little girl on a rocking horse piqued my interest. I wasn’t recalling my time on one. I don’t think there was one in the immediate or extended family. I’d seen such senti mental moments in books, on tv, etc. I decided to meld the image of the girl with an image I’d photographed of another rocking horse that was within another antique store. It was the appropriate visual for my final enamel on copper creation. I’d pushed my abilities to handle the process during a series of workshops. Loving to paint Gouache portraits, shifting and painting with fine enamel powders required more attentiveness. There are multitudes of kiln firings. Once the larger areas were taken care of, the details of the little girl’s face and the horse’s face needed more concentration using the compacted enamels that replicated those watercolors in tins you are given as a child. Tight rendering with a tiny brush is my forte. How exhilarating to retrieve and once cool from the kiln, to see this final version of Her Rockin’ Horse.
website: tomye4arts.com
Her Rockin’ Horse enamel on copper 18.25" x 16.25" $1,725
Sean O'Donnell The essence of child’s play is doing whatever strikes one’s fancy at the moment. No rules. No adult supervision. The freedom of using any materials on hand when the muse comes to play. Time ceased to matter as the hours working in my studio flowed into days and weeks as this sculpture evolved. My enthralled engagement of being lost in the creative zone returned me to the intuitive joy of playing as a child.
website: www.seanodonnellart.com instagram: @sean_odonnell_art
Pipe Dream assemblage of antique and vintage musical instrument parts 18" x 21" x 18" $1,800
Priscilla Otani Kitsunes, iconic Japanese white foxes, make their appearance as ectoplasmic visions of children long gone. They take shape from driftwood, polished and shaped by the sea, and wear tattered finery of discarded dolls. They do their bewitching dance at midnight when their magic is most potent. They flow in and out of our orifices, feasting on our dreams. I’ve long been fascinated with the folklore and mythology associated with the kitsune In Japan. On the one hand the kitsune is a symbol of agricultural fertility and financial success, and on the other, a shape-shifting spirit associated with casting spells and wreaking vengeance. These associations are the starting point for creating my own fairy tales associated with the kitsune.
website: www.mrpotani.com instagram: @mrpotani
Ectoplasmic Fantasy 3 assemblage: driftwood, doll parts, wood tray 15.25" x 9"" x 1.5" $600
Ectoplasmic Fantasy 4 assemblage: driftwood, doll parts, wood tray 16.13" x 10.13"" x 1.5" $600
Ectoplasmic Fantasy 1 assemblage: driftwood, doll parts, wood tray 13.75" x 7.5"" x 1.5" $400
Ectoplasmic Fantasy 2 assemblage: driftwood, doll parts, wood tray 14.63" x 8.25"" x 1.5" $450
Barbara Pollak- Lewis I was raised in a small suburban town into a very traditional post-war Mad Men era family. Much of my subject matter addresses a mid-20th century sanitized sensibility of conformity. My TV dinners and food series reflect an obsession with postwar America and the pre-packaged automated convenience that TV dinners represent. For many of us, TV dinners offer up a shared nostalgic feeling about home and our childhoods.
website: www.barbarapollakart.com instagram: @happypixart
Banquet Chopped Beef oil on wooden tray 8.5" x 10" x 1" $425
Mac and Cheese oil on wooden tray 8.5" x 10" x 1" $425
Velda oil on wooden tray 8.5" x 10" x 1" $425
Na Omi Judy Shintani The Bakekujira tattoo is an inking of the ghost whale skeleton who haunted Japanese fishermen one rainy night. They rowed out to see the huge glowing white creature with no skin or meat on its bones. One of the fishermen threw his harpoon at it, only to pass through the bakekujira without harming it, and it disappeared with its thousands of companions of strange fish and birds. Was it a ghost of a whale killed in a hunt, a curse, or perhaps a whale who dressed in a kimono to bring the secrets of rice cultivation to Japan? No one knows for certain. I appreciate the mystery of this ghost who may be friend or foe. Whales were once hunted in Japan but there has been a ban on it for 30 years. Recently a hunting quota of non-endangered whale species has been set. A "by-catch" rule allows the killing of a whale that no one set out to catch, but that just happened to swim into the wrong place, at the wrong time.
website: Naomishintani.com instagram: @judy.shintani
Ghost Whale (Bakejiru) vintage glove form, ink 14" x 5" x 3.5" $800
Liz Steketee Wrapped Pandemic Mummy Family: soft textile sculpture using photography printed on fabric, wrapped sewn WRAPPED is an exploration of photography as object. The process of wrapping then sewing of fabric and thread, acts as a meditation on memory, loss, and the cycle of life. The notion of mummies was a reaction to the masking and confinement experienced during the duration of the Pandemic Lockdown and the emotions experienced by my family. Like much of the world, we all felt restricted, afraid, bound, scared, and frustrated. My intention was to archive my sense of this experience as artworks that felt like historical artifacts. I knew our experience was pivotal and somehow an important piece of our collective history as humans. With a touch of humor and darkness, I marked this time in our lives.
website: lizsteketee.com instagram: @lizsteketee_art
pandemic mummy family textile soft sculpture, photo on fabric, thread
pandemic mummy family: father textile soft sculpture, photo on fabric, thread 30" x 6" x 4" $1,200; $1,350 boxed
pandemic mummy family: daughter textile soft sculpture, photo on fabric, thread 30" x 6" x 4" $1,200; $1,350 boxed
pandemic mummy family: son textile soft sculpture, photo on fabric, thread 30" x 6" x 4" $1,200; $1,350 boxed
pandemic mummy family: mother textile soft sculpture, photo on fabric, thread 30" x 6" x 4" $1,200; $1,350 boxed
Denise Tarantino In partnership with Curated State Gallery and the San Francisco Parks Alliance I create a special body of work for the annual Party in the Parks event. Like many city dwellers, I love and cherish the outdoor space that is unique to San Francisco. I set out in support of this project by experiencing the parks thorough sight and sound. As I visited many of our redesigned parks, I felt the need to observe by separating the site and sounds. At first, it was important to listen, and then watch. I sat quietly, with my eyes closed, and listened to the unique sounds of joy flooding playgrounds. There was a lot of solace and warmth found in the sounds of the children playing, dogs barking and conversations of passers-by. I then blocked out the sounds and watched what happens in the park. I found myself studying the playground equipment, and the motions of the children through their shadows. My images bring the viewer through this peaceful taunt of nature placed urban environment, the undisturbed sound of children playing, and the warmth of our steel playgrounds. All of which, make for a welcomed and cherished paradox.
website: datinstant.com instagram: @datinstant
Motion #2 photography 50" x 30" $850
Stephen C. Wagner The American Dream Post-war families that had delayed having children because of poverty and wartime conditions, dreamt of a better life, a perfect life, and chose the suburbs as their ideal. New Jersey’s Levittown and California's Rohnert Park typify the planned suburban communities of the 1950’s and early 1960’s that were marketed to attract middle-class people into an area once populated with farmers. Many illustrations from magazine articles and ads of the 1950’s depicted this ideal dream of families enjoying material comfort. But this conformity also had a dark side. For women, the charms of suburban life began to wear thin. Popular culture was replete with messages counseling women that their greatest satisfaction in life would come from raising children, tending to their husbands' needs, and owning all of the labor-saving household appliances that money could buy. Many began to identify a creeping sense that there ought to be more to life than childcare and housework. And minority women did not experience the ennui of suburban life because, by and large, they were barred from suburbia altogether. Suburban affluence is the defining image of the good life under capitalism, commonly held up as a model to which all should aspire. Employed professionals can direct significant portions of their income to discretionary spending. This sector of society participates, consciously or unconsciously, in what is often called “consumer culture.” This consumerism often fails to fulfil its promise of a rich and meaningful life. The consumer class has been sold a lie.
website: www.StephenCWagner.com instagram: @stephen5w
The American Dream digital print on wood blocks
The American Dream: Levittown #06 digital print on wood block 3.5" x 3.5" x 2" $40
The American Dream: Levittown #02
The American Dream: Levittown #11
digital print on wood block 6" x 3.5" x 2" $50
digital print on wood block 3" x 3.5" x 2" $40
The American Dream: Rohnert Park #02
The American Dream: Rohnert Park #03
digital print on wood block 6" x 5.5" x 2" $65
digital print on wood block 6" x 5.5" x 2" $65
Tanya Wilkinson Fairytales both reflect and shape the deep levels of our psyches. When we enter into the tale we go back to a child-like state where transformation and transfiguration seem inevitable.
website: tanyawilkinson.com instagram: @tanya.wilkindaughter
Mossycoat mixed media 24" x 30" $800
Tanya Wilkinson
Swan Brother mixed media 30" x 40" $900
Sandra Yagi This piece is part of a series of works done in the style of medieval illuminated manuscripts. Instead of religious topics, I’ve taken the iconic monsters from horror and science fiction film classics, and rendered them in medieval style. I love the contrast of nuclear age monsters rendered in medieval style, as well as depicting a mass media character using a form of art that is handmade and one of a kind. Pennywise, from the mini-series film version of Steven King’s It, takes the subtle scary features of clowns, and magnifies it to a level of terror that is out of this world.
website: Sandrayagi.com instagram: @sandra_yagi
It - Pennywise watercolor, gouache, acrylic and ink on arches paper 9.25" x 7" $950
Amanda Chaudhary A Doll’s Dance A Toy Piano Performance Arc Gallery, 1246 Folsom Street January 30, 2022 3:00 – 3:30 PM A toy piano melody provides the point of departure. More and more complex layers, rhythms and sounds evolve and accumulate over time, but never losing sight of the origin. Amanda will deftly weave these elements together with her signature jazz and experimental-music performance styles. Amanda Chaudhary is a composer, bandleader, electronic musician, jazz key boardist, and visual/sound artist. She is also the author of the popular blog CatSynth and its companion video channel CatSynth TV, where she discusses music, art, culture, and of course, cats. She performs regularly around the Bay Area, New York, and beyond, both solo and with various bands and ensembles. Her solo work involves experimenting with innovative sounds via analog synthesis and custom software with computers and mobile devices for new modes of expressive musical performance. She often incorporates folk and toy instruments from around the world, along with jazz, dance music and other idiomatic styles into her visually captivating performances.
website: Instagram:
amandachaudhary.com @Catsynth
Roxanne Padgett Artful Play Mixed media collage paper and book-making workshop Arc Gallery, 1246 Folsom St, San Francisco February 13, 2022 1:30 – 3:30 PM Get in touch with your long-remembered sense of play with mixed media artist Roxanne Padgett. Spend the afternoon experimenting with the raw materials of art to awaken your state of flow. A wide range of drawing media and found objects will be provided, or you are welcome to bring your own inspirations. Participants will create mixed media paper sheets to bind into personally evocative books. The books may yield surprising results after we let ourselves get lost in play! Finally, we will reflect together on the experience of rediscovering our innate playful selves. Roxanne is a Visual Artist, Arts Educator, and an Executive Administrator with over 30 years experience in youth service and arts educational nonprofit organizations. Her passion for the arts shines through her work in arts education and leadership. Currently serving as Creative Director, she has worked at MOCHA (Museum of Children’s Arts) in Oakland as interim Executive Director, Teaching Artist, Program Manager, Curriculum Developer, Professional Development Coach, and Director of Programs. Roxanne is certified arts integration coach, holds a teaching credential in visual art, and received a fellowship to attend Harvard’s Project Zero on arts education. Additionally Roxanne’s artwork and articles have been published in several visual art periodicals. Roxanne is a published author of Acrylic Techniques in Mixed Media published by North Light Books, Arts Division. Instagram:
@roxpadgett
Jeff Raz Play as (serious) Art A Special Afternoon of Interactive Performance with Jeff Raz Arc Gallery, 1246 Folsom Street January 30, 2022 3:45 – 4:30 PM Former Cirque du Soleil clown and teaching artist Jeff Raz will lead patrons into a world of circus play, inviting them to interact with the Dollhouse visual artists through their work on the walls and the ideas behind their art. Jeff Raz has performed internationally for decades, starring as an acrobat, juggler and clown in circuses including Cirque du Soleil and the Pickle Family Circus, and as an actor in theaters from Berkeley Rep to Broadway. Jeff is a graduate of Dell’Arte International where he has also taught and directed. He spent seven years in the Artist Diversity Residency Program at the University of Nebraska, Lincoln, five years as a lead teaching artist at the Julia Morgan Center for the Arts in Berkeley and a decade as the founder and director of The Clown Conservatory at Circus Center. He also co-founded the Medical Clown Project and is currently Board Chair Emeritus. His first book, “The Secret Life of Clowns,” was launched nationally at the Smithsonian followed by “The Snow Clown” and “Love Death Circus.”
website:
www.jeffraz.com
Laura Abrams - Dollhouse I'm looking at my dollhouse right now and I'm pretty pleased with the results. In fact, the whole making process left me with a feeling of elation and reawakening. From the start, I wanted to include the interior of the house, first with the idea of lighting. The first thing I decided was that the structure was too narrow and the chimney and roof had to go. I also noted that there was no front door. I peeled away the roof and chimney first and gleefully cut off the triangular pieces that were the original roofline. At that point I decided (adult self) that I would increase the footprint of the house using certain architectural ideas I have gathered as a homeowner and erstwhile architecture student. I wanted access to the interior for placement of furniture tableaux (something I knew from childhood dollhouses). I wanted to use materials at hand, not necessarily all realistic, but it was important to honor the idea of home signified by mimicking a house form. Because the stated goal was to include a dollhouse proper in the show, I decided to make a more or less typical cottage, and I knew I wanted to use the little box houses along with the bigger shell.
I made a trip to my childhood home and opened a box of dollhouse furniture I'd collected as a child and selected a heavy iron stove, wicker chair, crocheted rug, barrel table, and some precious little accessories: a set of brass cups with a decanter, a tea kettle, a water dispenser, a newspaper and a book, plus a little decorative shell and a porcelain platter (now broken). The oven contains some buttons that I remembered using as cookie platters. After that, I just let each decision flow. I was surprised how fast it came together and also how many hours passed as I was immersed in the process. With exacto knife and glue gun, I remade the structure, doubling the "square footage." I replaced the roof with many layers of cardboard, foil, and packing material, and was pleased that the foil layer looked reasonably like drainage and flashing, while the packing material resembles thatch. I made a cupola from the smaller box, and remade the chimney in clear acetate, which I also used for windows. The walls are covered in green tissue paper over foil to mimic stucco. The chimney is filled with rose petals, ribbon, and redwood bark because why not. I used ferns and moss to add greenery. I suggested a front door by gluing a childhood bought doorknob to a piece of acetate. The whole structure is reinforced with upcycled (adult word) coffee stirrers that I knew I'd have a use for sometime. The end result is a notably 3 dimensional structure where I can unloose my imagination to roam and relax. This was SO FUN to make. As you can see, making the house was exactly the kind of play that reached into my "way back" machine, which has been enhanced by adult ideas of structural integrity and what a house "should be."
Priscilla Otani - Dollhouse Something is askew with the cardboard house – the roof does not align properly with the walls. This error in construction bothers me. I fret about what story I would tell. In time I fall asleep and in my dream the house becomes a fox. Who lives in this house? Kitsune tricksters and shapeshifters. Bewitching serpents and armless wooden dolls. Someone I knew dead for half a century. It's a house empty of human life and filled with sketchy characters. Formal family portraits are photoshopped into kitsune people. Precious Japanese doll heads are torn off and stuck on a chimney clothed in snakeskin and fur. Corrugated walls are plastered with wormy Japanese copybook pages. As is done with classic putz houses, the roof is painted white and a thick layer of white glitter applied. The weight of the added material makes the roof slump down. At last I arrive at the part in my dream where the house becomes a kitsune. Its fur seeps out of the house. It feels soft, warm, luxurious. It invites you to come inside. Take your chances.
Tanya Wilkinson - Dollhouse I started gluing buttons onto the little house and, almost immediately, I found the pure pleasure I felt as a child when my mother would let me go through her sewing basket to pick out buttons, bright embroidery floss, scraps of velvet. I reveled in the moments I spent considering nothing but where the big red buttons should go, or whether the chimney could have some mother of pearl circles on it. I woke up in the morning al ready looking forward to sifting through my pile of plastic treasures, in search of the perfect finishing touch for a wall, a window frame. Then the house was finished and, immediately, the adult artist took over, critiquing the finished product, finding flaws, comparing. There was no more play.
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