I’m participating in the Wild Wild West III art show at the Sun Gallery in Hayward. This is a small wonderful gallery that supports local artists. My friend, Jacqueline Cooper, was curating the show. It was lots of fun.
Food, entertainment and the Rodeo Queen attended. A wonderful, poised young woman from Placerville, Jordene Burns. They must be accomplished horse women to win this contest in addition to their beauty and intelligence.
Went to the artist’s talk of John McNamara at the Gallery Bergelli in Larkspur, CA Feb 10th. John was a favorite professor of mine at UC Berkeley. His talks always depart from the regular artist presentations. He obviously loathes the typical pompous cerebral discussions artists try to have to describe the nature of their process as somehow having way more meaning than any of us care about or probably real. John is a very successful artist who shares his creative process with vivid descriptions of how he gets to the end result, even sharing photos of his process.
John’s pieces have an obsessive compulsive nature in the level of detail in his surrealist style. He has a thick, pure paint application on photographs. I always wonder what is going on in John’s imagination to come up with the work. I’m always fascinated by John’s use of Catholic religion images and beautiful women.
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See DeWitt Cheng’s review of John’s work in the link below.
http://dewittcheng.com/john-mcnamara-gallery-bergelli-larkspur-feb-1
Went to an opening reception last Saturday in San Francisco at Meridian Gallery. A professor of mine, David Linger, from UC Berkeley was showing his new work in ceramics. The exhibit was very good. David creates these very delicate, thin ceramic panels in translucent porcelain. He transfers black and white photographic images onto the panels. He embosses lettering onto some of the panels. His skill at firing these delicate panels, transferring them to a gallery and hanging them without breaking them fascinates me. The images seem to have a memory narrative. They’re emotional – sad and lonely. The images are of boats and courtyards of scenes and recognizable objects in places that seem to be in Morocco or Russia.
The reception was crowded with lots of well-dressed people who appeared to be serious art patrons. I recognized some – artists and professors. I saw David almost immediately when I walked in, but he was surrounded, so I looked around. The gallery is a Victorian-style, 3-story house placed on a typical San Francisco hill, so lots of stairs and rooms and doors. I was never able to talk to David and felt bad about just leaving. I get very shy at these things. I tend not to talk to anyone and feel very awkward and uncomfortable. But I love to go. I love to hear what people have to say. And I love to leave. (David later emailed me that HE was sorry he wasn’t able to talk and that next time, I should interrupt him… helps him break away…) for the love of God…
