Rhapsody: Works from the Cooper Rosenwasser Collection

Pae White, Chocolate Mint

Visited the Berkeley Art Museum and had a look at the current exhibit Rhapsody: Works from the Cooper Rosenwasser. It is great news that these pieces are becoming part of the museum’s permanent collection — everyone will be able to enjoy them when they are exhibited for years to come.

There is a lot of outstanding work, and of course I really get excited when I see other artists doing art that is all about circles and grids. Jennifer Bartlett’s Binary Combinations was a favorite of mine.  Howardena Pindell’s piece is one of those things that makes me say, “I wish I had done that…”  Consider me inspired.  The current show is up through June 28, 2026. 

Jennifer Bartlett, Binary Combinations

Howardena Pindell, Untitled

Then They Came For Me

Spent the afternoon at a powerful photography exhibit Then They Came For Me  that documents the internment of Japanese-Americans during World War II.  Some of the photos were familiar, but many I was seeing for the first time.  The exhibit includes work from Dorothea Lange and Ansel Adams, as well as photography by incarcerated Japanese American artists Toyo Miyatake and Miné Okubo.  The exhibit even includes clandestine images that recorded this unjust chapter of American History.

Along with this show in the Presidio, you can also visit the history museum at the Officer’s Club which has extended their exhibit  about the internment.

Admission to Then They Came For Me  is free and the exhibit is up until May 27, 2019.

A Very Pink Art Opening

Yesterday we arrived in Sacramento and spent the afternoon installing the 400 pieces of pink mail art received for this year’s, 23^rd Annual Pink Week.   As we blistered our thumbs pressing in all those pushpins, it was amazing watching the space transform into walls of pinkness.  That evening was First Friday in Sacramento and we had a busy opening that included quite a few local artists who mailed in handmade pink postcards for the show.  Thank you again to everyone who participated and helped make the show happen, including our hosts at WAL and to Gioia Fonda, the incredible force behind Pink Week.

The show will remain on exhibit through November 30 at Warehouse Artists Lofts (WAL), 1104 R Street, Sacramento, California.  If you cannot get to Sacramento, you can still view the pieces on flickr and pinterest. 

Mail Art + Beat Art

Yesterday I had a nice surprise in the mail when I received a catalog for a mail art show I participated in that was held at the Agder Teater in Kristiansand, Norway.  I really appreciate the catalog, as I know how costly it is to both print and mail these.

Details about the show can be found here (in Norwegian).  You can view the entire catalog here online (in English).

Mail/Art/Book

Last night was the opening of Mail/Art/Book at the San Francisco Center for the Book.  It’s a truly global exhibit with art from all over the world.  All of the art arrived via the mail to curators Jennie Hinchliff and John Held, Jr.  The opening was packed and I saw familiar faces and plenty of mail art from different artists who I correspondence with.  I wasn’t surprised to see Susanna Lakner had sent went one of her groovy little hand made books all the way from Germany (see above).  Phyllis Lucas-Haddon sent in a delightful tribute to her letter carrier (see above).  The show runs until April 27, 2014.  And look closely and you also will see a piece I sent through the mail (see below) in one of the display cases.

A Little Piece of Mexico in San Francisco

As someone who typically cuts up old postcards to make art (to the horror of some serious postcard collectors), I am bemused but reminded some things are too good to cut up by the current show at San Francisco’s Main Library.  A Little Piece of Mexico - The Postcards of Guillermo Kahlo and His Contemporaries is on view in the library’s Jewett Gallery through December 29^th.   The exhibit features hundreds of postcards of Mexico circa 1900 by various photographers including the German-born, Mexican photographer Guillermo Kahlo – the father of Frida Kahlo.  Some are displayed on black felt, Aztec-inspired pyramids in glass cases – a nice curatorial touch.  I have to look a little more closely at my old postcards before I cut them up, I could have some Guillermo Kahlos in that box.