Artist Biographies

Sandi Adams

Sandi Adams lives in Berkeley, CA. Interest in the visual arts has been a constant in her life. At nine, she was introduced to watercolor at her Saturday Milwaukee Art Institute class. Watercolor has remained her primary medium, but she has also worked in ceramics, textile arts, photography, and now, acrylic and mixed media collage. Her art training includes coursework at Pomona College, Scripps College, UCSF Extension, CCAC in Oakland and service as an Art Docent at the Oakland Museum. In addition, Sandi has taken workshops with local artists including Judy Greenberg, Jane Hofsteter, Kathleen Brennan, and Ann Baldwin. She is affiliated with the California Watercolor Association, Marin Society of Artists, Valley Art Center, and Frank Bette Center for the
Arts. Sandi participates regularly in juried shows at these organizations and has had three solo exhibitions in the East Bay. 2007 has been a good year – she has receive
five awards! Sandi uses her photography as inspiration for much of her representational work, but has been increasingly drawn to abstract layering and collage. She says, “Involvement in my artwork renews and enriches me. The doing of it, the process, is critical to my well-being. An end product is almost secondary to the process! I am working toward achieving glowing, translucent color to convey an emotional impact and enjoyment for my viewer.”

Helen Breger

Helen Breger, was born in Vienna, Austria, and studied art at the Weiner Gymnasium and Kunstgewerbe Schule when she and her family were forced to flee to Trinidad to escape the Nazis. She is known for her fine art prints and drawings, and as a teacher for many years at the California College of Arts where she met her husband who was an officer in the US Army. Together they moved to New York City in 1945 where she continued her art education at the Arts Student League. In 1950, Breger and her family moved to California where she studied printmaking at San Francisco State University, and San Francisco Art Institute. She completed her MFA degree at the California College of Arts and Crafts in 1970. Breger worked as an illustrator and designer for both I Magnin doing fashion illustration and for the San Francisco Chronicle. Her favorite assignments were for the book page which was edited by Hogan, where her drawings accompanied book reviews, interviews with authors and poets in the news, and other literary events, such as occurred at the SF State College Poetry Center. Fashion Ads were full page, attention-getting and very dramatic. There were no photographs used at that time. Her teaching career began at the California college of Arts and Crafts in 1959 where she taught drawing and was a tenured professor until 1987, She also taught at other arts schools in the bay area: University of California, Berkeley, in the Environmental Design Department; San Francisco Art Institute, where she taught drawing and design; printmaking at Lone Mountain College in San Francisco and Sonoma State University; and And part-time at the Santa Rosa Junior College. Her work has appeared in numerous exhibits, private collections and some museum collections.
Her website address is: http://home.earthlink.net/~hbreger/About.html

Carol Jones Brown

Carol Jones Brown of Castro Valley, grew up in Sacramento, began painting in oils more than 40 years ago. She graduated from the University of Oregon in journalism and later became an arts educator, teaching local adults to paint and draw. She attended many workshops and classes by regional and national artists, is inspired by the colors of Matisse, whimsy of Chagall, and quirkiness of Jaspar Johns. Although not a sculptor herself, she admires the madcap colors of Niki de Saint Phalle and the freedom of Magdalena Abakanowitz. Carol now works in acrylics and mixed mediums in an abstract manner, frequently beginning with no objective in mind. She craves strong, brilliant colors, saying, “I love to attack my blank canvases with globs of hot color or luscious cool tones, and then try on a variety of textured papers or fabrics to see what will happen. My goal is to create a surprise, for myself and for the viewer”. She has shown in many galleries and her pieces are in private collections around the world. She is a member of several active Bay Area art organizations and currently president of A.R.T., Inc. in Castro Valley and treasurer of the Marin Society of Artists.

Attila Cziglenyi

Attila Cziglenyi is a contemporary artist in watercolor, acrylic and oil media. For the past two and a half decades, the subject matter of his paintings ranged from landscapes to aviation and still lifes. Always interested in art, he started his art education in Texas at the Houston Museum of Fine Arts, then continued at Chabot College, Hayward and participated in workshops and classes given by well-known artists. Attila has participated in numerous juried group shows in Texas and California and was accepted in the Oshkosh EAA Air Adventure Museum exhibit. He is a member of the Hayward Arts Council and ART Inc. “With my paintings I try to express the exhilaration one feels at the sights and sounds of whirling propellers, roaring of a rocket or the moods created by the changing lights in a landscape. I am always looking for unusual shapes, lines or colors to best convey this message”

Elizabeth Dante

Elizabeth Dante was raised in the rural south and now is living and working in Richmond, Ca. Dante has worked and traveled in Central and South America, Southeast Asia, Germany and Italy. She has attained an affinity for the third world, and acquired the skills of the old world This ever present influence has provided Dante with a stylistic inspiration for works ranging from classical naturalism to primitive stylistic narration. Much of her work explores the dynamics between round organic forms and hard ridges angles, and the spaces in-between. By exaggerating this interplay, her work creates a sense of tension which is both lively and sensual. Dante states, "My world combines ancient and modern rituals, extracting stylize motifs and archetypes, ancient and I pay homage to the many facets of the human sprit, characterized by warmth, humor and sometimes political commentary. Her works have been showcased in "Art on The Rock At Alcatraz" and "Dead of the Dead" exhibition at the Museum of Mexican Art. In 1990, The City of Oakland purchased her sculpture "Woman’s Liberation", as a gift to Nelson Mandela. She also received the Art of Peace Award the same year.

Lilea Duran

Lilea Duran currently resides in a live-work studio in the art district of Vallejo, California. Art has been a large part of Lilea's life for all of her life. She began by doodling get well cards and writing poetry at age 4 and has now progressed to photographing industrial and nude art. While Lilea has taken a few art classes in her lifetime, the majority of lessons learned came from interacting with other like-minded artists and following the works of those who came before her. Lilea is currently exhibiting "Circles" and "Doorway (Treasure Island)," two of her Industrial style pieces in the Expressions Gallery Industrial show. Both pieces capture the ugly, deteriorating portions of the Bay Area in hope not only to find beauty where it does not appear to exist-- but to also immortalize what so many seem to have so quickly forgotten.

Olivia Eielson

Olivia Eielson was born and raised in Minneapolis, Minnesota. In college, Eielson majored in English because she didn't think it possible to capture on paper or canvas what she saw and imagined. Gradually, however, as she took classes in studio art and history of art, and most especially when she took evening classes with Boston painter Morton Sacks, she realized that painting would be her lifelong occupation. Encouraged by the fact that she won a first prize for painting as an undergraduate, she attended Oskar Kokoschka's Schule des Sehens in Salzburg, Austria. After that, she was largely self-taught. For Eielson it's all about the joy of painting, and the struggle to make a finished painting that is somehow "right," and answers the need or vision or question she felt in working on it. At present she is working on a series called "After Piranesi / After Us," about the possibility that we, like earlier empires, may leave ruins – in our case, dangerously toxic ones, but still beautiful in their way. She has had many solo shows, and representation in many juried group shows. Her work is in private collections across the country, as well as in Asia and Europe. For more of her work, see oliviaeielson.com.

Brian Enright

Brian Enright started designing industrial re-use works as 12sticks in 2006. With a project in mind and a class in metalworking at The Crucible, his first design was still unfinished when interested class members were asking if
they could buy one. After a few projects, a website, and an award at his first art show, he was approached about putting together a show of his own and curated Deconstruction with two other emerging bay area artists. Re-use design is, for him a balance between the necessary destruction of objects in order to create, and the breathing of new life into those things deemed useless. Influenced by masters of functionalism like Alvar Aalto, and industrial and graphic works, 12sticks attempts to balance the industrial and organic, form and function in each piece. He currently teaches classes in metalwork at the Crucible. For more information and pictures of his work, visit 12sticks.com.

Marin Fischer

Marin Fischer was born in New York City, lives in Berkeley, CA. and has been an artist as long as she can remember. She attended Brooklyn College in New York, Wayne State University in Detroit, and received her Bachelor and Master of Fine Arts degrees from Arizona State University. Ms. Fischer is a nationally known painter and muralist. Her drawings and paintings have been shown at U.C. Berkeley, the Phoenix Art Museum, and galleries throughout the United States. Her murals can be seen on the Claremont Avenue underpass in Oakland, California, the O’Farrell Theatre in San Francisco, the Center for Independent Living in Berkeley, and various locations in Phoenix, Arizona. She has also been a teacher of art, murals, and theatre; a scenic artist--painting sets for the Lyric Opera Theatre at Arizona State University; and designed, built, and painted sets for a local theatre production of the rock musical “Hair.” The artist states: “My watercolor paintings and colored pencil drawings of water/landscapes deal with the effects of light and shadow on smooth and textured planes, lines, and surfaces. These images are figurative reflections of the physical and emotional impact of light and color reflected onto the eye, and of the impact of civilization on our wild and beautiful earth; inspired by my impressions during the years I spent dazzled by the light of the American Southwest.” “Art is the creation of forms symbolic of human feeling.”—Suzanne Langer, Feeling and Form, 1952

Rinna B. Flohr

Rinna B. Flohr, the founder and Director of Expressions Gallery is also an interior architect and designer and jewelry designer who owns Design Ideas. Her unique earring designs reflect her primary interest in interior design. She crafts unusual clip earrings which she calls “Sculpture for the Ears” using fabric, carpet, cork, building materials, natural stones, fabric, rubber, recycled material, and computer parts. She believes that in this highly mobile world, where we communicate by cell phones, personal computers, have cubicles as work spaces instead of walls, that our art must once again be worn as in nomadic times. Our earlobes are our small personal pedestals where we can display tiny sculptures that speak of our current culture and times. The work shown in this show come from her HI TECH series. As we’ve entered the 21st Century, the world of hi-tech surrounds us. As part of our everyday lives it is presented here as small sculptural symbols of our current culture to be worn as earrings. The beauty and intricacies of these used parts of underwater cameras and computers recycle our discards into treasures. This message is posted on our earlobes for others to see. Many pieces also incorporate symbols of time passing to drive home the point that our values must change if we are to survive the future. You can visit www.designideas.us for more information.

Philip Hall

Philip Hall has a Bachelor of Fine Arts from the California Institute of the Arts, and has also studied at the Art Institute of Chicago, the San Francisco Art Institute, California College of the Arts, and Berkeley City College. Philip has been ‘Painting with Light’ for 30 years as an award winning Lighting Designer, Photographer, Filmmaker, and Lighting Control Specialist for manufacturers, where he has also contributed to the design of numerous lighting control products. In 2004 Philip received the prestigious Sol Cohen award from the Illuminating Engineering Society for service to the lighting field.Philip’s lighting projects include; televised visits by The Pope, the Queen of England, 4 Presidents of the United States, celebration of the Golden Gate Bridge, feature films, commercials and thousands of permanent lighting systems in the Bay Area, his favorite being the renovation of the San Francisco Opera House. What intrigues and stimulates me is how shadows detail life, enhancing or diminishing perceptions or emotional reactions to my artwork. Reality is defined in my work by revealing the mystery of an image — it’s light and shadow — through crystallizing or distorting pixels until the inherent beauty of an image is revealed. Although I am known across the country for automotive artwork, my artwork is not about cars. My artwork is about the light and the dark, shape, color, hard and soft, satire, spirituality, sensuality and Painting with Light. Cars are simply the vehicle I am using to drive my art to the physical.

Melanie Hofmann

Melanie Hofmann graduated with a BFA in Textiles from the California College of the Arts in 1996. Her home and studio are located in Berkeley. She first explored the joy of creating art in pre-school and she has not stopped since. As a teenager Melanie fell in love with fiber art, specifically with weaving and dyeing fabrics. Melanie has received awards from the Taegu International Textile Design competition and from Manhattan Arts International. Limited edition prints of her digital art are in the corporate collection of Lifescan, Inc. in Milpitas. Melanie works with both textile and digital media. For this show, she is featuring her artwork on tile and Italian Charm bracelets. Her work has been inspired by a number of artists including, Jean Miro, Rene Magritte and Magdalena Abakanowicz. She was also influenced by the artwork of her maternal grandmother, Zura Young, an abstract painter. Melanie seeks to convey through her work the interactive process with her media and a visual representation of her inner world. In addition to her work in other mediums, she offers custom designed Italian charm bracelets with digital images transferred to the charms using the same process that she uses to transfer images to tiles.

Ann Holsberry

Ann Holsberry is a Bay Area artist who grew up in Pensacola, FL. She is a life-long painter with a degree in Fine Arts from Randolph-Macon Woman's College, VA, and an M.R.P. degree (Design) from Cornell University. She studied Process Painting with Michelle Cassou in San Francisco and subsequently taught it in classes and workshops in her Emeryville studio. She works primarily with acrylic paint on paper and canvas, often using collage, silkscreen, and encaustic techniques in the process. The current series, Mecanismes Generatifs ("Generative Devices"), grew out of her discovery of hand-rendered mechanical drawings in Belgian instructional manuals discovered in her European travels. The images are attached directly to the surface along with hand-made papers, and paint is applied over and around them. She applies paint with one hand and rubs, wipes, and scrapes it away with the other, building shapes that grow from the original illustrations. On many of these pieces, she has drawn into the wet paint with graphite pencils and other tools. The artist states: "These pre-selected forms provided me with a starting point and a set of constraints that, paradoxically, gave me great artistic freedom. Most of all in my work, I value a feeling of play and improvisation." Her work is in private collections throughout the U.S and in Paris.

Helen Holt

Helen Holt lives in Berkeley California where she grew up after moving to America from England in the mid 1950's. She was interested in art from a young age. Helen received a B.A In Art from UC Berkeley In 1975 and an MFA in Printmaking from San Francisco Art Institute In 1977. Helen taught lithography and etching and was manager of several printmaking facilities, as well as curator and preparator of exhibits at the ASUC Student Union for many years. She received an NEA grant In 1987 to publish an International mail artists calendar. In 1987 Helen began experimenting with paper and light and in 1990 she started Helly Welly Lighting and has been inventing and making illuminated pieces ever since.

Bruce Hopkins

Bruce Hopkins was born in Jamaica, Queens, NY and then raised in Sonoma County, CA from age 8. He has been a resident of the East Bay since 1981. He started studying art at Santa Rosa Junior College. He attended California College of Arts and Crafts and completed his undergraduate studies at Sonoma State College with a B.A. in the fine arts. In 1989 he began a career in the graphic arts. Since 2000 he has been exhibiting his art work locally in various group shows. His current works are on paper, using pastel, gouache or digital creation. He has several artistic interests including plein-aire landscapes and citycapes, figure studies, botanicals and abstract art. These pieces in the Industrial Art show focus on his interest in freeway interchanges, which he considers to be, at the same time, the best and grandest public art and emblematic of much of what is dysfunctional, if not destructive, of our modern environment. In contrast to bucolic rural landscapes mostly painted, this is the landscape most of us actually live in, experience daily and worth our conscious attention. Recent exhibit highlights include: “What Goes Around” - juried show, Artwork SF Gallery, San Francisco, CA- 2008. “The Sanderling Group Figures It Out”, Giorgi Gallery, Berkeley, CA- 2008. “Soft Core” - juried show, Artwork SF Gallery, San Francisco CA- 2007. “Top 40” Juried Competition, LACDA, Los Angeles Center for Digital Art - 2006. “Synergy” - juried show, Plaza Arts Gallery, Healdsburg, CA- 2003. He has also been included in the books, “American Art Collector - Juried Competition,” Vol.3, Book 1, 2006 and Vol.1, Book 1, 2004, published by Alcove Books. For more information visit: www.bkhopkins.com.

Stan Huncilman

Stan Huncilman was born in Indiana but he is a product of the San Francisco Bay Area art world. He attended San Francisco State University where e was introduced to Funk Art and Happenings in the ‘70s. He received his M.F.A. from the San Francisco Art Institute in 1984. S.F.A.I. is the home of the Bay Area’s leading art instructors. He has been a sculptor for more than 25 years. Stan works in a variety of materials. As a matter of practice he uses the material that is most expedient to creating the sculpture he wants rather than “pushing a particular material.” His sculptures often begin from a simple sketch. He prefers to work in a in a direct manner tan her than making molds of models before the final sculpture. The artist states: “I combine a child-like playfulness with primitivism. This creates a wonderland of intriguing forms and convoluted messages. When I enter my studio there is a mental sign post reading “Linear Thinking Stops Here.” Through my sculpture I create a world of nutritiously puzzling paradigms whose roots may be in religion, folk art, nineteenth century industrialisms or Greek mythology. In this world, a whimsical sense of humor walks arm in arm with an obstinate determination to create. The sculptures in this exhibition are part of his “All My Psyches” series, a whimsical yet intriguing observation of the complexities of consciousness. His solo exhibits include Holy Names College in Oakland, California and the University of the Pacific in Stockton, California.

Clint Imboden

Clint Imboden works in both photography and three-dimensional forms of art. He has had a number of solo and group shows throughout the United States and a traveling show in Scotland. His art career began with photography, using the camera as a tool to connect what he saw in his mind to what he wanted to produce as art. Later he became more open to, and comfortable with incorporating found images, objects, and text in his art. “I integrated these elements slowly into more of my work, producing work that looked more and more like mixed media pieces and installations and less like photography. Recent work has included found x-ray, vintage 35 mm black and white movie film; hack saw blades, text, Braille and Morris code. ” He is attracted to objects, the artifacts of daily living, the things that people discard, overlook or are taken for granted. “Objects for me are broken down into two groups. The first group consists of objects that I need to finish a particular project. The second, and ultimately the more important group, is composed of random objects that I come across while searching flea markets and junk stores. It is not always clear to me why I find this second group interesting; they just call to me. An interesting thing happens to objects in group two; they compel me to think about them and in doing so serve as catalyst for new projects and greater insight. ” Shown at Expressions Gallery are his metal sculpture using found objects recycled and his photography.

Gerry Keenan

Gerry Keenan was six years old when her father gave her a microscope. She was transfixed by the beauty of the crystalline life forms in a single drop of pond water and believed that there surely could be nothing else quite as beautiful. Years later, the artist, who has a degree in biology and in studio arts, uses natural light and 35 mm black and white film to, as she says, "capture the imperfect, impermanent and incomplete wonder" of her surroundings. Using acid free pens designed for use on photo paper, she builds up layers of color in order to impart a tactile quality to her work. Gerry has work in collections throughout the continental US and in the Virgin Islands. Solo show venues include: Studio 7038, the Rockridge Café/Gallery, Soga & Associates Architects/SF and the Lucky JuJu Transview Gallery. Gerry is pleased to have won First Place Photography in the only competition she has entered, which was a juried show of fine art connected with the 2005 San Ramon Arts Walk. She states: " My camera gives me a way to record the fleeting moments, life forms, and images that represent the tenuous, magical bonds that exist between all of us and the world we inhabit. I delight in, and am intrigued by, how slowly, and most often quietly, Mother Nature, acting in concert with wind, water and sunshine, decomposes, and then recomposes man made objects into elements of transient beauty."

Jenny Sueyoun Kim

Jenny Sueyoun Kim lives in San Francisco, CA. A daughter of Korean immigrants, Jenny was born and raised in Los Angeles. She comes from a long line of artists, mostly painters, and she herself has been drawing and painting since before she started school. After graduating from UC Berkeley with a degree in Linguistics, her passion for art intensified, and her interest in three-dimensional media flowered from her love of “decorating the human body--from tattoo art to jewelry." In 2004, she began taking Metal Arts classes at the City College of San Francisco, and metal immediately became her favorite medium. She states: “What's so amazing about working in metal is its coldness and hardness, and with it, being able to create a sense of elegance, movement, and life--which really spoke to me like no other medium has.” Her jewelry pieces reflect her love of organic forms: floral and figural. Her work is entirely hand-sculpted from wax, which she creates in her home studio, and then casts into sterling silver at Scintillant studio in the SF Mission district. She does all steps of the sculpting and casting process herself, from start to finish. In 2007, she began working as a silversmith and jewelry designer on a full-time basis. Her website is at www.jennykim.org

Coral Lambert

Coral Lambert, currently living in the US, was born and raised in England and studied at Central School of Art in London, Canterbury College of Art, Kent and received her MFA in Sculpture from Manchester Metropolitan University in 1990. Since then Coral has shown her work extensively in England and America including The Barbican Center, London, Franconia Sculpture Park, MN, Convergence, in Providence, Rhode Island, Grounds for Sculpture and twice in Chicago’s International Navy Pier Walk. Coral Lambert has lectured as a visiting artist at the Royal College of Art, London and RIT, New York among many others. From 1995-1998 she held the position of International Artist/Research Fellow in cast metals at the University of Minnesota. In 2000 she was invited as the semester visiting artist at the University of North Carolina and has returned there several times since. Coral is the Founder of the US/UK Contemporary Cast Iron Sculpture Residency Program that has taken place in England and America annually since 1997. A recent recipient of the Jerome Fellowship and Gottlieb Foundation Award, she also has artwork in several private collections. She and her husband spent a brief time here in Berkeley, Ca after they were evacuated from the Gulf Coast hurricane Katrina where they lost much of their work. Coral is currently Co-Chair of the 5th International Conference on Contemporary Cast Iron Art. Her artwork references asteroids, standing stones and volcanoes; icons of transformation that careen between astronomy above and archaeology below. Central to her work is the exploration of concepts related to growth and form, with a particular interest to those specifically found in natural phenomena that contain some kind of metaphysical presence.

Charles Lucke

Charles Lucke lives in Hercules, CA. He began borrowing his father’s cameras while growing up in Stratford, CT, and has been a freelance photographer since the 1970s. He added a darkroom to each of five consecutive residences, and though he shoots mostly digital today, he continues to mine an inventory of thousands of slides and negatives for images to exhibit. His images in this “Industrial Art” exhibit were all scanned from transparencies and then printed. His first solo exhibit, “Four Ways to Abstraction,” was on view at the XZIBTit Gallery in Hercules for two months in 2007, and in July 2008, the Hercules City Council awarded him First Place in the first annual Hercules Photography Contest. Charlie’s inspirations include Hugo Steccati and Ruth Bernhard, who, though their work is very different, were both creatively involved in photography to end of their long and interesting lives. Regarding his interest in abstract photography, the artist states: “There’s a desire in me to create something that no one else has created (or at least, not precisely the way I have created it.) It’s a way to free the form and change it from a visual reality to an unreality. It’s a way to free the process from the precise reproduction of tone, colors, and forms and let the right brain reign.”

Jennifer Wallace Mack

Jennifer Wallace Mack has a Bachelor of Fine Arts from the San Francisco Art Institute. She works in various media: painting, photography, mixed media, and jewelry. Her work is consistent in the quality and detail in each medium she applies. She has exhibited at a number of solo and group shows, many of which were juried. Shown at Expressions Gallery is her magnificent jewelry. Jennifer has served on various Boards of Directors for long standing Artists Organizations such as the San Francisco Women Artists, where she was a past President and continues in the current Board as Vice Treasurer and The San Francisco Gem and Mineral organization where she is currently Treasurer.

Sonia Melnikova-Raich

Sonia Melnikova-Raich was born and trained as an artist and architect in Moscow, (former) USSR, first at the Moscow City Art School at the Academy of Arts of the USSR and then at the Moscow State Architectural Institute. Since 1987 she has been living in San Francisco, where she is an exhibiting member of San Francisco Women Artists Gallery. In recent years Sonia turned to photography as her main medium but her training and “inner eye” as a painter and architect show throughout her works, many of which have a remarkable resemblance to painted media. According to the Artist, her “Iron Compositions,” which are a part of the “Rusty Things” and “Scrap Art” series, have been greatly influenced by her appreciation of Constructivism art movement, to which she was introduced as a young architect at the Moscow Architectural Institute, formerly VKHUTEMAS, where in the 1970s there still could be heard an echo of Russian architectural avant-garde ideas that had been roiling in the 1920-30s. “Since then I cannot help but find the extension of these ideas in the least expected places — in a heap of rusty equipment at an abandoned foundry, a fragment of a decaying wall or broken stairs at a deserted coastal fort, or a pile of scrap metal at a salvage site. In these photographs I concentrated on the rich opportunity these humble objects presented to explore the abstract in the material word,” says the Artist. Presented artworks are individually printed by the Artist using non-fading inks on archival-quality papers.

Erika Meriaux

Erika Meriaux lives in Half Moon Bay and her studio is located in San Francisco, She grew up in France and North Africa where she became introduced to a cosmopolitan culture. Like many child she could spend hours drawing but kept the habit of doing so until she discovered the new dimension of painting at the age of 22. Being a self taught artist she got her influences from painters like Diego Rivera, Tamara the Lempicka, Otto Dix and Balthus fascinated by humane figures, expressions, archetypes, social commentaries relating humane body to machine works. Her medium is oil on (linen) canvas. Since she's been living in the Bay Area she has been participating in many shows in San Francisco, Palo Alto, Carmel, Burlingame, Redwood City, San Mateo, El Cerrito etc... In 2006 she did a solo show in Gallery 25 in San Mateo.

Rebecca Meredith

Rebecca Meredith is a San Francisco transplant from Chicago. Her work explores interpersonal relationships as they are experienced in different social spaces. She describes these relationships in her work through spatial arrangements and highly subjective color harmonies. Her graduate degree in illustration from the Academy of Art University grounds her work in classical training and narrative storytelling. Her undergraduate degree in comparative literature from Reed College and her work experience in other countries and languages broaden her view of the variety of structures
through which interactions are supported. Her work belongs to the Triton Museum as well as international collections, and has been awarded for merit by the Alliance of Visual Artists, the Top 100 by Paint America Association, and Oil Painters of America.

Maj-Britt Mobrand

Maj-Britt Mobrand lives in Berkeley, CA but was born and grew up in Stockholm, Sweden. As a little girl, she saw her grandmother’s loom in the attic and was very intrigued by it and knew she wanted to master one of those. She has taken weaving classes both in Sweden and the U.S., but is for the most part self-taught. She has been teaching weaving here in Berkeley since 1968 and has only sporadically been showing her artwork. Some of the juried shows she has participated in are U.C. Berkeley and Live Oak Art Galleries in Berkeley (1969); Artist League of Vallejo Gallery (1975); Olive Hyde Art Gallery in Fremont (1988); and Pro Arts Gallery in Oakland (2006). She has also participated in many Open Studios and has shown her work at various local venues and as a result has weavings in many private collections. Artist states: “I enjoy using traditional weaves and patterns in a non-traditional manner and am striving to find a harmonious balance between the natural and the artificial or planned. My inspiration is derived from music, nature, travels, and from my students. It’s wonderful to see the enthusiasm of my students as they develop their projects on their looms after I’ve given them the ‘know how’.”

Norman Moore

Norman Moore lives in Alameda, CA. He trained in neon and glass work at Urban Glass in Brooklyn, NY. He received an MFA in sculpture from Pratt Institute and lived in New York City from 1983 to 1996, where he made sculpture, mosaics and furniture. He attended undergraduate school at Columbus College of Art and Design and graduated with a BFA in Sculpture. Norman has been creating and showing light sculpture in the Bay area for the past ten years, and has taught classes at the Crucible in neon, plasma and light sculpture since 2004. In collaboration with Nancy Mizuno Elliott, he is currently designing a light sculpture installation for the Castro Valley Library to open in 2009. He has also made commissions for the New York Subway System and private residences. He has collaborated with Carol Kueffer Dance in New York and California, making sets and light costumes for dance, including a performance at the de Young Museum in San Francisco for L'Oreal of Paris in 2006.Norman's work uses the play of light and color on forms in space to bring attention to the energy and vitality that is world all around.

Michael Perez

Michael Perez, is a California native, born in Los Angeles in 1955 who grew up in Fresno, when it was a nice little town, and went to California College of Arts in Oakland. “About 30 years ago, I was living in a warehouse space, South of Market, in San Francisco with several other artists. One night, as we were tearing out a wall, we found an old telephone utility closet which had a couple of lengths of 200-pair telephone cable. We cut it open and all took some to play with. I never stopped. I love this material and keep finding different ways of using it. Although it is made in only a few colors, the combinations make the palette seemingly limitless. An important aspect of this material, to me, is that none of it is new. It has all been reclaimed, after it's original use. Recycled 2nd or 3rd generation is what this wire is. The actual construction of the sculptures is tedious and time consuming, but I like the resulting works. The organic shapes suggest different materials than what they actually are. And you can touch them too.”

Heli Perrett

Heli Perrett is a sculptor, photographer, and the creator of the Geo Jewels line of ‘wearable wood art.’ Clients of her art include corporations, museums, and private collectors in several countries (including the USA, Italy, England, The Netherlands, Switzerland and Venezuela). A resident of Rockridge, Heli has lived in Estonia, Sweden, Finland, Norway, Australia, Turkey, Peru, Venezuela, Canada and England and worked in many more as a ‘poverty expert’ for the UN and the World Bank. She holds a Ph.D. from the University of Pennsylvania. Art studies have taken place in New York, Istanbul and Oakland. Her involvement in creating, exhibiting and selling art spans over 20 years. She has recently been named ‘One of the best photographers of 2008’ by Photography Vibes, and her work appears in the Photography Vibes book of top photographers, printed July 2008. Heli’s involvement in Geo Jewels is a fairly recent addition, dating back to late 2007. Geo Jewels are made primarily of wood. Each piece of jewelry is unique, influenced by the natural wood itself, tribal arts and the Art Deco style. The belts in the series are the most recent addition. They are made of wood and leather.

Christine M. Rossi

Christine M. Rossi lives in Berkeley, CA and has been an artist for most of her life. Christine studied costume and stage design at SUNY Binghamton, illustration and color theory through the UC Berkeley Extension Programs and works in a variety of mediums. She recently branched into photography and mixes photographic images within her pieces through collage and digital manipulation. After moving to the San Francisco Bay Area in 1980, She began working as an architectural model builder and illustrator for a San Francisco architectural firm. She branched out into creating two and three dimensional illustrations as well as architectural models throughout the 80’s and into the early 90’s. The photographic work has been very fruitful in giving new direction to her creativity. Barn Silo Triptych: Christine’s biggest inspiration in her exploration of photography has been the photographer William Eggleston. The Barn Silo series of 3 photographs were taken in Altamont, New York at an old barn that dates back to the Revolutionary War. The silo, a newer construction from the late 19th century, uses concrete and steel which was a new innovation at the time it was constructed. The photos have not been digitally enhanced nor have the photos been cropped or changed from the original shots. “I have attempted to emulate Eggleston’s practice of taking the photograph as the photographer finds the subject at the moment the light, color, texture come together in the frame. The photograph is as it is.

Christian Schiess

Christian Schiess is a San Francisco bay area artist originally from New Mexico. His education spans several disciplines and institutions that include a B.A. from Univ. of New Mexico in Anthropology, a B.F.A. degree in Visual Arts from the Univ. of San Francisco, and an MFA in Sculpture from Mills College. Additionally, he completed a Fulbright Fellowship at the Royal College of Art in London and is the author of the book “The Light Artist Anthology.” His work has been exhibited both nationally and internationally. His awards include a Pollock Krasner Foundation Grant, an NEA/AFI Grant, three NEA/Western States Regional Media Arts Fellowships, several artist-in-residencies including the San Francisco Exploratorium, the Bristol Exploratory England, a New York State Council on the Arts Residency at Binghamton, NY, and has been selected as a visiting guest artist at the Vermont Studio Center, Johnson, VT.

Ervin Somogyi

Ervin Somogyi was born in Hungary in 1944 and is a Holocaust survivor. He has lived in Hungary, Austria, England, Cuba, Mexico, Peru, and Spain. He speaks four languages (or five, if you count Pig Latin). Somogyi has been a professional luthier for 40 years and is one of the most prominent of the postwar generation of American guitar makers. These wood carvings and inlays are made by Ervin Somogyi, a longtime professional lute and guitar maker. This particular kind of artwork is inspired by the traditions and techniques of lutherie (fretted string instrument making) as it was practiced before the advent of electricity and power tools. Somogyi’s wooden plates are usually “bookmatched”, which is the traditional manner of preparing the soundboards of lutes, mandolins and guitars. “Bookmatched” means that a plate of wood is cut in two, opened up like a book, and glued edge-to-edge. This results in a single plate of wood with uniform mirror-image working and visual properties. If the center joint is skillfully rendered it’s invisible, leaving the appearance of a single plate; or, one can insert a centerstrip of one or more pieces of contrasting woods. You can easily see the bookmatches if you look. He works in Oakland, California. More information about him is available on his website at www.esomogyi.com

Stewart Florsheim

Stewart Florsheim lives in Piedmont with his wife and two daughters. He was born in New York City, the son of refugees from Hitler's Germany. He received a Master's degree in English (Creative Writing) from SF State University. Stewart has received several awards for his poetry and was recently nominated for a Pushcart Prize. He has been widely published in magazines and anthologies. Stewart was the editor of Ghosts of the Holocaust, an anthology of poetry by children of Holocaust survivors (Wayne State University Press, 1989). He wrote the poetry chapbook, The Girl Eating Oysters (2River, 2004). In 2005, Stewart won the Blue Light Book Award for The Short Fall From Grace (Blue Light Press, 2006). He has been awarded residencies from Artcroft and the Kimmel Harding Nelson Center for the Arts. Stewart also writes non-fiction. Stewart's day job is in the technical writing field. He is also co-chair of the Board of Directors of Compassion and Choices of Northern California, an organization that helps the terminally ill make end-of-life decisions. Stewart and Naomi are both children of refugees from Hitler's Germany; the work they read will include poetry on that topic.

Naomi Ruth Lowinsky

Naomi Ruth Lowinsky lives in Pleasant Hill. During her childhood her family moved a lot as her father, a professor, climbed his career ladder. Her family lived in Italy, at Black Mountain College in North Carolina, in New York and in Princeton, New Jersey. Her teen-age years were spent in Berkeley and she went to the University of California where she graduated with Honors in English. She knew she was a poet from the time she was nine: poems began coming through her. However life interfered with her calling: children, the need to make money. She became a Jungian Analyst and has a practice in Berkeley. Her muse kept calling and twenty years ago she began writing poetry seriously. She has created a niche for herself as a Jungian who writes and teaches about poetry and creativity. She is a member of the San Francisco Jung Institute, and the Poetry Editor of Psychological Perspectives, a publication of the Los Angeles Jung Institute. For many years she studied with Diane di Prima, and the Beats are among her influences. As a first generation American, whose parents fled Hitler's Germany, she is deeply influenced by the poets of the Holocaust, especially Nelly Sachs and Paul Celan. She states: “ Mine is a poetry of story, of image, and of place. The narrative impulse derives from a need to give voice to those who were lost in the Holocaust. The imagistic urge comes from the power of dreams in my psyche. The importance of place speaks to how many places I've loved and lost.” Lowinsky's poems are widely published in literary magazines, and she has two poetry collections: “red clay is talking” and “crimes of the dreamer.” Because she and Stewart Florsheim share the experience fo being the children of German Jewish immigrants, she plans to read poems that tell the story of her family.

Carla Kandinsky

Carla Kandinsky lives in Berkeley. She was born in Bloomington, Indiana in 1937. Her interest in writing grew out of her great love of reading. She began writing at age 10 and has never stopped. She has been a student at Berkeley City College the past ten years, where she has earned Certificates of Completion in Poetry and in Fiction Writing. She has also attended Foothill College, U.C. Extension, and the Iowa Writers' Festival. Her writing is presently inspired by that of Jane Hirschfield, Dorianne Laux, Billy Collins, and Diane Wakoski. A book of Carla's short stories, Leaving Albert and Other Stories, was published in Berkeley in 2005 by Tango Press. Instead of a Camera, a book of her poetry, was published in 1985 by Berkeley Poets' Cooperative. The latest of her 16 self-published poetry chapbooks is titled Minotaurs and Metaphors. She will be reading both poetry and a humorous short story at this event. Carla's poetry has been published in more than fifty small press magazines including Berkeley Poets' Cooperative, Milvia Street (the art and literary journal of Berkeley City College), Hot Flashes, Blue Unicorn, and in the anthology Women of the Fourteenth Moon. In 1993 she taught at The Women's Writing Conference in Anchorage, Alaska, at which she was the keynote speaker. She was the co-coordinator of the Coffee Mill Poetry Series in Oakland for eight years.

Greg Pratt

Gregory Christian Pratt lives in the Berkeley hills with his girlfriend LaWanda and son Benjamin. He was born in Grass Valley, CA. and migrated to the artists’ hamlet of Canyon, CA. in 1969. As a member of the Pratt Family singers, he played guitar and performed at many peace rallies and festivals as a child, with Mother, two older sisters, and the four boys. Dad also sings and is active as an artist. The Folk Revival and subsequent Love generation helped shape his style of poetry and song writing, as well as a love for music and words from old turn of the century music, and the Jazz era. His parents signed him out of high school to tour with folk acts in New York. In 1976, he toured with Paul Siebel who wrote “Louise”, as well as with Van Rozay from San Jose, from Lena’s Café in Saratoga, N.Y. to the Great American Music Hall in San Francisco. He studied at Musician’s Institute in Hollywood, CA in 1981, and got Pick of the Week as Music Director for Sam Shepard’s Power House theater (LA weekly) production of Olan Shepard’s” ‘After Star Drive’. He toured around South America as Cruise Ship Bassist and has recorded with many bands. He published 69 poems in 1990 in memory of Zayla, his 4 years old daughter. He teaches all stringed instruments to children of all ages, and performs in the Bay Area with LaWanda.

Mugg Muggles

Mugg Muggles is a skilled interpreter of a plethora of musical genres. Equally at home with Vintage Jazz, Blues, Hillbilly, Classic Rhythm & Blues and 50s Rock & Roll, his mellifluous baritone vocals and rock-steady rhythm guitar (augmented by his AWESOME home-made kazoo) are sure to delight both young and old alike. Mugg also plays WashTub Bass and has an unending supply of 'trivia' to entertain and amuse you."

Irina Rivkin

Irina Rivkin lives in Berkeley, Ca and is the recipient of Outmusic Awards & founder of Rose Street House of Music & vocal trio Making Waves. Rose Street House of Music is a Berkeley-based house concert & touring musical community featuring women singer-songwriters. Rose Street (as called by regulars) has been featured in many publications, including GIRLFRIENDS Magazine, San Francisco Chronicle and the East Bay Express. "Irina is a Russian, Jewish, lesbian immigrant with an amazing gift of being able to multiply her voice right before your eyes, one singer many voices come together for an amazing sound of pure harmony...Each song is like a sand sculpture .... hauntingly beautiful, powerful, & awe-inspiring... and then she erases it and creates a new one!" says Alma, comic & emcee. Irina has performed for 25 years, from her childhood singing jazz & Russian folk in a family band, to performing her own songs for the last decade. Her gutsy poetic world-folk originals journey into personal & political, with occasional travels into Russian & Spanish language lyrics. Irina layers her poetic lyrics with rich textured harmonies, swirling with vocal percussive beats, all created live on-the-spot using her loop station instrument! Her CD "upwelling" has received airplay on over 100 radio programs. "beautiful lyrical melody, the added voice over of earthy harmony, and finally the texture of beatbox all performed live with the benefit of electronic looping." [Janie Roberts, Venue Owner, Wild Janes] http://www.sonicbids.com/irinarivkin

Alma aka "Butch Diva"

Alma aka “Butch Diva” opens for Irina with comedy, humor, insight, and stories as told by several of her characters and voices. "I like making people laugh and think… I am committed to being ethical and kind , while still being outrageously funny.” www.myspace.com/baynurse

Gregory Christian Pratt and LaWanda Ultan

Gregory Christian Pratt and LaWanda Ultan live in the Berkeley hills. They perform together Country, Blues and Folk music around the Bay Area at various clubs. Greg is also a jazz musician. He began performing with his family as a member of the Pratt Family Singers where he played guitar and performed at many peace rallies and festivals throughout his childhood. The Folk Revival and subsequent Love generation helped shape his style of poetry and song writing, as well as a love for music and words from old turn of the century music, and the Jazz era. His parents signed him out of high school to tour with folk acts in New York. In 1976, he toured with Paul Siebel who wrote “Louise”, as well as with Van Rozay from San Jose, from Lena’s Café in Saratoga, N.Y. to the Great American Music Hall in San Francisco. He studied at Musician’s Institute in Hollywood, CA in 1981, and got Pick of the Week as Music Director for Sam Shepard’s Power House theater (LA weekly) production of Olan Shepard’s” ‘After Star Drive’. He toured around South America as Cruise Ship Bassist and has recorded with many bands. He teaches all stringed instruments to children of all ages, and performs in the Bay Area with LaWanda. LaWanda plays the banjo, guitar and some drums.LaWanda Ultan and Greg Pratt have had a love affair with music since forever. They perform as and are known as Greg and LaWanda. They say:“When our voices are in harmony, so are we.”

Darryl Pulley

Darryl Pulley is an aspiring guitarist born and raised in Oakland, Ca. He is self taught and embraces many forms of music. His main focus is on R&B smooth improvisational jazz. He also has some experience performing in Catholic and Afro-American churches and many combo groups. His group is called: The Jazz Navigators.

Jim Passard

Jim Passard, Rhythm Guitar, Singer and Bandleader.
Jim is often seen at the Lost Cats. His tasteful and versatile guitar playing fronts The Lost Cats, while his smooth voice captures your ear and refuses to let it go! Born and raised in the San Francisco Bay Area, Jim’s music tours have taken him from Alaska through the Pacific Northwest and back home to California. His inviting style has endeared him to club owners and patrons for many years. Audiences appreciate his wide range of material and the quality of his performance. His eclectic repertoire, performed with masterful fluidity, includes songs with the jazzy elegance of Michael Franks, the Latin classics of Antonio Carlos Jobim, and the great American standards of Cole Porter and Johnny Mercer.

Ellis Island Old World Folk Band

Ellis Island Old World Folk Band. Come listen to klezmer music, the music brought to the United States in the early 1900's by the Jews of Eastern Europe. Ellis Island Old World Folk Band has been delighting Bay Area audiences for nearly three decades with its renditions of lively freilachs, soulful doinas, danceful bulgars, old world waltzes, Yiddish vocals, music from Eastern Europe, Greece, Russia, Spain and Italy. Ellis Island Band has played a pioneering role in the revival of klezmer music in the Bay Area and has been featured in concerts, festivals, dance workshops, parties, weddings, bar and bat mitzvahs. The band was recently honored with Proclamations from the cities of Berkeley and Albany for its contributions to the community. The band was also awarded first prize as Best Civilian Band at the July 4th City of Alameda parade. Band members include Helen Placourakis, violin; Jim Rebhan, accordion; Carol Ginsburg, flute and vocals; Josh Cohen, bass and violin; and some surprise guests! Ellis Island Old World Folk Band
www.musikers.com
510.433-2900

Loren Means

Loren Means is a filmmaker, painter, musician, writer, and editor who lives in San Francisco, Ca. He pioneered in making found footage films in the early Sixties, showing his films with Bruce Conner's found footage films at 1090 Page in San Francisco, with live soundtracks by Big Brother and the Holding Company. One of his found footage films, "Wolfenstein Franks the Meetwoman", won a prize at the Saginaw, Michigan 8mm Film Festival in 1968. In the late Sixties he started painting on film, and founded the f8 Filmaker's Cooperative, which held the first 8mm film festival in 1967. He has shown his films recently in Visual Music shows at RX Gallery, 21 Grand, Artists' Television Access, and Luggage Store Gallery. In the Seventies he played improvised electronic music with the Henry Kaiser Quartet at such venues as Keystone Korner and the Oakland Museum. The recordings he made with Henry Kuntz, Russel Baba, and Dennis Saputelli, among others, constitute his film soundtracks. He is the Executive Editor of the YLEM Journal, a periodical about art, science, and technology, and has delivered papers at the International Convention for the Fantastic in the Arts. He has curated art shows at Alta Bates Gallery, Marin Civic Center, Artisans Gallery, and Yoga Moon Studio, and had one-man shows of his painted and digital works at Castro Photo, Gallery House, and Pacific Grove Art Center, as well as being featured in group shows in Los Angeles and New York.