t r a n s p o r t

t r a n s p o r t the alchemy of machine into awareness

In this project, a car dies to give life to awareness, from one transformative vow:
I will never again own a fossil fuel burning vehicle.

Click on Image for Video trailer of Exhibit

transport

Holiday Buy-pass, exhibit closing party

anti-christmas party....!?%&#@%*?

December 19th, 6 - 9pm,

With live "scratch guitar" by Genie

Show runs through December 26th

Witness the t r a n s f o r m a t i o n : a public interactive awareness process, a chance to make art with a usually untouchable machine.
Witness the d e c o n s t r u c t i o n : a live sculptural process, with each unhinged piece unearthing new questions in participants.
Exhibit Closing Event: Holiday Buy-pass...
Anti-Christmas party & closing celebration Saturday December 19th, 6-9pm, with live "scratch guitar" by The Genie.
Film trailer from the project's first weeks at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=npG-0UH_fos
t r a n s p o r t invites you to a new kind of alchemy.
machines can transport our bodies.
awareness can transport our lives
into new ways of being--
usually these remain separate...
or we ride around busily avoiding the one by the other.
And invite in yourself the alchemy of awareness, where there was once only machine.
Inspired inside the floatation tanks--with their own ability to transport us--this project will now come alive right next to them. See a powerful film of mechanical and self-deconstruction. Sit down inside car-part-artwork sculpted into an experiential living room. Bring your hands to kinesthetic pieces, offered for your own reconstruction. And follow our evocative wall of visual artwork welded with introspective writing. All inviting a new space to open up in you, to t r a n s p o r t your own life...
About the artists:
Drake Logan founded apostrophe' productions as a vehicle for interdisciplinary art and awareness process projects designed to raise public empathy around issues of social justice and self-expression, ranging from fossil fuel consumption to transgender visibility. When not facilitating interactive art, she still paints on canvas or the street. Logan is a doctoral student in Clinical Psychology at The Wright Institute.
apostrophe@resist.ca
Julia Robertson is an artist and activist interested in promoting social change through interactive video and art projects. She created a non-profit production company, Pinch Me Films, with the mission to create and distribute educational videos for youth. Robertson is currently working on her MFA in Social Practices at The California College of the Arts. www.pinchmefilms.org
About The Genie
The Genie is an avant-garde guitarist, performer, and musical pioneer best known to audiences for his 'scratch guitar' shows, a unique performance involving live looping, slide guitar, beatboxing, unconventional syncopation, and various original techniques which he has crafted.
Hear music and see videos at www.myspace.com/thegenie

Through the looking glass

Through the looking glass

Three artists reinterpret Wonderland...

Mad Tea party on September 26^th 6-9pm with live Jazz by ManOverboard 

and bubbling Absinth spiked tea if you dare!
Show runs Sept 21^st- Oct 31^st

Join artists Bruce Tamberelli, Darwin Price, & Yvette M. Buigues for the opening reception of “Through the Looking Glass.”  Prepare to be amazed by strange and wondrous works of art. Enjoy the jazz stylings of  'ManOverboard' . You'll be grinning like a Cheshire cat! 
 

About the Artists…

Bruce Tamberelli:

Bruce Tamberelli is an Oakland artist with 29 years of experience. His mediums include; photography, painting, mixed media and story telling. In the late 1970’s Tamberelli began to work with photography, by using multiple imagery and manipulating Polaroids.  His first painting was on a Polaroid.  On a whim, in 1993, he bought oil paints and canvas.   The works of a self-taught painter, his paintings have always been carefully sketched out compositions.   These new works are not sketched, and are influenced by drawings of hands of traveling BART passengers.  With hands he has added boxes and circles into his favorite objects along with landscape and cityscapes.  

“In these changing times, a new administration, economic difficulties and uncertainties, people are reaching, searching, looking for something, anything.  The paintings reflect our current times.” - Bruce Tamberelli

Darwin Price: 

Darwin Price is a well-known artist in the San Francisco Bay Area art scene. Often present in his work is the reconciliation of such dichotomies as good/evil, anima/animus, orange/blue. Darwinprice.com

Darwin broke Alice’s glass: He slipped along dragging one foot in the gutter with a guilty ‘wasp in his wig.’ Wondering, “with everyone saying different things to me; while taking everything that they can. What do I believe? Not this world! Who wants to be sheep or an oyster to be fleeced or shucked and eaten by god?”  He had hoped he might just stay unnoticed long enough to slip sideways between the sidereal worlds and back to Alice.  To be, at last, among all the strange and forgotten relics and people he’d somehow misplaced. With their laughter still ringing in his ears and surrounded those worthless treasures he’d sought so very hard to find & hold one again: the rock, a signpost, a teapot, a single socks, a melody, and all his memories of you; of love. He thought aoud, “I can be happy as any of these things.”  

Yvette M. Buigues:

Yvette Buigues was born in Los Angeles, California. Her father, an internationally known sculptor, was her greatest inspiration and mentor.  A self-taught painter, Buigues studied fine art illustration in Buenos Aires, Argentina under the tutelage of Adrian Dorado, a contemporary constructivist painter, and Nicolas Bufidis, a master fresco artist and director of the Buenos Aires School of Fine Arts. She worked in graphite and colored pencil, focusing her efforts on technique and realism.  Buigues has been an exhibiting artist for the past seventeen years. heavyblackline.com

"200 Hares" wrestles with darkness as it gives way to light and humor.  The pieces weave back and forth provoking the sobriety and joy that is emotional and physical growth.” - Yvette Buigues

About the Music:

Man OverBoard is a musically versatile band drawing on the influences of Jazz, Blues, R&B, and Classic Rock. Formed in 1996 in San Francisco the band is a quartet with Bill Carey on tenor saxophone, Allen Fine on guitar, Randy Valdez on drums and Jon Zax on Bass. The band has the unique accolade of the 2004 award from the "Bay Guardian" as the best Jazz with a Hot Dog for their twice a month performances at the now defunct "Perry's Joint" on Filmore St, S.F.

"The Moose Must Persuade the Duck" Encaustic Drawings & Monotypes by Cheryl Finfrock, Kinetic art by Sudhu Tewari

Show runs through September 19th, 2009

Both of these artist’s work is based in the exploration of seeing the world though childlike dreams. For art is the breath between the work and its viewer. Sometimes random and playful, it is the process itself that allows the collection of intention midstream. In this way, the Moose must persuade the Duck, as the work is pointing to a vision. Look, see it isn't all just all a thought experiment.


Cheryl Finfrock is an internationally known artist that creates monotypes, paintings on paper, canvas and wood. Narrative expressionism, humor, and symbolism are central throughout her work. Recent exhibits span US and Europe including New york City, San Francisco, Houston, San Antonio, Austin, Berlin, Copenhagen, Montreal, Olomouc, Paris, and Sofia. Video of Cheryls work for this show.

Sudhu Tewari is an artist, instrument builder, tinkerer and improviser. He has also been called a junkyard maven, bricoleur, and young-audio gadgeteer. An early interest in disassembling alarm clocks and coffee makers gave rise to electro-acoustic instruments constructed with the remains of discarded stereo equipment, kinetic sculptures and sound installations. Video Of Sudhu's Dancing Robot

Also will perform Experimental music from 7-8PM on opening night 

About Also: Cenk Ergun and Sudhu Tewari have been playing together for 8 years. They use home-made, circuit-bent, modified, found objects, electronic devices and musical instruments to create music in which all sounds are welcome.  Their improvisatory style is informed by intensive listening, attention to detail, and a welcoming attitude towards any mistakes, accidents, and surprises the next moment might bring.

“What Goes Around, Comes Around” Street art on vinyl a group show by: Everybody Get Up!

Opening Party June 26th 6-9pm, with local DJ’s spinning.

Show runs June 21st through July 18th, 2009 

This is a Cash & Check only show...so stop by the ATM on the way.

There back! The Poormans cardboard art show crew:  Everybody Get Up! are back for round 2, and have landed in a pile of vinyl records. All art priced between $5 & $100, and for your shopping pleasure.

About: Everybody Get Up   

In 2008, Everybody Get Up began their first wave of gallery exhibited art shows.  They are now a force in the East Bay Urban Art Scene. This time around EGU is reaching for records. After a couple rounds with Poorman’s cardboard Everybody Get Up’s “What Goes Around, Comes Around” is brought to you on vinyl records and their jacket covers. EGU will remix the jackets with their original flavor and dose the vinyl with character settings and stencil art. The colors will pop; the characters will rock; and the party will hop.

Everybody Get Up and its coalition of over twenty artists invite you and your friends to “What Goes Around Comes Around” for good times and great art.  EVERYBODY GET UP!!!

Artists:

Dave, Ras Terms, Deadeyes, Nobody, Matt 136, Ken Davis, Sumbody, Shannon Jones, Anybody, Broke, Creature, Mary J, Goldiloks, Dirtbag, Bay Truth Seeker, Swamp Donkey, Easy P, Ginger Pop, Lenny Kiser, Ryan Robot, Mace Hella, Sabrina and more…

Exoskeleton Paintings by Philippe Janssens, Sculpture and Jewelry by Victoria Skirpa

Opening party May 9th 6-9pm, with DJ KODA (45 Amp Recordings)
Show runs through June 20th, 2009


Electric, synaptic and mysterious, painter Philippe Janssens and sculptor-jeweler Victoria Skirpa continue to refine the evolution of imagination and adornment. Philippe Janssens' paintings are channeled directly from his spirit and imagination. He gives form to these colorful and odd-shaped beings.  They leave you intrigued and wondering, what multidimensional universe have they evolved from? What universe do we step into as we look upon them?
Victoria Skirpa draws from living forms to create her sculpture and jewelry.  Skirpa makes pieces that are dynamically functional by inter-playing the mechanical and organic, simultaneously. You will discover elements of living organisms and symbols encapsulated in the armor of her work.

Philippe Janssens
Janssens is an artist, certified metal smith and sculptor. His paintings and sculptures are expressions of the linkage between primitive and contemporary art, with the intention to remind you of your cultural and spiritual connections to people from other parts of the world. His designs are channeled directly from his spirit and imagination. With the belief that the power of the creative process itself has produced the artwork he has created.
Born in Brussels, Belgium, he immigrated to the US in 1968, and has been living in Bali since 2008. Jansens graduated from the Academy of Beaux Art, Brussels and the Art & Metiers School in Jewelry Design. He went to work as an apprentice under a master Jeweler by the name of Gustave De Cock (famous in Brussels). In 1969 he came to the US and worked as a jeweler for many years and eventually opened his own business Indigena. Indigena was recently sold in 2008.
Janssens has exhibited his work mainly in Northern California and participated at Art Festivals as well, Mills Valley Art Festival, Marin County Festival, Palo Alto Festival and at Stanford University.
“In my wide space of heaven are figures and signs with, which one you can discover the deepest secrets.”   - Philippe Janssens -


Victoria R. Skirpa, Artist Statement

“Though I am well-known for my futuristic sculpture, in recent years, I have moved more towards jewelry as a source of inspiration.

Unlike other artistic mediums, jewelry is a physical experience. It is sculpture, that engages intimately with the body. My jewelry and small metalwork shows my preoccupation with the human body, its history of protection, and adornment.

Jewelry is also a relic that shows us who we are today and gives us access to memory and history. There has always been a cosmology for the wearing of adornment, from amour to earring: in order to please the sexes, to protect from others, to designate family and tribe, to indicate relationship to God (s), to protect and identify in battle, and many other permutations.  And these things are still true in the modern world. I am profoundly interested in this phenomenon.

As a jewelry designer and sculptor, I am interested in the visual play of dichotomies such as Rough/Smooth, Fine / Crude, Interior / Exterior, Ancient/Modern, and Feminine / Masculine, Machine/Organics”

Victoriaskirpa.com, Jewelrybythelake.com


Opening night music by DJ KODA (45 Amp Recordings)

A Rare Alchemy Pinhole Photography by S. McGrath Ryan Glass sculptures of David Ruth

Last week of the exhibit party April 25th, 6-9pm
With Dijeridu artist Travis Wernet
Exhibit runs through 5/2/09

There is something mystical about the unknown that draws us. A Rare Alchemy showcases the two very different artists and mediums that dabble in the mysterious effects of chemistry, with impressive results.

A photographer who uses a camera with no viewfinder must like the surprise and magic that can, sometimes, occur.  The "one-eyed" box is really a three eye effort.  The negative takes in the light and the movement of the moment that the artist has chosen. The result paints an emotional layer onto the physicality of the subject.  The image is the final alchemy of choice and chance

Hot glass is completely magical. It can glow bright orange and still be transparent. Working it can take place at any number of temperatures giving many different effects. Glass has been worked for so many centuries that a huge variety of techniques exist for extremely varied possibilities. Further, there are many glasses, which have differing properties, even among those suited for making art.

No other material has its range of possible looks. It can shine like a diamond in the light, a beacon of any color and many colors.

S.McGrath Ryan (Sheila)

Ryan has  been a black & white photographer for over 3o years, Starting in New York City, Ryan was a "freelance photographer. She has worked primarily in a documentary 35mm style. Her interest in pinhole photography was sparked by Marsha Scheer at the International Center for Photography.  It has since become her major focus. .  Ryan moved to California in 1990.  The work presented here is from then to the present.

"The pinhole camera allows things to slow down and catch a moment unlike another" - Sheila

David Ruth

Ruth has been producing custom cast glass for individual collectors, architects, and designers since the late 1980's.  Ruth has developed a wide range of aesthetic techniques and applications to the language of Sculpture and Architecture.

As an artist, Ruth has created a unique cohesion between his more ephemeral personal sculpture and more site specific, client designed architectural work. This body of work was influenced by the Iraq war. www.davidruth.com

"The combination of art, science and alchemy drives my work" - David Ruth

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About the music:

Travis Wernet has been playing didjeridu for 11 years and performs in a variety of groups. He currently fronts the band project also known as 'Outlaw Dervish' and performs his own original Spoken Word Poetry with musical accompaniment. One such event gathered the group "Darkshine" for an evening of sacred music in the popular and highly coveted musical venue, Grace Cathedral (April 2007). Travis has also appeared with his band at several festival events in San Francisco, California and beyond, including Sea of Dreams, Harmony, Spectra Ball and Howeird.  www.cdbaby.com/cd/outlawdervish

What the? Mixed Media by Lola, sculpture by Brian Young

Opening party January 17th 6-9pm
Show runs  through February 28th, 2009

Powerful mixed media artist Lola, and fresh ceramicist Brian Young speak through their select mediums, challenging the viewer to recognize, take responsibility and make sense of what they see.


About Lola:

I am an Environmentalist by default diverting waste from landfills, a self-appointed waste collector in the business of reuse, an opportunist who exploits the discarded, seeking its vast potential for creating art.  My job definition is junk collector, dumpster diver, and scavenger; I call upon all these identities to express myself through my art.

We live in a consumer-driven, disposable and convenience-oriented society; therefore the resources for my intent are innumerable.  Found objects are incorporated into assemblage, paper materials are juxtaposed in collage and panels fabricated from recycled wood inform abstractions.  Not only are the treasures collected integrated into my work but the moments spent interacting in the salvaged world as well.  Collecting materials is my time to engage with the world, exploring the endless possibilities it has to offer.  I have a route but I am always exploring to discover new, fruitful locations.  I spend hours walking railroad tracks and days roaming abandoned environments.  Although I primarily travel by car, it is walking in the physical world I relish in and in this context my creativity soars.  For me, it is where opportunity collides with idea and the creative process begins.

An outdated magazine with dreamy colorful images of women standing prideful in their kitchens warms our stomachs and makes us crave the white trash cuisine our mother's prepared so long ago.  Although these experiences are in brief and intermittent, they are the inspiration behind my creativity and therefore, do not fade into oblivion. My work recaptures these moments and preserves their integrity for others to experience. www.ho-made.org


About this series:

“I have always been attracted to numbers.  Not so much for counting and measuring purposes but for their visual aesthetic as abstract objects. Random numbers and combinations often appear in my work. They are incorporated as abstract forms similar, for example, to a circle, stripe or triangle. The numbers in my pieces do not have meaning or create a formula.  Instead I am drawn to the visual combinations and actual shapes of these forms.  With the absence of meaning, sum or formula; I encourage the viewer to interpret my artwork based on what the numbers mean to them. I challenge the viewer to see themselves through the reflective nature of my work, lost within the meaning of the numerical combinations” - Lola


About Brian Young:


Brian Young's ceramic sculptures have an "edgy" tone.  Thematically they often focus on the violence in our society providing a political commentary on today's issues.  Young's earlier work is strongly influenced by his political and social observations.  In later works, he has utilized the material to express more personal issues, imbuing pieces with mysterious and private meanings. Young wants that the viewer bring their own set of judgments and personal experiences to the viewing his art.

"In the fine art world many say that the use of clay should be relegated to the realm of craft. However, I disagree with this judgment, because with it's pliability and manipulative nature, clay is a perfect vessel for pure expression. My work is influenced by everything from Picasso's cubist portraits to commercial illustrations by Jeremy Fish. And I hope to present a fresh new outlook on the Ceramic Medium."
 
San Francisco based Young graduated from San Francisco State University with a degree in fine arts in 2007. In addition to ceramics, Young sketches and creates cardboard backed paintings; these paintings are regularly exhibited and sold in the bay area's traveling Poor Mans Art Show.

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“Plasma Nation” Bay Area Artist’s ignite the 4th state of matter

Art can be dangerous, a group show of plasma & neon sculptors.

Show runs through January 10th, 2009
Closing Party with DJ Billy spinning and free plasma educational presentation by Ed Kirshner
Party January 10th, 6-9pm
Plasma sculpture presentation 7:30-8pm

  

Bay Area plasma & neon sculptors offer a tasty array, of the 4th state of matter. Plasma is a rare and highly experimental art form. Using high voltage transformers, hand blown or found glass, these artists capture not only our imagination, but hold hostage and manipulate noble gasses to create contained kinetic magic.

What is plasma?

Plasma is commonly described in nature as the fourth state of matter and is also known as the most widespread phenomena in the universe. Plasma typically takes the form of neutral gas-like clouds (e.g. stars, and our sun). It is considered distinct from other lower-energy states of matter; most commonly solids, liquids and gas, although it is closely related to the gas phase in that it also has no definite form or volume.

Plasma rarely occurs naturally on earth, and when it does, its effects are visually and energetically dramatic. Lightning storms are one example, another is the Aurora Borealis or Northern Lights, seen as energy pours into earth’s atmosphere.

Plasmas have only recently been incorporated into a variety of sculptural art forms using plasma ionization by high frequency electrical current. In this way creating illuminated sculptures that have the ability to display a visual lighting effect of movement and colors found in no other medium. Although this technology is considered cutting edge, and in its infancy, much has been learned to be able to control specific and desired effects. Yet, it is likely that there is still much yet to be discovered.

Plasma Nation Artists include:

Norman Moore
“My sculpture uses various materials in combination with light to create a physical poetry borne out of urban experience. I am interested in the metaphors light and shadow evoke such as life, death, enlightenment, blood, distraction and lust. I am always looking for the story behind objects and finding meaning in forms. Walking in twilight, I see light splashing and reflecting in odd locations that spark my imagination.  The unexpected relationship of light coloring an object changes my perception of the world”

Ed Kirshner
“Like Dr. Frankenstein in his lab, I hover over my glass and gas plasma work, spending many hours mixing, balancing and fine-tuning. Still, the plasma light behaves in a way that I can never completely control. I can change or direct its behavior by varying the pressure and mix of gases, or the frequency and the voltage of the power, but I can never fully predict the detailed effects any of my actions will have. Though frustrating at times, this unpredictability is at the very heart of my work. This is the personality, the mystery, the life that I try to create in my sculpture” www.aurorasculpture.com.
* Ed will be teaching the free educational plasma presentation on January 10th 2009.

Michael Pargett
Is Co-Curator on this exhibit. Pargett enjoys the paradox between the high energy that creates the illumination, and the slow, sensual movement of the gas mixtures that can be achieved to present a visual experience that is as compelling as it is hard to describe.  His expressions are at times humorous and at others inspired by a desire to honor the basic elements of the gasses themselves. During the filling portion of the creative process, he attempts to allow the gases themselves to express how they would like to manifest within the glass. “They feel as though they have something to communicate, this medium perhaps gives them a unique opportunity!” www.theartelectrique.com

Bill Concannon
Concannon has been working with neon since 1973. In 1975 he started his own neon studio, Aargon Neon, making neon sign props and special effects neon for the motion picture industry, as well as commercial neon signs and his sculpture. Bill has worked as an instructor teaching neon sculpture at the Academy of Art University in San Francisco and the Pilchuck Glass School just north of Seattle. His sculpture has been shown nationally and internationally since 1977. This past June, Bill was invited to present his lecture, “Glass Graphics: The Joy of Signs,” to the Glass Art Society Conference in Portland, OR. www.aargon-neon.com.

David Hollister
Hollister is a woodworker and sculptor who has lived and worked in the San Francisco Bay Area since 1996. His furniture and sculptures have been shown throughout the Bay Area. “I graduated from Washington University in St. Louis.  While in school I discovered my affinity for design and took the opportunity to study furniture and lighting on my way to a degree in architecture.  After a period spent working in construction and traveling, I left architecture.    While visiting many of the structures I had studied in school, I realized that I felt less of a connection to the buildings than I did to the furnishings and art. In addition to my artistic pursuits, I am the wood shop technician at the Crucible in Oakland.  I work primarily in wood and light, but have also created pieces using stone, metal, and plastics.”

Ken Herrick
 “I’m fourth in a five-generation line of artists, but the art-gene, so to speak, expressed itself late.  Only at age 35 or so did I start making art, although from my earliest days I’ve been a maker of “things" of one sort or another. I completed my first artwork, an interactive kinetic one, in the early ‘70s.  Since then I've made other kinetic works, most of them interactive.  In the '80s I got into incorporating neon in my work, going so far as to secure several patents on, and license for manufacture, a neon effect I called “Neon Bubbles”.  I've derived little income from the art, or from the Bubbles for that matter, but such is life and such is art...”

Allison F. Walton
Curator, and co-owner of the FLOAT Gallery, Walton has been a lifelong artist and collector She will be displaying a xenon plasma robot head that is still awaiting a body. www.plasmasculpture.blogspot.com

About the opening party music:

Outlaw Dervish is World Lounge Music with Soul! Enjoy the stylings of Didjeridu Trip Hop, leaning into Deep Chill and Ambient sound with an Electro-Acoustic tint, immersed in sweet melodies and infectious rhythms. The group features Travis Wernet and Special Guests. www.cdbaby.com/cd/outlawdervish


About the painter:

Sally Rodriguez began painting in 2003 while living in Missoula, Montana, she is entirely self taught, and works in a wide variety of painting styles and mediums. Her work creates an ethereal experience filled with colorful characters and festive vibrancy.

Educated at the University of California Santa Cruz she holds a Bachelors degree in Women's Studies, with a minor in Latin American History.  Rodriguez, then 36 found artistic expression so powerful, that she has continued to explore reality through the ans of color, texture, and form.  Presently she works full time as an artist and a teacher. http://thefloatcenter.com/archive_415_515.html#gods
This exhibit is in partnership with: