Claremont Creek south of John Muir School is usually fenced off to keep children away from the water. But Rachel Harris, who teaches gardening and science at John Muir Elementary School had opened the fence to teach basket weaving to a class of 15 fourth and fifth grade girls. Harris was showing her students how to soften the tule reeds in water and … Continue reading »]]>

Rachel Harris soaks tule reeds on Claremont Creek. Photo: Sandy Friedland

Sandy Friedland, who walks all around Berkeley, spotted an unusual sight Saturday on her early morning stroll.

Claremont Creek south of John Muir School is usually fenced off to keep children away from the water. But Rachel Harris, who teaches gardening and science at John Muir Elementary School had opened the fence to teach basket weaving to a class of 15 fourth and fifth grade girls. Harris was showing her students how to soften the tule reeds in water and then weave them. She sat on the bank of the creek to demonstrate the technique.

The students belong to the Girls Outdoor Club, which introduces them to nature. In the process, they learn about themselves, Harris told Friedland.  The club is sponsored by the Open Circle Foundation, an East Bay organization dedicated to trying  “to improve the quality of life in a community, and enhance the human experience of the natural or urban environment.”

“This sighting made my regular morning walk quite special,” said Friedland.

By Frances Dinkelspiel. | Permalink | 2 comments |
Post tags: John Muir Elementary School, Rachel Harris, Sandy Friedland

Just as with the new Magnes, which unveiled its new space on Sunday, BAM/PFA is to be housed in a 1920s-era 1939 building originally designed as a printing plant for UC Berkeley. It is located at 2120 Oxford Street at Center Street, in the heart of downtown.

Is it not fitting that, … Continue reading »]]>

The old printing plant in downtown that will one day be home to the Berkeley Art Museum. All photos: David Stark Wilson

Call it “beautiful decay”: these stunning photographs, taken by David Stark Wilson, show the interiors of the future home of the Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive (BAM/PFA).

Just as with the new Magnes, which unveiled its new space on Sunday, BAM/PFA is to be housed in a 1920s-era 1939 building originally designed as a printing plant for UC Berkeley. It is located at 2120 Oxford Street at Center Street, in the heart of downtown.

Is it not fitting that, as the demand for printed thesis, documents, books and monographs has waned, the engine rooms that produced these volumes are now being put to good use while remaining in the cultural realm?

(...)

Read the rest of The “before” pictures: Berkeley Art Museum/PFA (183 words)

By Tracey Taylor. | Permalink | 7 comments |
Post tags: BAM/PFA, Berkeley Art Museum, David Stark Wilson, Diller Scofidio + Renfro, WA Design

When Peter Selz arrived in Berkeley in 1965, the university only had a small art gallery to display its modest collection of art. Selz had been recruited from the Museum of Modern Art in New York City to oversee the construction of a new, contemporary museum, the Berkeley Art Museum on Bancroft Way.

He did that and more. With Selz at the helm, the Berkeley Art Museum redefined many aspects of modern art and brought overdue attention to … Continue reading »]]>

When Peter Selz arrived in Berkeley in 1965, the university only had a small art gallery to display its modest collection of art. Selz had been recruited from the Museum of Modern Art in New York City to oversee the construction of a new, contemporary museum, the Berkeley Art Museum on Bancroft Way.

He did that and more. With Selz at the helm, the Berkeley Art Museum redefined many aspects of modern art and brought overdue attention to California artists.

Selz was already “something of a star,” when he arrived in Berkeley, according to Paul J. Karlstrom, whose new book, Peter Selz: Sketches of a Life, has just been released by UC Press. He had been one of the first curators to trumpet the work of Mark Rothko. His star grew even brighter in Berkeley after he put on groundbreaking shows such as “Directions in Kinetic Sculpture,” an exhibition of the Surrealist René Magritte, and Funk!, which showcased ceramicist Peter Voulkos, Bruce Conner, and other California artists. Selz, who had fled Germany during the Nazi regime, also created the Pacific Film Archive.(...)

Read the rest of Book explores impact of Berkeley Art Museum’s Peter Selz (305 words)

By Frances Dinkelspiel. | Permalink | One comment |
Post tags: Berkeley Art Museum, Bruce Conner, Deborah Kirshman, Malcolm Margolin, Mark Rothko, Pacific Film Archive, Paul J Karlstrom, Peter Selz, Peter Voulkos, Rene Magritte, Richard Nagler

The de Young Museum’s compelling retrospective exhibition of the sculpture of Berkeley’s Stephen De Staebler opened nine months too late for the artist to see it. The De Young’s American Art curator, Timothy Anglin Burgard, worked actively with De Staebler to mount the exhibition, but unfortunately De Staebler died in May 2011 before the show was completed.

De Staebler, who was born in 1933, became a figurative sculptor at a time when such works were … Continue reading »]]>

Figure with Lost Torso. Photo: Emily Mendel

By Emily S. Mendel

The de Young Museum’s compelling retrospective exhibition of the sculpture of Berkeley’s Stephen De Staebler opened nine months too late for the artist to see it. The De Young’s American Art curator, Timothy Anglin Burgard, worked actively with De Staebler to mount the exhibition, but unfortunately De Staebler died in May 2011 before the show was completed.

De Staebler, who was born in 1933, became a figurative sculptor at a time when such works were déclassé. One of his teachers at the famous Black Mountain College in North Carolina was Robert Motherwell, a leading voice of the Abstract Expressionist movement, who wanted De Staebler to shift from figurative work to the abstract school. De Staebler decided not to take Motherwell’s advice.

Instead, De Staebler benefitted from working with pioneering ceramist Peter Voulkos, who, in the late 1950s, had founded the ceramics department at the UC Berkeley. Voulkos, who was instrumental in turning ceramics into a vital art form, rather than the second-string craft it had been thought to be, introduced De Staebler to clay and kiln techniques. Since his childhood was spent in Missouri’s countryside, De Staebler had a strong tactile, and deeply symbolic connection with clay.(...)

Read the rest of Matter + Spirit: The Sculpture of Stephen De Staebler (282 words)

By guest. | Permalink | 3 comments |
Post tags: de Young Musuem, Stephen de Staebler

The building, which was … Continue reading »]]>

The Magnes Collection of Jewish Art & Life is housed in a 1920s former printing plant on Allston Way. Photos: Tracey Taylor

On Sunday, the doors will open to a new cultural institution in Berkeley. The many thousands of books, paintings, prints, textiles, and photographs that make up The Magnes Collection of Jewish Art & Life – which was formerly located in an early 20th-century family home on Russell Street in the Elmwood neighborhood — will now be readily accessible to the public in a beautifully renovated, centrally located 25,000 sq ft space at 2121 Allston Way.

The building, which was designed in the 1920s as a printing plant for UC Berkeley, was most recently used by UC’s Bancroft Library, with whom the Magnes now partners. Before that, the Berkeley Public Library occupied the space. Marks left by book stacks on the stained, maple-colored concrete floors bear the stamp of the building’s history.

The heart of the new museum is an open exhibition space featuring elm wood and glass, transparency and warmth being key to the space's design

The building has been transformed by San Francisco architects Pfau Long in collaboration with local design and fabrication company Picassa Studios. The goal, said the museum’s Director Alla Efimova, was to create a warm, inviting place with an emphasis on transparency.

“We wanted an open space with a good flow where the community could spend time discovering the collection,” she said.(...)

Read the rest of Berkeley’s new Magnes building to be unveiled on Sunday (718 words)

By Tracey Taylor. | Permalink | 8 comments |
Post tags: Alla Efimova, Magnes Museum, Pfau Long, Picassa Studios, The Magnes Collection of Jewish Art & Life

“It’s just sitting there,” Juana Alicia said. “It seems such a pity.”

After years of frustration, Alicia turned to the web-based funding platform Kickstarter to raise the $5,000 needed to … Continue reading »]]>

Huehuetlatolli, Wisdom of the Elders: one of the bas relief ceramic tiles by Juana Alicia for the mural intended for the Helios senior housing on Sacramento

In 2004 Berkeley muralist Juana Alicia embarked on a commission for the Helios Corner senior housing on Sacramento and University. She completed the work in 2008, but since then the ceramic panels have languished in boxes at the housing complex because of lack of budget to install the art.

“It’s just sitting there,” Juana Alicia said. “It seems such a pity.”

After years of frustration, Alicia turned to the web-based funding platform Kickstarter to raise the $5,000 needed to install the 10 monumental ceramic panels of her work. At time of writing, 17 backers had donated $521. If the $5,000 isn’t raised by November 20, the project will fail.

The work is entitled “Huehuetlatolli: Wisdom of the Elders”, after a series of poems by the Berkeley-based poet Rafael Jesús Gonzalez. According to Alicia, “The murals honor our nature and the natural world from which we come. They portray the five elements: air, water, fire, earth and the soul, with images of elder men and women speaking to young men and women.”(...)

Read the rest of Muralist seeks funds to install art installation (134 words)

By lance. | Permalink | 3 comments |
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“Manhattan Island has become more and more an exclusive place for the … Continue reading »]]>

Berkeley artist Eric Drooker drew this New Yorker cover

The artist Eric Drooker, a New York native and Berkeley resident, has been following the Occupy Wall Street protests closely, posting numerous updates on his Facebook page and even designing posters that can be used by participants. This week The New Yorker is featuring one of Drooker’s drawings, a gloomy, moody picture of an urban skyline dominated by smokestacks and a strange sphinx-like bull at the top.

“Manhattan Island has become more and more an exclusive place for the super wealthy, or the super corporations—and a hostile place for people to live, not just for the working class, but even for the middle class,” Drooker said on The New Yorker web site. “The city has become this monolithic cathedral to money.”

Drooker, who has drawn regularly for the The New Yorker since 1994, sent in the picture a year ago, according to Berkeleyan Paul Rauber, who spoke with Drucker’s wife.

“Spoke to his wife this morning; she said he’d sent this in almost a year ago, but it was ruled ‘too dark’,” Rauber wrote on his Facebook page. “Sometimes, I guess, you just have to wait for the zeitgeist to catch up with you.”(...)

Read the rest of Berkeley artist captures mood of Wall Street protestors (75 words)

By Frances Dinkelspiel. | Permalink | 18 comments |
Post tags: Eric Drooker, Occupy Wall Street, Paul Rauber, The New Yorker

The works are based on printed media depictions of current events, ranging from the Haitian earthquake to the Arab Spring demonstrations in Cairo to labor protests in … Continue reading »]]>

Students in the Advanced Painting and Drawing class show their collaborative work. Photo: Eric Norberg

“The Human Condition”, an exhibition of large charcoal drawings by Berkeley High students is on display at the Addison Street Windows Gallery until September 15. The drawings were done by collaborative groups of three or four students in the Advanced Painting and Drawing class in the Academic Choice school at BHS last semester.

The works are based on printed media depictions of current events, ranging from the Haitian earthquake to the Arab Spring demonstrations in Cairo to labor protests in Wisconsin.

Course instructor Eric Norberg created the project to get his students to recognize the value and possibilities from working collectively as well as thinking independently. It was also a study on the power of photojournalism, whose visual commentary can open eyes to the human condition of real life issues.

Exhibits in the gallery, which is located on Addison Street between Milvia and Shattuck, can be viewed 24 hours a day from the sidewalk, and are free and wheelchair accessible.

By lance. | Permalink | No comment |
Post tags: Addison Street Windows Gallery

On Saturday at 4 p.m., Selz will moderate a panel with several of the artists featured in Abstract Visions, including Gary Edward Blum, Donna Brookman, Bruce Hasson, Kevan Jenson, Naomie Kremer, Keiko Nelson, and Gloria Tanchelev. After the panel, each of the artists will … Continue reading »]]>

Blue #6 by Eva Bovenzi

The Berkeley Art Center is celebrating the centennial of abstract painting with an exhibit curated by Peter Selz, one of the founders of the Berkeley Art Museum and an expert in German Expressionism.

On Saturday at 4 p.m., Selz will moderate a panel with several of the artists featured in Abstract Visions, including Gary Edward Blum, Donna Brookman, Bruce Hasson, Kevan Jenson, Naomie Kremer, Keiko Nelson, and Gloria Tanchelev. After the panel, each of the artists will offer brief remarks about their works on view. Marlena Donahue will be a guest speaker.

“Abstract art has evolved from its original and utopian stance in the early 20^th century to its present vibrant position,” wrote Selz. “Refuting the digital display of the current moment, abstract paintings are simply pictures, brushed by the hand of the artist, in which emotional intuition is framed by the artist’s rational mind into dynamic metaphors.”

The Berkeley Art Center is located at 1275 Walnut Street, Berkeley.

By Frances Dinkelspiel. | Permalink | One comment |
Post tags: Berkeley Art Center, Berkeley Art Museum, Bruce Hasson, Donna Brookman, Eva Bovenzi, Keiko Nelson, Kevan Jenson, Marlena Donahue, Naomie Kremer, Peter Selz

Berkeleyan Diana Howard caught the patient mien of several dogs on College Avenue yesterday as they waited for their owners to run errands or buy lunch. “I’m experimenting with magic markers for easy color,” she reports.

See more of Howard’s Berkeley sketches.

By Tracey Taylor. | Permalink | One comment | Post tags: