Category Archives: Art
For Latin students, after declensions come mosaics
By Karla Herndon
You might think words like “exacting,” “painstaking,” “laborious” wouldn’t have much appeal to high school seniors just a few weeks away from graduation. With their college plans in place and their exams behind them, wouldn’t they be just as happy sitting around watching movies, signing yearbooks or just contemplating their favorite spot on the wall?
This year’s fourth year Latin students at Berkeley High were especially spent, their teacher flattened. Now that the school has added the International Baccalaureate, all the while maintaining its Advanced Placement offerings, the Latin kids find themselves riding two bucking broncos instead of the customary one. The language is the same, but the reading lists just don’t overlap very much. To keep the thing from falling into factions requires exceptional hard work, patience, fortitude: drinking from a fire hydrant. … Continue reading »
Who did the street art on Center Street?
[Update, 05.25.11: Some street art is short-lived. The wheatpaste works shown here have already disappeared to be replaced by other ones. See the new works on the What I Saw in Berkeley blog.]
Here on Artside Berkeleyside, we have a soft spot for street art. Tina Zhu came across the most recent interesting examples on the enticingly plain walls of the old university printing plant on Center Street and Oxford (which, appropriately, will be the new site of … Continue reading »
Six artists create “hanging forest” in Berkeley
By Manny Hernandez
[Update, 04.27.11: Watch a video of the "In the Forest" art installation.]
“Do not touch, please!” Ever heard that phrase at an art gallery? If you have, this Earth Day (and in fact, all of April and part of May) you should come by The Art Thou Gallery on 1861 Solano Ave. in Berkeley. A group of six artists from the East Bay have created In The Forest, an installation featuring 2D and 3D sculptures … Continue reading »
Street art watch: New images on Ashby shack
Now we have started, we can’t possibly stop.
Over the past year or so we have been keeping track of the revolving exhibition of street art on the side of the old photo shack at Ashby and Telegraph. Earlier this month it was an Edvard Munch-like scene of nuclear armageddon. Before that we documented what several readers interpreted as a depiction of road-killed deer — before it disappeared. And as far back as October … Continue reading »
A most unusual Haggadah on display in Berkeley
During World War II the man who drew the most piercing caricatures of Adolf Hitler was himself a Jew who had escaped from Nazi-dominated Europe.
Arthur Szyk, who was born in Poland in 1894 and who moved to the United States in 1941, drew international attention for his drawings that lampooned the Axis powers. His work was exhibited at the 1939 World’s Fair in New York, appeared in popular magazines like Time, Collier’s and Esquire, and was reproduced on posters and postcards.
But some of Szyk ‘s work also had a religious tone, and this will be the subject of a talk by Irvin Ungar at Afikomen on Claremont Avenue on April 14th at 5:30 pm. In the 1930s, Szyk made 48 drawings to illustrate a Haggadah, the book Jews use during the Passover service. While the book recounted the Jews’ escape from Egypt and 40 years of wandering, Szyk also included a modern, political touch. … Continue reading »
Street art watch: New image at Ashby and Telegraph
As was mentioned earlier this week, the Berkeley street art scene can be hard to keep up with. And we’re only focusing on one spot.
Berkeleysider “danfang”, author of What I Saw in Berkeley Today, posted the photo above of another image which was put up on the wall of the former photo lab at the corner of Ashby and Telegraph. She writes: “If Munch were alive today he might have described our sorrow about Japan’s … Continue reading »
Street art: Now you see it, now you don’t
Berkeleyside has been keeping tabs on the street art that pops up on the old photo shop at the corner of Ashby and Telegraph. It’s a constantly evolving canvas — to the extent that, since this photo was taken by kukkurovaca, and submitted to the Berkeleyside Flickr pool, that bounding deer (if that is what it is) has already disappeared.
“Mostly I just make cups”: Artist highlights impact of war
By Susan Anglin
Berkeley ceramicist Ehren Tool is less concerned with our position on war, than with making sure that all non-veterans are made very aware of its consequences.
Tool’s vehicle for achieving this end are the thousands upon thousands of clay cups he has thrown, decorated and fired over more than a decade.
Tool has experienced war first-hand. He served as a Marine during Desert Shield and Desert Storm in 1991, leaving the Corps in 1994.
His art … Continue reading »
Discoveries while prepping the garden for spring
Berkeleysider Diana Howard created this sketch of what she found while preparing the dirt in her garden for planting this spring.
“I am particularly excited about seeing a Rufous hummingbird, which is a new one for me (usually you get the Allen’s or Anna’s kind). Don’t know how I feel about that scary-looking (yellow & black) Jerusalem cricket though,” she wrote.
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