Art Alumni Group

MEET UP!

2012-01-22T21:53:00.000-08:00

Do Join Us

Tuesday, January 24th 5:00 p.m.

@ PICANTE

6th & Gilman in Berkeley

Come and share New Plans for the New Year

New Projects

New Shows

New Follies

...and bring a friend!

Deborah Kennedy: Installation in "The Fine Art of Recycling"

2012-01-22T20:56:00.000-08:00

Hour of Decision, 2011, plastic

Oct. 22, 2011 - Mar. 31, 2012

Deborah Kennedy, eco artist and 1983 Cal alumna, has an installation in The Fine Art of Recycling, a show organized by the Triton Museum and held at the Santa Clara City Hall.

Stephanie Peek: Certain Riches

2012-01-16T10:48:00.000-08:00

Till Paradise II, 72” x 72” oil on canvas 2011

Judy Reed Photography

December 24, 2011 – March 3, 2012

555 California Street, Plaza Gallery (formerly The Bank of America Building), San Francisco CA 94104

Paintings can be viewed from the plaza, but due to security, please contact Jan Casey by email (caseart@earthlink.net) with your name and date of visit to enter the Plaza Lobby.

Jan Casey & Associates Art Advisors (415) 834-2394

Stephanie Peek

Spring Artist Lecture Series: Deborah Oropallo

2012-01-08T08:51:00.000-08:00

From the series HEROINE
FLASH
Pigment print on Paper
50"x38" 2011

Saturday, January 28, 4pm

In paintings and prints, Deborah Oropallo has forged inventive bodies of work which engage and challenge the viewer in reading the form and content. Fracturing or merging images, Oropallo renders relationships of power and position which point to societal norms and subtexts.

$10 general admission, free for BAC members and students.
RSVPs are strongly encouraged by calling 510.644.6893 or e-mail annw@berkeleyartcenter.org

Matter + Spirit: The Sculpture of Stephen De Staebler

2012-01-07T10:33:00.000-08:00

Left: Thorax Figure, 2008. Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, promised gift of the estate of Stephen De Staebler. Photo: Scott McCue, courtesy of Dolby Chadwick Gallery, San Francisco. Center: Yoke Winged Man, 1994. Collection of Russ Solomon, Sacramento. Photo: Scott McCue. Right: Stephen De Staebler, Blue Face with White Stripe, 1971. Estate of Stephen De Staebler. Photo: Philip Ringler. All artwork © Estate of Stephen De Staebler.

January 14, 2012 - April 22, 2012

For more than 50 years, Stephen De Staebler (1933–2011) created figurative sculptures primarily from clay—a medium derived from the primordial earth. Drawing inspiration from fundamental childhood experiences with nature, a transformative adolescent encounter with mortality, and adult studies in the histories of art and religion, he explored and extended a tradition of human representation that includes the religious monuments of ancient Egypt, the Renaissance humanism of Michelangelo’s finished and unfinished figures, and the modern existentialism expressed in the works of Alberto Giacometti. Matter + Spirit, installed in the American art galleries, includes 55 of De Staebler’s works.

Aspects of a New Kind of Realism: Group Exhibition with Squeak Carnwath

2012-01-07T10:06:00.000-08:00

Squeak Carnwath
Self
2000
Oil and alkyd on canvas
80 x 80 inches

On Saturday evening, Squeak will be in New Orleans where a group show with three of her paintings will open at Arthur Roger Gallery. If you happen to be anywhere near 432 Julia Street, New Orleans, LA 70130; 504-522-1999; please visit Aspects of a New Kind of Realism, curated by Michael Klein. The opening is this Saturday, January 7, 2012, from 6:00 to 8:00pm. The show will remain on view until February 18, 2012.

For information about upcoming shows and other places to see the artwork of Squeak Carnwath, please visit her website at http://www.squeakcarnwath.com and look for her calendar.

Spaces of Life: The Art of Sonya Rapoport

2012-01-07T08:49:00.000-08:00

Stephanie Peek at SFMOMA Artists Gallery

2011-11-03T18:17:00.000-07:00

S T E P H A N I E P E E K
C E R T A I N R I C H E S

November 11–December 22, 2011

Opening Reception: Saturday, November 12, 1-5 p.m.
SFMOMA Artists Gallery
Building A, Fort Mason Center
San Francisco, CA 94123
415.441.4777
http://www.sfmoma.org/visit/artists_gallery

Hours: Tues. through Sat. 11:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m.

see more of Stephanie's work at her website:
http://stephaniepeek.com/

UC Berkeley Art Alumni Symposium IX

2011-08-31T10:16:00.000-07:00

HELP: Facing and Fielding Transitions

Saturday, October 15^th, 2011 - 9 am – 4 pm

160 Kroeber Hall

FREE and OPEN to the Public

Geared toward artists at all levels, this free symposium will explore ways of composing a career in a shifting landscape. Panelist of varied experience will address their histories and perceptions regarding exhibitions, gallery relationships, networks, critical written discussions, residencies, mentors, and legacy. Featured speakers include:

Participants are invited to enjoy lunch ($12 – RSVP appreciated) and a reception following the second session. For more information, to register, or to RSVP for lunch, please email: calartalumni@gmail.com

Carol Ladewig

2011-05-29T21:32:00.000-07:00

Open Studios – June 4 & 5 – 11am to 6pm 

3246 Ettie Street, #15 – Oakland, CA 94608 

Image: Simple Construction 1, Monoprint, 28 x 22 Inches, 2010  (Photo: Phil Cohen)  

Current Exhibitions   

Small Miracles 

San Pablo Art Gallery 

13831 San Pablo Ave – Maple Hall in San Pablo Civic Center 

Open Sat & Sun - Noon to 4pm - Through June 19   

Art Passages 

Contra Costa County Community Colleges Faculty 

CoCoCo Administration Bldg, Gallery 651 - 651 Pine Street, Martinez 

Open Monday thru Friday, 9am to 5pm   

CCA Alumni Exhibition Series 

Brava Theater 

2781 24th Street - The Mission, San Francisco 

Open during performances only   

Work can also be seen at KALA in the Smullen Print & Media Study Center - 2990 San Pablo Avenue, Berkeley, contact Andrea Voinot -510.841.7000, x 206 or andrea@kala.org

2011-05-29T21:30:00.000-07:00

2011 Juried Photography Shows

2011-05-16T22:27:00.001-07:00

Louis DeLuco BA '74, has been selected for the a great number of juried photography exhibits this year:

Bystander, Working With Artists -FLASH Gallery, Lakewood, CO. April 29 - June 11, 2011.

Early Morning after Dark, MLPS Photo Center, Minneapolis, MN, Exhibition Dates: June 24 - August 13, 2011.

The Halpert Biennial '11, Turchin Center for the Visual Arts, Appalachian State University, Boone NC, July 1 - December 3, 2011.

Alumni Involvement in Spring 2011 Auctions

2011-04-13T21:31:00.000-07:00

Among the Cal alumni taking part in auctions this spring were Shirin Neshat and Mary Heilmann, who contributed to the 30th Anniversary celebration for BOMB in New York City.

The upcoming KALA Auction in Berkeley has in it art works contributed by Donna Brookman, Enrique Chagoya, Lewis deSoto, Stephen deStaebler, Nancy Genn, Sheile Ghidini, Tom Holland, Randy Hussong, Cynthia Ona Innis, Carol Ladewig, Kara Maria, Jim Melchert, Matt Mullins, Deborah Oropallo, and Inez Storer.

April 2011 Alumni News

2011-04-03T17:05:00.000-07:00

Robert Armstrong, Exhibiting mixed media show, “Meanwhile…and…Likewise” at the Barbara Anderson Gallery from April 9 to May 7 and has a show at the Garage Gallery for three weekends starting April 9.

Jo Whaley’s “Theater of Insects” will be at Santa Clara University from April 9 to June 12.

_____________________________________________________________

The Gallery Paule Anglim in San Francisco is exhibiting shows by two former and beloved members of the faculty, i.e., Emeritus Professor of Art Robert Hartman and the late Joan Brown until April 30^th.

KQED Review and Kala Gallery Press Release for Sonya Rapoport: Pairings of Polarities

2011-03-27T02:56:00.000-07:00

KQED Review

Kala Press Release

Meetup at the Pyramid Brewery (April 5, 2011)

2011-03-24T18:45:00.000-07:00

Pyramid Brewery in Berkeley

Tuesday April 5, 5:30-7:30

[901 Gilman Street Berkeley, CA 94710 (510) 528-9880]

2011-02-23T23:51:00.000-08:00

Censorship in the Arts:

A Trend or Just a Passing Fad

Panel Discussion

Saturday, February 26, 2:30pm

at the Performance Art Institute

Censorship is never over for those who have experienced it. It is a brand on the imagination that affects the individual who has suffered it, forever.

NADINE GORDIMER, 1990

Saturday, February 26, 2011, 2:30 p.m.

Performance Art Institute

575 Sutter Street, San Francisco, CA 94102

A program of two sessions, two moderators and seven panelists.

The Performance Art Institute in partnership with the First Amendment Project is proud to present Censorship in the Arts: A Trend or Just a Passing Fad, a public forum. Please join our panelists in a discussion about the rise of censorship and the renewed threats to abolish funding to the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA), National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH), and Public Broadcasting Service (PBS).

The urgency to engage the public in a debate about censorship started in earnest with the controversy surrounding the removal of the video, A Fire in My Belly from the Smithsonian's Hide/Seek: Difference and Desire in American Portraiture. The interest in freedom of speech and expression has spread and intensified beyond our shores in the wake of WikiLeaks, the house arrest and studio demolition of the Ai Wei Wei, and the spread of revolutionary fever sweeping the Middle East.

The forum sponsored by PAI and FAP is designed to delve into these concerns, inform the public about the recent censoring activities and address the threats that call for the termination of the NEA. Late January, 165 conservative members of Congress representing the Republican Study Committee called for termination of the NEA. When a similar battle was fought, the NEA's budget was cut by 39% and led to the end of awarding grants to individual artists.

The moderators will steer the debates in their respective sessions towards an exploration of issues that stem from the Smithsonian caving in to political pressure and discuss questions such as "What is the underlying objection to A Fire in my Belly? "Are we on the verge of seeing the comeback of culture wars in this country? Are museums appropriate forums for engaging in civic debates? Do curators and artists have an obligation to test the limits of fundamental civil liberties? What effects does self-censorship have on museum integrity? Is self-censorship ever justified? How resilient is the First Amendment? How did the First Amendment fare in the past? What encouragement do we draw from past landmark cases involving the First Amendment (Ulysses, Tropic of Cancer, Howl and more)? How real are the threats of eliminating the NEA, NEH, and PBS? What lessons can we draw from the Robert Mapplethorpe controversy and the uproar over NEA funding in 1989? And what about censorship in China? Why should we be concerned?

These are serious questions and disturbing trends that have a chilling effect throughout the art community in the Bay Area and beyond and; thus, require our engagement. This event is free and open to the public.

The slate of the two panels includes:

Ray Beldner, conceptual artist

Allan deSouza, artist and Associate Professor, Chair of New Genres at San Francisco Art Institute, who co-created an installation with Yong Song Min for the 2008 Guangzhou Triennale, which was subsequently censored by the museum with no explanation given.

Kenneth Foster, Executive Director of Yerba Buena Center for the Arts

David Greene, Executive Director of the First Amendment Project and professor of constitutional law at University of San Francisco

Art Hazelwood, artist, impresario and instigator, who integrates his art practice with curating and political activism

Justin Hoover, Curator and Gallery Director, SOMArts Cultural Center

Dr. Paul Karlstrom, former director of the American Archives of the Smithsonian on the West Coast and art historian

Jeff Kelley, Moderator of Session Two is the former curator of contemporary art of the San Francisco Asian Art Museum.

Laura Sydell, NPR correspondent who reports frequently on currents events in China

Jan Wurm, Moderator of Session One is a practicing artist and art educator

Participating and sponsoring organizations are:

Arc Gallery and Studios

California Exhibition Resources Alliance (CERA) is the sponsoring organization of the traveling show, Banned and Recovered: Artists Intervention

Di Rosa, Napa, CA

Intersection for the Arts

SOMArts Cultural Center

The First Amendment Project

Yerba Buena Center for the Arts

Contact Information for this event:

Hanna Regev (Tel: 415-566-7515)

Heather Smith (Tel: 415-501-0575

Symposium VIII: "Art Inside Out"

2010-10-14T18:29:00.000-07:00

This symposium is the 8^th in the annual series presented by the UC Berkeley Art Alumni Group: conversations with artists, gallerists, curators, and writers about surviving in today’s art world with improvisations, adaptations, and possibilities. This year’s symposium will be held in 102 Wurster on the UC Berkeley campus.
To pre-order lunch, use the paypal donate button and specify for lunch.

UC Berkeley Alumni Shows (June-October 2010)

2010-10-14T17:45:00.001-07:00

Thomas Akawie and Dean Smith

UC Berkeley graduates showing work in a group exhibition called Afterglow: Rethinking California Light and Space at the Wiegand Gallery in Belmont, CA. The show extends from September 23 to October 30.

Eve Aschheim

Exhibited at the Galleri Magnus Aklundh in Malmo, Sweden. April 23 - May 29. Eve teaches in the Creative and Performing Art Center at Princeton. 

Christopher Brown

Former UC Berkeley faculty member exhibiting solo show A Gardener’s Notebook at the John Berggruen Gallery from September 9 to October 30.

Wayne Campbell

Earned MFA at UC Berkeley in 1969. The artist has a show entitled Dreaming on Pillow Mountain from September 15 to October 29 at the Galeria Esther Montoriol in Barcelona. Campbell currently divides his time between New York and Barcelona.

Victor Cohen-Stuart

Earned MFA in 1972. The artist is showing new paintings at Slate Contemporary Art and Design Gallery in Oakland from September 3 to October 16.

Edythe Bresnahan

Exhibited work in Perspectives 2010, at the Stremmel Gallery in Reno, Nevada and at the Triangle Gallery in San Francisco

Donna Brookman

Had a solo exhibition at Thomas Paul Fine Art, Los Angeles opening on June 5, 2010 thru July 3, 2010

Carol Ladewig

Has work in On View: New Work from Kala, continuously features works on paper by artists affiliated with Kala Art Institute, Berkeley, CA and at Bocanova, in Jack London Square, Oakland, CA.

Charles Lindar

Received MFA in 1997. The artist released his book Good Cop/Bad Cop and held a show of photographs with the same name in July at the Ever Gold Gallery in San Francisco. His gallery, LINCART, participated in new San Francisco Art Fair, at Fort Mason, May 20 thru May 23.

Marvin Lipovsky

Former Faculty has work in Gifted Hands: The Fine Art of Craft at The Hearst Art Gallery, the Museum of Saint Mary’s College of California

Shirin Neshat

Directed a film, "Women Without Men". She co-wrote the screenplay with her husband. "This visually transfixing film, which originated as a video installation, has the feel of an exhibition of Ms. Neshat's work whose figures have stirred to life to play out a tragic feminist allegory."

Carla Paganelli

Alumna of 1996, Paganelli is showing works in a show titled Survey, held at the Edward Jones Office of Larry Kolka & Kevin Hills in Walnut Creek beginning October 21.

Brett Reichman

Former chair of and associate professor in the Painting department of the San Francisco Art Institute. Earned BFA at Carnegie Mellon University and MFA from UC Berkeley. Reichman had a solo show entitled Simulations at the Paule Anglim Gallery in San Francisco in September 2010.

Katherine Sherwood

Senior member of the Art Practice Department. Showed a new body of work, Healers from the Yelling Clinic, at the Paule Anglim Gallery from September 1 to September 25.

Mark Thompson

Was one of 14 sculptors and architects included in the First Site-based Art Exhibition Conceived for a National Park, which opened yesterday at the Presidio in SF. It will run until May 15, 2011.

Jo Whaley

Exhibited her work at the Photo-Eye booth at Art Chicago 2010.

Norton Wisdom

One of the twenty artists who meet for conversation once a week at the Café Van Kleef in Oakland. The City College Art Gallery in San Francisco will be showing their work from September 29 the October 28.

John Zurier

Has been awarded a Guggenheim fellowship.

Ceramics Annual of America

Held at Fort Mason from September 10-12 featured a monumental wall sculpture that Harold Paris (former professor) had made shortly after arriving at Cal in 1961. Other UC artists whose work was shown were Marilyn Levine (former professor, 1976-80), Jim Melchert (professor emeritus), Nancy Selvin (B.A. and M.A. in ceramics), Richard Shaw (current professor), Patrick Siler (M.F.A 1963), and Peter Voulkos (former professor, 1959-85 and founder of the art ceramics department).

Oral History Project video!

2010-10-01T21:22:00.000-07:00

Sonya Rapoport and Fred Martin interviewed for posterity! You could learn a lot from these amazing artists. check it out.

UC Berkeley Oral History Project video featuring Sonya Rapoport and Fred Martin, interviewed by Richard Candida Smith. Regional Oral History Office of The Bancroft Library of UC Berkeley.
© Copyright 2010 UC Regents

Digital Mudra Extended

2010-07-05T01:29:00.000-07:00

You really have to check out Sonya Rapoport's blog. Her latest this is just so right on. This piece investigates the relationships between the expressive hand gestures employed by public and political personalities, and those of Indian Kathakali dancers.

Here is an example:

Keep in touch! what are you doing?

Website Updates!

2010-03-22T16:17:00.000-07:00

Please excuse us while we update the website, and move it to the new, fast blogger format! Links and images need to be re-loaded and will not be working for a few days yet.

If you wish to contact the Art Alumni Group:
Email us to update your address or send news

Support the Art Alumni Group and its activities by making a donation.
We happily accept tax-deductible donations of any amount.
You may make donations on line vial PayPal, we even accept credit cards! See the button in the sidebar.

You may send us good old fashioned paper mail, checks, announcements to this address:

Art Alumni Group
c/o Department of Art Practice
345 Kroeber Hall, UC Berkeley
Berkeley, CA 94270

make checks payable to "Art Alumni Group"

We want to hear from you!

thanks so much

Alumni News 2009 Roundup!

2010-01-08T18:32:00.000-08:00

Some news from our talented alumni near and far:

Barbara Rogers "Traces 7" oil on canvas 36" x 48"

Barbara Rogers' show "Garden Archeology" was at Gerbert Gallery in June (see photo above) Robin (Fales) Repp BA '70 showed at the Huntington Beach Art Center last April, and had a one person exhibition of infrared photography at JWA Community Focus Gallery. Dennis Potter wrote us from Hsinchu, Taiwan where he is teaching high school and no doubt steering his students toward art.
“Uncertain Riches”, the gorgeous solo exhibition by Stephanie Peek MFA ‘96 showed at Triangle Gallery through October. Pat Adams exhibited her work at Bigtown Gallery in Vermont, alongside colleagues and friends in the "Masterworks" show.
Lynne Rutter re-launched her website in July, after several years of not doing it. Bill Dane has just enlarged his website, with lots of new work posted via Flickr.
And check out the awesome new website of Peter C. Roell BA 1969, MA 1971.
Andie Thrams still doesn't have a website, but you really should sign up for her email list so you can learn about her workshops, such as the upcoming Surface Design & Accordion Books class at San Francisco Center for the Book. Sandy Eastoak also has a great newsletter "Fish Rap" and you can sign up for it on her website.
Barbara Morris had several showings in the Marin area in 2009, and more are coming up! Check her website for the latest!

Nemo Gould created more kinetic sculpture and just plain fun at the 2009 Maker Faire. See a preview of his new coffee table book at Blurb.com now available for purchase! (YouTube Video above is Nemo's "Aztech" sculpture. ) Elaine Duncan's book "Feathered Space" is now available at amazon.com

Kara Maria had a solo show in June called "Inviting the Storm" at b. sakata garo, Sacramento. Stephen Laub was chosen by Donald Sultan for a show at the Parrish Art Museum in Southampton last Spring in a group show called "Mixed Greens: Artists Choose Artists on the East End."
Sonya Rapoport's recent artwork: "Manhood Manifesto" in the WikipediaArt Remix Project in the Padiglione Internet (Internet Pavilion) was included at the Venice Biennale through November 2009.
Michael McCollum has moved to Damariscotta, Maine, and recently produces a series of still-lifes called "I Vasi di Fiori." Pauletta Chanco is currently showing at the SFMoMA Artists Gallery at Fort Mason. Visit Ciel Bergman at her new studio on Lena St in Santa Fe, NM.
Bill Teeple's gallery in Fairfield, Iowa has evolved into a non-profit called ICON:Iowa Contemprary Art. Mark Johnson curated a very cool exhibition in October at San Francisco State called "Cartographic Imagination: Mapping in Contemporary California Art"

Lorene Anderson: Belt(way) acrylic, mica, casein, ink on canvas, 34 x 40"

Lorene Anderson showed her recent work at the room for painting room for paper gallery in San Francisco in August.
We are still waiting for Emily Duffy to post a picture of her 1984 Nissan Sentra painted a la Mondrian on her website, but she's got a nice artblog here full of other interesting things. Patrick Siler recently completed a mural covering the entire side of a downtown building in Pullman, WA. Last May Dorothy Robinson opened a solo show at the Slate Gallery, Williamsburg, Brooklyn.

Facebook Members: look for Cal Art Alumni discussion group as well as UC Berkeley Art Practice Events group (sorry there is no permalink for these)

October's Symposium on photography was a rousing success with many alumni and students in attendance. Nancy Genn hosted a small gathering of alumni and emeritus faculty at her home on a beautiful clear evening in December.

and with that we wind up the year... and look forward to 2010, and hearing from you.

Have a show, event, or announcement to make, please contact us!

7th Annual Symposium October 17, 2009

2009-07-19T15:31:00.000-07:00

It’s All About the Image
7th Annual Art Alumni Symposium, October 17, 2009

Don Worth, “Self-Portrait, Mount Tamalpais”, 1969

Saturday, October 17, 9am to 4pm
160 Kroeber Hall, UC Berkeley
The symposium is free and open to the public.

Lunch will be available: $10.00 in Garron Reading Room

The seventh annual U.C. Art Alumni Symposium “It’s All About the Image” will explore the changing nature and use of photographic images from the sixties to now. Discussions will range from the groups f64 and Visual Dialogue Foundation to the current digital world and the use of photographic images across media.
Participants include: Lauren Davies, Robert Hartman, Taro Hattori, George Lawson, Darwin Marable, Gay Outlaw, John Spence Weir, Hertha D Sweet Wong, and Katherine Westerhout.

Your 2009 Symposium Committee: Carol Ladewig, Chair; Edythe Bresnahan; Marion Gray; Raymond Holbert; and Darwin Marable

Jo Whaley at MoPA

2009-06-07T20:12:00.001-07:00

Jo Whaley MFA '80 has a show on at Museum of Photographic Arts, San Diego
her solo exhibit is entitled The Theater of Insects and runs May 16 to September 27, 2009.
Those in Northern California can check out the show at the Sonoma County Museum
this fall- October 2009-January 2010

Her lovely book, The Theater of Insects, is now published by Chronicle Books with photographs by Jo Whaley, essays by Debra Klotchko and Linda Wiener.

Congratulations to the Class of 2009!

2009-05-26T11:57:00.000-07:00

The Art Alumni Welcome our newest alumni artists! Congratulations!
If this looks like a lot of people- it IS! this is one of the largest classes in the department's history.

Bachelor Degrees:
Amber Alexander, Jonothan Felipe Araquistain, Panthea Barheri, Stephanie Lane Barringer, Cheryl Susanne Bently, Paul Matthew Braun, Nicole Marie Brown, Lauren Olivia Burke, Deanna Bustamante, Emmalee Ann Carroll, Kin-Hoi Chan, Lucilla Chan, Winnie Shih-Wen Chao, Crystal Chen, Grace Chow, Nichola Frank Cienfuegos (Phi Beta Kappa ), Georgia Neill Clark, Nhung Thi Dao, Shanna Lanajo Darett, Ashley Lauren Davidson, Andrea Lynn Delany, Meredeth Nicole DuVardo, Tania Erdmann, Vincent Espinoza, Mani Farr, Elizabeth Anne Fenwick, Zachary Fleming-Boyles, Emily Salzman Frost, Alysse Nicole Gallo, Obadiah Nehemiah Hampton, Kristin Dennise Harris, Hectoe Omar Hernandez, Thatcher Barwick Hillegas, Kyoko Hirota (Phi Beta Kappa ), Shannon Leigh Holloway, Jonothan Martin Hubbard, Nathan Huebert, Clare Estelle Hutchinson, Daien Johanson, Marguerite Kalhor, Mickey Kay, Katherine Kazlauskas, Patch Kientz, Sarah Jin Kim, Harumi Klaiber, Angela Raelene Knowles, Ping Kuang, Zachary Laher, Brittany Jean Law, Agnes Hyen-Jeong Lee, Jiayi Liang, Jeannie Lin, Shou June Lin, Nicholas Locicero, Brendean Kelly Luce, Elaine Ly, Sinead Madden, Katherine Madrigal, Jon Rico Marcelli, Jason Mark, Robert Vincent McClusky, Scott McInnis, Nahae Moon, Tina Maria Moreno, Stephanie Asika Moir, Dominic Hoang Nguyen (Phi Beta Kappa ), Veronica Lynn Nisperos, Krystal Chinyere Nzoiwu, Jae Lauren Payne, Heather Nicole Pedroza, John Lloyd Pinches, Rosa Maria Poggesi, Hillary Pollack, Ellen Price, Christine Rasmussen, Aileen Buko-Paz Ritchie, Melodee Selise Robinson, Angelica Abigail Rodriguez, Morgan Rubin, Jon Richard Running, Lillian Bella Sabersky, Elisa Linda Saether (Phi Beta Kappa), Toshiko Chun Yee Shek, Richard Maxfield Segnitz (Phi Beta Kappa), Maya Swanson, Sunaina Hussainali Talbani, Caitlin Marie Thompson, Zachary Andrew Tomaszewski (Phi Beta Kappa), Leann Elizabeth Toomey, Elzabeth Tracey, Justine Louise Travers, Galen Jude Travis, Lila Tretikov, Minisha Trivedi, Carolyn Joy Tuchel, Cesar Valdez, Jasmine Vasquez, Stephanie Michele Villegas, Niles Edward Ward, Megan Allred Weirich, David Fisk Whitaker, Stacy Wilkinson, Evelyn May Williamson, Libby Winsor, Lisa Robin Wong, Joni Michiko Yamashiro, Mani Yahyavi, Jing Jenny Zhang, Cassandra Lynn Zwart.

MFA Graduates:
Ginger Wolfe-Suarez , Sara Bright awarded Calder Hayer/Tevis Jacobs/BAM Council Founders Prize, Laura Greig recipient of the J. Ruth Kelsey traveling merit award, Farley Gwazda , Aaron Maietta-deHaven awarded the Headlands Center for the Arts- One Year Residency for 2009-10, Lydia Greer recipient of the Harry Ford Lord Award.

A Departmental Citation was awarded to Angela Knowles, the Theresa Hak Kyung Cha Award was given to Dominic Nguyen, the Wendy Sussman Prize in Painting was awarded to Brittany Law, and David Whitaker was the recipient of this year's Art Alumni Award for the Leadership in the Art Community.

Sonya Rapoport: "(in)AUTHENTIC : War, Woman, Jew"

2009-04-30T10:04:00.000-07:00

Sonya Rapoport will be exhibiting her net artwork "(in)AUTHENTIC : War, Woman, Jew" at the University of Wisconsin's upcoming Conney Conference, "Performing Histories, Inscribing Jewishness" to be held April 22-24, 2009.

A brief synopsis of the project from an interview with Sonya Rapoport:

It was probably in 1999 that I was introduced to French feminist Luce Irigaray's critical writings. They inspired me to consider the female as a displaced person. My previous art projects had come from the perspective of masculine emulation of feminine attributes.

For my new adventure I copied excerpts of Irigaray's criticism of the Freudian castration dogma, a psychoanalytic theory that presumes the female to be an aborted male. I then contrived a dialogic exchange between Irigaray and Freud by transferring the Freudian quotations that Irigaray had used in her chapters and gave Freud back his own voice, free from Irigaray's sentences .The text had been extracted from Luce Irigaray's Speculum of the Other Woman. During the same time period I was reading Jean-Paul Sartre's Anti-Semite and Jew. I roguishly threw him into the contentious pool as the third author to participate in the discussion. Other than both books having French origin, they are very different.

About eight years later, I returned to the work to incorporate the material into a more complex net artwork. On the worktable before me lay a collage of printed text that was comprised of ten sets of a terse interchange among the three authors.

I had tried to keep the original sentences intact with minimal editing while at the same time I was selecting passages for their logical associations between woman and Jew. I had intuitively extracted a common denominator of displacement/outsider. A year or so later, after I had accrued an array of images that related to the concept of (in)AUTHENTIC, electronic artist Robert Edgar and I collaborated to create an interactive website that builds itself while you watch it. Thus it was fashioned into one of Edgar's Memory Theatres. Memory Theatres were first formulated in the sixteenth century by Giulio Camillo as a way to sense the structure of the cosmos through painting, text, and architecture. Robert Edgar composed the first implementation of a memory theatre on a computer in the mid-1980s on an Apple //. We selected and categorized images, texts and vocalizations, and loaded them into the engine of the memory theatre. The text is read in English by German and French natives.

Freud's view of the female as a masochistic castrated male triggered in me a recognition of the association of gender displacement and the "in-authentic woman." Jean-Paul Sartre's "in-authentic Jew" in his book Anti-Semite and Jew, claims that the in-authentic Jew's self-hatred stems from anti-Semitism and circularly, the in-authentic Jew is a rationale for anti-Semitism.

Robert Edgar and I introduced into the web piece an animated military tank for navigating through the contentious material landscape. The tank robot evolves as a physical and psychological intermediary. The aggressive intent of the piece and the phallic symbol of the tank play the gender counterpart to the female. It seemed appropriate to use the tanks' functions as thematic headings for each of the ten sets of topical discourse.

The concept of theatre on the website (in) AUTHENTIC takes on two meanings: in one sense it is a theatre of memory; in another sense it is a theatre of war. Within these coextensive theatres, the army tank moves between what is authentic and what is inauthentic as found in the aggressive environments of Sonya Rapoport's personal cosmology of gender, race, science, and mythology. The ten given fields of tank function, and their representations are presented under the headings Shift, Hidden, (Un)seen, Masochism, Impenetrability, Duality, Phallic, Gouge, Despoil, and Cover- words culled from excerpts of the disparate texts by Freud, Irigaray, and Sartre. These categories are further linked with associated images of outsiders, outcasts, and plights of women from Guinea, Iraq, India, Darfur, Bosnia, and the United States. Nigerian hairstyle codes, Jungian symbology, and mitochondrial mitigations further enhance visual and symbolic associations.

Expanding upon the theme's message the Nigerian hair-styles are imposed on the women's portraits. Because the mitochondrion is inherited exclusively through the female it represents the scientific aspect to the work. Alchemical imagery is interwoven conceptually and visually with mitochondrial processes.

(The exhibition will present a video of the unfolding net artwork).

2009 Juried Photography shows

2009-02-24T09:33:00.000-08:00

Louis De Luco "Store Fronts"

Louis DeLuco BA '74, has been selected for the a great number of juried photography exhibits this year:

Annual Bay Area Juried Exhibition Falkirk Cultural Center. Exhibition Dates: March 27 - May 30, 2009
Opening Reception: Friday, March 27, 5:30 -7:30 pm . Address: 1408 Mission Avenue, San Rafael, CA.

36th National Juried Photography Exhibition Larson Gallery, Yakima Community College, Yakima, WA. April 3 - May 2, 2009.

Mind's Eye The Center for Fine Art Photography, Fort Collins, CO. May 29 - June 20, 2009.
See the selected works here: Mind's Eye

The Halpert Biennial '09, Turchin Center for the Visual Arts, Appalachian State University, Boone NC,
May 1 - August 29, 2009.

as well as the recent:

Depth of Perception, 4th National Juried Photography Exhibition, Marin Museum of Contemporary Art, Novato, CA, Jan 31 - Mar 1, 2009
Juror: Linda Connor, San Francisco Art Institute

Pro Arts Gallery, Oakland Juried Annual 2009
Selections by Ali Subotnick, Hammer Museum, Los Angeles, CA
February 17 - March 22
selected artists:
Stephen Albair, Peter Andrea, Alexis Babayan, Jenny E. Balisle, Robert
Blackburn, Louis DeLuco, Pamela Merory Dernham, Adam Friedman, Richard
Gilles, Julia Goodman, Ira Hawkins, John Hundt, Harley Jensen, Bill
Lo, Seth Lower, Mary Alison Lucas, Katie McCann, Jill McLennan, Emily
McLeod, Glenna Mills, Kate Moore, Mary Mortimer, Laura Sackett, Sanjit
Sethi, Amy Todd, Susan Tuttle, Holly Wach, Jan Watten, Susan Wolf.

"Translation" at Steven Wolf Fine Arts

2009-02-13T16:12:00.000-08:00

Translation
by Molly Springfield
February 13 - March 21, 2009

Steven Wolf Fine Arts
49 Geary Street, # 411
San Francisco
(415) 263-3677

On February 13, Molly Springfield will debut her own "translation," entirely in the form of drawings, of the first chapter of Marcel Proust's In Search of Lost Time, pieced together from every English translation of the novel.

Opening: Friday, February 13 from 5:30 to 7:30 pm
Panel Discussion: Saturday, February 14, 2:00 to 3:30 pm

The project consists of 28 individual drawings of photocopies of sequential pages from the first chapter of the book. This patchwork results in the repetition and omission of text from page to page, resolving into an incomplete and not-fully-readable rendition of the original.

On February 14, join the artist, Joshua Landy (professor of French and co-director of the Literature and Philosophy Initiative at Stanford University) and Kriston Capps (critic and reporter for the Guardian, Art Papers, and Art in America, among other publications), for a panel discussion.

more at Moly Sringfield's website

Call for Entries: Disability Art Festival at the DeYoung

2009-01-12T15:27:00.000-08:00

Alumna Vanessa Castro BA'03 send in this announcement which may be of interest. Please respond to the addresses below.

"Entries are being sought for the Disability Art Festival at the De Young Museum in San Francisco, which will be at the end of March 2009. We are sill looking for artists with disabilities to submit their work and get a chance to have their masterpieces displayed during the festival.

The last day to enter is Friday, January, 30, 2009. The artists can send their work in electronically to Trish Brown at tbrown@famsf.org . Entries that are sent electronically must be formatted size to 4’ x 6’, resolution 300 DPI, and send as JPG.

You may also send it by surface mail to
Trish Brown
De Young Museum
50 Tea Garden Drive
San Francisco, Ca 94118.

All artists entering must include their name, year it was created, the medium, the dimensions, and a 45 word statement about themselves. If you have any questions, please feel free to email me at nessnessva@aol.com.

Good luck! We look forward to seeing your work!"

Alumni News December 2008

2008-12-15T22:02:00.000-08:00

Alumni in the news... in the bookstores... and in your Internets!
Now with more color pictures!

Karl Kasten's long-anticipated and profusely illustrated memoir, Foghorns and Peacocks, chronicles his college years, war years, professional years, activities in painting, printmaking, and education, and random observations, is due out any day now. Check back here for ordering instructions.
Luz Marina Ruiz had a busy fall, with two artists books at the Conrad Gallery in Tuscon, AZ and a show at NoneSuch Space Gallery in Oakland. Also this fall, Diane Damé Shepp BA '77 showed at the Oakland Museum as part of the Day of the Dead Exhibit.
Flatfile Galleries showed the work of Nancy Genn in Chicago at SOFA in November, with several of her cast bronze sculptures and mixed media drawings from her new Geneses series. Helen Ann Licht has a show at the Bade Museum, the Pacific School of Religion from Jan 7 through March. The title of the show will be the Bible and Bhuddha. Opening reception will be Saturday February 7, 2009. Check out what's going on at the Sebastopol Gallery and keep up with Sandy Eastoak by subscribing to her "Fish Rap" newsletter. In September, Christine Lando held a Contruction/Deconstruction show of her work at her gorgeous Dogpatch studio in San Francisco.
Prius-driving Barbara Morris had a show called Hybrids at the San Geronimo Valley Center in November. Jim Melchert MA '61 (also driving a Prius) had a solo show at Gallery Paule Anglim in San Francisco in June and another fabulous show in November at b. sakata garo entitled appropriatly enough Breaking and Entering. Yuriko Yamaguchi had a huge feature in the Washington Post with video that you can see on-line here. The Theater of Insects, Jo Whaley's beautiful new book, was published last month by Chronicle Books. Lynne Rutter BA '85 recently completed a major mural commission for the children's wing of the Burlingame Public Library.

"Blink" by Nemo Gould

Giant boxing Robots! Nemo Gould is mixing it up in the news, in the clubs, and on the Discovery Channel! Check out his Giant Boxing Robots on YouTube. Jeff King's Y2K Gallery includes some of Nemo's work, on now through January 23, 2009.
Casey Anderson continues to paint and exhibit in East Hampton, NY. Sandra Low BA '97 showed in two recent group exhibits: "we are all in this together" at McNish Art Gallery, Oxnard, CA in November, and "Reality Check" at Overtones Gallery, Los Angeles, CA in December. Merl Ross BA '85 recently celebrated her 20+ year career with a retrospective show in December at her historic Hillside School Studio. Kara Maria is currently showing her work in Los Angeles at the Charlie James Gallery, through January 3.

David Jones hawking his wares at a recent show.

The Elephant in the Room, a group of politically provocative, mixed-media sculptures by Emily Duffy MFA '93 had a pre-election showing True World Gallery in Joshua Tree.
A recent show called Art of Democracy; War and Empire at the Meridan Gallery in San Francisco, featured the expertly crafted "Limited Time: Sale: $999.99 Lead Shirt" by David Jones MFA '73. David's work was also exhibited in the October show Change America at Robert Berman Gallery, Santa Monica.

Help us make you all more notable on the internet! Send us your news!

A reminder that the Art Alumni Group is volunteer-run and You are invited to help! We no longer collect dues. All donations to the Art Alumni Group are tax-deductible. So send us money, too! Okay, thanks!

Reporters Needed!

2008-12-03T21:12:00.000-08:00

We know our alumni are out there doing wonderful things that other alumni, nay, the whole world, want to read about here.
Help us spread the word about the accomplished and interesting lives of our alumni artists, by sending us articles, news, and images to share with this community.

If you would like to help write and edit this blog, please contact me about becoming a guest editor.

Graduate Program Update

2008-10-21T00:37:00.000-07:00

Hello dear Art Alumni,

I'm writing to catch you up on the goings on of the Dept. of Art Practice.
As Graduate Adviser for the past three years, I'm particularly up to date on the status of our graduate program, so that is what I'll concentrate on sharing with you.

At present we run an MFA program with 13 or 14 graduate students per year. It's a two year program, and to achieve the degree, our students must produce an artistic thesis that is exhibited at the Berkeley Art Museum in May. The 5.25 full-time faculty we currently have in the department all work with graduate students, but we have also been able to hire outside advisers to with with MFA students in their second year, serving as members of their thesis committee. This has been a terrific way for students to make contact with artists who operate outside academia, and who come to them with no agenda other than to help and push them toward their best working practice.
In recent years we've had Allan de Souza, Stephanie Syjuco, Sergio de la Torre, Trevor Paglen, Vincent Fecteau, Pamela Wilson, Kota Ezawa, Josephine Taylor, and other internationally-known artists working with our grads in this capacity.
Our visiting artist lecture series has also provided extra studio visits to MFA students. Each year we bring 6 or 7 artists to campus to give a lecture, and visit the Richmond Field Station studios. In this way we are able to keep a fresh set of eyes on our students work throughout the year, and expose those students to visiting artists. We've found that some of these visitors go on to curate our students' work into
exhibitions, and even help them create relationships with galleries and dealers.

Our graduate program is also extremely competitive to get into: we receive upwards of 200 applications per year for 7 places, which allows us to pick students of high caliber. Many of these MFA students do not come straight from their undergrad programs, but have been out in the world working for a few years, and bring with them their life and studio experience. Of utmost importance to our ability to attract good applicants is the fact that our grad program is fully funded. Students receive a stipend as well as having their tuition paid. In their second year, they teach Art 8 or Art 23AC, and earn money and really valuable teaching experience that way as well. So we're finding that our student "body" is mature and mostly very self-starting. We've created a media lab and a wood shop at the Richmond Field Station, as well as building our large media lab here at Kroeber, so there are ample tools and spaces for students to work in.

Our curriculum for graduate studies has changed somewhat, to emphasize the vast resources of the UCB community at large. MFA students take at least two courses from outside of the Art dept. during their time here, and we see the powerful impact of faculty from a broad range of disciplines on the students' work. They are studying philosophy, physics, rhetoric, computer science, sociology, art history, environmental science, history, performance studies, interactive design, and architecture, to give you a far from exhaustive list. The presence of the Berkeley Center for New Media also offers our students various fora for discussion with students from other disciplines, as well as a second busy lecture series to attend.

Our recent hire of Brody Reiman to teach sculpture and run the sculpture area has proved to be a very, very good one. Brody has the most astonishing ability to motivate good work from students that I have ever seen. The quality and quantity of 3D and installation work being produced by the department has grown hugely since she began as an Assistant Professor in 2007 (though she'd taught as a lecturer several times previous to 2007, and we were impressed with her then too). She is in the process of setting up a laser cutter for the department (our first!) and that represents an exciting new step forward for us. Brody and I hope to begin combining our curricula with a new course in video and sculpture as well.

At the undergrad level, we're seeing a growth of declared art majors. We now have something like 180 majors, which, distributed amongst only 5.25 full time faculty and 4 staff is a formidable work load. But we continue to have the help of our four devoted continuing lecturers - Randy Hussong, Kevin Radley, John McNamara and Craig Nagasawa, who do a yeoman's share of work. Our visiting lecturers have provided an ever-broadening range of courses to our curriculum for undergrads. We now offer courses with titles such as "Experimental Landscapes," "Issues in Multi-Cultural display," "Art, Medicine and Disability," (Katherine Sherwood's legendary course), "Art and Meditation," "Sound Art," "Game Design," and, in the summer time, Digital Photography. Students clamor for more classes, and when the University budget provides, we provide. We're eager to be able to offer more courses.

Many of the faculty continue to travel widely for exhibitions of their work, or for performances, or screenings of films and videos. Katherine Sherwood currently has a one-person show at Paule Anglim Gallery in San Francisco. Greg Niemeyer won a MacArthur Foundation-funded grant last summer to build a complex interactive project. We all treasure our studio time! We're lucky, also to have a new Chair at the helm: Hertha Sweet Wong, whose background is in Creative Writing, but whose research has focused mostly on Native American folk culture. She began her 3-year term this fall and we're VERY pleased to have her.

Morale is good! We're delighted we've been able to build up a media lab that is the envy of many departments on campus. In room 285 we have a video shooting studio and lecture space, and in room 295 we have a computer lab with 20 dedicated stations for animation, game design, and video editing. It's a big change, and students hop on to the equipment as fast as we can train them on it.

I'm happy to answer any questions you may have, and grateful for your interest and continued dedication to the Department of Art Practice.

Sincerely,

Anne Walsh
Associate Professor for Video
Graduate Advisor

6th Annual Symposium October 18, 2008

2008-09-20T22:23:00.000-07:00

What's Happening - Contemporary Art

In the sixth annual Art Alumni Symposium we present "What's Happening- Contemporary Art" an exchange by now-oriented artists and educators, exploring the processes of contemporary artists, the dynamic post-modern political and social force in today's art world.

Tina Takemoto as Bjork-Geisha

Speakers include Rene de Guzman, curator at the Oakland Museum; Tina Takemoto, performance artist and professor at CCA; Berkeley Art Museum Matrix Curator Elizabeth Thomas; and Petra Royale Bibeau, Founder/Curator of Maniac Gallery, an alternative space for contemporary artists.
Spontaneous audience participation via a non-commercial guerrilla broadcast of Neighborhood Public Radio.

UC Berkeley Art Alumni Symposium VI
"What's Happening?" Contemporary Art
Saturday, October 18th, 9:30 AM - 4 PM
160 Kroeber Hall, UC Berkeley
suggested donation: $20

The afternoon will wrap up with a private reception in Worth Ryder Gallery and the Karl Kasten retrospective exhibit.

Please join us!

Karl Kasten Restropective at Worth Ryder Gallery

2008-09-13T20:28:00.000-07:00

September 23 through October 24, 2008 the University of California's Department of Art Practice will present "Karl Kasten/UCB: the 70 year Journey" - a retrospective exhibition of the works of renowned artist and popular mentor, Professor Emeritus Karl Kasten. The show will cover Mr. Kasten's 70 year relationship with the university, and will also feature works created by colleagues and former students.

Kasten attended Cal in the mid- 1930’s and graduated in '38, and later returned to teach in 1950 at the request of Kastens' most influential mentor, Worth Ryder.
Another powerful influence in Mr. Kasten's early career was the influential Hans Hoffmann, who taught at UC from 1930 -31 and laid the groundwork for modernizing the newly formed department.

As part of the exhibition, the gallery will also feature a variety of artwork created by colleagues and fellow members of what has been referred to as "The Berkeley School". A select number of former students will also present their work.

Worth Ryder Gallery is located in Kroeber Hall opening hours Tuesday - Saturday 12 noon - 4 PM
Join the Alumni and the Department of Art Practice in celebrating the opening of this exhibit September 23rd, 4 - 7 PM.

How to contact the Art Alumni Group...

2008-06-01T12:01:00.000-07:00

join - donate - send us your news!

The Art Alumni Group is no longer asking for dues. All art alumni and artist alumni of U.C.Berkeley are invited to join us. How can you join?

Send email to send news, or update your address.

Support the Art Alumni Group and its activities by making a donation.
We happily accept tax-deductible donations of any amount.

You may make secure on-line donations via PayPal where we even accept credit cards!

You may also send us good old-fashioned paper mail, checks, and announcements to this address:

Art Alumni Group
c/o Department of Art Practice
345 Kroeber Hall, UC Berkeley
Berkeley, CA 94270

make checks payable to "Art Alumni Group"

We want to hear from you!

Congratulations to the Class of 2008

2008-05-25T22:20:00.000-07:00

It was my pleasure once again to attend the 2008 Commencment in the sculpture garden of BAM and personally welcome to the real world, these artists, our newest alumni:

Gabriel Agee, Christopher Alarie, Gilberto Armendariz, Stephanie Barringer, Erika Bird, Ben Bracamonte, Jessica Bracamonte, Shannon Braziel, Christopher Breithaupt, Erik Bro, Sarah Brock, Emily Brundige, Rebecca Bush, Crystal Carlson, Faheema Chaudhury, Crystal Chen, Jayson Cheung, Kristie Chow, Yve Laris Cohen, Cecilia Contreras, Madelyn Covey, Ashley Davidson, Natasha DeAlmeida, Laura DeNardo, Daniel Edery, Nathan Finney, Gabriel Fischer, Emily Frost, Aaron Fung, Katherine Greenman, Carson Grubach, Wen Dong, Tony Guan, Olga Gutierrez, A Han, Amber Handal, Karen Henderson, Anna Hoffman, Clare Hutchinson, Mattie Kahren, Bryan Kato, Tricia Kim, Ping Kuang, Lynn Seohong Lee, Adrienne Levoy, Shang-Wuen Liu, Edwin Lo, Brendan Luce, Steven Lybeck, Katherine Madrigal, Makai Magie, Jason Maze, Robert McCluskey, Zoilita McKeon, Kelda McKinney, Sonia McNally, Lucia Mendoza, Tina Moreno, Oliver Mork, Sheau-Wha Mou-Keefe, Amber Morrison, Amber Mueller, Jenifer Nelson, Jean Linh Chi Nguyen, Khang Nguyen, Hilary Pollack, Allison Porterfield, Joanne Rademacher, Nick Reid, Carolina Reyes, Rebecca Richards, Gabrielle Roussos, Hayley Rucker, Jon Running, Lillian Sabersky, Christina Salazar, Asaki Sano, Kelly Seldan, Youna Shin, Matthew Siemonsma, Jenny Song, Keiko Stong, Jingqin Su, Hongyun Suriwong, Jessica Tatara, Maile Thompson, Michelle Tingen, John Torrens, Sharita Towne, Elizabeth Tran, Justine Travers, Minisha Trivedi, Katy Tsai, Wan-Ling Tsai, Enrique Unzueta, Kate VandenBerghe, Greg VanHoesen, Julia Wiener, Stacy Wilkinson, Nicole Wilson, Eric Wong, Michael Wooten, and a special repeat performance from Sierra Helvey.

MFA graduates: Adrianne Crane; Renee Davis- awarded a UAM Council Founders Prize and an Eisner Prize; Rosalyn Khor-Eisner Prize; Emily Prince - awarded a Headlands Graduate Fellowship Program (1yr. residency 2008-2009); Wenhua Shi- awarded a Javits Fellowship; Sunny Taylor awarded the Kelsey Travel Award and an Eisner Prize; Indira Morre left us with the Harry Ford Lord Award.

Shannon Jewel Braziel was the recipient of this year's Art Alumni Award for the Leadership in the Art Community. Shannon also garnered the Doris Nichols Sculpture Award.
The Theresa Hak Kyung CHA prize was awarded to Jingqin Su.

~Lynne Rutter, BA 1985

Farewell to Tony Shultz BA 1969

2008-05-05T14:00:00.000-07:00

Tony Shultz was happily quoted as saying he showed up at Free Speech and left Berkeley at People’s Park. In the midst of all of that, Tony was a student in the Residence College, working in the theatre shop building sets and hanging lights and working in the Ceramics studio under Peter Voulkous and Ron Nagle. He set up kilns, fired his own stuff and created work independent of class time as well formal study. He had previously studied with Helen Slater in Los Angeles.
Leaving Berkeley in '69 with his degree in Theatre (cum laude) and a one-way ticket to London, he spent three years with the Moving Being Company as actor and technician, working with Charles Marowitz at the Round House Theatre. Returning to the states he worked as a technician for the studios and then headed to New York to star in the original production of Grease, and as a featured player in The Bakers Wife with Paul Sorvino and Platinum with Alexis Smith. In 1986, Tony decided to move into real estate in Los Angeles, marrying actress Susan Merson in 1987. Their daughter, Sofie, was born in 1991.
Tony was diagnosed with mesothelioma, an asbestos exposure disease, on January 2 of this year and died unexpectedly after surgery on March 15, 2008. There is a blog detailing the last few months of his life at www.thejourneyoftheprince.blogspot.com His family would very much appreciate hearing from anyone who knew or worked with him the ceramics studio. Susan can be reached via email at susan@susanmerson.com.

Alumni News Winter 2008

2008-02-21T22:56:00.000-08:00

Thanks to all who participated in our fall symposium, which was well-attended and a great success!
Time once again to catch up with our alumni..... News has been coming to us via postcards, email, and our special operatives which as everyone knows, are everywhere that matters.

Our newest alumni of the class of 2007 deserve some mention here:

MFA graduates Kara Hearn and Jennifer Wofford, received a 2006 Jack and Gertrude Murphy Fellowship of $2,500 each from the San Francisco Foundation.
Joe McKay, MFA 2007, was the 2006 Anker Fellow Award recipient.
Javier Aros, Brad Aldridge, Chau Nguyen, Issac Quigley and Cynthia Silva, undergraduate students were each awarded 2006 Sargent Merit Scholarships in Art, for $3,000 each. Issac Quigley was also the 2007 Art Alumni Award honoree, and we hope he spent all $200 of that in one place.
Kelly Seldan was awarded the 2006 Sussman Award in Painting of $6,000.
Lettie McGuire helped us establish this blog, as well as organizing the Art Group at Berkeley- with Aisling Maguire, they also facilitated the Cal Artist Empowerment Workshop- a DECAL class introducing art majors to the business of the art life.

Also last May, there was a reception to honor distinguished CED design alumni and a group of art alumni were invited to attend, at the lovely Maybeck Recital Hall in Berkeley.

Professor Katherine Sherwood had a show at The National Academy of Sciences in Washington, D.C. with a catalog designed by graduate Lisa Solomon. Lisa also participated in the Monster Drawing Rally at Southern Exposure in SF this year.

In the left bay, Tina Takemoto took San Francisco's Trannyshack by storm with one of her performances; who knows how many times popular demand with bring back the Bjork-Geisha!
check this out, we can embed videos here. heh.

In what could possibly be the most perfect match up of artist and pile of seemingly useless stuff ever conceived, Nemo Gould wrapped up a 4 month stint as artist in residence at the San Francisco Dump with a fabulous solo show called "Waste Deep."
Pat Rose has been invited the National Society of Arts and Letters, and her company for the artistically gifted is thriving- visit their website at www.artodyssey.org
Leslie Cheney-Parr (BA '69, MA '71) has been blessed with an award from National in New Mexico as well as twin grandchildren!
Phyllis Shafer had an exhibit of paintings from the Sonoran Desert at the Stremmel Gallery in Reno, NV last year. Jim Melchert's show "Eye Sites" featured a lot of new work, in October at the Paul Kotula Projects in Ferndale, MI. "To Be Someone" paintings by Mary Heilmann at the Contemporary Arts Museum of Houston showed though January 2008. Beatrice Caracciolo showed at the Charles Cowles Gallery, NY in October.

The opening of Charles Linder's show at Gallery 16 was well attended as well. Lynne Rutter and David Jones were both there, as were a lot of other people, and wine was consumed.

Stephanie Peek "Garden Camouflage" 20x20" oil on panel

Paintings by Stephanie Peek MFA ’96 were shown at Triangle Gallery SF last October as well as the Thoreau Gallery in San Francisco in November. She has been teaching painting at Dominican College in San Rafael, CA, and curated “The Camo Show” at Dominican which showed Nov-Dec 07. Her work can be seen at the Friesen Gallery in Seattle and Sun Valley.
After many years, Edythe Bresnahan will be retiring as Chair of the Art
Dept. at Dominican University at the end of this spring semester 2008. Paintings by Kevin Bean MFA 95 were exhibited at Charles Campbell Gallery in San Francisco. Work by Aida Gamez showed at Barry Sakata Gallery in Sacramento, CA last summer.

Roy Tomlinson showed some of his photographs at Lost Canyon Winery in November. Yuriko Yamaguchi's show "Interdigitate" was displayed at the University of Maryland through December.

Frances Spencer MA '68 received Special Recognition for painting in national juried competition of Emerald Art Center, Springfield, OR. "The Visionary Art of Frances Spencer" was featured at the Albatross Pub Gallery, Berkeley, November 2007 through January 2008. Sharon Lloyd BFA '79 has been living in the Monterey Peninsula area working (architecture), writing, raising a family, and making art. Music, art , and intention... in Sebastopol, CA. find out more by subscribing to the Fish Rap newsletter from Sandy Eastoak.

Kara Maria recently had a solo show at Catherine Clark's new gallery in San Francisco, and has been selected as a 2008 Masterminds finalist by the SF Weekly. Enrique Chagoya's work "Borderlandia" is now at the Berkeley Art Museum through May 18, as well as Gallery Paule Anglim through March 2008.
Sonya Rapoport MA '49 is showing graphic pieces from her work Shoe-Field in the exhibition Imaging by Numbers: A Historical View of the Computer Print being organized by The Block Museum of Art at Northwestern University, through April 6, 2008. She will be discussing the work at the symposium that coincides with the exhibition. An article about the interactive Shoe-Field is being published this year by Berg Publishing, a branch of Oxford Press, London.

Symposium V - October 27, 2007

2007-10-15T10:21:00.000-07:00

The More Things Change- The More They Stay the Same
any truth in this?

Please join us for our fifth all-day symposium, in which we will examine contemporary art-making, including interactive media and social practice.

Saturday, October 27, 2007
9:30 am - 4:30 PM
160 Kroeber Hall, UC Berkeley

Schedule and description of the event:

9:30 AM - 12:30PM - The morning session will address how the teaching of art has changed as reflected by new curricula, mediums, and philosophies at both Cal and CCA. It will open with clips from the two interviews that the Regional Oral History Office has done with Sonya Rapoport and Fred Martin about the education of visual artists in the 1950s. We'll then hear from Tina Takemoto, Mark Thompson, and Guillermo Galindo who are teaching at CCA, and Katherine Sherwood who is Professor of Art Practice at Cal.

12:30 - 2:00 PM- Lunch! We'll have sandwiches and drinks available for $7.

2:00 - 3:30 PM - Deborah Oropallo, Enrique Chagoya, Don Aaron, Brody Reiman, and Richard Shaw will talk and show images about the terrains they crossed to get to what they're doing now.

3:30 - 4:30 PM - Reception in Worth Ryder Gallery 116 Kroeber Hall

$20 suggested donation - please help cover the costs of documenting this event
Admission is free to Art Alumni Group members and students of UC Berkeley
(Membership in AAG is $25 per year)

Here is a map and driving directions to Kroeber Hall.

Our thanks to Marion Gray who chaired this year's committee.

Fall 2007 Alumni News

2007-09-15T18:35:00.000-07:00

Our new presentation allows us to link to the websites of those mentioned. Click on any highlighted words to navigate to those sites.

If you have questions about our new format, please read this post.

What have our alumni been doing this last year? Read on...

Claudia Steele’s work was shown in a group exhibition at The Art Center in Claremont, CA in March. Inez Storer’s paintings and family photographs were shown at Donna Seager Gallery in San Rafael. Her work is also shown at Anne Reed Gallery, SunValley; Catharine Clark Gallery, SanFrancisco; Grover/Thurston Gallery, Seattle; Nathan Larramendy, Ojai; and Sue Greenwood Fine Art, Laguna Beach. Nancy Genn '52 attended a reception September 6, 2007 at the MoMA in New York, which honoured artists included in the permanent collection of the museum.
Rick Bennett’s BA'50 MA'53 watercolors were exhibited at the College of the Redwoods, Del Norte, CA last fall. Jo Sandman MA'54 is exhibiting her new work "Heat/Light" in a solo exhibition " at Gallery Kayafas, Boston, MA. Her portfolio entitled "Light Memory", recently published by Palm Press will be featured. The
exhibition runs from September 5 - 29. One of her photographs will also be included as part of the "13th Annual Juried Exhibition" at the Griffin Museum of Photography,
Winchester, MA from September 23 - October 28,2007. Edythe Bresnahan BA’61 exhibited new paintings in a group exhibiton at Triangle Gallery this summer in SF; she continues as Chair of the Art Department at Dominican College in San Raphael, CA. Gilah Yelin Hirsch BA '67 has been a Professor or Art at California State University, Dominguez Hills since 1973, and has been Visiting Artist in many universities, institutes, countries, have had many residencies at prestigious artist colonies. Her work is collected in major museums, corporate and private collections.
The Orange Country Museum of Art has just published “Mary Heilman: To Be Someone” a catalog with essays by Elizabeth Armstrong, Johanna Burton, and Dave Hickey presenting a comprehensive overview of the career of Mary Heilman MA’67. Accompanying the first traveling retrospective exhibition of Heilman’s work, it details her impact on successive generations of artists and her substantial role in the revitalization of abstraction by a new generation of painters. The art of Diane Chambers, BA'69 has evolved from costume design to writing; she currently lives in San Francisco and is the author of a number of thrillers! Frances Spencer, MA ’68 Design, received 3 awards in the Roswell Art League's National juried competition held August '06 at the Roswell Museum and Art Center. This included an Award of Excellence for a block print, and two Sponsor awards for a print and an oil painting. In July and August two of her block prints were juried into a Los Angeles Printmaking Society members exhibition held at the Tang Gallery in Bisbee, Arizona.

A retrospective of the paintings of Ray Burggraf MA ’70 was shown at Museum of Fine Arts at Florida State University spring 2007. Susan Cooper's BA'69 MA'70 most recent public art commission is a three-part multi-media art installation at the LaVilla Museum and the Ritz Theater in Jacksonville, Florida. Gyöngy Laky ’71 MA, 70 BA had a solo show at Braunstein/Quay Gallery, San Francisco, CA this spring. Rosalie O'Donnell BA ’71 is the Director of The Art League Gallery in the Torpedo Factory Art Center in Alexandria, Virginia; a membership gallery with over 900 members who submit work into monthly juried shows. She recently exhibited my monoprints and etchings in a group show at the Mattawoman Art Center in Maryland. Zea Moritz MA ’72 exhibited a series of worked books at the Sonoma Valley Museum of Art. A founding member of Gallery Route One in Pt. Reyes Station, she lives in Inverness with her husband Tim Graveson; they will be residents at the Armagh Cultural Center in Northern Ireland in August ’08. Also in the group show at the SVMA was work by Pearl Jones Tranter MA ’72 ; she makes digital prints and photography. Sandy Eastoak opened the Sebastopol Gallery in April 2007 Rudy Serra MA'75 reports two recent shows, one at the Charles Cowles Gallery in NYC in June, the other at Art Sites on Long Island. “Web/Seeds and Bones,” a solo sculptural installation by Yuriko Yamaguchi BA’75 was exhibited at Koplin Del Rio Gallery in LA last spring. Her work has been shown at the Fowler Museum in UCLA and the LA County Museum, the American Academy of Arts and Letters in NY, Hirshhorn and Smithsonian in DC. She was the recipient of the American Academy of Arts and Letters award in 2006 and the Joan Mitchell Foundation award in 2005. Eve Ascheim had a drawing show at Lori Bookstein Fine Art in NYC in February and was artist-in-residence at the Vermont Studio Center for the month of June. The 2006 Day of the Dead exhibition “The Columbarium” at the Oakland Museum of California showed work by Diane Dame Shepp BA '77. Caitlin Mitchell-Dayton BA'79 had a solo show at Gallery Paule Anglim in SF during June. Shirin Neshat BA'79 has recently been awarded the $300,000 Lillian Gish Prize.

Pauletta Chanco BA'82 MFA'84 has a solo show at the Joyce Gordon Gallery in Oakland through September 30, 2007. Robert Poplack MFA ’85 is the curator of the Wiegand Gallery at Notre Dame de Namur. Between traveling the globe and painting murals for celebrity clients (wink wink) Lynne Rutter BA'85 designed a room for this year’s invitation-only 30th anniversary San Francisco Decorator Showcase House. New paintings by Rick Arnitz MFA ’83 were shown at Stephen Wirtz Gallery, opening to rave reviews. New prints accompanied by a book by Deborah Oropallo, MFA ’83 and AAG board member, were shown at the De Young Museum in Golden Gate Park in San Francisco. A retrospective of the paintings of Frances McCormack MFA’83 ,who teaches at the San Francisco Art Institute, was held this summer at the Palo Alto Art Center in Palo Alto, CA. Work by Dean Smith, ’84, MFA’88, was included in “GRAPHIC:New Bay Area Drawing" at the diRosa Preserve, Napa, CA this spring. Casey Chalem Anderson continues to paint and teach in Sag Harbor, and was recently featured on the cover of Dan's Papers. Paintings by John Zurier MFA’84 at Blum & Poe, New York and in a group show “The Good, the Bad and the Ugly” at New Langton Arts, San Francisco, CA early spring. The Des Moines Art Center is sponsoring a national and international traveling retrospective show of work by Enrique Chagoya ’87 MFA, 84’MA, through 2008. His work was exhibited at Gallery Paule Anglim, San Francisco, CA this year. Also his work was seen at “Drawings: Visions, Surfaces, and Beyond” at the Triton Museum of Art in Santa Clara, CA last spring, and in the summer in La Presencia: Latin American Art at the United States Museum of Latin American Art in Long Beach, CA. MFA ’89 Jack Hanley’s Gallery continues to be the heart of the Mission District on Valencia Street in SF. Jennifer Faist BA ’89 showed in “Chromaluxe,” abstract paintings and sculptures packed with the power of pigment, last October ’06 at California State University, Los Angeles, Fine Arts Gallery.

Lorene Anderson MFA'90 is currently one of three showing at the Artists Gallery of SFMOMA at Fort Mason. Recent sculpture by Shirley Tse MFA ’91 was exhibited at Shoshanna Wayne Gallery in Santa Monica this summer. Cynthia Ona Innis BA'91 is currently in a two-person show at the Oakland Museum's Gallery 555, through November 9, 2007. Gale Jesi, BA ’90 has taught photography and sculpture in the Bay Area since 1994. Most recently, she was one of seven artists chosen to commemorate the 90th Anniversary of the Legal Aid Society of San Francisco. Kerel Nel MFA'91 had a major solo show titled /Lost Light/ in Johannesburg in April and May 2007. The catalog is a work of art in itself. Jeff King MFA ’92 has opened the Y2Y Gallery as part of his office space on Balboa St in San Francisco. This summer a show including work by David Jones MA '71 MFA'73. Work by Elise Brewster, MFA sculpture ’91, was shown in FOG BAY TREE in November of ’06 at Thoreau Center for Sustainability in the Presidio of San Francisco. A multi-media exhibition exploring identity through wearable art and costumery featured collaborative work by Tina Takemoto BA'90 PhD, and Jennifer Parker at the Femina Potens Gallery in San Francisco. Tina repeated her performance at Trannyshack in May ’07, and now you can see her performance on YouTube. Drawings and paintings by Mark Grotjahn MFA ’95 were exhibited at the Hammer Museum in LA and in “Mark Grotjahn: El gran burrito,” at Boom, Chicago, and shows at Blum & Poe, Los Angeles; Anton Kern Gallery, New York; and Stephen Friedman Gallery, London. His work has been included in exhibitions at the Museum of Contemporary Art, LA, and the London Institute Gallery, in the “Fifty-fourth Carnegie International” at the Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh, AND he has a Wikipedia page. San Francisco painter Kevin Bean MFA ’95 has been made permanent faculty member at Stanford in Palo Alto. Paintings by Stephanie Peek MFA ’96 were shown at Triangle Gallery SF last October and are on view at the Thoreau Gallery in San Francisco through November 16, 2007; and her work can also be seen at the Friesen Gallery in Seattle and Sun Valley. Stephanie will be teaching painting at Dominican College in San Rafael, CA 2008. MFA ’97 Stephanie Sanchez’s paintings were included in “A Strong Vision,” a group exhibition at the Weigand Gallery at Notre Dame de Namur University, Belmont, CA; she is a permanent faculty member at Santa Rosa College. Paintings by Robin McDonnell MFA’96 were shown at Brian Gross SF and her work was shown with that of Aida Gamez MFA’96 and Kara Maria MFA’97 in a group show curated by Hung Liu at Barry Sakata Gallery in Sacramento. Aida Gamez MFA ’96 bought a studio building in Berkeley (One of co-owners is former UCB faculty member Kim Anno). Her work was exhibited at Barry Sakata Gallery and will be there again in February 2008. Also she has been invited to create an installation for the Day of the Dead show at the Oakland Museum this year. MFA’96 Carla Paganelli’s artist’s book with prints was exhibited in a group show “Our Planet Our Home” at SFMOMA Artists’ Gallery last December. Charles Linder MFA ’97 is the director of Lincart Gallery in SF. His own work was shown at Gallery 16 in SF earlier this year. David Molesky BA ’99 had a residency with Odd Nerdrum in Iceland in'06-07 and exhibited in the Spring Exhibition Gallery, KS Tønsberg, Norway; an exhibition of his paintings opened Sept.23,2007 at Terrence Rogers Fine Art, Santa Monica CA.

Nemo Gould MFA '02 has been creating art from your refuse, as artist in residence at the San Francisco Dump this summer. Amanda Hughen MFA ’03 had a solo show at the Marcia Wood Gallery in Atlanta in February 2007. Molly Springfield, MFA'04 had a solo show at Transformer in Washington, D.C last fall, and is showing Oct. 21-Dec. 22, 2007 at the Bedford Gallery, Dean Lesher Center for the Arts, Walnut Creek, California as well as a solo show in New York City at Mireille Mosler Ltd., November 30, 2007 - Februrary 2, 2008.
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MFA 2007 Graduates

Kara Hearn, video; Jenifer K. Wofford, drawings; Lindsay Benedict, photographs; Bill Jenkins, installation; Joe McKay, photographs; Ali Dadgar, installation; Alicia McCarthy, drawings and paintings.

Fall Faculty News

2007-09-15T18:14:00.000-07:00

“A Strong Vision: Three Decades of Exhibitions” included ceramics by James Melchert at Wiegand Gallery at Notre Dame de Namur University, Belmont, CA last spring ’07.
Prints by Katherine Sherwood were exhibited at Electric Works in San Francisco in May and her paintings were on exhibit at The Townsend Center on the UCB campus.

Richard Shaw’s sculpture was on exhibit at Braunstein Quay Gallery in SF this past summer.
New work by Randy Hussong MFA ’80 was shown at Gallery Paule Anglim in SF.
Drawings and sculpture by Jane Rosen were shown at Gwenda Jay/Addington Gallery, Chicago and Sears-Payton Gallery, New York; her work can be seen at the Friesen Gallery in Seattle and Sun Valley.

The Department of Art Practice has a new website! check it out!

ArtLetter on-line!!

2007-08-31T21:38:00.000-07:00

Starting this year the ArtLetter has been moved to this blog. In this way we can keep making continuous announcements of alumni news and interesting art happenings and help keep in touch all year round.

We have been collecting the alumni news to publish, and will do so in this space in September 2007.
After that, we will make periodic, regular updates here, so do keep sending us your news, announcements, etc.

Why are we not printing the ArtLetter anymore?
In the past we have had financial assistance from CAA to help pay for postage, and the generous donation of printing to help offset the cost of publication. As of this year our printer is no longer available, and due to funding cuts CAA has withdrawn postage support to clubs. In the last two years, over 80% of all of our funds were spent on the ArtLetter. We do not collect enough in dues or donations to continue to pay for this increasingly expensive publication.
Publishing on the internet is affordable, fast, and reaches a wider audience, especially among our younger alumni who are so difficult to reach by mail.

Benefits of web publishing for Art Alumni Members.
The calartalumni.org website receives a fair amount of traffic already, and has a very high pagerank with search engines. This is due in part to the concentrated number of artists names appearing on the site in connection with each other. For those of you trying to get some name recognition or visibility, being mentioned on this site is of enormous value. This is just one of the ways we can use the strength of our community to help get positive attention for the department, and each other.

Thanks... to Lettie McGuire '07 of the student-run Art Group at Berkeley for her help in enabling this blog, Lisa Krieshok for graphic assistance, and to Stephanie Peek, who edited the news this year.

--- Lynne Rutter 9.07

ArtLetter- Back Issues

2007-06-03T17:06:00.000-07:00

Previous issues of our acclaimed ArtLetter are available for free download in PDF form.
Please not they are oversized and require 11" x 17" paper in order to print legibly.

ArtLetter 2003
ArtLetter 2004
ArtLetter 2005
ArtLetter 2006

Thanks once again to the editors and volunteers who worked to create this marvelous publication.

Symosium IV: Art-making in Times of Change

2006-11-03T16:55:00.000-08:00

ART MAKING IN TIMES OF CHANGE
the late 1960s and early 1970s

October 14, 2006

This distinctive period was framed in the tumult of the Civil Rights Movement, the Vietnam War, and a broad counter-cultural revolution felt strongly in the Bay Area. Many students at Berkeley sought ways of making art that would resonate with the times and forces of change. They broke the mold of traditional materials and categories of expression. In the 4th Symposium, alumni will discuss how this period affected their sense of purpose and how discoveries they made during their years at Cal led to the work they are doing today.

Mary Heilmann, now living in New York, was among the many speakers. Historian and art writer Terri Cohn commented on Cal alumni Paul Cotton, Jim Pomeroy, and Sam’s Café. Polly Frizzell (aka Marty Carstens) joined in conversation with colleagues about the social and esthetic phenomenon of the Colby Street House and the circle of alumnus Michael Haimowitz.

timeline graphic by Lisa Krieshok ---click on image to view larger.

Conversations About Art - at the Berkeley Art Museum

2006-05-28T23:06:00.000-07:00

Jim Melchert and Fred Martin, both alumni artists and educators who went on to become major figures in the Bay Area art world and beyond, talked together about pieces in the BAM exhibition "Measure of Time."

Jesse Reichek Exhibit in Marin

2006-03-28T22:06:00.000-08:00

On Saturday March 11, 2006 some alumni attended the opening of the latest installment of the Jesse Reichek retrospective at the Marin French Cheese Co. in Petaluma CA. In addition to being a prolific painter, Jesse Reichek was one of the most popular professors of design in Berkeley's College of Environmental Design, and influenced a generation of artists and designers. The exhibit ran in stages through the end of 2006.
Check the website for more information.www.reichekretrospective.org/

Symposium III: Painting in the 1980s

2005-11-08T22:31:00.000-08:00

October 29, 2005 Painting in the 1980's
Discussion and presentations by alumni of the early 80's, featuring Jack Hanley MA'82; Randy Hussong BA'78, MA'79; Luz Ruiz BA'83, MA'85; Enrique Chagoya MA'86, MFA'87; Deborah Oropallo MA'82, MFA'83.
part of our day included a heartfelt alumni tribute to the teaching of Robert Hartman.

Group Show and Sale to Benefit Worth Ryder Gallery

2005-09-28T22:45:00.000-07:00

September 14 - 29, 2005 - Worth Ryder Gallery - This year's show featured the artwork of 64 alumni artists from the class of 1938 through class of 2005 and raised a significant amount of money for improvements to the gallery. The show closed with a champagne party.

Conversations About Art - at the Berkeley Art Museum

2005-06-28T23:09:00.000-07:00

December 3, 2005 Tina Takemoto BA'90, PhD, discussed video work of Theresa Hak Kyung Cha in the BAM collection.