Image courtesy d'Arci Bruno

Michael Singman-Aste
Postdiluvian Photo

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Michael Singman-Aste
Postdiluvian Photo

6th annual Alameda on Camera at the Frank Bette Center for the Arts, 1601 Paru, April 6 – May 26.

Barbara Landis, "Bare Bones," 2012. Photo.

Each of 48 artists photographed their randomly selected portion of Alameda over a 48-hour period. Alameda is so damned beautiful that there’s always the temptation to just take a pretty picture, so naturally there was the usual parade of Victorians (and other less glamorous architecture).

The best work, however, came from shooters who took a closer look at quotidian elements. Some were rewarded for this approach. “Bare Bones” by Barbara Landis is a lovely, mirror-image, grey-scale inkjet on tapestry of wintry trees, and received a special “Nature, Nature Everywhere” award. In a stunning twist, Joanne Clapp Fullager received the “1000 Words” award for the narrative quality of her ”Apocalypse Alameda” in which the town appears ablaze, the artist herself appearing in the photo as a lone, shadowy survivor.

Two other standouts were the richly saturated and highly abstracted “Backdoor to the Hospital” by Marc Lecard, and “Where do you think you’re going?”, a nicely composed collage of traffic signs by Xan Blood Walker.

Surreal Visions : Works by Arianna Siegal and Bill Weber at the Alameda Main Library, 1550 Oak Street, April 1 – 28.

Arianna Siegel, "Strange Days." Oil on canvas.

Despite being “unjuried,” the exhibits at the Alameda Public Library rarely fail to please. This month the work is especially satisfying: Surreal oil paintings and pencil drawings by Arianna Siegal and Bill Weber. Siegel’s statement reads that “her work exhibited here comprise two seemingly disparate focuses: surrealism, or magic realism, and rock stars. However, through both she attempts to do similar things – transport the viewer into another mindset.” Her work is indeed magical, as well as eerie and consistently creepy. In a very good way.

The Dali-esque paintings and drawings of Bill Weber, aka “El Gallo,” address subjects from Einstein’s brain to the stupidity of war. They are provocative, maniacally detailed, and masterfully rendered.

This show is not to be missed.

Connect 10 at Gray Loft Gallery, at 2889 Ford Street, 3rd Floor, Oakland, April 13 – May 25

A second great show from Jan Watten at her Gray Loft Gallery in Oakland’s Jingletown neighborhood, just a stone’s throw over the Park Street Bridge and practically in Alameda. This month she exhibits an array of media by 10 women who have all, at one time or another, occupied a space at 2889 Ford Street.

All the work is solid, but particularly noteworthy are the charcoal, watercolor, and pastel pieces by Amy Sollins, a delicate mixed-media installation by Ruth Boerefijn, Andrea Voinot’s series of pastel and oil stick on paper, and oil on wood paintings by Suzy Barnard. The entire show was brilliantly and poignantly made cohesive by Lynn McGeever’s “Ford Street Girls,” (sic), ten acrylic on paper paintings of each of the women taking part in the show.

Lynn McGeever, "Ford Street Girls" (detail), 2012. Acrylic on paper.

Michael Singman-Aste
Postdiluvian Photo

It was my great honor to have been named 2012′s best local blogger in ABC 7′s Bay Area A-List! Thank you so much to everyone who voted for me and encouraged others to do the same.

Here are other art-related winners:

• Art Gallery: ArtHaus, San Francisco
• Arts and Crafts: Flax Art & Design, San Francisco
• Theatre Group: American Conservatory Theater, San Francisco
• Indie Cinema: Castro Theatre, San Francisco
• Place to Get Inked and Pierced: Sacred Rose Tattoo, Berkeley & Albany
• Charity: Drawing on Earth, Alameda
• Wedding Photographer: ShootMeNow Photography, South San Francisco
• Children’s Photographer: Nancy Alcott Baby + Child Photography, Mill Valley
• Pet Photographer: Nuena Photography, San Francisco
• Custom Framing: Creative Framing & Gallery, Oakland

And… 

• Best Spinning Class: Bladium, Alameda, just because I really love Spin class!

Congratulations to all the nominees!

Michael Singman-Aste
Postdiluvian Photo

Michael Singman-Aste
Postdiluvian Photo

Michael Singman-Aste
Postdiluvian Photo

Philippe Petit. Source unknown.

On the last day of January I took a stroll around Alameda Point, a vast wasteland of decrepit structures abandoned by the Navy and now studded by the ventures of brave entrepreneurs, from wineries to an athletic club. You never know what you’ll find going on at the Point: A fugitive hiding from the FBI. A massive study of new technology by the Department of Transportation. Maybe even a tightrope walker.

In 1974 Philippe Petit famously (and illegally) stretched a tightrope between New York’s Twin Towers and negotiated the 200-foot gap eight times before surrendering to police. This has been called “the artistic crime of the century,” and was immortalized in Colum McCann’s “Let the Great World Spin,” a novel which earned him the National Book Award in 2009.

… the tightrope walker was such a stroke of genius. A monument in himself. He had made himself into a statue, but a perfect New York one, a temporary one, up in the air, high above the city. A statue that had no regard for the past…. So brash. So glassy. So forward looking.

Philippe Petit. Source unknown.

And then there was the tightrope walker at Alameda Point. A young woman winched a cable perhaps 6 feet long between two pipes outside the business from which, most likely, she was on her lunch break. I did a double-take, and by the time I looked back, she was already perched atop it, balancing about four feet off the ground. The cable swung violently side-to-side for a moment, but the walker’s head remained perfectly still, the pivot of a pendulum, and she regained her balance. She glanced up at me as I passed across the street. I smiled and kept walking, not wanting to distract her or intrude on this moment.

But what was that moment exactly? Why was she on that wire? I wondered if she was a performer in a local nouveau cirque troupe, another artist with a day job. Was she preparing for the next great artistic “crime,” or was this all the performance she ever hoped to give, though no one witnessed it but me?

A journalist in a flat white hat shouted, “Why?” But the word didn’t come into it for him. He didn’t like the idea of why. The towers were there. That was enough.

Whatever her motivation, whatever that moment was, it was magical. It was a thing of beauty in the most humble surroundings, a flower breaking through concrete. She was a living and breathing metaphor for walking the tightrope to find balance in our lives. She ran away and joined the circus, if only for an hour.

Michael Singman-Aste
Postdiluvian Photo

Parish, who resides in the artsy Jingletown neighborhood of Oakland, assembles her abstract wooden sculptures from “this and that I have laying around.” In “My Best Friend in Grade School,” clothespins are affixed to twin pieces of wood, like pigtails, and “The Dancer” is comprised of barrel staves.

Along with her sculptures, Parish exhibits her two-dimensional work, resembling a collection of airbrushed paintings, woodblock prints, and graphite sketches. In fact, they are all “digital drawings” created entirely using Photoshop. Monochromatic and sparse or packed with opaque blocks of color, they are abstract, but reminiscent of Picasso’s “Les Demoiselles d’Avignon” to 80s New Wave album art.

A trio of drawings

She is often told that her drawings reflect her sculptures, but insists this is not something she sets out to do. “I just sit down and go, hmmm…. what color do I want today, and what brush shall I use? Or do I want to do lines? And I’ll just pick one, and I’ll start with something. And the end product won’t necessarily look like that because I don’t have a destination in mind other than to make whatever I’m doing look good to me.”

Parish prints her drawings herself on 13″x19″ paper, and they are taped together somewhat conspicuously. She admits that she is not good with “fussy little details”—gesturing to a particularly boisterous drawing, she declares “I’m more explosive”—but would be the first to agree that this presentation is less than ideal. “I would love to be printing big,” she said. She is hoping for a residency at the Kala Art Institute in Berkeley, which provides access to state-of-the-art printers.

Parish said that it was a lot of work putting “Chaos or Order” together but, rather than resting on her laurels, “I’m already starting to work on some other stuff,” she said. “Because I’m happy working.”

The show runs through March 11. Autobody Fine Art is located at 1517 Park Street in Alameda. They are open Saturdays and Sundays from noon until 6 p.m., and by appointment. Their phone number is (510) 881-6974.

Michael Singman-Aste
Postdiluvian Photo

Note: Contrary to the article’s subtitle this is not, in fact, an exhibit exclusively by women artists.

Artists Jan Erion and Cheryl Hayward, from left, with friend at their opening reception on Jan. 13 for K Gallery's "The Magic Book," a group show featuring handmade and altered books and other book-related art.

Michael Singman-Aste
Postdiluvian Photo

Patti Heimburger, Colorful Ribbons. Oil plus fabric and yarn on canvas.

Ellen Dreibelbis, Sunset. Pastel.

Michael Singman-Aste
Postdiluvian Photo