Artist Statement

Artist Questionnaire

4. What materials/medium do you work with?

acrylic paint is the constant.  I hate to shop so if I can find some material amonst my supplies I'll use it.  This series incorporates such disparate things as: embrioidery thread, silk necktie remnants, seed packets, construction materials,toys, geometry problems, scraps and bits of this and that.

5. Where do you get your inspiration?

Everyday life, clouds, the work of other artists.

6. Briefly describe an interesting anecdote about your process or a picee in this show:

I guess the theme of the Maidenform bra series dates me.  Anyone born after 1969 (when the ad campaign came to an end), has no idea of how huge a cultural phenomenum this was  It was the longest running ad in advertising history.

Artist Statement

Artist Questionnaire

4. What materials/medium do you work with?

This show focuses on my recent photography; I also work in other media, and write, and design.

5. Where do you get your inspiration?

I am completely a visual person: images are a core part of how I read, think, feel, hear, taste, and smell, and it's how I best understand things and am comfortable in the world.  So it makes sense that photography--essentially capturing and communicating how I see--is so visceral and core to me. 

6. Briefly describe an interesting anecdote about your process or a picee in this show:

You may notice one or two pieces where I see the human body--and particularly the male form--in an industrial or architectural structure.  I'm sure being a gay man has something to do with that vision!

Artist Statement

Build: the standard of construction of something, to assemble.  Life is the on-going process of making mistakes and learning, taking risks, failing, succeeding, thriving, struggling, building and re-building oneself in the process.

The collection of art that is the Build Series is an expression born out of expansion. Having moved to Northern California after 18 years in the LA area, I feel like I have returned home and am ready to build my life here. Experimentation and mixed media is the foundation of my art so, I shed the canvas and acrylic for a return to my roots of wood and oil, metal leaf and plaster. Spending time with plaster coated hands, sawdust and a tangle of material; this inspires me. It excites me to take common hardware store material and work it into an expression of the moment. Buildiing is in my blood and if it weren't for the exacting nature of building furniture, I would be a cabinet maker. But my nature causes me to move faster and more freely, so I create without rigid details.

Artist Questionnaire

4. What materials/medium do you work with?

Wood, paper, metal, oil, acrylic,

5. Where do you get your inspiration?

Everywhere on a good day. When that doesn't happen, I look to other artists that always inspire me like Deibenkorn, Eva Hesse, Louise Nevelson, Picasso.

6. Briefly describe an interesting anecdote about your proces or a pice in this show:

The title Piece for this show, "Build" came to me on the edge of a dream, not fully awake, but lucid enough to know that it could all be compiled by the elements that already existed in my studio. Elements I had brought from LA, Japanese Comic book, wood, plaster, wire and gold leaf. I just had an urge to build up 3 dimensions. Moving North 400 miles with my husband and 6 year old son was a risk and very exciting. We were are all ready to start something new, to build anew.

Artist Statement

Artist Questionnaire

4. What materials/medium do you work with?

I make my mark with collage, gouache, acrylic, coffee, pencil. Collages are on rough, heavy wieght watercolor paper. Paintings are usually on canvas, which I stretch myself.

5. Where do you get your inspiration?

Inspiration comes from my experience of the urban landscape. It's all about the city.

6. Briefly describe an interesting anecdote about your proces or a pice in this show:

I enjoy drinking coffee while I work and frequently incorporate my leftover coffee into my collages. Sometimes I splash the paper at random, letting it carve out pools and pathways across the paper. I then respond to the patterns and textures once the liquid has settled and dried. In other pieces, I apply the coffee more deliberately, as I would a gouache or watercolor, resulting in a rich variety of shades from tan to sepia.

Artist Statement

For several years I have used transparent and semi-transparent adhesive tape to make works that evoke both painting and drawing. 

In each work in my Linescapes series, I use a different kind of transparent adhesive tape, layered horizontally, to create a quietly undulating landscape of line, form and tone.  I am interested in how the unexpected sensuality of the medium engages the viewer in ways that are environmental, temporal and mutable. 

In this series I render "landscape" as pure horizontality.  It is an interpretation of landscape that alludes to vast expanses of sand, sea, sky and snow, as well as suggesting inner space.  This series also engages ideas drawn from the work of Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari.  The proliferation of lines in each piece forms a plateau, a part of a plane of immanence on which intensities and waves circulate and flow.

Artist Questionnaire

4. What materials/medium do you work with?

My medium is adhesive tape; I use tape the way a painter uses paint to create an image on a prepared surface.

5. Where do you get your inspiration?

I am inspired by the material and the way that this ordinary stuff can be transformed into something very elegant and ethereal.  I especially like how what you see in the pieces changes and transforms depending on the light, time of day and where you are standing.  I am also inspired by vast landscapes of sand, sea, sky and snow.

6. Briefly describe an interesting anecdote about your proces or a pice in this show:

I first started using tape while living in Mexico City in 1998.  I was struck by the sight of a street vendor’s table piled high with colorful rolls of tape and thought, “you could do something with that.”   I bought a bunch and started experimenting straight away. 

Artist Statement

I document a world hidden within the world we live in, providing an alternate view: prying, mysterious, lonely, and sometimes resembling a sci-fi post-apocalyptic cinematic scene.  A new world that didn’t exist several hours earlier: where machines and factories appear to have been left to run on their own.

At night I find myself departing from the boundaries of society: exploring self through altering my immediate surroundings, altitude, temperature, humidity, and light. I prowl the streets seeking a unique vantage point from which to capture a story. I reach these places by scaling buildings, climbing poles, trees, and other objects.

My subjects are often normal everyday places which I make unique through access, vantage point, and time. My images evoke the experience of sweeping movement through space, often translating to the progression of projects or events moving through time, i.e. "life in the fast lane" as opposed to "cross-town traffic."

Artist Questionnaire

4. What materials/medium do you work with?

Camera, computer, climbing shoes

5. Where do you get your inspiration?

Observing the world, film,books

Artist Statement

What do you see? Who are you and what is your world like? What are the people like in your neighborhood, in your family, in your circle of friends? What do you see outside your window, outside your door, outside yourself? What goes on in your head, your thoughts, your emotions... and does any of it matter anyway?

These are all the questions explored by the students enrolled in the Digital Storytelling Photography Workshop at College Track: Oakland Campus. College Track is an after-school preparatory program that helps students from under-resourced communities graduate from high school and succeed in college. The Photography workshop developed and instructed by Bay Area photographer, Rita Coury was designed to push students into a more intimate way of seeing the world around them. A challenge to observe, record and truly see their lives, in detail, everyday.

Students participated in studio and location photo shoots, were exposed to multiple camera formats, equipment and above all learned that it isn’t what camera you photograph with, it’s how you photograph with the camera you got.

During the course of this workshop, the very modest equipment that the students had available included four donated, used, point-n-shoot digital cameras. All but one stopped working and the program is struggling with limited funds to continue this wonderful workshop. All proceeds from the sale of photographs from the show and/or photo greeting cards will be donated to College Track to supply much needed cameras to continue the Digital Storytelling Workshop. Any and all additional donations to assist in funding this workshop will be greatly appreciated!

Artist Bio

Char-leen Craner: I am a half white half Puerto Rican teenager living in urban East Oakland. I have a passion for capturing the moments that matter with my camera. I love laughing and enjoying every second I have in my life.

Imani Wilson: My name is Imani Wilson. I am 16 and am often mistaken for some sort of a mix. Love rock music and all forms of art.

Aujinel Brazil Verdon: I am a seventeen year old African-American young woman that is unique like the name my mother has given me. I take pride in my culture but want to travel to learn more about others. Life is an adventure and my photographs reveal reality through my eyes.

Selena Bowie: My names selena

Im from the bay area

seventeen years old

people say i act whiter than a white person

though im black

sometimes im okay with it

sometimes im not

im an interesting person

and i love to love. 

I also love to take pictures of myself.

its not that im conceited

its just that every single time i take

a picture of myself i feel like i find something new

about myself

that i never knew before

Vivian Yu: I was born in Oakland, Ca, of parents who are immigrants to this country, both here to look for a better life for themselves, as well as their children. As their first child, they took many pictures of me for memories, because they were unable to have memories of when they were a child, which inspires me to take pictures of children, they give me childhood memories, of not knowing what the pictures are for, but just wanting to look as cute and innocent as possible.

Emelin Hernadez: My name is Emelin; age 16 and is Mexican. Love being outdoors and capturing every new moment that catches my eye. Every little interesting detail of an object attracts me.

Artist Questionnaire

4. What materials/medium do you work with?

Digital point-n-shoot cameras and camera phones.

5. Where do you get your inspiration?

The people around them, other photographs shown in class and their instructor, Rita Coury.

Artist Statement

Though my two homes have such an affinity for one another that I'm comfortable in both places, it is surprisingly easy to tell which is which. Something as simple as the way the light falls on a street sign makes it clear which side of the country I'm on, no matter how many confusing hours I've spent in the air crisscrossing from one to the other.

Artist Bio

I've been an artist since I was 4 years old, and I've been selling paintings since 1969. I've also done several academic book covers in the style of some of the paintings in this show. I'm married to a UC Berkeley sociologist, and we are the parents of a writer/musician/accountant, a handyman/musician/Painter, and a photographer/photographer.

Artist Questionnaire

4. What materials/medium do you work with?

All the work in this show is acrylic paint on canvas.

5. Where do you get your inspiration?

From the light and shadows and formal compositional elements of the things we pass without noticing on most days.

6. Briefly describe an interesting anecdote about your process or a piece in this show:

Artist Statement

This project developed from my need to return to my drawing roots on a smaller scale, keeping the purity of select and basic materials. The subject matter evolved from my previous series of large oil paintings of a slight erotic nature showing men in various states of undress and self-pleasure. I found in painting the series that what captivated me most was the fabric, which to me often appeared more alive than the flesh. In my current work, I wanted to expand on the simplicity of the subject, deconstruction of form and topographical effect, which the eye pulls together into realism. The plain brown paper initially was in response to puritanical views of my erotic work. The question I posed to myself was if sexuality could still be evident in the clothes we wear and the object we hold onto even if white-washed and “covered in plain brown wrapping”.

Artist Bio

My family’s business is cutting down trees. Being a lumberman, and being good at Sports were the skills most valued in my family; skills I never desired to master. My childhood refuge was seeking solitude and creating art. I would frequently hide from visiting relatives, locking myself away to draw. My mother was a newspaper woman, so there was never a shortage of “end rolls” to draw on. As I grew up, my family gradually gave up hopes that I would continue in the lumber business, or become a famous baseball player. And I instead held true to my passion: making art. But as it so often is with families, you look back decades later from a life you thought you had successfully fled, only to see you never quite left it. I now enjoy a successful career in the newspaper industry just as my mother had, and I find myself still inspired creatively by those newspaper rolls .

Artist Questionnaire

4. What materials/medium do you work with?

For this series, I painted with Gesso, Ink and acrylic on brown paper covered birch panels.

5. Where do you get your inspiration?

inspiration comes where ever and when ever you open your eyes. For this series it began by looking at the floor of my closet.

6. Briefly describe an interesting anecdote about your process or a piece in this show: