On view at Sanchez Art Center in Pacifica, California in the East Gallery.

The See Change exhibition in East Gallery draws on collective community experience about sea level rise. The show is a marker in an ongoing social practice engagement project that recognizes that the arts have a unique ability to bring us together, and that artists can serve as agents of change. Funded by the San Mateo County Office of Sustainability through a Community Resilience Grant, the project is focused on providing the community space for reflection and fear free conversation about sea level rise. San Francisco Bay Area artists Kim Anno and Alicia Escott were awarded the project and have included in their collaboration Heidi Quante and Modesto Covarrubias.

Early in 2020, a series of community engagement projects were planned, only to subsequently be cancelled due to the shelter-in-place order for safety during the pandemic. Smaller groups have been engaged in person and via Zoom to continue a facilitated process named the "Bureau of Linguistical Reality," creating neologisms (new words) to help describe community feelings, concerns, our relationship to the ocean, and our hope that we can come together in a positive way to plan for our shared future. The exhibition includes photographs, paintings, and sculpture by local artists about sea level rise and some of the neologisms (new words) that have been created through the See Change project. The See Change grant artists have installed an interactive space in the center of East Gallery where visitors can participate. Activities include weaving and knitting with repurposed plastic materials, embodying the idea of working to knit the community together, as well as the creation of words.

Join lone some artist Modesto Covarrubias in conversation with Chris Evans, Ernest Jolly, and Constance Lewis as they discuss their practice, their projects, and coping in times of isolation, cultural shifts, and social pivot.

More information about this event and the participants may be found here.

The recorded video conversation may be viewed on Montalvo Arts Center's YouTube page (check the VIDEOS tab). Or use this link to take you directly to the video.

lone some

Exhibition dates: May 31 - June 30, 2020

Featured on 25 independent public sites around the Bay Area, including Montalvo’s public park and the entry foyer of the San Jose Museum of Quilts & Textiles, lone some will include works by Lucas Artists Fellow Chloë Bass, Modesto Covarrubias, Jane Chang Mi, Leena Joshi, Susan O’Malley (1976-2015), and Alyson Provax. Each artist created work considering the theme of isolation and loneliness in the ever-changing landscape of our urban areas.

Last fall, Montalvo launched the year-long program SOCIAL: Rethinking Loneliness Together, created specifically to confront the growing worldwide epidemic of loneliness. In 2017, the US Surgeon General, Vice Admiral Vivek H. Murthy, called loneliness the “most common pathology” he encountered in all his years of medical practice. In 2018, the UK appointed a “minister for loneliness” to address social and health issues caused by social isolation. In Japan, robots designed to provide companionship are emerging to combat rising loneliness in a country where 40% of its citizens will live alone by 2040. Through workshops, walks, screenings, exhibitions, and new artist commissions on Montalvo’s grounds and beyond, guests were invited to engage with artists and explore solitude while discovering new (and old) ways that authentic connections can be built in the digital world.

Little did we realize how timely this program would become, as all of humanity faces the impact of forced isolation through weeks and months of sheltering-in-place due to the COVID-19 pandemic. As the world adapts to the new norms of social distancing, the works of lone some have taken on even more widespread resonance. Many of these public works will include a phone line for viewers to reach out and connect more closely with the artists, some of which may allow for messages in response to their pieces. lone some would not have been possible without the generous support of Wanda Kownacki, or the inspiration and creative support of the curatorial collaborative Vignettes (Serrah Russell and Sierra Stinson) and their public art series, a lone. lone some is here to remind the isolated viewer – we are all alone together.

A Public Gathering.

Everyone! You are invited to join us on King Tide Day in Pacifica, California for Pacific A Future: A Public Gathering. Sunday, February 9, 2020, at King Tide (10:10am).

Artists Kim Anno, Alicia Escott & Heidi Quante, and Modesto Covarrubias invite you to partake in one or both interactive public art engagements:

1) The Bureau of Linguistical Reality is a participatory artwork by Alicia Escott & Heidi Quante working with the public to recognize a collective loss for words in order to describe the emotions and experiences we are having as our world warms and climate change accelerates. Recognizing that just as new maps will need to be drawn, new words will need to be created to recognize our changing realities. The Bureau works with the public to name the unnamed feelings, experiences and phenomena of our time by creating a platform for people to identify feelings and experiences they do not have the language for. Come visit offices of the Bureau of Linguistical Reality from 10:10am to 1:10pm at the beach.

2) Knitting It All Together is a project that invites the public to begin the Pacifica collective knitting project for the giant Sea Level Rise Tablecloth for the Pancake Breakfast in May 2020. Modesto Covarrubias will lead the public effort to contribute to a recycled plastic giant tablecloth. This is the first in a series of workshops that will instruct participants on basic knitting techniques and making yarn from recycled/repurposed plastic. Come create a giant table cloth for the final gathering. Bring your plastic, knitting needles, or just your enthusiasm!

For more information CLICK HERE.

Or email Cindy Abbott: info@sanchezartcenter.org

ArtComplex: A Pop Up Art Exhibit, Review on Oakland Art Enthusiast.com, February 24, 2014

Artists Without Borders: 12 Artists Take Over a Former Doctor's Office in Oakland, Art Review on KQED.com by Christian L. Frock. January 28, 2014

ArtComplex's innovative installation 'cross pollinates' local artists, Oakulture edition on Oakland Local.com by Erik K Arnold. January 28, 2014

Pop-up exhibition premiers at ArtComplex in Oakland, Arts & Exhibits on Examiner.com by Sumiko Saulson, January 17, 2014

ArtComplex launches popup exhibition: Twelve installations under one roof, Arts & Culture on Oakland Local.com by Liza Veale, January 15, 2014

The Waiting Rooms, Arts & Culture - Culture Spy on East Bay Express.com by Lenika Cruz, January 15, 2014

And also a mention in 7x7.com
Three Reasons to Cross the Bay Bridge by Lyndsey Ellis, February 1, 2014

Exhibition Dates: January 18 to March 23, 2014
Location: 560 29th Street, Oakland
Viewing: Saturdays & Sundays, January 18 to March 23, 2014, 12pm to 4pm and by Appointment
Opening Reception: January 18, 12pm to 4pm



ArtComplex: A popup exhibition January 18 through March 23, 2014

Between January 18 and March 23, 2014, ArtComplex will feature the work of installation, video, and 2D/3D artists.

Artists included are Nyame O. Brown, Lisa Carroll, Modesto Covarrubias, Amy M. Ho, Amanda Klimek, Chelsea Pegram, Matthew Scheatzle, Karen Seneferu, Malik Seneferu, Brett Snyder, and Monica Tiulescu & Alexandra Neyman.

560 29th Street, between Telegraph Avenue and the 29th Street freeway underpass, is a former doctor's office. There is a waiting room, a reception desk, administrative office, 12 examination rooms, 2 film development rooms, and 4 ADA compliant bathrooms on two stories.

ArtComplex is organized by Ernest Jolly & Chris Evans.

Performances organized by Chris Evans
ArtComplex performances will be a series of structured improvisations integrating live music and dance that respond to the artists' installations. Performance collaborators include Bandelion actors, dancers, and musicians; dancer, choreographer Byb Chanel Bibene, the avant jazz group, the Broun Fellinis; international solo artist Folawole, Bay Area dancer Nadia Oka, dancer, choreographer Sheena Johnson and more.

OPENING DAY PERFORMANCES, Saturday January 18, 2014
1:00 - 1:30 pm Chris Evans on cello with effects pedals
3:00 - 3:45 pm Duo with David Boyce on saxophone with effects pedal
Artists will perform improvisations responding to the space as visitors walk through

Performance Artist Web Presences
Bandelion http://www.dandeliondancetheater.org/bandelion/
Broun Fellinis https://www.facebook.com/thebrounfellinis
David Boyce http://blackedgar.blogspot.com/
Folawole http://www.folawole.org/
Chris Evans evansmousike.net
Byb Chanel Bibene http://www.kiandanda-dance.com/
Sheena Johnson http://sheenajohnsonrebelhome.blogspot.com/


Continue to check back here or at the ArtComplex website for additional updates.

Exhibition Dates: September 28 to October 26, 2013
Silent Auction: Saturday Oct 12
Live Auction: Saturday Oct 26


The annual art auction and exhibition at the San Jose Institute of Contemporary Art will have on offer two drawings from the HOME BODY series. The auction will feature works from over 150 artists including Hung Liu, Esther Traugot, Freddy Chandra, Theodora Varnay Jones, Susan O'Malley, and Mari Andrews, who recently had work exhibited at the ICA (an amazing show, check out her work!)

Also, Donna Napper, SJICA's curator, included the HOME BODY drawings in the 3rd installment of the ICA e-newsletter "Curator's Picks" sent out on September 5th:

"Modesto Covarrubias is a multi-disciplinary artist whose oeuvre includes drawings, paintings, prints, sculpture, installation, photography, and performance art. Covarrubias' two elegant ink drawings intrigue me, with their curious forms made of dense networks of lines coalescing into solid yet abstracted masses.

The imagery first appears to be a cocoon or part of knitted clothing. The actual inspiration for these drawings (from the Home Body series), originated from the artist's visit to the Academy of Sciences in San Francisco's Golden Gate Park. What Covarrubias observed there, and was later haunted by in dreams, was the collection of taxidermy birds, tagged and displayed in one drawer, while the birds' nests were fully intact and displayed in a separate drawer. This inspired the artist to contemplate the human need to create surroundings which offer comfort and protection, and further explore ideas about connections - between home and body, between creation and creator, and between the need to make or build and the need to preserve."

May 17, 2013 to September 2014

I am honored to have my work selected to represent the constituency of California State Senator Jim Beall in the California State Senate 2013-2014 California Contemporary Art Collection exhibition. A selection of the prints I produced during my residency at the San Jose ICA Print Center in 2010 will be exhibited at the State Capitol through September 2014.

From the California State Capitol Museum's website:

The California State Senate’s Contemporary Art Collection program, begun in 1997, recognizes and celebrates contemporary art created by the wide variety of artists throughout the state.

Every other year, each Senator is asked to select an artist who he or she feels best represents his or her district. In the past, they have been selected through school programs, senior centers, art galleries, and County art programs and arts councils. The result is a joint effort between the participating Senators and their artist.

These artists bring to the Capitol an extensive range of cultures, backgrounds and training. The media with which they work is also as varied-acrylics, oils, bronze sculpture, blown glass, mixed media, and watercolors. The talented, diverse and colorful selection seen at each show is a testament to the fact that contemporary art is alive and well in California.

Paper Work: When Paper Becomes Art
February 2 to June 7, 2013


The exhibition Paper Work at the Oakland International Airport (OAK) highlights six Bay Area artists who work with paper. From a site-specific installation by multidisciplinary artist Modesto Covarrubias to the extraordinarily complex origami by Goran Konjevod, this exhibition seeks to expose the many possibilities of the paper medium. Works by Hadley Williams and Monica Canilao feature found paper or commercial paper products as their inspiration. Artist Turburam Sandagdorj specializes in paper cut outs, typically creating images of his native land, while artist Bianca Kolonusz-Partee fashions collages of international ports. A selection of photographs also explores the artists’ working space as a sanctuary for the development of creative ideas and techniques.

Paper Work is located in three areas of Oakland International Airport. The exhibit sites are located in Terminal 2 between gates 25 and 26, in Terminal 1 before the security checkpoint and in the connecting walkway between the two terminals.

For this exhibition, Modesto Covarrubias has created Escape, a site-specific / site-responsive installation of hundreds of yards of tracing paper structured within a museum display case inside the busy corridor of Terminal 2, between gates 25 and 26. The artist has also lent several of his journal/sketchbooks which are on display inside Terminal 1, in the connecting corridor between the ticket/baggage claim area and the security checkpoint.

See more at the Oakland Museum of California's website.

Indexical Makers: 3 Bay Area Contemporary Craft Artists
March 10 to April 15, 2012

Opening reception & artist talk: Saturday, March 10, 5pm to 7pm

Three emerging Bay Area artists at the Marin MOCA. Featuring the work of Modesto Covarrubias, Ali Naschke-Messing, and Angie Wilson.

The Marin Museum of Contemporary Art in Novato, California, will present INDEXICAL MAKERS, featuring Modesto Covarrubias, Ali Naschke-Messing, and Angie Wilson, emerging artists whose work dynamically integrates form and content. The exhibition title, a play on the term “Indexical Marker,” refers to 2 key aspects of the work. The artwork is “indexical” in that it points to something else—it directs the viewer's attention to and often becomes a trace of another occurrence or physical object. “Makers” refers to the ways the artists employ craft-based tactics in their artistic practice. To refer to these artists as “makers” acknowledges the historical divide between the creation of so-called “fine” art, and the craft traditions of “making” objects, of “making do” with everyday materials often degraded by art institutions. Modesto Covarrubias utilizes knitting in his performance and installation pieces as a way to investigate psychological and emotional connections to physical environments. His knitting performances produce objects that serve as a trace of the actions of the performer, and his installations often engage the decor and design of a room, bringing attention to aspects of the space otherwise unnoticed by the viewer. Ali Naschke-Messing describes her method as one of extreme “site-responsivity.” Her thread-based installations poetically echo existing architectural forms or subtly chart the daily movement of light and shadow across the wall, ceiling, or floor. Her work is as much about the act of viewing as it is about the intricate form of her installations, as they require a form of patient looking akin to listening to a whisper. While they are definitely a striking beautification of commonness, they also hint at the infinite. Angie Wilson's primary medium is used work shirts, physical traces of anonymous laborers, woven into Persian carpet motifs or other craft objects. Wilson's artwork simultaneously weaves together questions of outsourced craft production, the mass production of the handmade, and the growing importance of re-usable materials. INDEXICAL MAKERS are artists whose conscientious use of materials encourages us to patiently re-view our immediate physical environment, and to be mindful of the makers behind the seemingly simple, everyday objects within that environment.


Marin MOCA, Novato Arts Center at Hamilton Field, 500 Palm Drive, Novato, CA 94949
415-506-0137

email: info@marinmoca.org

Museum Hours
Wednesday – Sunday
11am to 4pm
Museum Store open during regular museum hours and for receptions and special events.

Admission
Free

One Thing Leads To Another - Seriality in Works on Paper
November 12, 2011 to February 25, 2012

Opening reception: Friday, November 11, 2011, 6pm to 8pm

San Jose Institute of Contemporary Art
560 South First Street
San Jose, CA

From the SJICA website:

Process and repetition in contemporary print and drawings

One Thing Leads to Another presents contemporary prints and drawings by artists who address process and repetition in their works. The exhibition highlights works created in the ICA Print Center by several of its talented Artists-in-Residence and simultaneously celebrates the art of printmaking and the ICA’s Print Center itself. One Thing Leads To Another will highlight and contextualize four of the ICA Print Center’s Artists-in-Residence including Modesto Covarrubias, Christel Dillbohner, Linn Meyers and Theodora Varnay Jones. Additionally, works by Mari Andrews, Brad Brown, Jaq Chartier, Amy Ellingson, Lea Feinstein, Robin Kandel, Anthony Ryan and Kim Rugg will be presented.

Through repetitive and sometimes systematic processes, the exhibiting artists generate a varied visual vocabulary where one work informs the next one and so on. Drawing on various disciplines, such as music, language, mathematics and architecture, and employing minimal materials such as paper, pencil and ink, the artists present the expansive possibilities that repetition yields in developing a series of works.

More on this exhibition here.

September 24 to October 22, 2011

I have donated a piece for the 31st annual auction at the San Jose Institute of Contemporary Art.

As part of the auction, I, along with a lot of the other artists, have recorded an audio message about the donated piece. This will be available by using a smart phone that can read a QR code next to the piece on the walls of the SJICA.

The artwork in the auction will be viewable in person beginning September 24, 2011. It is now viewable online via the SJICA's flickr account HERE. You can see which artists have recorded messages about their works in the auction by perusing through the flickr images.
To listen to my recorded message, dial (408) 213-4293 and enter 53 #.

There are many different opportunities to connect and collect at the SJICA's auction, so drop by and take a look and take a piece or three home!

April 30, 2011 and May 1, 2011
9am to 5pm

The San Jose Institute of Contemporary Art will be hosting a weekend known as ArtHouse. This will be a weekend of art-making, exhibitions, art selling, artist talks, cultural connections and more!

Check out the schedule of events here.

I will be taking part in Printapalooza! (printmaking workshop) on Sunday May 1 and at 1:30 pm will give a demonstration of the processes incorporated to produce prints made while I was an artist in residence at the SJICA Print Center last year.

There will be a print fair, with a large selection of prints available by many local printmakers; exhibition tours with exhibiting artists and ICA curators; artist talks and demonstrations; an exhibition of prints produced through the SJICA Print Center's Artist In Residence program; food and more.

Come check out what the ICA in San Jose has to offer.

All Over The Map: A Festschrift Exhibition for Moira Roth’s 77th Birthday is a year-long exhibition honoring the extraordinary work of this art historian, poet, and artist. The exhibition is culled from a weekend-long event of both formal and impromptu installations and performances that will take place at The Poor Farm in July 2010.

All Over The Map will feature artworks, installations, artifacts, and collections. It will also include a series of other exhibitions curated by Moira and Annika Marie e.g. Room of Memory, The Poor Farm: Fragments of a History, together with the traveling exhibition of The Library of Maps (that includes Moira’s poems and Slobodan Dan Paich’s Drawings.


More information here.


About Poor Farm and Poor Farm Press:

The Poor Farm is a contemporary art space, modeled after the northern European kunsthalle, located in the township of Little Wolf, Wisconsin. Poor Farm is an exhibition space dedicated wholly to artist's work and ideas. Poor Farm will present yearlong exhibitions in 6,000 square feet of exhibition space. The historic building sits on 2.5 acres of rural land. The property also hosts a 2,000 square foot dormitory building where artists, writers, curators and other related researchers can be in residence for varied lengths of time. Poor Farm Press will originate catalogues and other printed matter.


A few blog entries about the Festschrift Exhibition and the Poor Farm

Milwaukee Wisconsin Journal Sentinel

Questioning Contemporary Art

The process of installing LIMINAL at the SJICA, was captured on video. They did a great job of going unnoticed by me, so this video came as a welcome surprise. Check it out here.

Or copy this URL into your browser: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wR4oXWdpJX0

The San Jose Institute of Contemporary Art is the site of Liminal, the latest installation by Modesto Covarrubias. The installation is open to the public beginning Saturday, April 10 and will be on view until Saturday, July 3, 2010.

Liminal is an immersive site-specific installation exploring ideas related to shelter, memories and imagined space.

Artist reception will be held on Friday, May 7, 2010. 6pm to 8pm.

Talking Art: a conversation with Modesto Covarrubias. Thursday, June 10, 7pm to 9pm.

San Jose Institute of Contemporary Art
560 South First Street, San Jose, CA 95113
T 408.283.8155
F 408.283.8157
Gallery info HERE.

The San Jose Institute of Contemporary Art (SJICA) is currently displaying works for its Monotype Marathon auction in their Focus Gallery. The auction takes place on Saturday, March 27th, starting at 5:30pm. You can check out the works online, but it is recommended to experience them in person; then you can take note which one(s) you will bid on.

After the Monotype Marathon, the Focus Gallery will be the site of Liminal, a site-specific installation by Modesto Covarrubias, which will open on April 10, with an artist's reception on May 7, 2010.

In the Cardinale Project Room, Libby Black: Workout Room will be installed and will also open on April 10, with an artist's reception on May 7, 2010.

More information about these two exciting art installations HERE.

Stay tuned for more details about upcoming artist talks and events.

Opening reception, Friday March 5, 2010, 6pm to 8pm.
Silent Auction, Saturday March 27th, 5:30pm to 7:30pm

Preparations are underway at The San Jose Institute of Contemporary Art (ICA) for the gallery’s annual Monotype Marathon – a print exhibition and fundraising event that features more than 100 original works on paper created by some of the Bay Area’s finest printmakers. The exhibition runs from March 6th through March 27th at the ICA and culminates with a silent auction fundraising event on the evening of Saturday, March 27th from 5:30pm to 7:30pm. An opening reception for the exhibition will be held on Friday, March 5th from 6pm – 8pm, preceding the monthly South First Friday Gallery Walk.

The 2010 Monotype Marathon event begins with an intensive weekend of art making by more than eighty professional artists in printmaking studios throughout the Bay Area. These artists are invited by the ICA to produce a number of monotypes during the marathon printmaking weekend event held in January. The ICA selects the best work produced by each of the artists to showcase in the exhibition and to offer for sale in the silent auction. Proceeds raised from the auction go toward the ICA’s exhibitions and educational programs.
The ICA seeks support for the Monotype Marathon from its members and from the community by selling sponsorships of $300 that enable artists to participate in the printmaking workshops. Each $300 sponsorship donation serves as the opening bid on any of the works in the auction. All Monotype Marathon sponsors are guaranteed to receive a unique work on paper from the auction. Sponsorships are on sale now. Contact the ICA by phone (408.283.8155) or email (info@sjica.org) to purchase sponsorships.

I am very excited and honored to be one of the artists producing a monotype for this annual event.

More information HERE.

Preview the prints HERE.

Bay Area Visual Arts Network Gallery, featuring work by Modesto Covarrubias.

Closing Reception - November 19, 2009 5 to 7pm

455 17th Street
Oakland (between Broadway and Telegraph, just a block from BART)
(510) 508-1764


The exhibition runs through November 30 and is available for viewing by appointment. (510) 508-1764

The Bay Area Visual Arts Network Gallery will be featuring the work of Modesto Covarrubias in October 2009.

October 2nd to November 30th, 2009
Opening reception, Thursday October 15th, 6pm to 9pm
Closing reception, Thursday November 19th, 5pm to 7pm


Bay VAN is currently accepting submissions for their 2010 Artist Registry.

You can also join Bay VAN HERE.

Modesto Covarrubias & Benicia Gantner

New works by each artist presented in the voluminous space of 555 12th Street in downtown Oakland.

Exhibition Dates: August 20 to November 13, 2009.

Opening Reception: August 20, 5pm - 7pm

The kind folks at KQED visited the Mills College Art Museum a few weeks ago and have featured the exhibition YOUNG AMERICANS in their online Gallery Crawl series. Enjoy.

Stoked Americans

or here on YouTube

or here via iTunes



If you haven't seen the show yet, come by before May 31, 2009!

Here are some blogs that have featured the show:

Talking Art

If You Can't Make It Good Make It Big

Art Business

May 3, 2009 through May 31, 2009.
Opening reception, Saturday, May 2, 2009, 7 to 9pm.

Come experience Young Americans, the 2009 MFA Thesis Exhibition at Mills College in Oakland, California.

Featuring work by 10 emerging artists:

Andrew Witrak, Annie Vought, Brian Caraway, Esther Traugot, Gina Tuzzi, Joseph Berryhill, Kate Pszotka, Leigh Merrill, Modesto Covarrubias, and Steuart Pittman.

The Mills College Art Museum is proud to present Young Americans, featuring works by the 2009 Master of Fine Arts degree recipients. This exhibition provides an opportunity to see works in all media created by a promising group of emerging artists eager to share what they have been developing during their graduate program with a broader audience. This year’s exhibition is curated by Terri Cohn, Bay Area writer, independent curator, and faculty member at the San Francisco Art Institute.

In the brochure accompanying the exhibition, Cohn observes that the ten artists who will receive their MFA degrees this year are unusual in their choice to name their MFA show Young Americans. The title situates them as citizens emerging within a national context, and suggests that in addition to their collective experiences as youthful Americans—with the burden of history this implies, this identity also affords them an intrinsic right to personal freedom. A desire for a sense of security—articulated in various metaphoric and formal ways—is one fundamental concern expressed through their work.

Kate Pszotka’s fascination with the idea of home and stability has motivated her consideration of family members, which she represents iconographically with everyday objects, realized as paper cut out line drawings. Gina Tuzzi’s seemingly simple, naïve structures—houses, barns, huts—stacked on trucks to become rolling homes, or represented as drawings, underscore a sense of safety and comfort in the mythic past of coastal California.

In related ways, Esther Traugot’s knitted tree sweaters and forest of trunks with projected flower pattern coverings suggest the utopian potential of the natural world, as well as her desire to protect and preserve it. By contrast, Leigh Merrill’s large-scale photographs explore the relationship between fantasy and reality in our constructed environments, blending urban and suburban architecture and landscape styles, or cut and artificial flowers. Modesto Covarrubias has spent much time creating rooms and shelters as means to define and express his fears, insecurities, and sense of vulnerability, while Andrew Witrak’s sculptures pose slightly ridiculous solutions to the question of what can provide some fleeting impression of safety or exit: lifejackets sewn together; a beeswax boarding pass. Annie Vought translates found handwritten letters to wall-mounted versions created with cutout text, fragile portraits of each author that are reminiscent of silhouettes.

Joseph Berryhill’s paintings express a tension between order and chaos, proposing ways that animate experience can be distilled into visual experience. Steuart Pittman’s abstract paintings reflect what he calls a “longing for quiet beauty in a chaotic, high-speed age,” while Brian Caraway creates tools and rules to implement his mixed media works, relating his process-based investigations through texture as they change over time.

As artists who have come of age in the extraordinarily volatile circumstances of the 21st century, these individuals focus on singular modes of expression as a way to make sense of and stake a claim in their separate and collective futures. Their works express a sense of hope and possibility, going forward into their lives as young Americans.

In addition to an essay by Cohn, the illustrated catalog for Young Americans contains an essay by critic Glen Helfand. This publication will be available in the gallery during the course of the exhibition.

The Mills College Art Museum, founded in 1925, is a dynamic center for art that focuses on the creative work of women as artists and curators. The museum strives to engage and inspire the diverse and distinctive cultures of the Bay Area by presenting innovative exhibitions by emerging and established national and international artists. Exhibitions are designed to challenge and invite reflection upon the profound complexities of contemporary culture.


Mills College Art Museum
5000 MacArthur Boulevard
Oakland, CA 94613
510.430.2164
http://www.mills.edu/museum/
directions to Mills College
directions to the Mills College Art Museum
Mills College Art Museum

Museum Hours:
Tuesday-Sunday 11:00-4:00pm
Wednesday 11:00-7:30pm
Monday Closed

Admission is free for all exhibitions and programs.

FIVEten Studio presents

The Home Show

April 3, 2009 to May 29, 2009
Opening Reception: May 1, 2009, 6 to 9pm

Glenna Alle
Linda Braz
Modesto Covarrubias
Miriam Fagan
Dave Higgins
Elyse Hochstadt


From the abundance of home decorating and DIY shows, and the continued success of "Cribs" to the inability to rebuild in the 9th Ward and the continuing mortgage crisis, there is an overwhelming amount of attention on "home." As a space for nesting and pro-creating, as well as for all manner of self-expression the home can function as the locus of the intersection of art and design. Working in that liminal space, Fiveten Studio and artists Linda Braz and Elyse Hochstadt present "The Home Show," an exhibition of 6 Bay Area artists whose work explores, expands, questions and distorts the definition of home, while simultaneously blurring the boundaries between art and design.


The exhibition opens for Oakland's Art Murmer Friday, April 3, 2009 with a formal reception on May 1, 2009 from 6-9pm and runs until May 29th. Gallery hours are Thursday-Saturday 11am-6pm.

January 31 to March 7, 2009
The Bonnafont Gallery
946a Greenwich Street
San Francisco, CA
415.441.4182

Opening Reception Saturday 31 January, 2009, 6 to 8
Closing Reception Saturday 7 March, 2009, 2 to 5


Poems by Moira Roth

With photography by Dennis Letbetter
and drawings by Slobodan Dan Paich

Music specially created for the exhibition by Pauline Oliveros, The Library of Maps, Part IV

Broadsheets by Max Koch

Performance at Opening Reception by Modesto Covarrubias, The Knitter


This exhibition pays special homage to the gallery's founder, Philippe Bonnafont (1938-1993), the first in California to show the work of architects as art. In that spirit, we exhibit broadsheets of three of Moira Roth's poems from her Library of Maps series, a 41-part narrative: The Map of the Heart, The Unruly Map of Threads, and The Map of Stones.

The poems are accompanied by drawings by Slobodan Dan Paich, photographs by Dennis Letbetter, a weaving directed by Esther Traugot, and a collection of stones from various parts of the world. The exhibition is supported by a Donor-Advised Fund of the Tides Foundation.

The 2009 Artship Exhibition Series addresses - directly or indirectly - the rise and fall of civilizations around issues of freedom of speech and expression, and notions of alignment and misalignment of place. In the ebb and flow of history, times of cultural flourishing are frequently followed by times of oppression and darkness. The central work of the series is the Artship Ensemble's original theater piece, Burning of the Ancient Library of Alexandria.


Exhibition continues Weekends 2 to 5pm

Saturday, December 13, 2008
12 Noon to 5pm


More info here:

Mills College MFA Open Studios Blogspot

Center for Contemporary Arts - Santa Fe
October 10-26, 2008 | Muñoz Waxman Gallery
Opening reception Friday, October 10, 5-7 PM
"Every work of art is the child of its time; often it is the mother of our emotions." - Wassily Kandinsky, 1912


You Know How I Feel is the product of several years of collaboration between five local, national, and international artists. The exhibition includes slow-motion video; photographic abstractions; soft, sensual sculptures; paintings and drawings; and still adaptations of filmic conversations. You Know How I Feel is a plea between lover and beloved, the top and the bottom, the leader and the followers. This yearning to connect at the most fundamental level aims towards something more humane, perhaps a moment of trust, a shared history: ourselves and what we think we know about each other.

You Know How I Feel will also feature guerrilla-style interventions in and around the Muñoz Waxman Gallery, converting it into a visually expressive testing ground of multifold emotions and meta-emotions.

The 5 Artists: VICTOR BARBIERI, EILA KOVANEN, VERONICA SAHAGUN, ROBIN WARD, & MICHAEL WONG

Featuring Guest Artists:

Marcelo Balzaretti
Sarah Barsness
Laura F. Gibellini
Dorothy Goode
Keith Hale
Melanie Lacy Kusters
Modesto Covarrubias
Besty Lam
Eric Reyes Lamothe
Aline Mare
Beth Mitchell
Francesca Pastine
Deborah Poe
Neli Ruzic
James Tantum
David Tomb

September 6 - October 18, 2008
Location: SFAC Gallery (Map It)


Artists: Bren Ahearn, Michael Arcega, Elisheva Biernoff, Tom Borden, Modesto Covarrubias, Eilish Cullen, April Grayson, Claire Jackel, Anthony Marcellini, Robert Minervini, Robert Moya, Michael Namkung, Moses Nornberg, Daniel Ochoa, S Patricia Patterson, Hilary Pecis, Jeff Ray, Gina Tuzzi, Jina Valentine, Annie Vought, Sara Wanie, Andrew Witrak, Imin Yeh, and David Yun

The San Francisco Arts Commission Gallery is proud to present Immediate Future, featuring works by the recipients of the 2008 Murphy & Cadogan Fellowships in the Fine Arts. This exhibition provides a first-glance at what is being produced by promising artists within regional graduate programs. For many featured artists this exhibition marks their first major exposure, and for all participants it represents an opportunity to share what they have been developing in their graduate studios with a broader audience.

The Murphy & Cadogan Fellowships in the Fine Arts are annual awards sponsored by The San Francisco Foundation to assist art students in funding their final year of graduate studies. In partnership with the Foundation, the Arts Commission Gallery is committed to showcasing works by outstanding Bay Area art students through the annual fellowship exhibition. The jurors for this year’s awards were Lisa Dent, Charles Mobley, Denise Ruiz and Meg Shiffler.

Bay Area colleges and universities represented by the twenty-four 2008 recipients are the Academy of Art University, California College of the Arts, Mills College, The San Francisco Art Institute, San Francisco State University and Stanford University. Media represented in the show includes drawing, film & video, installation, mixed media, painting, printmaking, performance and sculpture.

Opening Reception: Saturday, August 23, 2008, 6-10pm
Location: Blankspace Gallery
6608 San Pablo Avenue
Oakland, CA 94608

This exhibition will feature work by students who are beginning their second year of the program, as well as work by students beginning their first year of the program. Also featured is tenxten, a limited edtion set of prints by 10 of the featured artists.

For more information, check out the blogspot (includes artists' sites, and other tasty tidbits...which will be featured at the exhibition as well...)
Mills Bake Sale

It's Happening...