LAaRTS
morinda
ALLIANCE
NEWSLETTER
www.LAA4Art.org
Message
from
LAA President
On February 5th, David VanderJagt, Olga Jusidman and
Magaret Lucas-Hill gave fascinating and inspiring talks
regarding their art business models. All of us there enjoyed what they had to say and were impressed with
their professionalism and entrepreneurship.
We will take a pass on the Education Evening for
March/April and will look at having a social gathering
in May or June. I welcome suggestions at: arganbdm@
comcast.net
Pam McCauley and Lauma Johnson are both working on putting together exhibition opportunities for
our artists. Karen Thapa is preparing for Open Studios
which will be a week earlier this year on October 10th
and 11th. Be sure to mark your calendars for this important event.
The Bedford Gallery in Walnut Creek has a new show
titled, “The Object and the Void: West Coast Metal
Sculpture.” The Bedford Gallery has also invited artists
to submit for a juried upcoming show. Mark is including information regarding this in the newsletter.
I would like to congratulate and thank our new editor,
Mark Coffey, on a fine January+February newsletter.
We look forward to many more informative and interesting newsletters under his leadership.
Donna Argenbright
President
Don’t Forget Turn your clocks
ahead one hour
Sunday morning,
March 8th!
March+April 2015
Donors
The Lamorinda Arts Alliance gratefully acknowledges
the following members who made contributions to the
Alliance during 2014.
Benefactor - $250 or more
Anonymous
Sustaining - $100 - $249
Ken Young
Supporting - $50 - $99
Suzun Almquist
Susan Bonebakker
Patrick Hayashi
Donor - up to $49
Julie Christopher
Mike Christopher
Barbara Falconer
Charity Huss
Jill Landau
Jennifer Perlmutter
Liz Piatt
Roxanne Pollack
Paula Riley
Kyila Sninsky
Ruth Stanton
Loma Strotz
Lucia Tsang
We encourage all members to add an additional gift to
your membership renewal. Membership fees and additional gifts are tax deductable as allowed by law. Gifts
of any size are greatly appreciated. Thank you for your
support.
In This Issue
Page
Message from LAA President
1
Donors1
Lindsay Dirkx Brown Gallery Show
2
Piedmont Center for the Arts Show 2
Bedford Gallery Juried Competition
3
111 Minna Gallery Opportunity
3
Lafayette Art Gallery - “Trending”
3
Moraga Art Gallery - “Transitions”
4
Town Hall Theater Gallery - “Beyond the Brush”
5
Lisa Franklin
6
Wenda Pyman
6
Paula Riley
7
New Members
7
Event Calendar
8
L
amorinda
Arts Alliance
NEWSLETTER
Lindsay Dirkx Brown Gallery Show
Piedmont Center
LAA members have an opportunity to show their
work at The Lindsay Dirkx Brown Gallery in the San
Ramon Community Center at 226 Camino Ramon,
San Ramon CA 94583. The show will run from June 2nd
to June 30th, 2015. Gallery hours are Monday through
Friday 8:30 am to 5:00 pm. A public reception will be
held Saturday, June 6th, from 2:00 to 4:00 pm.
Pam McCauley and Lauma Johnson will curate and
hang the show. The gallery can hold approximately
sixty pieces of 2D art and twenty pieces of 3D art. All
2D art must be properly framed and wired and all 3D
work must not be taller than 18 inches. Information on
the show will be included in the San Ramon Recreation
Guide that is distributed to 31,000 households. There
is no fee for our members, however the City of San
Ramon charges a commission of 20% on all sales.
March+April - 2015
for the
Arts Show
Piedmont Center for the Arts is a beautiful venue that
is also offering LAA members a great opportunity
to show their art in Piedmont at 801 Magnolia Ave.,
Piedmont CA 94611. The show will run from August
22nd to September 27th. Gallery hours are Saturday and
Sunday from noon to 3:00 pm. During the week, the
gallery is in constant use and your art will be viewed by
many people. A public reception will be held Sunday,
August 23rd, from noon to 3:00 pm.
Valerie Corvin of the Center will curate and hang this
show. The Center can hang approximately forty pieces
of 2D art. There will be no 3D art in this show. There
is a $20.00 fee for each piece accepted and 10% of all
sales go to the Piedmont Center for the Arts. Those
accepted in the show will be required to gallery sit for
one 3 hour session during the show.
To be considered for the show, please submit images
of your art to Valerie Corvin between June 1st and June
15th. The site address will be announced in a future
LAA notice. Notification of acceptance will be sent by
July 1st. There is no theme for the show. The gallery
does not allow nude paintings or sculpture. Framed art
must have clean mats, clean and undamaged frames,
and wiring that uses flat rings. Gallery wrapped canvases are acceptable.
The Lindsay Dirkx Brown Gallery
To be considered for the show, please submit images
of one to three pieces of your art to Pam McCauley at
[email protected] between April 20th and May
4th. Notification of acceptance will be sent by May 11th.
There is no particular theme for the show. The gallery
does not allow nude paintings or sculpture. Framed art
must have clean mats, clean and undamaged frames,
and wiring that uses flat rings. Gallery wrapped canvases are acceptable.
Drop-off for the show will be Wednesday, August 19th,
from 10:00 to 11:30 am and waivers will need to be
signed and fees for the show paid. The show will close
and art must be picked-up Sunday, September 27th from
2:00 to 4:00 pm.
Drop-off for the show will be Monday, June 1st, from
10:00 to 11:00 am and waivers will need to be signed at
that time. The show will close and art must be pickedup Tuesday, June 30th, from 10:00 to 11:00 am.
Page 2
L
amorinda
Arts Alliance
NEWSLETTER
Bedford Gallery
“Botanica: All Things Plant Life”
The Bedford Gallery has announced an “Open Call”.
Artists are invited to submit artworks for this national
juried exhibition at the Bedford. The competition is
open to all artists in the United States, 18 years of age or
older. Entries must be original work completed within
the last three years.
From 16th century Flemish painters, to Cezanne and
the Post Impressionists, the color and variety found in
plant life have long served as artistic inspiration. For
this juried exhibition, they are asking artists to create
artwork that explores how plant life can be represented
by a diverse range of media.
Jurors for the competition will be Ken Harman,
Director of Hashimoto Contemporary & Spoke Art,
San Francisco; and MacKenzie Stevens, Curatorial
Assistant at the Hammer Museum, Los Angeles. $3,000
in cash, plus prizes, will be awarded.
The submission deadline is Friday, May 8th and the
exhibition will run from Sunday, July 12th to Sunday,
September 6th.
March+April - 2015
If you are interested in applying for consideration and
participation in this show, please submit an email of
your interest along with two to four images of your
work to Lauma at [email protected]. Include size
of work, media, name of art work, your name and a
contact phone number. The first step is to get the Minna
Gallery to accept LAA as a
group. If this is successful,
you will be notified and the
gallery will then jury art
for final acceptance in the
show.
Lafayette Art Gallery”
Trending”
The Lafayette Art Gallery is pleased to announce that
in March we are honored to have a special exhibition
of new works by well-known and much loved Orinda
ceramicist Gerry Wallace! Wallace, who has an MFA
from Cal, began working with clay about 20 years ago.
She creates both functional and sculptural pieces that
she covers with colorful, fine-line images of people and
objects. Her unique ceramics have gathered many local
devotees as well as serious collectors.
The Bedford only accepts online submissions via
SlideRoom. To find out more about SlideRoom and
how to enter your artwork, visit www.bedfordgallery.
org/botanica.
111 Minna Gallery Member Opportunity
Lauma Johnson is putting together a proposal for a
group show at the 111 Minna Gallery in San Francisco.
She is asking all interested LAA members to let her
know and to submit images for consideration.
The Minna Gallery typically seeks unique art that is “off
the wall and out-of-the-box” for its shows. They show
cutting-edge art that is best described by visiting their
web site at www.111MinnaGallery.com. There you can
see the style of art they are looking for and view the
atmosphere of the gallery. The gallery hosts a number
of events and is a popular gathering place.
The show would be scheduled sometime in 2016 as the
gallery is fully booked for this year.
A reception for Gerry and her work will be held on
Friday, March 6th from 5:30 to 8:00 pm. Stop by for a
glass of wine and a snack, and meet Gerry!
The gallery will also be showing the work of a new member photographer, Lisa Franklin as well as the exceptional line of fire-based pottery from Carole Neilsen, a
San Francisco-based ceramicist who hails from Alsace
in Northern France.
Page 3
L
amorinda
Arts Alliance
NEWSLETTER
March+April - 2015
Starting March 3rd is a new exhibit of paintings, ceramics, glass pieces and jewelry by our 24 regular members. The theme of this exhibit is “Trending,” showcasing works that reflect the most up-to-date themes and
trends of our fast-paced, ever-changing environment,
as interpreted by our talented artists!
Since it’s inception in 1999, the Lafayette Art Gallery
has presented over 110 different shows of high-quality
paintings, ceramics, glassworks, sculpture and jewelry,
and has contributed the artists’ expertise to dozens of
community groups and non-profit organizations.
Lafayette Gallery is looking for new members, particularly
functional ceramics, glass, and small sculpture. Lafayette Gallery is a co-op gallery. All members contribute to the running
of the gallery, and prospective members are juried for admittance. If you are interested, please contact Judy Feins for more
information, at [email protected]
3420 Mt. Diablo Blvd. - Suite A
(Mt. Diablo Blvd. at Brown Avenue)
Lafayette, California 94549
925-284-2788
www.LafayetteArtGallery.com
Moraga Art Gallery
“Transitions”
The Moraga Art Gallery announces a new show entitled “Transitions” featuring the one-of-a-kind, Asiaaccented jewelry of Lafayette’s own master jeweler K.
de Groot as well as a collection of Raku and pit-fired
pottery by guest artist Mary Leigh Miller of Moraga.
The show opens March 25th and will run until May
30th.
K. de Groot strings her
cross-cultural necklaces
with varieties of antique
beads and pendants
brought back from China,
Nepal, India, Thailand
and other exotic destinations. Semi-precious
stones, delicately etched,
molded, and granulated
gold and silver beads as
well as other trinkets en-
dow her work with both a touch of class as well as a
touch of Asia. Custom-made jewelry using customers’
own unique pieces is one of her specialties.
To create her pit-fired ceramics, Mary
Leigh Miller arranges clay pieces in
a sand cavity surrounded by burnable materials - sawdust, dry seaweed,
wood and cow dung. During an hourslong bonfire, she adds various amounts
of copper oxides and salt, thereby producing unpredictable but ever-intriguing results. Equally stunning are her
Raku pieces that are adapted from an
ancient Japanese firing technique during which work is removed directly
from the hot kiln and smoked with
burnable materials, giving each clay surface a copper
sheen.
The public is invited to attend an opening reception on
Saturday, March 28th from 5:00 until 7:00 pm to see the
exhibit, have some wine, meet the artists, and enjoy the
Page 4
L
amorinda
Arts Alliance
NEWSLETTER
company of other Lamorinda art lovers.
Fifteen member artists of the gallery will also have
paintings, photographs, ceramics, jewelry and finelycrafted woodware on display. The gallery, located at 522
Center Street, Rheem Shopping Center, in Moraga, is
open Wednesday through Sunday from noon to 5 pm.
For more information, go to www.MoragaArtGallery.
com, or call 925-376-5407.
March+April - 2015
that has mystery, insight and speaks louder than the
spoken word.”
Painter Lynn Glenn’s work reveals a concentrated focus
on color. “Color is just delicious,” says Glenn. “It lights
my world; it gets everything going.” A well-known local abstract artist, Glenn has recently started to include
mixed media pieces in her work.
522 Center Street in Moraga’s Rheem Shopping Center
Town Hall Theater Gallery
The current show at Town Hall Theater, “Beyond the
Brush” is a group of East Bay women who gather each
month to critique, share and support one another as
they grow as artists. The show runs through March 14th
and features the following artists:
Jane Yuen Corich’s objective is to tell a story with color,
texture and line. Corich starts every piece with an open
mind and a sense of discovery. She uses photographs
to build the texture and structure of these surfaces.
Though you may not recognize the photographs, they
set the tone of the painting and the finished product is
the story. As she says, “I want to create a visual place
“Mind and Spirit” by Jane Yuen Corich
Jan Lainoff ’s mixed media constructs reveal an exploration of faces, figures, silhouettes and shadow shapes
augmented with mark making. She pairs vivid colors with rhythmic brush strokes and textured collage.
Words are embedded within the compositions to enhance the canvas character and narrative.
Yolanda Mihic defines art as a process in which she
strives to translate visually the complexities and interconnections of everyday living. In her recent works,
Mihic deconstructs the initial composition by cutting
it in pieces and then reconstructs the transformed pieces with textural stitching. “I am fascinated by how the
reintegrated pieces relate to each other with their harmonizing/juxtaposing designs.”
“Mind and Spriri” by Jane Yuen Corich
LAA has provided art for the Town Hall Theater
Gallery for over ten years. Each show is curated by
JoAnn Lieberman.
Page 5
L
amorinda
Arts Alliance
NEWSLETTER
Lisa Franklin
at the Riverfront Gallery
March+April - 2015
Wenda Pyman
in Martinez
Photographer Lisa Franklin has had two of her photographs selected for the “Showin’ on the River” juried photography show at the Riverfront Gallery in
Petaluma.
Wenda Pyman will be part of a photography group
show, “Luminous Landscapes”, at the Contra Costa
County Administration Building in Martinez. The
exhibit also includes the photographic work of LAA
member Dave Dondero and Ernest Rodriquez. The
show will run through March 27th, at 651 Pine Street,
Martinez, CA. 94553. Hours are Monday through
Friday, 8:00 am to 5:00 pm.
“The Beauty Lesson” by Lisa Franklin
The show opens Wednesday, March 11th, and there will
be an Early Spring Show reception Saturday, March
14th from 5:00 to 9:00 pm to coincide with the Second
Saturday Artwalk.
Wenda is a landscape, nature and travel photographer
who has taken courses to refine her technique. Her
work reflects a passion to capture diverse patterns and
imagery finding harmony and balance between elements of color, lines, texture and shapes.
“Some Enchanted Evening” by Lisa Franklin
The gallery is located at 132 Petaluma Boulevard North,
Petaluma, CA 94952. Hours are: Wednesday, Thursday
and Sunday, 11 am - 6 pm, and Friday and Saturday, 11
am - 8 pm. For more information, call 707-775-4278 or
visit the gallery web site at www.RiverfrontArtGallery.
com
Wenda will also be showing selected work at the John
Muir Hospital, Aspen Surgery Wing, as part of an
Oakland Art Association Group Show, through April
11th at 1601 Ygnacio Valley Road, Walnut Creek 94607.
For more information, visit Wenda’s website at: www.
WendaPyman.com
Page 6
L
amorinda
Arts Alliance
NEWSLETTER
Paula Riley Paint and Play
in Italy!
Paint and Play in Tuscany, Italy with Paula Riley from
September 20th to September 30th!
Explore this beautiful region of Italy - walk the hill
towns, take time to sketch, to take in the charming
sites, to delight in the wonderful food and wine.
Participants will stay in the lovely large farmhouse of
La Montalla - set in the middle of a bountiful olive
orchard. While there, we will paint with the focus on
capturing the essence and beauty of the area. You may
choose to paint in oils and/or to enjoy the pastime of
creating ink and watercolor journals. Paula will demonstrate and teach the concepts of developing a pleasing composition, loosening up your brush work, and
adding more color and zest to your paintings. She will
also provide personal guidance while students are at
the easel or working in their watercolor journals.
March+April - 2015
tation to all excursions ( we will spend a day in Siena,
and visit Montepulciano and Pienza, and more). Price
is $ 3,349.00 (double occupancy, add $ 300 for single
room).
For more information or if you have questions, please
contact Paula Riley. Call her at 925-330-3060 or email
her at [email protected] You may also find additional information on her web site at www.PaulaRiley.
com
New Members
The Lamorinda Arts Alliance welcomes the following
new members:
Dianne Bellenger
Rebecca Heskes
Yolanda Mihic
Flooding
This workshop is open to all levels - from the beginner
to the seasoned artist.
Almost everything is included in the price! Lodging,
all meals (except two lunches and one dinner), transportation to and from the Florence Airport, transporPage 7
at
Moraga Art Gallery
As the newsletter was going to press, we learned of
the flooding of the Moraga Art Gallery.
When the gallery attendant arrived Sunday,
February 22nd, there was 2 to 3 inches of standing
water in the gallery from a broken pipe. Fortunately,
no artwork was damaged, but there was water
damage.
The gallery will reopen as soon as possible.
L
amorinda
Arts Alliance
NEWSLETTER
Event Calendar
March 3
“Trending” opens at Lafayette Art Gallery
March 6 - 5:30-8:00
Reception at Lafayette Art Gallery
March 8
Daylight Saving Time Begins
March 11
Lisa Franklin opens at Riverfront Gallery
March 14
Lisa Franklin reception at Riverfront Gallery
Through March 14
“Beyond the Brush” at Town Hall Theater Gallery
March 20
Spring Equinox
March 25 - May 30
“Transitions” at Moraga Art Gallery
Through March 27
Wenda Pyman and Dave Dondero at CCC Admin. Building
March 28 - 5:00-7:00
Reception at Moraga Art Gallery
Through March
George Ehrenhaft at Moraga Library Art Gallery
Through April 11
Wenda Pyman at John Muir Hospital
April 15
Submit information for May+June newsletter
April 20 - May 4
Submit images for Lindsay Dirkx Brown Gallery show
Through April
Bay Area Studio Artists at Chimney Rock Winery
May 8
Deadline for Bedford Gallery “Botanica” competition
May 11
Notification of acceptance for Lindsay Dirkx Brown Gallery exhibit
Upcoming.........
June 1 - 15
Submit images for Piedmont show
June 1 - 30
Lindsay Dirkx Brown Gallery Show
August 19 - 27
Piedmont Center for the Arts Show
Return address:
L
amorinda
Arts Alliance
1897 Joseph Drive
Moraga, CA 94556
March+April - 2015
Tell us what you are doing and what is going on in the
local art community. Share information about upcoming shows, exhibits, events and art projects. Photos
and images with descriptions and credits are welcome and encouraged. Email information of interest
you would like to share to the editor, Mark Coffey at
[email protected].
Sometimes I need to fill in “empty” space in the newsletter to make the format work. You can help. If you
have images of your artwork that you would like to
contribute to a newsletter library, I will use those images as necessary to format the newsletter. I can’t promise
when or if they’ll be included. It’ll be a surprise! Send
your images in 300 ppi with your name and a title for
the artwork, if it has one.
The Lamorinda Arts Alliance Newsletter is published
six times a year at the beginning of odd-numbered
months. The deadline for submission of articles and
images is the 15th day of the month prior to publication. We welcome your comments and suggestions for
future issues.