Christina Waters

IRWIN Scholars 2008
MAY 28 - JUNE 14
Opening Reception: Wednesday, May 28 5-7PM; Awards: 6PM

Check out this year’s Irwin Scholarship exhibition at the UCSC Sesnon Gallery in Porter College, featuring twelve of UCSC’s most promising artists working in painting, photography, printmaking, sculpture, installation and electronic media.
This year’s Irwin recipients are: Misha Capecchi, Seth Charles, Julia Fredenburg, Levi Goldman, Andrew Herbig, Serena Mitnik-Miller, (more…)

A roster of heavyweight — or at least wildly colorful and prolific — local artists will gather for your edification on the weekend of June 7-8, 11am-6pm at The Mill Gallery, 131 Front St., in Santa Cruz. It’s called Art for Art, and it benefits the Tannery Arts Center.
Art-lovers can check out bold contemporary artwork in a wide range of media from more than two dozen top practitioners. Choice appetizers and music will also accompany the visual feast, and artists will be donating 20% of all sales to the Tannery Arts Center. Art for Art group exhibition will be on view during June 6th “First Friday” art grazing tour - 5:30-9pm.

If you need more info contact the Art for Art website. See you there!

Susana Arias
Karen Bailey
Fran Battendieri
Hildy Bernstein
Linda Christensen
Pilar Cox
Madeline de Joly
Susan Dorf
Sara Friedlander (she never sleeps)
Don Fritz (neither does he)
Shelby Graham
Jane Gregorius
Stephanie Heit
D. Hooker
r.r. Jones
Robert Larson (more…)

UCSC Open Studio Art Sale!

Brigid McCabe graduated with a degree in Art from UCSC a few years ago, went back east for an MFA, and now lives and works in her Berkeley studio. McCabe’s vibrant paintings of psychological environments, in brilliant hues of orange, yellow and green, will be on exhibit at Togonon Gallery in San Francisco, starting June 5, 2008.

McCabe’s is a fictional world filled with the playful ephemera of everyday life, gleaned from childhood memories and tomorrow’s breakfast. Striking, lively and 100% California in spirit, this work produces adrenaline surges.

Daily Inventory: Paintings by Brigid McCabe. Reception - Thursday, June 5 5:30-8pm. Togonon Gallery - 77 Geary Street, SF (415).398-5572.

Abstractions - an ambitious and colorful exhibition of original artwork opens this Friday at a quartet of Santa Cruz County Banks throughout the county. Inspired by energy, emotion, and the environment, seven women artists explore the expressive qualities of line, shape, and form in these abstract explorations.

Artists Beth Shields, Barbara Johnson, Sara Friedlander, Wendy Barrett, Cheryl Doering, Barbara Kreitman, and Sarah Healey, are all showcased in an exhibit curated by Joan Blackmer.

Artists’ Reception March 7, 2008, 6-8pm at Santa Cruz County Bank 325 Soquel Avenue, Santa Cruz. (above, Shields, Blue & Orange Mantra)

On view M-Th, 9am-5pm, Fri 9am – 6pm, the show continues through May 23rd 2008 - at Santa Cruz County Banks throughout the county.
Capitola- 819 Bay Avenue
Santa Cruz – 325 Soquel Avenue
Scotts Valley – 4604 Scotts Valley Drive
Watsonville – 595 Auto Center Drive

Recent paintings by Tom Maderos - plein air and still life specialist - will fill the interior of Gabriella Cafe starting on March 10. The show, which continues through May 5, will show off Maderos’ expressionistic skills with oil on canvas. If Diebenkorn had painted the Santa Cruz coast, the effect might be close to the luscious composition of Maderos’ color-saturated work. (”El View Lodge” shown here.) Like those of the Bay Area school of the 1960s, Maderos’s flat picture plane is rich with sensuous color, unexpected spatiality and the figurative pushed almost to abstraction. Unfussy, almost effortless (at least in appearance) these artworks will keep diners company as they enjoy the edible artwork of chef Sean Baker.

Maderos’ paintings are also available, “to go,” if you get my meaning. I have one of his austere floral studies hanging in my office.

Gabriella Cafe - 910 Cedar Street in downtown Santa Cruz.

China — its art and history, inspired a new museum-wide exhibition opening this weekend at the Museum of Art & History, in downtown Santa Cruz. Based upon relationships brokered by curator Susan Hillhouse, the ambitious network of presentations involves collaborations with dozens of artists from China and California, and with Chen Gallery of Santa Cruz. Thanks to April Chen, a working artist’s studio typical of those in China will be recreated on-site, among other displays of Chinese furniture and crafts. In addition to the photography of Beijing artist Wang Ningde and Shanghai artist Wang Dong Ling, who lived in Santa Cruz from 1989 to 1991, the show explores the work of local art practitioners who have visited and been inspired by China. Thse artists include Sara Friedlander, Victoria May, Gloria Alford, Wallace Boss, Dana Eaton, Mattie Leeds, Joel Magen, and Gary Snider.

Ying: Inspired by the Art and History of China opens February 23 and continues through June 29. Not to be missed!

Take a breather from Open Studios and visit the new show of paintings by Frank Galuszka at Carmel’s Winfield Gallery.

Myth and the Coast is the title of a suite of 20 recent coastal landscapes and a few mythic surprises by UCSC Professor of Art and longtime plein air impressionist Galuszka.

Winfield Gallery is located on Dolores, between Ocean & 7th.
831/624-3369 - 800/289-1950

The Galuszka show of original artworks runs through November 11, 2007.

(Shown here, detail of Coyote in the Kitchen)

Wrapping up our tour of this year’s SSC festival, we bundled up for a nighttime performance of The Tempest, an atmospheric bit of surrealism-in-the-redwoods. Thanks to ingenious visuals by costume designer Brandin Barón and lighting design by David Lee Cuthbert, this Tempest sparkled with eye candy. And once again, the most interesting part of seeing all the plays this year is the chance to experience the deep texture created by the repertory casting. As Prospero, the shipwrecked Duke of Milan, James Winker reminds us, “We are such stuff as dreams are made on.” But just last week, I’d been regaled by Winker as the linguistically inept Dogberry in Much Ado About Nothing. The same dramatic resonance occurs in the case of Prospero’s daughter, Miranda - played by Barbara Suiter, who also plays the much maligned Hero in Much Ado. The Tempest’s splendid Caliban is played by Omar Ricks, whose singing enchants Much Ado audiences. The repertory casting lets us watch the range of the actors across at least two separate dramatic scripts. And the glen, as always, more than earns its reputation as a magical performance space — a softly hooting owl high up in the trees added a touch of “brave new world” fantasy during last Saturday’s performance.

Wanting to sink into Shakespeare’s strange saga of humans, gods, beasts and spirits, I found myself distracted by uncertain direction and a few casting issues. (more…)