Lubbock Texas rocks the 4th state of matter!

http://www.glassartists.org/Gal17751_Plasma_Tubes.asp

Tony Greer has been creating plasma art for over 30 years, 

check it out!

Jabberwocky, reviewed by Dewitt Cheng of the East Bay Express

Jabberwocky
 

The whiffling, burbling (i.e., puffing and bleating/murmuring/warbling) monster may have been slain by the beamish boy in Lewis Carroll’s poem, but the Jabberwock’s galumphing comic/sinister spirit lives on in the exuberant fantasy paintings of Cheryl Finfrock and Liz Mamorsky. Finfrock’s paintings of childlike protagonists (“Wheels for Feet and Teeth That Talk,” “Flight of the Bumble Bee,” Mothra Vs. the Tugboat”)) imbue expressionism with graffiti-style raw energy in the service of story-telling, albeit with indeterminate narratives, despite their un-Victorian suggestions of Tim Burton perversity; her abstract landscapes (“Forbidden Paradise,” “Outpost”) are surprisingly lyrical evocations of nature. Mamorsky explores improvisation to generate her imagery (“Tube Sex,” “Jabberwocky,” “Catzilla,” “Shreckless”), which seems to combine both mythopoeic “primitive” art and its Surrealist-colonialist variants: “Characters emerge and are developed, sometimes deleted or allowed to morph into other creatures.” Jabberwocky runs through September 18 at Float Gallery (1091 Calcot Pl., Oakland). 510-535-1702 or TheFloatCenter.com. — DeWitt Cheng

SURRENDER, Opening party Thursday June 24th 6pm- 9pm with live painting by Android Jones DJ Random Rab will be spinning down tempo

Please join us this Thursday for the opening party of SURRENDER,  

Thursday June 24th 6pm- 9pm with live painting by Android Jones
DJ Random Rab will be spinning down tempo

More about the artists

Please join the FLOAT Gallery for: Enigma… Artist mixer

Please join the FLOAT Gallery for:

Enigma… Artist mixer

Artists Dave Meeker & J.B. MacKinnon will discuss their work
In the presence of fine company and free libations.

Friday June 11th, 2010, 6:00 - 8:30 PM

J.B. MacKinnon will be speaking about the art fan, critic, consumer, casual observer as a vital co-creator of both my work and our joint show. jb-mackinnon.com

It takes only a moment to realize you have lost something essential once it is gone.  It is my desire to help others see what can’t be seen, notice the under valued, and to take a moment to breathe. – Dave Meeker davemeekerart.com

Directions

DeWitt Cheng of the East Bay Express reviews Where do I go from here

Another Fab review on our current exhibit:

Where Do I Go From Here? 

When: Through April 24
Phone: 510-535-1702
Price: free

Gauguin's mythic "Where Do We Come From? What Are We? Where Are We Going?" depicted a tropical Golden Age; these days we dream less about pre-colonial utopias and worry more about post-industrial dystopias. This show, curated by Nancy Vicknair, presents speculative alternatives to our damaged (but slowly healing) capitalist reality. SalaneC . Schultz's acrylics, graphic-style and infused with absurdist humor, suggest animated films: in "Man in Museum," a gigantic stick figure squeezes between abstract paintings to inspect a tiny figure statue. Clayton Thiel's ceramics explore an eclectic personal mythology: His monumental dreaming heads, both infants and sages, suggest an unknown civilization. Mark Wagner envisions a trans-temporal past/future in oils like "The Creation of Language," digital prints like "The Art of War," and his "Digital Muse" series, the Eternal Feminine gone kaleidoscopic. Where Do I Go From Here?runs through April 24 at Float Gallery (1091 Calcot Pl. #116, Oakland). 510-535-1702 or TheFloatCenter.com

— DeWitt Cheng

http://www.eastbayexpress.com/ebx/Event?oid=1616611

 

Art Reviewer Michael Singman-Aste's words about our current show....

Where do I go from here?

April 1st, 2010 “Where do I go from here?” Work by Mark Wagner, Clayton Thiel, and Salane C Schultz, at FLOAT. March 20th - April 24th.
In 1992 I visited Virtual World, a gaming immersion center in nearby Walnut Creek. Hot on the release of William Gibson and Bruce Sterling’s novel “The Difference Engine,” steampunk was just starting to catch on as a subculture. The lounge at the entrance to Virtual World was designed to resemble an expat bar in colonial India (or was it Mars?), the decor replete with potted ferns and ceiling fans. Following a debriefing, we were led into the gaming area, where each pilot stepped into their own mechanized warrior. I’m a bit claustrophobic, but once the door closed, rather than feeling trapped, you felt immersed in a new, virtual reality, while on your HUD new found allies and enemies lumbered across this fresh vista. You were cut off from the outside world but completely in touch with this other dimension.
Walking into FLOAT, which bills itself as an “urban art spa,” I flashed back to Virtual World. It is not only an art gallery, but a flotation center as well. They offer “Restricted Environmental Stimulation Therapy” (R.E.S.T., which provides a much better acronym than “Flotation And Relaxation Therapy”) in what is commonly referred to as a sensory-deprivation tank. And after a briefing on what to expect from their experience, clients are similarly led from the gallery’s lounge to where the flotation tank awaits behind a curtain.
“Where do I go from here?,” work by Mark Wagner, Clayton Thiel, and Salane C Schultz, is guest curated by art publicist Nancy Vicknair. The gallery’s website broadly describes the exhibit: “Three artists explore the next dimension though magic, mythology, symbolism and story telling.”
This is the first show in six years for Alameda-based artist Wagner, who made news in 2008 when his nonprofit “Re-Enchanting the World through Art” organized the world record-setting chalk drawing in Alameda’s former naval air station. “Where do I go from here?” includes some of Wagner’s older work, including “Creation of Language” (1992) with the strong Native American imagery for which he is well known, as well as ”The Nature of Technology” (2003) which humorously shows African animals depicted as bipeds posing for a camera, as indicated by the focussing circle at the center of the print.

"Horned Goddess" (detail), "Green Man Medicine" (detail), and "The Art of War" by Mark Wagner

Wagner’s newer pieces are complex, beautiful, and fearsome. The trio of signed, numbered, digital prints–”Horned Goddess,” “Green Man Medicine,” and “The Art of War” (2010)–all appear to be warriors, there to protect or heal us. The theme of fierce but beneficent figures continues with his new paintings “Sentinel of Time” and “The Soul Gatherer.” The latter, a 32×44 oil and mixed media on board, was among the pricier works in the exhibit, and fetched $3200.

"Tree House I Never Got to Build," "Raven Head," and "Totem Figure w/Toys" by Clayton Thiel

Mark Wagner has collaborated previously with Clayton Thiel and their styles and mythologies mix easily. According to Thiel’s statement, “Once imbuing his heads and figures with more obvious narrative elements, often composed of symbolic objects or story-telling hints to be interpreted, his sculptures now ask only to be examined for themselves.” However, his work in this show is not only beautiful and intriguing, but also has a strong narrative quality. One cannot help but wonder what story they are telling.

Salane C Shultz with her "Sideways Girl"

The paintings of Salane C Shultz are playful, a quality exhibited by the artist herself. Shultz is also a musician–she’s Miss February in the tongue-in-cheek 2010 West Coast Accordion Babes Pin-Up Calendar–and she anthropomorphizes music into figures reminiscent of Kokopelli, the Native American fertility deity who also represents the spirit of music. With their silhouettes and intertwined loops, the subjects populating the mythology of her two-dimensional universe also call to mind Keith Haring.

"The Concertina Player" and "Man in Museum" by Salane C Schultz

FLOAT is located at 1091 Calcot Place, Unit #116, Oakland CA, 94606. (510) 535-1702. Open 7 days a week, 10 am to 10 pm by appointment.
Michael Singman-Aste
Postdiluvian Photo

Original blog:
http://networkedblogs.com/2290Y

Dream Class #2, coming to the FLOAT Gallery April 20th

FLOAT Presents:

Group Dream Work Class by Travis Wernet

April 20th, 7-10pm

Come join us for a potent and stirring evening of Group Dream Work. Dreams are the language of our deepest source of self-knowing and hold the keys to an ever-deepening fulfillment in our journey of Life. In this group, Travis Wernet will facilitate a safe container for all participants to glean the messages of our night-time travels and the truth in our Souls. There will be an introductory period for describing group technique and guidelines. We will then invite folks to share dreams, have a short break and come back to share some more and close the evening. In this comprehensive and felt-approach to Dream Work, there is a multi-layered benefit to working and sharing in a group setting, not available to us when we attempt to understand our dreams alone.

Please join us for this monthly dreamy evening @ FLOAT.

Class specifics:
Date:  Tuesday April 20th 7-10pm
Price:  $20- Early Registration and $25- / Day of Class
The group is limited to 10 participants.
Pre-Registering access via PayPal: to: didjfish@sbcglobal.net a Receipt will be emailed to you to confirm your registration.
What to Bring: (1) A Comfy Pillow, Yoga Mat or sports chair to sit with on the floor of a work, live loft. (2) A written/recorded recent/outstanding Dream to share.
*Snacks and Tea will be provided during break

About Travis Wernet:

Travis Wernet has worked in group settings for the last 15 years. He studied Universal Archetypal Dreams and Mythology with Jeremy Taylor at the University of Creation Spirituality in Oakland California, and has been assisting folks to unravel the meaning in their dreams for many years. His background includes several years’ service in Community Mental Health, in addition to Clarity Breath Work Training levels I-IV and a Reiki Practitioner Certification. www.intuitivesound.net

A vitrural tour of oaklands artist run galleries

Berkley journalism student Caitlin Esch just finished a fabulous multi media project about Oakland's artist owned and operated art galleries... take a look! http://oaklandnorth.net/beyond-broadway-telegraph/

Fellow Travelers Three artists explore location, dislocation, memory, and imagination.

 By DeWitt Cheng

Published in the East Bay Express 1/6/2010

The web is fast replacing reality in human consciousness, and we technophiles generally gain from the new ways to examine and interpret the world. The idea that tools shape brain evolution, or that instrumentality alters mentality, is old hat, of course, but smiling, happy iPod people should not assume that texting/tweeting supplants traditional material- and reality-based art. The mixed-media works by Anna W. Edwards, Martin Webb, and Nanci Price Scoular in depARTure demonstrate anew the virtues of imaginative struggle. David Hockney once theorized (disingenuously, during his photo-mosaic period) that the greater the time spent making an artwork, the better it is; it's a claim as bogus as is its converse. Travel broadens, and the creative journey (or grappling) is half the fun (or pain).
Edwards makes acrylic paintings based on her memories of exploring unfamiliar locales on foot; refracted through contemplation and improvisation, her sensations take abstract form in richly colored atmospheres ("Windswept," "Still Waters," Setting Sun,") pulsing with light and movement. They suggest, variously, surrealism, neo-romanticism, Abstract Expressionism, and color-field abstraction. These are lyrical, spiritualized landscapes in which collaged fragments of paper and cloth hover amid moody clouds or lava flows.
Webb, who grew up in an English mining town and now often works with day laborers, is showing mixed-media (concrete, metal hardware, wood, tile) pieces dealing with the themes of immigration and home: "laborers, forgotten coal miners, and elusive coyotes [the quadrupeds, not the smugglers] caught in fragmented narratives in fragmented landscapes." These physically imposing yet elegant works ("Walgreen," "Depot," "Coyote") depict the contemporary built landscape, rendered with its own raw materials and bedecked with signs and shadows.
Scoular, South African by birth, focuses on immigration, too. Her "Journeys" works — digitally printed photographs on canvas obscured with overlays of acrylic paint — suggest ambiguity and change, but with paradoxical visual authority (Lionel Feininger and J.M.W. Turner come to mind). The recurrent "rusted iron rings and gates, bound to concrete ... [symbolize] the yearning of an immigrant to gain entry, commit and belong ... [to] never go back," to forge "a new context and meaning." Reception with didgeridoo performance by Travis Werner on Saturday, January 23. DepARTure runs through February 13 (along with neon/xenon-plasma light sculptures by Michael Pargett) at Float Gallery (1091 Calcot Pl., #116, Oakland). 510-535-1702 or TheFloatCenter.com