Civilization, Ho !

I  got my latest block print done just in time for the Annual Spring Art Show at the San Geronimo valley Community Center (see previous May posts).  It's titled "Civilization, Ho !"

copyright 2016 RL Rippee

26th Annual Spring Art Show Part 3

We've wrapped up out big annual show at the Maurice Del Mue galleries, San Geronimo Valley Community Center. Someone described it as the family reunion for the artists of the Valley.
(That may be apt, since many of the local artists are often ensconced in the their studios and rarely see each other).

Here's a few more shots:

Sierra Salin

Chris Ducey with his "Equestristick"

Veronica Buros Kleinberg

Jack Kamesar

            (Photo: Michel Kotski)

Brady Wedman and Jeremiah Jensen collaborated on "Home of the Brave"

 Gaetano DeFelice's digital piece "St. Sebastin"

Julia Weaver's "Deep Dive/Ascending"

Tara Nejma-Maus'  "Moonlight Flight"

Elly Simmon's  "Temperature Rising"

Danielle Fogel's  mixed media piece "Tender"

Chuck Wiley's "Crazy Horse and the Commodore"

Laura Kradjan-Cronin's acrylic on wood panel, "Retro Mellow Marshall"

 Dan Breaux's "Post Industrial Flywheel"

 Zachary Gilmour's  fine monotype

This photo doesn't do justice to Elaine Penwell's masterful intricate and delicate hand cut paper piece titled "Menagerie"

Amos Klausner's fun letterpress piece "List Serv#1"

Anne McClain's "I Fell in Love with the Elephants"

I'm still leaving out a bunch of artists from the show. (My apologies I don't have good shots of everything).

There was also a great deal of socializing

Alexandra Adu and Kirk Mcnaught

Eating

and Music...

Reception shots courtesy of Michel Kotski

Portrait shots courtesy of Donn DeAngelo

The 26th annual Spring Art Show Part 2

Here's a few shots of a few of the participating artists --taken the night of the opening by Donn DeAngelo.

Masterful printmaker, Fred Berensmeier

Jack Kamesar with his newest sculpture

and Elan Kamesar

Alexandra Adu

Para O'siochain

Barbara Morris

Louis Nuyens

Nanci Lynn Smith

 Gisela Alvarado

Judy Arndt

Xander Weaver-Scull

Travis Meinolf and Co.

           Monstark

And Geoff Bernstein


Thanks to Donn for the photos

The 26th annual Spring Art Show Part 1

Here's a first installment of shots from this year's Spring Art Show in the Maurice Del Mue galleries of the San Geronimo Valley Community Center (To see us installing the show, check out Michel Kotski's video in the previous post).

We'll start with Molly's new painting: A portrait of a friend, Martha

Cornelia Nevitt's ceramic piece "Tatania"

Laurel Marinelli's charming turtle

A piece by the late Art Holman (1926-2015)

A nice piece by Tot Tatarsky, "Mother and Child at the River"

Victor Stangenberg's wacky, playful sculpture

Eric Jackson's great carved piece

Another fine piece of sculpture, "Beauty" by Rosie Echelmeier

I really like this piece,"Call of the Wild", by Dave Getz

More to come......

26th Annual Spring Art Show Video

Yesterday we hung the Spring Art Show at the San Geronimo Valley Community Center. The process was captured by the Center's very own paparazzi, Michel Kotski.  I wasn't aware Michel took all these pictures while we toiled away.  Thanks again, Michel.

Here's Michel video clip:

Molly's Turn: Spotlight on Sachi

Sachi's serene work is such a statement of who she is.

Sachi Tsutsumi 03/2016

As a child I was very lucky to have a wonderful babysitter named Sachi Tsutsumi. She is a Japanese woman who came to California from Japan to go to The San Francisco Art Institute to study Printmaking in the early 1960's. She and her husband Cline have remained family friends and I am so pleased to say I still know them and visit them every so often.

These are in the collection of the Palace of the Legion of Honor 

As a 5 to 7 year old Sachi babysat me in her wonderful home on Rhode Island st on Potereo Hill. You would walk through a tall dark gate into a magical lush green garden with a beautiful fish pond filled with Koi. The house was built as a single story that jutted out over the side of the hill. I remember the tile floors and the way it was open all the way to the back so you could enjoy the view. As you stepped into the house  from the garden you came to a metal sprial staircase, and down this staircase was Sachi's world. As a child I didn't realize that she rented this space from others. I just knew that the home fit her personality. The house felt very serene and peaceful which was how Sachi was to me.  She was very patient with me which endeared her to me mightly. It is only recently that I learned her patience with me was due to her lack of English and not her gentle manner. OR so she says.  She taught me Oragami and painting, and I always felt a quiet sense of being when I was with her.

Sachi recently gave me this beauty

This is a print that has always hung in my mother's home.
It now hangs in my daughter home,  three generations of admirers.

When I threw a surprise 70th birthday party for my mother in 1987 here at my home in Fairfax, Sachi and her husband Cline came. It was such a surprise for all of us when she already knew my good friends and neighbors Richard and Martha Shaw and their friend Fox. All had been at the San Francisco Art Institute at the same time.  How small a world!

Here is Sachi at my mother's 80th birthday party.

Cline is also an old Potereo Hill resident.  Part of a large loose group of artists living on the hill. Cline is a wonderful poet, I will include several of his poems here too.

Here is the only photo of have of Cline (on the left), he is with Robert Kingsbury
at my mother's 80th birthday party here in Fairfax.

There Goes Charles

(Potereo Hill: 1980?)

By Cline Hayward

Yellow VW Beetle

going up the 20th St. Hill.

Pioneer small car--

now a classic survivor.

Above the drivers window

nothing but a head

covered with a hat--

brim thurned down all around.

That head pointing to the sky

through the windshield at 45 degrees.

Looks like that head is

floating all by itself.

Not attached to anything.

It has got to be him.

Couldn't be anyone else.

You're right-- it's him.

There goes old Charles.

The above poem was written about another wonderful Potereo Hill artist Charles Farr.

-----------------------------------------------------------

The Tree Maker

By Cline Hayward

As if to prove Joyce Kilmer wrong

The artist labors all day long 

To make a tree.

From his search for perfect shape

He cannot, if he tried, escape--

While sketching a tree.

He knows the tree's inscrutable power

For he has gazed at it by the hour.

Now to put pen in hand.

It is his impossible task 

Its mystery to unmask

And capture it on paper.

His sketch is gracefully dignified

But he is no satisfied.

It is not perfect.

      Dare we remind him…..

The poet Kilmer was right.

Only God can make a tree.

But he cannot make for us to see

A picture of that tree.

So, that should be the artist's pride

To take His Spirit as his guide

And try his very best.

With our own sould we'll do the rest.

Here we are in our most recent visit, March of 2016.