The exotic is easily admired for a moment. However, there is deep beauty to be found in that which we routinely ignore. Drawn to the commonly seen and even the culturally scorned, artist Sing Murphy, creates work that expands our often limited field of vision and awakens our innate ability to see all beings as glorious. She focuses primarily on the pit bull because it is a misfit du jour. With deep respect and tenderness, Murphy reflects on the fact that, in spite of how it is currently viewed, the pit bull is one of the most affectionate, intelligent, and devoted members of the canine world. Through large-scale charcoal and pastel drawings on paper, and two video installations, she uses this personal and cultural symbol to convey the grace inherent in the misunderstood and abused.

Also included in Murphy’s exhibit is a video piece dedicated to her late father. Allowing her to bid him gentle adieu and set his soul free, it also helped her come to terms with the finality of death and the cycle of release, transition, and transformation.

Richard Kamler-Tuesday, October 17, 2006
Richard is an artist who works in and with the community in order to restore a balance among the maze of social, political and environmental forces that impact the individual and the culture. Some of his projects and installations include: Make Bread Not Bombs, Building Without Boundaries, Barbed Wire, Chain Link and the First Amendment and The Search Light Project. He recently exhibited an interactive installation entitled The Table of Voices at Alcatraz Island, an examination of the criminal justice system through the eyes and words of both the victims and the perpetrators, at Alcatraz Island. His project The Waiting Room is now traveling to a variety of sites throughout Texas. He is currently working on an international project entitled Seeing Peace: Artists Collaborate with the United Nations. He is a full time professor at University of San Francisco. Please view Richard’s website before his lecture at: http://www.richardkamler.org/index.html

Susan Leibovitz Steinman-Tuesday, November 7, 2006
Susan is an artist, writer, lecturer and curator who explores the relationship between ecology, public art, community action and feminism. She has written a San Francisco Public School manual for integrating the teaching of art and recycling, and has developed special environmental art projects for inner city elementary schools and public art commissions. Her work reveals the inherent interconnectedness of personal, local and global ecosystems. She salvages materials directly from community waste streams to construct public art installations that connect common daily experiences to broader social issues. Projects include conceptual sculpture gardens that meld art, ecology and community action. In July 2002 Steinman and collaborator, New York artist Jackie Brookner, were awarded the National Park Service (NPS) Art and Communities commission cosponsored by the National Endowment for the Arts, the New England Fund for the Arts and the National Park Service, Northwest Region, to produce public art projects in Washington, Oregon and Idaho. In 2000 Steinman was awarded the Potrero Nuevo Prize in San Francisco, for "Gardens to Go""for a prototype community organic food garden of portable sculptural raised beds using "zero waste" material; installed in Oakland, California. She is co-founder of WEAD, Women Environmental Artists Directory and wrote the compendium for Mapping the Terrain: New Genre Public Art, Susan Lacy, editor. Please visit Susan’s website before her lecture at: http://www.steinmanstudio.com/

Shannon Flattery-Tuesday, November 14. 2006
Shannon Flattery is co-creator of Touchable Stories, which began in 1996 in Massachusetts, with the idea of using the talents of contemporary artists to help individual communities define their own voice and give it public expression. The idea caught on, and has since become a series of community profiles telling the unique stories of these routinely marginalized neighborhoods. Two to three years in development, the conversation with each neighborhood involves exhaustive research, hundreds of hours of recorded interviews, and participation in the day-to-day life of the people the series is committed to represent. Artists create rooms based on themes from the community; ten to twelve of these rooms are then connected to form a walk-through maze, each interactive, each designed by a different hand, each using soundtracks created from the recorded interviews. It is an intimate and dramatic journey in the life of one place through time; a journey with many voices. Touchable Stories is a 501(c)3 non-profit organization. Please visit the Touchable Stories website before Shannon’s lecture at: http://www.touchablestories.org/

All lectures begin at 7:30 PM in the John F. Kennedy Arts Annex

Thomas Becker, Lydia Degarrod, Seth Eisen, John Fox, Glenn Hirsch, Mary Daniel Hobson, Katina Houston, Lisa Kokin, Mark Levy, Jeremy Morgan, Judith Selby, Sharon Siskin.

In her exhibition surface tension, E. Marie Robertson identifies, challenges, and frequently obliterates the artificial boundaries we inscribe to “physicalize” our perceptions of difference and “opposite-ness.” Using photography, video, and mixed media constructions, she engages with and explores the tension that arises when these perceptions are challenged, and further examines the symbiotic relationships of what are generally thought of as discordant or opposite pairs: i.e., nature/culture, fantasy/reality, growth/decay, love/despair. Frequently using landscape as a stage for this investigation"both the literal natural landscape and the emblematic inner landscape of human emotions and concerns"her work tugs at the boundaries of common assumptions about difference and challenges what we mean when we identify “opposing” forces. Rather than emphasizing the differences between these pairs, her work places them in relationship to one another and finds each engaging the other without losing its own distinct qualities. Under her careful hand, the insignificant becomes spectacular, the overlooked takes center stage, the harsh becomes sensual, the discordant moves into harmony.

Masters of Transformative Arts Graduate Exhibition

In the exhibition, body of memories, Judy Shintani presents a collection of assemblage work created from natural materials and found objects. By deftly combining old, used, and decaying industrial materials such as wood, metal and plastic with organic matter, such as oyster shells, and pine needles the artist recounts stories of her family and their Japanese " American culture. One such work is Mary’s Power, in which the artist “marries” an ironing board with wooden spikes by driving them through the pattern of its open metal flesh-like surface. It is a metaphorical portrait of Shintani’s grandmother, Mary, who worked at home in Hawaii ironing clothes in order to support her family while her Japanese-born husband was detained by the U.S. Army during War II. For Shintani, manmade materials often serve as the “ground” on which organic matter seems to “grow” as in Matsuoka, a work with pine needles “sprouting” from the body of a female mannequin. It is a portrait of the artist’s mother whose maiden name is Matsuoka which translates into “pine tree on the hill”.

Shintani’s works often serve as objects of healing not only for herself but for her family and community, as well, similar to the role of fetish figures created by shamans of indigenous cultures. During a particularly difficult time in her life the artist created a piece that drew on the power of the feminine and elements of Shinto Buddhism. Omikuji is one such “healing” sculpture comprised of a female mannequin covered in Shinto-like paper fortunes. The transformative power inherent in Omikuji helped sustain the artist through this time in her life.

Artist Judi Pettite awakens sensibilities with a provocative mixture of large-scale paintings, sound, and sculptural environments. Hue and mark are layered and excavated on wood panels ranging in size from 5 ‘x 5’ to 7’ x 7’, creating pulsating fields of color-energy, a delicate balance of power and silence. Modulated recordings of the artist’s breath are amplified in an adjoining space. The undulating sounds are paired with a sculpture of hundreds of sewn rubber bands, visually mimicking cellular patterns. The artist intends to awaken a place in viewers that is less dependent on language, as there is no show title or captions to lead or narrow our participation. Instead she calls it an “experiential place” of felt emotion and presence; a place that points toward a simultaneity of existence in our waken-dream.

The exhibition opens Monday, August 7 and runs through Thursday, August 24, at the Gallery of Arts and Consciousness. For more information, please call the Director, Doreen Coyne at 510.649.0499.

Artist Contact Information:
Judi Pettite
(510) 220-0092
judipettite@yahoo.com

Emerging from a process deeply entangled in the realm of the unconscious, Nora Cohen’s large scale abstract oil paintings make visible a small part of that which is inherently mysterious and enigmatic. Through the intensely physical act of mixing and applying paint directly by hand, the artist creates work that engages in the union of opposites. Grotesque beauty, blood and cotton candy, velvet darkness and golden benevolence coexist in dialectical union within Cohen’s work.

Executed via an unmediated automatic process, these paintings bring about the return to a childlike mind, unencumbered and directly connected to a sense of wonder. And yet, the paintings simultaneously connect to the dark side of the psyche, as well as to the infinite and the sublime. The artist finds her source in both the personal and collective unconscious, touching on a universal truth that is unknowable by the rational mind.

This exhibition presents artwork that explores and manifests mystery itself, without the search for answers.

Master of Transformative Arts Graduate Exhibition

Driven by the desire to discover Self and understand the role of Others, Serran exhibits a body of mixed media paintings that subverts the rational mind and responds to the intuitive. Traveling deeply into subjectively personal musings and subconscious terrain, aspects of her own psychological, spiritual, mental and visceral self are exposed. At times funny and whimsical, her work is also demanding and accusative, revealing the confusion of self-discovery and the struggle to co-exist. Scribbled words, gestured lines, and dripping paint marks interact with hand-drawn figures and symbols to create fragmented narratives and maps of internal terrain.

The Self is an objectified subject. These works capture what everyday language and the linearity of dialogue cannot, and rely upon the dichotomous nature of Subjectivity and Objectivity to bridge the gap between the Personal and the Universal. They work beneath the surface of what is seen and expose layers that construct the deep Self, testifying to the complexity of the human experience, the struggle to evolve, the desire to understand our physical existence, and the search for the sacred and spiritual that courses through.

In addition to exhibiting recent paintings, Serran will remain in the gallery for three consecutive days to complete a room-sized painting. To further acknowledge the vital link between Self and Other, she is asking others to support her in completing this performative installation. To participate in, or learn more about the installation, go to www.jessicaserran.com.

Kira Carrillo Corser’s exhibitions often bring the voices and faces of those struggling for recovery and health care to legislators, policy makers and community. Her upcoming exhibit titled “But will you still love me tomorrow: Marriage and Contemporary Culture” pulls together humor, pain and pathos in artwork that includes the voices and images of others, plus her own personal experience. Current statistics say the average person changes careers four times in his or her lifetime. The current divorce rate is 49 percent. Millions of Americans are shifting jobs and spouses.

Corser uses her art to bring many questions to the surface. Are we ignoring the fact that millions change marriage partners almost as often as careers? Are the teachings of traditional religions about marriage such as “until death do us part” pertinent in contemporary culture? Do corporations like Disney and Fox News promote “love forever” and “my prince will come,” despite the inability of so many to sustain long-term commitment? Should we look at marriage as a way of transformation and change in our spiritual growth, and not as “forever life partners”?

Corser has over 20 years experience in major exhibitions. Her work has shown nationally, sponsored by the March of Dimes Birth Defects Foundation, Healthy Mothers/Healthy Babies, Assemblyman Sam Farr, and others. Showings include state capital buildings, universities, galleries, and the U.S. Senate and Congress Buildings in Washington DC.

Her awards include: a National Endowment for the Arts, a Corporation for Public Broadcasting Grant, California Arts Grants, California Wellness Foundation, The James Irvine Foundation grant and other awards for her work.

Her photography has shown in the Ansel Adams Gallery, the Museum of Photographic Arts, and the Smithsonian. She taught for eight years in the Creative Writing and Social Action Program at California State University, Monterey Bay. Her work can be seen at www.kiracorser.com and www.Matriot.org.

Contact: Kira Carrillo Corser, Artist (510) 684-4651 or email her at kira@kiracorser.com.

Thread in the hands of a woman invokes ‘traditional women’s craft’, but thread in the hands of this artist becomes the Feminine literally performing the female body as a way of actualizing itself in the physical world.

Using her body as both object and source, mixed media artist Leah Libow uncovers and reveals the power and force of the Archetypal Feminine in a body of work which includes artifacts and self-portraits of and from her own body. The artist’s experience of mapping both the personal and cultural unconscious becomes a model of female experience that begins with relationship to lineage and history, eventually moving beyond them and returning to a sensual relationship with the earth.

The exhibit is best seen as an installation, through which various qualities attributed to the feminine - light and dark, calm and wild, secretive and boastful, humble and audacious - are revealed.

Whether carving apples with her mouth and teeth, staining paper with menstrual blood, or stitching lines of silk embroidery thread, Libow unveils a Woman who is simultaneously Creator, the Embodiment of her creation, and finally the Destroyer. Just as Eve’s devouring of the fruit of knowledge revealed the power of her desire, resulting in the birth of consciousness and of death, Libow’s sensual and performative encounters with materials require that we, both men and women, remember the cultural implications of this neglected archetype, particularly at this time in our mutual history.

In this exhibition, Lonnie Graham, Professor of Integrative Arts and Photography at Pennsylvania State University will be showing a selection of photographs from his long and meritorious career as an artist who believes "If art is good, if art is working, then art is speaking and it communicates something about the human experience."

Graham's work exists within the context of a kind of social activism. He is most interested in re-establishing the role of the artist as a vital societal component by re-building traditional links between artists and communities and activating those communities using art and artists as a tool. "I am concerned with access, understanding and communicating ideas through the active or passive participation of the viewer. As artists it is our duty to embrace the culture and honor ourselves and our ancestors for we cannot speak wisely of what we do not know. As our work centers on the needs of our community it becomes validated by that community and ceases its singular exploration. It sparks a fire in a thousand imaginations. As we work shoulder to shoulder with our community we fan the flames of enlightenment that burn away fear and prejudice and ignorance, so that we all might stand together in the brilliant light of human understanding".

Graham's social and political concerns have won him numerous major commissions including one from Three Rivers Arts Festival, entitled the African/American Garden Project. The project involves a physical and cultural exchange of disadvantaged urban single mothers, an elderly African-American community, and farmers from the small farming village, Muguga in Kenya. This project garnered multiple years of funding, and enlisted a number of local and international artists to continue work building urban subsistence gardens with this population.

Most recently Mr. Graham was cited as the 2005 Artist of the Year, and presented the Governor's Award by Pennsylvania Governor Edward Rendell. Mr. Graham is a Pew Fellow, having been awarded a Pew Fellowship in the Arts.

Lonnie Graham will give a free public lecture on Friday, April 14. He will discuss his work at length including the photographs in the show and his most memorable community related projects.

Dates: February 28 - March 16, 2006
Reception: Saturday, March 4, 5 - 8 pm

A Scholarship Benefit commemorating the life and art of Cynthia Marie Hurtubis (1966-2003) MFA and JFKU alumna '01

Cynthia Hurtubis, fought a battle to reveal the true nature of a world all too often disconnected from love, from the sacred, and from the very essence of who and what we are. The "canvas" of this artist's life was a journey toward the divine in search of love, meaning and truth.

Hurtubis' artwork was dedicated to the spiritual. She dared to speak her truth and paint her vision of that which truly "is". Unafraid to lay bare what she saw in this process, her art has the power to move the viewer from the role of observer to that of participant. It is not possible to experience this artist's work without experiencing something of yourself, your essence, your purpose. She believed that her art would act as a mirror revealing more about the viewer than the creator.

While Hurtubis' painting was evolving from the depths of the sacred, her life was a storm of passion causing her to have to fight to eliminate the superfluous in order to access the heart of truth and authenticity. She spent her life fighting for the oppportunity to be creative - to paint. But, it was not her only battleground.

Hurtubis was also fighting a second battle, a battle for her very existence even though it wasn't readily apparent. For most of her brief life, a war raged on within her physical body as it struggled to create its life's essence - her blood. Ultimately, however, after an heroic effort, the artist succumbed to her illness in 2003.

In this commemorative exhibition, Present in the Light, When Love Heals the Sacred Heart, visitors will have an opportunity to share in Hurtubis' remarkable life's quest to be authentic and honest and, by viewing her paintings, share in her transcendent experience of the divine.

(As a special tribute, works by JFK University and Benicia artists inspired by Cynthia's passion for life and love of the arts, will also be featured in this exhibition. All proceeds from a silent auction of the show's work will go to fund The Cynthia Marie Hurtubis Scholarship at the Department of Arts & Consciousness, John F. Kennedy University).

Dates: February 8 - 23, 2006 (closed President's Day, February 20)
Auction & Reception: Sunday, February 19, (Cynthia's birthday) 4 - 7 pm