Welcome

This is a close up of my sculpture "Welcome" which I made for the ProArts Box Art Benefit Auction 2008.




This is the full sculpture. It is 23" x 23" and hangs on a wall. It is part of my wire sculpture series.


This is the first in the series....

Steam Roller Prints, RoadWorks at the San Francisco Center for the Book

RoadWorks at the San Francisco Center for the Book on September 20, 2008.


The Print shown at the end of this video was made in collaboration by three artists: Kathe Welch (me), Mark Knot & Heather Piazza. We talked about the image, I drew it and we all cut it out. It was very exciting to be a part of something this big. When our print was pulled, Heather followed it to the drying table to get a better picture and an art lover bought it right away...

Read a full review of the event on my website.


Or Learn more about the San Francisco Center for the Book.

Two big shows . . . This Month

I am pleased to announce that my Art will be shown in two locations this month. I have work on display at Creative Framing in Oakland and at the Frank Bette Center for the Arts in Alameda.

My art buddy, Heather Piazza and I will be participating in the ProArts East Bay Open Studios event this weekend (June 7-8th) and next (June 14-15th). Both Heather and I will be at the Gallery from 11:00 to 6:00 all four days. The artwork will be up the entire month of June. The show will be at: Creative Framing & Gallery, 5015 Woodminster Lane, Oakland, CA 94602 (510 482-1200). More information and a map can be found at www.heatherpiazza.com/creative_framing.html.




Additionally, I have three prints hanging at the Frank Bette Center for the Arts as part of the 'Schisms' show which runs through June. Please join me at the First Friday Gala Opening - June 6, 2008, from 7-9PM. The Frank Bette Center is located at the corner of Lincoln and Paru in Alameda. More information can be found on their website (at www.frankbettecenter.org).



‘Parking Lot’, Relief Print on display this month at Frank Bette.

More Art News:
We have also been working diligently on Four Oceans Press Hand-Pulled Print & Photography Exchanges. We have opportunities for many artists to participate and are actively seeking more artists to get involved in the Artistic community we are creating. We are nearing completion of our Third Hand-Pulled Print Exchange – Spring. We are in the middle of two more Print Exchanges & our first Fine Arts Photography exchange.

Framing a picture-perfect job for local Artist

Article on Heather Piazza of Four Oceans Press from the Oakland Tribune.

Dave Newhouse: Art's a frame job
05/26/2008 06:28:38 AM PDT

The artist sees beauty in a painting, but so does the framer. Heather Piazza understands this comparison fully because she is both painter and framer.

Piazza makes a living framing paintings and photographs, but she sees herself first as a painter. Either way in her mind, it's all art.

''The framing enhances what's in the picture,'' she said. ''Depending on the colors you pick in the frame, you can create different moods or enhance various elements of the artwork.''

Why would the greatest artists — Picasso, Rembrandt, Matisse — even want a frame when
they obviously felt their paintings were classics?

''To hold it all together and pop it out from the wall,'' Piazza pointed out, ''and to give it something to showcase it, so that it stands out.''

Indeed, a memorable painting without an appropriate frame would be like an expensive suit without just the right shirt and tie to set it off.

Piazza, 33, grew up in Modesto and has been a custom framer for 14 years, the last 5-1/2 years at Creative Framing & Gallery in the Oakland hills. Dave Sommers has owned the store for 33 years, but Piazza is the store's manager and its only employee.

Get the picture? Piazza is a one-person show. She refers to Sommers as ''semi-retired.'' He takes care of the books, and she takes care of customers.

''I really love helping customers,'' she said, ''and helping them pick stuff that's going to be on their wall for a long time. And I pick up ideas from them for my own art.''

The framing shop is open Tuesday through Saturday. Piazza paints after work and on days off. She also uses her workplace to showcase her art. On June 7 and 8, and June 14 and 15, she will join Kathe Welch, both members of Four Oceans Press Artists and East Bay Open Studios, in exhibiting their paintings at Creative Framing, located at 5015 Woodminster Lane.

Piazza describes herself as an ''eclectic artist.'' She paints, she makes printings, she does sculpted glass and photography.

''I'm a Renaissance woman — in art and in life,'' she said. ''I can do most things for myself, and I'm not scared to try new things.''

She could decorate wedding cakes as a girl or fix the plumbing. Sky-diving and bungee-jumping are still on her list of adventuresome things to do.

Obviously, she doesn't think in black and white, whether it's art or exploration.

''All of my work is very colorful,'' she said of her paintings. ''I love color, and it's always really bright. I almost call it childlike, because it's very vibrant, happy and fun.''

A painting takes time, but so does framing.

''When someone comes in with their piece of art,'' said Piazza, ''I ask them a few basic questions to get to know them and their style. That gives me an instinct of what would look best on their art.''

If that instinct doesn't happen, she'll then experiment with different samples to figure out the customer's style. Basically, she prefers Earth tones for ''casual'' individuals, and gold, baroque frames for ''elegant'' people. She has a ''95 to 100 percent'' success rate in pleasing others.

''People say I have a really good eye,'' she said.

She does remarkable work. I know; I'm a regular customer. I have a hobby of collecting restaurant menus from my travels. She has enhanced them — with frame or frameless. She's artistic even in matting, including a tattered poster I have from a 1930s Oakland boxing show.

Piazza wants to be remembered, though, for her paintings, not her framings.

''I would love to be a full-time artist because I like to create art,'' she said. ''And I'd like people to enjoy my art. I'm not at a point where I've sold a lot of it yet.

''But I would frame my own art.''

Why would she trust anyone else?


Dave Newhouse's columns appear Sunday, Monday and Thursday, usually on the Metro
pageof the Oakland Tribune. Know any Good Neighbors? Phone 510-208-6466 or e-
mail dnewhouse@bayareanewsgroup.com

12 Days of school left..

12 Days of school left...Then I can do MY art full time!

I love my 300 students! I have so much to teach them, but I have so much of my own work that I want to do. Having a full time job makes it difficult to find the time I want to do my own art. I spend my days teaching children to explore and experiment, but what I want most is to have more time to do that myself.

My Art buddy, Heather and I co-founded Four Oceans Press last year and have been working to build it so that it fulfills our vision of what a press should be. I keep hearing my uncle's voice in the back of my head saying, "...How are you going to make money with that?..." Well I know that we are not there yet, but we are convinced that we are headed in the right direction.

It has been nearly a year since we started our first exchange and since then we have added several more and got to work with and for over 100 artists from around the world. We are building a community of artists who are working for the same things we are trying to achieve - we want to spend our days creating art, helping, teaching and making our own decisions about how we will spend our time.

We are closer everyday. It has been an amazing process and we have learned so much, but we both feel like Four Oceans Press is just starting out and there are so many directions to go.

We only wish there were more hours in the day...

Thirsting

Thirsting
8 x 8
Linoleum Block Print
This is my print for BarenForum Exchange #36

Ridiculously busy ...

I have been ridiculously busy at school (work) for the past few weeks and I feel like a slacker for not posting here. But I have been working quite a bit.

My work has been on display at Creative Framing in Oakland. Several Linoleum and Wood Block prints are hung on the walls and a big lithograph is in the window. I think they will be up for a few more weeks.

I am actually in the middle of several projects. I have at least three print half-way cut and I hope to finish up soon so that I can print them...

I just finished Baren Exchange #36. I will post it here soon. I also recently finished my spring print for the Four Oceans Press Spring Print. I am working on ideas for my Summer Print [For which signs-ups are still open - by the way!]

Four Oceans Press also started a new exchange, at the suggestion of our friend, Graham. The Fine Arts Photography Exchange is currently accepting sign-ups. We have a few people who have been in our print exchanges, some old friends and a few new friends in this exchange.

Four Oceans Press - Winter Print

This is my finished print for the Four Oceans Press Winter Print Exchange. I actually finished it a while ago, but I am behind on posting and other computer related things since I was sick for most of February.

I have three prints including this one in a show at the The Frank Bette Center for the Arts. The show is opening Friday March 7th, 7 - 9 pm in Alameda, California.

Foot

The original drawing




Foot
Wood, bolts, nuts
Now: 1 1/2 x 14

This is the beginning of another Man sculpture. I have had the idea for a while. I want to do several different versions and play around with the ideas I started working with in earlier sculptures. In Hang, (see below) I was trying to show the figure from the inside as well as the outside - at the same time. I posed him upside-down and bound to the wood backing to elude to the idea that we all tie ourselves up with things and are bound in some way. I was feeling trapped at the time I created Hang. I no longer feel trapped, but I am still interested in the way we hold our selves back from things - purposefully or not...

Hang....

Hang
Wood, Copper & Brass Wire
12" x 36"

This is a sculpture I did a while ago. Hang is currently on display in a show in Alameda at the Frank Bette Center for the Arts. I had been in a few other shows at Frank Bette - several reviews and more details can be seen on the Four Oceans Press Opening Night Reviews page and on my website.

The Opening is Friday night, February 1st and the show runs through March 1st.

New cards, Winter Update and a new show proposal...

I have been really busy and have a lot of News.

We ordered a new business card for Four Oceans Press that is the same layout as the old business card, but has prints instead of paintings. The prints are by the same artists– Kathe Welch, Heather Piazza & Mark Knot – and appear in the same order as on the original card.

We have added new prints to the Winter Archive on Four Oceans Press. We currently have six finished prints and two proofs. The deadline to send in the prints has just past and new prints are arriving each day. The Winter Archive page should fill up fairly quickly. If you want to see the finished Fall prints check out the Fall Archive. And of course, sign-ups are now open for the Spring Exchange and the Food Alphabet.

We have written a proposal for a ‘Four Seasons’ show. ‘Four Seasons’ will highlight the work from our exchanges at a prominent art gallery in San Francisco in August 2008. If we are selected, all of the details we will be posted here.

Fall Print Exchange Mailed out...

We - Four Oceans Press - sent out our Fall Print Exchange on Monday, January 14^th. We had to wait a long time for our last artist to send in his work. As soon as the last set of prints arrived we started collating the prints. We laid the prints out in stacks on my living room floor to make sure that each artist would receive one of each print. We put them in the same order as they are in on our Fall Archive page. It took a lot longer than we anticipated to finish the job.

Recruiting Printmakers

Last week we sent out nearly 200 copies of our call for entries for our Four Oceans Press print exchanges. Our call for entries has the same information as is on the Exchange page.

We sent out over 150 to Art Institutions in the United States and nearly 40 to international locations. We are so excited to be running this exchange and about ready to send out our First Set of Prints. The Fall prints were delayed because we had to wait for one of the artists, but they will be mailed out on Monday, January 14, 2008. These prints can be seen on our Exchange Archive.

If you are a Printer and haven't signed up yet, we think you should. Take a look at the Exchange Guidelines and sign up for Spring or the Food Exchange. Of course, if you need more time than what is listed you can sign up for a later exchange...

We are writing a proposal to get our exchange into a gallery in San Francisco in August. We will write more about that as we know more...

We are using our Four Oceans Press Google Group to list updates of what we are doing, upcoming exchanges and other projects. Feel free to join - click here to learn more.

Fundraiser for Frank Bette...

Clipping from the San Francisco Chronicle today announcing the opening tomorrow.

I donated a painting and a print to help the wonderful organization raise operating funds.