Grad featured in UC Davis exhibit gets Bay Area arts residency

 

Mercy Hawkins, who graduated in June from UC Davis with a master’s in Fine Arts, has been selected for a residency at Headlands Center for the Arts in Sausalito. This fall, Hawkins will travel to Sausalito to begin her yearlong journey at the center.

Hawkins was also accepted to New American Paintings, an art exhibition publication. It will feature Hawkins’ work as part of its MFA annual showcase in its Nov. 2021 issue.

UC Davis MFA students are typically expected to display their thesis work on campus at the Jan Shrem and Maria Manetti Shrem Museum of Art. You can still catch her work in that exhibition on display on the museum’s website through Sept. 6, and you can read about that grad exhibit and all the other great art exhibited here.

Read the full article by Casey Rafter in the Sacramento News and Review here. 

Get a special deal at Mondavi

Tickets for the upcoming season at the UC Davis Mondavi Center for the Performing Arts are now on sale. Faculty, staff and students receive a discount on Mondavi Center tickets. Subscriptions are also available for the new season. It opens Thursday night, Oct. 14, with Arturo O’Farrill and the Afro Latin Jazz Orchestra. Find more information and purchase tickets here. Keep up on COVID-19 requirements for the venue here.

Read more about the entire season here.

ONGOING EXHIBITIONS

‘Feathered Relations: Works by Marwin Begaye’
C.N. Gorman Museum (virtual)

 “Feathered Relations” explores sacred Indigenous beliefs around birds and their link to nature. Begaye's prints and paintings place a variety of birds in the foreground, depicting them naturally, but also existing on a higher plane. This exhibition is based on his show that was on display at the Gorman when the pandemic forced its closure.  Begaye (Diné) includes prints, wood blocks and multimedia works to create a conceptual homage to birds. For the artist, birds are about our relationships — to nature, to one another, to culture. Image: “Waiting for Spring,” 2018, monotype on paper, 30”x22”.

‘New Flavors: Collected at the Candy Store’
Jan Shrem and Maria Manetti Shrem Museum of Art
Through Oct. 24

This exhibition recasts a unique chapter of Northern California’s unconventional art history in 24 works by 11 artists whose work was first championed by gallerist Adeliza McHugh. Developed in conjunction with an upcoming exhibition at the Crocker Art Museum in celebration of the Candy Store’s 60-year anniversary, “New Flavors: Collected at the Candy Store” expands the conventional narrative through centering the lesser-known stories of female artists and artists who identify as Cuban American, Japanese American, Mexican American and Native American. Gallery capacity is limited to keep visitors and staff safe. Reserved-time tickets required (free), available online.

Artist Journal: Klea McKenna at SFMOMA

Klea McKenna’s No Feeling is Final is featured in the Close to Home: Creativity in Crisis at SFMOMA. The project brings together seven Bay Area artists, including McKenna, and their deeply personal responses to the COVID-19 pandemic and social upheaval of 2020. Their projects emerged from the profound curtailing of daily life that resulted from shelter in place: the disruption of routines and the inaccessibility of studios or materials, the instability in employment, and the delicate and sometimes untenable balance struck between family needs and work obligations. These challenges demanded an adaptive way of working; rather than closing off opportunities, the constraints prompted new approaches and new lines of inquiry.

“I began making cameraless photographs (photograms) on the roof of our apartment using the limited materials available to me and the fading effect that sunlight and time inflict on fugitive ink colors. I use old handkerchiefs as my negatives,” said McKenna. “They are artifacts of personal health and hygiene; intimate objects that have each been carried by someone and absorbed their body’s fluids: snot, sweat, and tears. In another era, the gesture of offering your handkerchief was a way of expressing compassion for someone else’s suffering.”

“As the pandemic unfolds and the quantity of images increases, I have begun to see them as representing a growing crowd of individuals. The expansive grid of images is akin to the charts and graphs I check daily, each time confronted by the limitations of perceiving human experience through statistics. In contrast, the handkerchiefs become ever more imperfect and corporeal — worn, dyed black to block the sun and then faded by exposure to it, their wrinkles and folds become smoky stains. This transformation conjures rituals of mourning. The handkerchiefs are both the source of the images and the remains of the process — shadow skins of the pictures they made.”

Watch the video about McKenna’s project here.

No Feeling is Final is part of the Close to Home exhibition at SFMOMA, on view through Sept. 5. Read more about the exhibition and purchase tickets here. 

Judy Chicago: A Retrospective in San Francisco

On view Aug. 28 – Jan. 9, 2022

The Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco celebrate pioneering feminist artist Judy Chicago with a retrospective spanning from her early engagement with the Californian Light and Space Movement in the 1960s to her current body of work, a searing investigation of mortality and environmental devastation begun in 2015. The exhibition includes approximately 130 paintings, prints, drawings and ceramic sculptures, in addition to ephemera, several films and a documentary. Together, these works of art chart the boundary-pushing path of the artist named Cohen by birth and Gerowitz by marriage, who after trying to fit into the patriarchal structure of the Los Angeles art world decided to change her name and the course of history.

Organized on the heels of the 40th anniversary of Chicago's landmark installation, The Dinner Party, in San Francisco and opening in conjunction with the 100th anniversary of women’s right to vote across the United States, Judy Chicago: A Retrospective pays homage to an artist whose lifelong fight against the suppression and erasure of women’s creativity has finally come full circle. Find more information here.

CA Relief grant has new opportunity

Round 8, the Nonprofit Cultural Institutions Program, will open on Aug. 27 and close Sept. 8 at 5 p.m. If you have not received a CA Relief Grant do not miss out on your opportunity to apply!

If you have already received a CA Relief Grant, you are not eligible to receive another award, as it is one award per organization/individual/business.

This grant program supports California eligible nonprofit cultural institutions defined as registered 501(c)(3) nonprofit entities that satisfy the criteria for a qualified small business under the California Relief Grant, but with no limitation on annual gross revenue, and that are in one of the following North American Industry Classification System (NAICS) codes: 

• 453920 - Art Dealers; 

• 711110 - Theater Companies and Dinner Theaters; 

• 711120 - Dance Companies; 

• 711130 - Musical Groups and Artists; 

• 711190 - Other Performing Arts Companies; 

• 711310 - Promoters of Performing Arts, Sports, and Similar Events with facilities; 

• 711320 - Promoters of Performing Arts, Sports, and Similar Events without facilities; 

• 711410 - Agents and Managers for Artists, Athletes, Entertainers, and Other Public Figures; 

• 711510 - Independent Artists, Writers, and Performers; 

• 712110 – Museums; 

• 712120 - Historical Sites; 

• 712130 - Zoos and Botanical Gardens; or 

• 712190 – Nature Parks & Other Similar Institutions 

Grant awards will be distributed based on the documented percentage revenue declines based on a reporting period comparing Q2 and Q3 of 2020 versus Q2 and Q3 of 2019. Eligible nonprofit cultural institutions must complete a new application even if they already applied in Rounds 1,2, 5, or 6 of the COVID-19 Relief Grant Program. Nonprofit cultural institutions that applied in Round 4 do not need to reapply. The application will close on Sept. 9 at 5 p.m.

For more information, please visit Californians for the Arts or download the program guide here.

Californians for the Arts is a statewide nonprofit advocacy organization for the arts, culture and creative industries workforce. 

For more information sign up for free webinars here.

For information about how to apply or regarding the status of an existing application contact: Tara Graviss White at reliefgrant@californiansforthearts.org or (916) 905-5397.

Coming Up

Avery Palmer at John Natsoulas

Look for the Avery Palmer exhibition coming to John Natsoulas gallery Sept. 1. The opening reception will take place Sept. 4, 7-9 p.m.

Look for updates here.