Covering the visual arts in Northern California
ArtBeat/June 2023
By Ed Goldman
While the word “triptych” is usually a descriptor for paintings, panels or carvings, the luminous, already-iconic sculpture “Tributary” is a triptych.
A Fiberglas, resin and steel piece that stands 14 feet high with a 10×10′ footprint, this “pro-am” artwork—which looks like three dolphins, three teardrops or three symbols denoting the region’s confluence of waterways—greets visitors at Sacramento State’s Welcome Center just as you enter the campus on J Street and veer a little to the left (no politics intended).
It was created over a three-year period by students, then a few former students (they’d graduated to professional-artist status) under the direction of Sac State art Professor Andrew Connelly.
Recently, I sat down with two of the pros who started out as students on the project to create the piece, Zala Mahshour and Andrew Rosas. They’d been brought to my attention by award-winning arts educator, children’s entertainer and Sac State professor Francie Dillon, herself an artist and the mother of one (Lindsey M. Dillon, a ceramist and sculptor). Dillon had met the two young artists at their day job, University Art in midtown Sacramento, and rushed to tell me about them and their work. A journalist ignores an enthusiast like Dillon at his own peril—and, of course, a lifelong FOMO (fear of missing out, for those just joining the 2020s).
“I love doing pieces on a large scale,” says Mahshour, who makes ends meet working for an optometrist as well as the aforementioned University Art. “I started out as a painter but 2-D [two-dimensional] work just didn’t satisfy me.”
Rosas also likes the grandeur of doing larger works but both artists lament that art collectors, at least in this region, are less inclined to buy sculptures than paintings. “Sculptures don’t have to be large,” he says.
Mahshour agrees, adding, “One of the things I like about doing sculpture is that it’s art you can see the back of, not just the front. It’s meant to be enjoyed at all angles.”
The original “Tributary” team included Rosas, Isabella Flanagan and Janelle Marcione on the concept/design team, while Mahshour (and Rosas) were part of the fabricator group, which included April Arnold, Denise Benitez, Julie Crumb and Matthew Pugh.
Both artists, who are in their 20s, say that art is considered “more of a hobby” (Mahshour) than “a real career” (Rosas) by their families, but Rosas says, “This is probably a cultural thing. Nobody has been discouraging.” The eldest of five children, Rosas is a first-generation U.S. citizen, his family hailing from Aguascalientes, which is roughly 300 miles from Mexico City. Mahshour, a native of Kabul, the capital of Afghanistan, was raised in Seattle. Like Rosas, she has four siblings—but she’s the youngest.
The two artists say they enjoy working together on public art projects. “We know how to do things that are beautiful and stay within a budget,” says Mahshour. Sounds like a good way to sculpt a career.
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In addition to seeing images of the piece with this column, you can go to the Sac State arts website: csus.edu/college/arts-letters/art-collection/public-sculpture/tributary-sculpture.html
By Ed Goldman
THE AUCTIONS ARE COMING, THE AUCTIONS ARE COMING! (AND WITH THEM, SOME HANDY HINTS)
PBS-KVIE’s annual art auction is held on-air (indoors) rather than plenair (outdoors). This removes one of the potential hazards of holding an auction in Sacramento in, say, August, when the lethal combo of sponsor-donated wine and 100-degree weather can lead to heat-stroke fidgeting that could be interpreted as a bid:
AUCTIONEER: And the painting goes to the man clutching his throat and waving his arms!
MAN’S WIFE: He’s not bidding. Is there a myocardial infarction expert in the house?
While the PBS auction doesn’t happen until September 29th, 30th and October 1st, that sound you hear may be artists (possibly you) scrambling to get their entries ready by May 31 (the station’s call-for-artwork began April 1).
Remember, if you plan to bid, don’t TiVo the coverage. True, in the past couple years many of the segments have been taped, thanks to COVID protocols—I know this because I’ve been an on-air commentator a number of times. But the actual auction—as well as the on-set squeals of delight from the volunteer phone bank when the numbers start piling up—happens in real time.
Meanwhile, the submission deadline for the annual Crocker Art Auction may have come and gone but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t be writing the event dates on your wall. (Use erasable markers so you can update it next year.) There’s a preview party on Thursday, May 18; the auction is Saturday, June 3. To buy tickets or tables, many of which come with chairs, go to
https://www.crockerart.org/page/art-auction-season or call 916.808.7843.
If this is your first auction as a bidder, here’s a quick Q&A with D Oldham Neath. She co-founded Sacramento’s famous Second Saturday in 1992, is the owner of Archival Gallery and Framing in East Sacramento, CBS-TV’s Art Lady (whose website you’re currently in) and a longtime host of the KVIE auction. She also has an extensive art collection of her own.
Q: What’s the biggest mistake new and even experienced bidders make at auctions?
D: They fail to research the artist they bid on and end up overpaying- good for the charity bad for a healthy collection.
Q: If there’s a piece of art you feel you just have to have, is there a foolproof strategy for getting it?
D: Never “pre-bid” on a piece. You’re only driving the price up. Bid a reasonable price at the last minute—and if it’s “live,” wait for the first “going” (as in “going, going, gone”).
Q: What’s the worst thing that ever happened to you emceeing the KVIE Art Auction?
D: Once I got locked outside during the live auction which I was hosting on-air (smoking is really a bad habit, kids). Fortunately, I was rescued by a security guard after a half-hour of my pounding on every door I could find.
By Ed Goldman
AT 87, MARCY FRIEDMAN PRESENTS A STUNNING SHOW OF NEW WORKS AT B. SAKATA GARO GALLERY
We’re standing in Marcy Friedman’s backyard, above the American River. The water is flowing this afternoon at 30,000 feet per second, she says, wondering how much fiercer it will be when the winter snow melt really takes hold and the cascading from the river’s North Fork gets treacherous.
“Well, my studio is in the basement,” she says, factually but seemingly unperturbed. “We had to sandbag one year. We’ll just have to wait and see.”
Friedman excels at that. She interrupted her intended painting career for 42 years to raise her family, simultaneously plunging deep into philanthropy and community, which included leading with her late husband—attorney and business visionary Mort Friedman—the massive fundraising campaign to expand and modernize the Crocker Art Museum. She also worked with Mort on his various development projects, including Arden Fair Mall.
After Mort passed away more than a decade ago, Marcy resumed her art career—and more than three years ago, even remarried: her husband, businessman Paul Kaufmann, was her boyfriend when the two were teenagers in Hawaii, where Marcy lived most of her young life.
Her third solo show—more than two dozen new and brightly evocative paintings, including portraits, landscapes and the dazzling denizens of her at-home koi pond— is at the b. sakata garo gallery in midtown Sacramento April 4-29.
Friedman is allegedly 87 years old. But her posture, energy, voice and outlook seem to have been frozen and waiting for her to reawaken them after that four-decade painting hiatus.
If you didn’t know better, you’d swear that her work was that of a young, but far from callow, artist. Vibrant colors, energetic brush strokes and a sense of composition that usually eliminates any background distractions from the people she’s portraying. While her painter’s voice is all her own, her placement of the images—right there, right in front of you, like it or not—reminds me of photographer Richard Avedon’s celebrity portraits (though his best work was in black-and-white) and summons up such iconic portraiture as Don Bachardy’s infamous (and truly terrific) painting of Governor Jerry Brown.
Meanwhile, her landscapes are as distinctive as David Hockney’s experiment in that discipline but echo only the confidence of his color palette and imagery. And her piece “Sunbathing,” above, may be reminiscent of Roland Petersen’s sand-and-sea epoch but to me—and I collected Petersen for a time—Friedman’s work is more compelling for simply being close-in and close-up.
“All artists refer to drawing from life or otherwise as tapping into their muscle memory,” she says as we sit in her light-filled office. “What I like to do when I paint someone is keep a close eye on skin tone and contours—but more to the point, that glint in someone’s eye, the way people might twist their heads to express curiosity or confusion.
“I look for a person’s characteristics,” she continues, “something they may not share with anyone else.” In other words, she sees everyone as unique. As is Marcy Friedman.
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(The b. sakata garo gallery, is at 923 20th Street. Its phone number is 916.447.4276 and its website is http://www.bsakatagaro.com. It’s open Tuesday through Saturday, from noon to 6pm.)
Earlier this month I was interviewed for a story in Sacramento Magazine about the evolution of the art scene in the city, plus the impacts COVID had on galleries and art exhibitions.
Here’s a short snippet from the article by Jessica Laskey (thanks Jessica for talking to me!), and make sure you read the full article to learn more about area galleries, the annual Introductions show, and more!
D. Oldham Neath has seen this evolution of the local gallery scene from multiple angles. As the director of Archival Gallery since 1983, Neath helped found the Second Saturday Art Walk with the late Michael Himovitz, the late Chuck Miller, Sheri Watson and the late Judith Weintraub. She’s also served as a curator for several galleries in and out of town and for the PBS KVIE Art Auction and gallery.
“The gallery role has really changed,” Neath says. “I’m one of the few galleries that still actively represents their artists and places them in galleries—some I’ve represented for 30-plus years. There used to be a lot of sales driven by interior designers or people who were paid to choose work for corporate or private clients. Now, people walk in and want a piece of art because they like it; they don’t care where the artist went to school. We have a younger clientele, and they have a different aesthetic from their parents. It’s really nice to see people making their own choices.”
Neath can also see a positive even in the pandemic. “I think COVID was actually really good for art galleries,” she says. “When they were locked in their homes for two months, people started nesting and figured out that their environment was important. They started to want things that people made, not mass-produced crap. Even business owners are taking their environment more seriously. Art has become more of a personal choice and less of a status statement.”
By Ed Goldman
WHEN A BIG “MACC” MEANS BIG ART
History and art make companionable bedfellows for the next few weeks at the Mills Station Arts & Culture Center (MACC) in Rancho Cordova, about 15 minutes from downtown Sacramento.
Curated by Cheryl Gleason, two shows are on separate floors of the long-ago grocery store, which was transplanted years ago and now neighbors the city’s Park & Ride Station. The genial and knowledgable Gleason, an artist herself, has been with the center since what she calls its “soft opening” in November 2018, and is its only paid employee. Eager volunteers fill out the roster.
The exhibit on the MACC’s spacious first floor is “Righting a Wrong: Japanese Americans & WWII,” a Smithsonian traveling exhibit that shows— through evocatively revealing photography, books and documents—the faces, storefronts and memorabilia of one of this country’s most racist, politically haphazard periods. Included is President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s letter authorizing the establishment of the Japanese internment camps; in it, he seems to deliberately omit any mention of the targeted soon-to-be prisoner population: Japanese Americans, whether Asia- or America-born.
(You probably know that current Sacramento-area Congresswoman Doris Matsui and her late husband, Congressman Robert Matsui, were among those who were incarcerated in plain sight as children. They met and married years later.}
An especially heart-rending photo is in the window of a Japanese-American-owned store advertising an “evacuation sale”—and also defiantly asserting the owner’s statement, “I Am An American.”
One flight up at the MACC, the work of artist Joyce Campbell is spotlighted (and for sale) in her show, “The Amazing Gourd,” a delightful ensemble of painted and themed gourds (cucurbitaceae, if you’re a horticulturist or simply showing off for your date). Gourds are among our oldest cultivated plants. As Robin Sweetser writes for almanac.com, they were “the early water bottles of the Egyptians (2200 or 2400 B.C.), and were traditionally used as utensils, storage containers, and dippers by indigenous peoples in North America.
“Today,” she continues, “these garden novelties can be used for many reasons from ornamental displays in autumn … to birdhouses to luffa sponges in the bath (yes, luffas are gourds!). Gourds can also be used as musical instruments (shakes, maracas, drums), vases, and bowls.”
In Campbell’s show, the gourds are simply beautiful objets d’art (see the pix), brightened with alcohol oil, cold wax and other media, and given lighthearted names by the artist, who’s been working in the field for 30 years and teaches art in her home in nearby El Dorado Hills.
The Mills Station Building was built 112 years ago as a gathering-place for farmers and a way station place for travelers. The MACC is open Thursdays and Fridays from 2-7 p.m., Saturdays from 11 a.m.-4 p.m., and by appointment (call or text Gleason at 916-225-7800). The facility also hosts community events, lectures and art workshops.
For the center’s schedule, visit its website (rcmacc.org)—and by all means, check out its newest art show before it runs out of its gourds.
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By Ed Goldman
The Works Progress Administration—that eight-year bonanza of art and industry created in 1935 under U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal to employ the unemployed (the precursor of “Build Back Better,” only real)— is alive and in temporary residence at the Crocker Art Museum.
If you want to see the kind of heroic, impressionist, expressionist, neo-Gothic and timelessly compelling art this country produced in the first third of the prior century, this is a must-see exhibit—one of the finest I’ve seen at the Crocker (since its last must-see exhibit). It’s here until June.
The show is particularly moving for me, for two reasons.
First, I spent the first eight years of my life in Parkchester, a one-square-mile community of more than 100 brick apartment houses in Bronx, New York, whose sculptures and monumental touches were designed and executed by artists funded by the selfsame WPA.
Second, many of those artists had pedigrees similar to those of my own grandparents, coming to America in the early 1900s from Russia, Ukraine and Romania; some, like my grandparents and at least one aunt and uncle, were genuine Communists, owing to the oppression they were leaving behind and their immediate adoption of this country’s labor union movement. Yes, some disillusionment would set in. But that’s another story.
Many think of the WPA, which put nearly nine million people to work, as having funded mainly public works projects— such as roads and schools and hospitals (and, not far from California’s capital, the splendid Coit Tower in San Francisco)—but are surprised to discover how much art depicting immigrants, the working-class and an in-hindsight gold-tinted twinkling of American life came out of the era. I’d spoil this by calling it a history lesson or art class, so jist think of it as hugely entertaining, evocative and, yeah, emotional.
Meanwhile, if you’re in the mood for Valentine’s Day and a country drive, you can check out photographer/artist Maggie McGurk’s polymer-clay Valentine’s hearts in person at the Art League of Lincoln’s gift shop: 580 Sixth Street, Lincoln, open Thursdays through Sundays from 11 a.m. to 3 pm. The phone number is 916.209.3499 and the email is artleaguelincoln@gmail.com.
I wrote about Maggie the other day. She’s a longtime friend who used to be as ubiquitous a presence at public events as cash bars. My column about her new work may be found at the website for my thrice-weekly column, The Goldman State:
Closer to home, Archival Gallery has a clever new show (actually, they’re all pretty damn clever) called “Wallpapers and Vinyl Dreams,” celebrating (and selling) the work of Carol Mott-Binkley, along with Debra Kreck-Harnish Valentines. That show runs from February 1-25, with a 5-8 p.m. reception on the 11th. Archival is at 3223 Folsom Boulevard. And that’s my vinyl word on the subject.
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By Ed Goldman
If you collect art because you hope it appreciates as time passes, congratulations: Everything you collect is now officially a year older.
On the other hand, if you buy art because it adds fuel to the furnace of your soul, 2023 will absolutely warm and energize you.
At Archival Gallery, for example, upcoming shows include:
– Jim Marxen, who specializes in landscape, contemporary art and urban art, and the Laureen Landau Legacy Collection, January 5-31;
– Carol Mott-Binkley and Don Yost, February 1-25;
– In March, which is Women’s History Month, featured artists will include Maureen Hood, Erin Martinelli, Linda Nunes, Mariellen Layne, and others to be announced;
– April will bring “Gone Fishin’”, a group show in memory of Ron Wagner. This will be a fundraiser in support of the Parkinson Association of Northern California;
-– Recent works of Leslie McCarron and Gary Dinnen will dominate the walls from May – 4-27 ; and
– Topping off the first half of what promises to be an exciting year, in June, an architecture-themed show will feature William Peterson and Kiny McCarrick.
Archival Gallery—which celebrates its 40th anniversary during a month-long celebration in August—can be reached at 916.923.6204 or by visiting online: archivalgallery.com
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Meanwhile, in the literary arts corner, check out “Churchill: A Drinking Life/Champagne, Cognac and Cocktails,” the newest book from Gin Sander, collaborating with Roxanne Langer. “Gin Sander” is the appropriate pen name of longtime arts patron, author and editor Jennifer Basye Sander whenever her topic includes adult beverages (she used it for her popular book “The Martini Diet”). Langer, a sommelier and international wine judge, served as not only co-author but also, as Sander told me in a recent interview for my column The Goldman State, “our technical consultant when it came to what went into certain drinks favored by Churchill.”
The book, which includes classic drink recipes, debunks some of the myths surrounding the habits and drink preferences of the greatest British prime minister.
For example, he did not, Sander and Langer report, covet gin-and-tonics; instead, he went through the day nursing weakish (but continual) whiskey-and-sodas, yet also enjoyed brandy or Cognac nightly and adored Champagne. In fact, it was estimated that in the course of his adulthood, he consumed 42,000 “imperial pint” bottles of Champagne.
Lest you think the smallish serving showed some restraint on the PM’s intake, bear in mind that the British imperial pint is roughly 20% larger than the American one. Since Churchill was larger than life, that seems only fitting.
You can find “Churchill: A Drinking Life” wherever books are sold or damn well ought to be.
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By Ed Goldman
Artist Andy Warhol once famously predicted (or warned), “In the future, everyone will be world-famous for 15 minutes.” His work, persona and legacy certainly eclipsed that—which is one reason why Archival Gallery is presenting WARHOLiday, a group show, December 1-31.
The Gallery, at 3223 Folsom Blvd. in East Sacramento, will be open for a Second Saturday Public Reception on December 10 from 5-8 p.m., featuring live music by Cactus Pete and the Gallery’s signature (oh, let’s call it iconic) Vintage Santas Display. More on that in a moment.
“Over the past few decades through conversations with many artists, I learned just how influential Warhol has been to the younger generations of modern artists,” says Archival founder/director D Oldham Neath. In 1981, she recalls, Warhol appeared at a special exhibition at Weinstocks in Sacramento with his “myths” portfolio; now, some the artists who got to meet him are participating in “WARHOLiday.”
“Exhibiting their ‘homage’ works next to prints from that exhibition means they get to show with their art hero,” Neath adds. “It’s also a wonderful treat for the gallery.”
“My piece for the show references a specific early pre-silkscreen Pop painting of Warhol’s,” says Corey Okada, a longtime admirer of Warhol’s work. “It touches on several themes —image, fame and death—that Warhol utilized as motifs throughout his career.”
Okada is a native Sacramentan whose mixed media paintings, drawings, and constructions have been shown locally and regionally. He clarifies that even though “I’m a huge fan of (Warhol’s) work, mine obviously doesn’t look like his…but his ideas have influenced my process to no end.”
“By the way,” Okada says, “I believe the likes of Warhol will not be seen again. His influence continues to be felt not only in contemporary art, where echoes of his work run rampant, but in the culture at large, more than 35 years after his death.” (Warhol died in 1987 at 58.)
Other artists to be featured in the show are Maureen Hood, Stephanie Pierson, Sean Royal, and Mel Smothers. “We’ll also be showing Warhol prints that we have on consignment,” says Neath.
In addition to the annual group exhibition, the gallery is displaying a collection of vintage Santa Clauses, Mrs. Clauses, and snowpersons in the front window for guests and drivers on Folsom Boulevard to enjoy. These light-up displays are a popular attraction for fans of holiday lights, for which select East Sac streets are famous.
You should stop by and see for yourself why this highly respected and enduring art exhibition space has lasted well beyond Warhol’s 15 minutes.
(Archival Gallery is open Tuesdays-through Saturdays from 11 a.m.-4 p.m. The phone number is 916.923.6204.)
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ArtBeat/November 2022
By Ed Goldman
To hear the experts tell it, this may be the best and worst time for you to open that art gallery you’ve always dreamed of owning.
At a recent panel discussion on the future of the Capitol Region arts scene, four gallery owners spoke about the state of collecting and buying art. But it came to light that only one of the owners on the panel still had her gallery. The others’ had closed—and for once, Covid-19 wasn’t the sole culprit. The market has simply stalled.
Beth Jones and Linda Jolley, co-owners of the splendid JAYJAY Gallery for two decades, closed their iconic exhibition space in 2021 after a 20-year run. Mima Begovic also closed her gallery, ArtSpace 1616. That left D. Neath, owner-founder of Archival Gallery, as the panel’s last owner standing—something she attributed in part to her having a successful on-site framing shop “that paid the rent when sales were slow,” as she put it.
The discussion, which drew an appreciative afternoon crowd to the Crocker Art Museum’s auditorium, was moderated by Scott Heckes, vice-chair of the Kingsley Art Club‘s outreach committee, the event’s organizers. Attendees included artists, collectors and, to hear some of the questions, brand-new or wanna be gallery owners.
Among the topics, the panelists offered solid advice to artists and exhibitors on how to price their art. “Stick to your pricing schedule,” Neath advised. “Don’t jack up your prices or deeply discount them suddenly. Nobody wants to buy a jacket at Nordstrom for full price one day, then see it on sale for half-off the next time they go into the store.”
Jones said that in this age of social media, “Don’t show a gallery owner everything you’re capable of all at once.” She advised that artists pick out a specialty and concentrate on that while they’re looking for representation. “It’s better to choose what you do best,” she said.
As for owning a gallery, Begovic said when she started out—she’d moved here from Bosnia-Herzegovina and had been in love with art since she was a child—weeks and months sometimes went by without her selling a single piece. She said that an owner can’t be in this business solely for the money.
Asked about how a gallery owner decides on what to carry, Jolley said that she and Jones always had an informal rule between them: “Would either of us buy the piece we were considering” for their own collection?
Consumers can also follow that rule, Neath said. “If you’re just starting to collect, go slowly. Don’t buy everything you see.” Instead, buy the one that, if you don’t, you’ll regret not having done so.
All of the panelists had high praise for the late Michael Himovitz, who owned successful galleries in downtown Sacramento, Del Paso Heights and even for a brief time, in the upscale Pavilions Shopping Center. They also encouraged those who want to go into the business to do so—whether they’re gallerists or artists, whether they rent space or end up hosting shows in their own homes or studios.
“There are still not enough venues (to sell art) in Sacramento,” said Begovic. “This is an untapped community.”
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ArtBeat/October 2022
By Ed Goldman
It’s tempting to say that “Reliquary,” the new show at Archival Gallery, is to die for, but we’ll resist. (Too late!)
Featuring an all-star cast of regional artists, the show—which runs through October 28, with a Second Saturday reception on October 8 from 5-8 p.m.—commemorates the paraphernalia of death, while remaining a slyly life-confirming exhibit, not unlike the masks of “Día de La Muerta” (Day of the Dead) artwork.
If the word “reliquary” isn’t one you frequently use or hear at cocktail parties, rock concerts or at the dinner table, it’s just a relics container. For extra credit, memorize and use these fun words in a sentence: “fereter” (a portable reliquary, and “feretory”(the chapel in which you keep your fereter).
Longtime celebrated artists—such as Suzanne Adan (who contributes “Top Hat”) and her husband Michael Stevens (“Dodo”), as well as Eric Wyss (“Urn for Masses of Ashes IV”), Maureen Hood, Al Farrow, Corey Okada, and Sean Royal—are joined by fellow creators Shenny Cruces, Erin Martinelli, and DL Thomas. Some of the artists have multiple pieces in the show.
Up-and-coming sculptor Lindsey M. Dillon, daughter of beloved local children’s performer and arts educator Francie Dillon, is represented with her piece, “Animarum.” Dillon first showed her work at Blue Line Arts in Roseville
Archival’s own Athena Alber has a few contributions in the show, including “Bird Skull Stitchery” and “Steve (rabbit).”
From ceramics to oil, acrylics to smashed glass, “Reliquary” also presents might call an art-media blitz, considering the wide array of materials used by the artists (sometimes, all at once).
What I find of special note in this show is seeing works by the couple Stevens and Adan in the same show, a somewhat rare occurrence and reason enough to drop by Archival (at 3223 Folsom Boulevard; you can also sample the show at archivalgallery.com).
Both artists’ work display skill and seriousness of purpose but also humor (if sometimes on the dark side).
Stevens’s work is in a number of public collections, such as the di Rosa Preserve, Oakland Museum, Crocker Museum, and the University of New Mexico, Albuquerque. He holds a bachelor’s degree in painting and a master’s in sculpture, and has shown at the Renwick Gallery at the Smithsonian in Washington, DC, the Oakland Museum and frequently at the Braunstein Quay Gallery in San Francisco.
Both Adan and her husband earned their degrees at Sacramento State, as the former California State University Sacramento inexplicably began rebranding itself a few years ago. Adan, like Stevens, has enjoyed a number of solo shows; her work has been exhibited at Betsy Rosenfield in Chicago, John Berggruen in San Francisco, and several times at Michael Himovitz here in Sacramento, as well as group exhibits at Braunstein Quay in San Francisco, Jan Baum in Los Angeles, and the Laguna Beach Museum of Art, among many other venues.
For anyone who thinks about life and death matters (spoiler alert: This includes everyone), “Reliquary” offers some eloquent and elegant commentary on the topic. I’m simply dying to go back.
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Watch the LIVE segment from Good Day Sacramento on 9/19/2022.
*** The Art Lady will join curator Jill Estroff on Friday September 30 at 7PM to open the auction LIVE on KVIE. Tune in for live auction excitement. ***
The PBS KVIE Art Auction is an annual broadcast and livestream event celebrating the artwork of Northern California artists and California Masters. Over 270 works of art have been selected for entry into the 2022 auction. All proceeds benefit your PBS station, KVIE.
The Art Auction is on September 30 through October 2.
Visit kvie.org/artauction for hours, information, and to place a bid on artwork before the live auction starts.
ArtBeat/September 2022
By Ed Goldman
The 1963 movie “Charade” has been called one of the best Alfred Hitchcock movies not directed by him.
Now, the B Street /Sofia stage adaptation of the Stanley Donen classic has been updated, camped-up and resuscitated in high style by an exuberant ensemble of actors, guided by the theatre’s artistic director Lyndsay Burch from a sparkling script by actor/writer David Pierini, who plays multiple roles, as do several of the troupe’s multi-talented regulars.
In the hoary tradition of review writing, I’d have to say that this stellar mounting of “Charade,” which runs until September 18, is a bit like “A Shot in the Dark” Meets “Noises Off.” Adapter Pierini, Director Burch, Scenic Designer Stephen Jones and Projection Designer Jerry Montoya, to name just a few of the talented creators, have turned a semi-sophisticated if crowd-pleasing movie into a just-shy-of-camp quasi-bedroom farce, with slamming doors, hilarious pantomime and serious leaps of logic.
And while Sacramento audiences tend to give standing ovations to the opening of envelopes, this fast-moving romp really deserved the bravos it received at the matinee I attended.
In acting, you usually don’t like to know how hard the actors are working. But when Perini, the spectacular Elisabeth Nunziato and Stephanie Altholz keep turning up as different characters with different accents and body languages, you really feel they’re being underpaid. (In one key scene, one of Perini’s characters kills another one. To say more would make me enter that purgatory known as Spoiler Alert-land.)
Dana Brooke and Jahi Kearse play the leading roles famously originated by Audrey Hepburn and Cary Grant, and their styles and looks are so different from those two stars that I spent very little time making what would have been unfair comparisons. Their chemistry was just fine, too, and Brooke, despite the slapstick—there’s even a double spit-take moment with her and Pierini—brought a gravitas to the role that was a nice choice. Kearse, as a con man playing several angles was all charm and good cheer, even when his character was in mortal danger. I think it was a wise choice by the director to have the two leads play only the two roles they did, though I’m sure they’re quite capable of the delightful multiplicity displayed by Pierini, Nunziato and Altholz. Burch seemed to recognize that we, the audience, needed something to hang onto.
If you haven’t been to the Sofia at 2700 Capitol Ave., it’s an architectural marvel, with a simultaneous intimacy and grandeur. Its auditorium doesn’t have a bad seat in it and there’s a no-host bar in the lobby, making this venue Sacramento’s liveliest home for the liveliest of arts.
(Tickets are at bstreettheatre.org.)
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ArtBeat/August 2022
By Ed Goldman
When I was a kid, I got in trouble for coloring on the walls of my bedroom. God only knows what my folks would have thought if I’d gone out and doodled all over a public sidewalk.
And yet, a yearly aesthetically thrilling defacement—of the sidewalks bordering Fremont Park at 16th & Q Streets in midtown Sacramento—will celebrate its 32nd anniversary this Labor Day weekend, September 3-5.
One might say that Chalk It Up Sacramento “draws” a wide range of artists, skills and visions to the region if one were more into puns than one ought to be. (Using “one” to mean me, I or someone entirely else could be one of the early test rides of non-binary pronouns. But we digress.)
Over the three-plus decades of Chalk It up!, thousands of artists have demonstrated their street creds and true belief in art by creating beautiful or fanciful drawings while knowing the works would fade, perish or be hosed down by City of Sacramento crews the Tuesday after Labor Day, September 6. It’s a case of creating art for art’s sake—as pure a reason as possible in the otherwise competitive world of galleries, exhibits and a sometimes-limited pool of buyers.
Begun by a co-creator of Sacramento’s Second Saturday, D Oldham Neath of Archival Gallery (and CBS-TV’s “Art Lady”), Chalk It Up is a 501(c)3 non-profit, meaning you can contribute money to it. That it promotes and supports youth arts by providing small but encouraging grants to K-12 classrooms and a variety of projects throughout the Sacramento region should provide a further incentive.
By the way, this redecorating of urban landscapes isn’t all that new a concept. It echoes a tradition begun centuries ago in Italy and other countries where traveling groups of painters would visit villages and towns for religious festivals and pageants and, as the Chalk It Up! website describes it, “transform the streets and public squares into temporary galleries for their works of art.”
For spectators, you couldn’t ask for a livelier admission-free way to while away some three-day weekend time watching other people spending Labor Day creating labors of love. Hope to see you there if I’m not home coloring my walls. Details are at https://chalkitup.org/festival/.
ArtBeat/July 2022
By Ed Goldman
The good news is that you still have almost three weeks to catch Boyd Gavin’s current show at the John Natsoulas Gallery. The bad news is that it’s not going to be up and continually replenished year-round.
The Natsoulas Gallery is in Davis (suggested motto: “The Land That Time Forgot”—doesn’t it know it’s supposed to have more crime and homelessness to be considered urban?). It’s a magnificent “space,” as gallerygoers like to say: a roomy multi-story house you come upon just as you steer your back-to-the-future DeLorean or time-traveling derailer into the town.
And while you’re already tiring of my past-‘n’-present gags, they may be slightly appropriate, given Gavin: His efforts comprise timeless artistry. His new show celebrates a slice of regional Americana—specifically, West Sacramento and its retro vibe of neon signage, no-tell hotels and motels, cardrooms, pools and even patio furniture. It’s as though David Hockney had never received the proper budget to paint and repaint Belair, Brentwood and Beverly Hills and instead went on an econo road trip to the city across the Sacramento River with the similar name but in a different county.
An all-too-common critic’s adjective is saying an artist’s work is “painterly,” which is a little like saying a writer’s work is writerly, a gourmet’s work is cheferly and a composer’s magnum opus is tunerly. Even so, “painterly” ain’t a bad word to describe Gavin’s authoritative stroke work, color palette and light sourcing. While flirting with photo realism, his paintings are still best viewed from a slight distance, where the efforts you can parse when you’re up-close and personal come magically together as a whole from just a few feet back.
I admit I have no favorite works in this show; I’d be happy with any or all of them filling the walls of my condo loft. The paintings convey both the heat of Sacramento summers and the transitory nature of affordable lodgings. Gavin seems to be a fan of forced perspective, which simply means he knows what he wants you to look at in his paintings and by use of scaling an object down or up, directs your attention to where he wants it.
If that sounds like he’s manipulative, well, he is—in the best possible way. He uses composition and a warm but sometimes deliberately non-vibrant range of colors to offer sly (but never condescending) visual editorials to comment on a particular commercial strata of American life.
I mentioned David Hockney earlier and would put in a reference or two about Cezanne’s brushwork but ultimately, Gavin himself says it best in his notes for the show. “I am drawn to the quirky short-hand style of artists like Fairfield Porter or David Park,” he writes, “artists who seem to invest even the homeliest of subjects with an offhand grandeur.”
We ought to add a word or two about the John Natsoulas Gallery (which now has a satellite exhibit space in Oakland at 519 17th Street at Telegraph). This continues to be simply the most expansive, stylish, enormous artspace in the region, a multi-story house populated with art on every floor and in every stairwell, including a rooftop garden of sculpture and audience seating.
The Natsoulas Gallery is open Wednesdays and Thursdays from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m.,, Fridays from 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. and Saturdays and Sundays from noon to 5 p.m. Gavin’s show closes July 23. I strongly recommend you take it in—and let his work take you into a recognizable realm of Northern California life.
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By Ed Goldman
In describing the fulfilling and downright eye-slaking new show at Archival Gallery, it’s tempting to call it “The Torso—and More So.”
Featuring new sculptures by Eric Wyss (the torso) and paintings by Terry Baxter (the more so), who I’m told have been friends for decades, the show fits comfortably in the airy exhibit space on Folsom Boulevard between 32nd and 33rd streets. The show runs until June 30, with a June 11 Second Saturday reception. Check out a preview at archivalgallery.com.
Archival’s setting offers viewers plenty of room to step back or closely hover without bumping into each other, an amusing but potentially lethal hazard in galleries that try to jam in as much work as possible in sometimes rigorously claustrophobic settings. Somehow, even at large group shows, founding owner/curator D Oldham Neath manages to create the illusion of expansive arm- and legroom. (It should be added that Oldham Neath was one of the founders of Second Saturday, was for years KVIE’s art curator and on-air auction host and can currently be seen on CBS Sacramento as its resident Art Lady.)
Wyss’s substantial ceramic pieces vary in color and temperament. At first glance they almost give the impression that someone broke into a mannequin factory after dark and decorated the dressmaker torsos—some with bold color lines that emphasize the body’s collection of ribs and ridges, a couple wearing what appear to be 17th-century tricorn helmets. None of the sculptures is less than compelling: it’s reassuring to take in the show of an artist whose work displays career-long self-confidence.
Equally masterful are Terry Baxter’s semi-abstract paintings which, like Wyss’s work, vary in size and pallete. Branding his latest works as “Reflections,” Baxter appears to make color choices informed by how much the eye is willing to take in at a single glance and then to draw you closer to happily discover just how many hues are layered into and onto the painting.
Baxter says that in his professional career he’s “had the privilege of being a classroom teacher in high school and community college throughout California…. Mostly what I taught was Drawing and Painting, but there was a smattering of History and a bunch of Literature thrown into the mix. There was even a brief stint working on a statewide policy committee for Delaine Easton’s ArtWorks Task Force. But, really, I have been a classroom teacher.”
Not surprisingly, younger artists and seasoned collectors will find this very enjoyable two-person show to be equally intuitive and instructive—which is to say, This is how you make art, folks.
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Ed Goldman wrote a daily column for the Sacramento Business Journal for eight years, often about the arts, and in 2019 began a thrice-weekly online column, The Goldman State, which now has readers in 28 states.
He has been an art collector, painter and cartoonist for 50+ years.
Explore more from Ed Goldman at goldmanstate.com.
By Ed Goldman
The new show(s) debuting on Saturday at Viewpoint Photographic Art Center—Steve Solinsky’s “Of Stillness & Light” and Frank Francis’s “Along the Wide Rivers of Bangladesh”—offer dissimilar but equally eye-popping color photography, brilliant displays of emotional content, transcendence and technical virtuosity.
It makes you wonder why anyone still consigns photography, along with often gorgeous craft products, to the “Not Art” children’s table. This stuffy disdain—encouraged generations ago by the Mensa-mouthed, over-educated but under-aesthetic reviewers for such bloated tree-wasting magazines as Art In America and ARTnews— is simply beyond its sell-by date. It reminds one of how the Impressionists first snorted at, then gladly deployed, photography to help them paint things the naked eye struggled to decipher (like a horse in full gallop: Trigger isn’t going to move in slow-mo so you can fully capture each straining and stretching sinew). To recap, art is art, art is life, and sometimes, life-plus or life-minus. It doesn’t have to originate on a canvas, board or watercolor paper.
Solinsky’s work at Viewpoint, which has the same name as his new book of images and comprises a sort of spiritual travelogue, is inspired by his wanderings and wonderings. His practice of Buddhism is writ gently but firmly in a wide range of photos and topics: everything from what appears to be a modest apartment house in Europe being softly drizzled on by a spring rain, to a stirringly evocative (as in, Wish I Were There) depiction of a country lane and arbor, with a light at the end of a copses-molded tunnel.
A playful picture, “Curious Cowtenance,” sees a shy bovine peering over a dune, while “Migration” is a sensuously composed shot of distant birds flying over what appears to be a marshland (to me, it’s reminiscent of some of the unself-conscious tableaux you can see in the Yolo Wilderness Basin in mid-winter as the Pacific Flyway braces for non-stop avian traffic).
I also greatly enjoyed Solinsky’s object-capture imagery, such as a weathered brass chair framed against a pale-yellow wall, with a wizened red doorway behind it, across from a lime green one (“Solitaire”), and “House of the Spirits,” which presents a sneak peek of a sanctuary, with hanging masks serving as sentries.
Frank Francis’s “Along the Wide Rivers of Bangladesh” is a stunning journey through the land- and peoplescape of the South Asia country whose teeming population could teach urban planners a thing or two about the pitfalls of density and infill housing.
Nonetheless, in Francis’s delineations of the quietly lovely countryside and waterways that weave their way throughout the jam-packed population, he achieves what he says his aim was in his exhibition notes. “I have tried to capture simplicity as a form of beauty on the great rivers of Bangladesh,” he writes, where “life, largely devoid of mechanization, is a life of toil with dignity, a life of barter and exchange centered on the rivers and fishermen, with their antique boats and nets.”
I loved every one of Francis’s pieces (as you will, too) but was equally taken by his documenting of his photo safari. “The travels were solo, a boat crew and me sleeping toe-to-toe on the deck, an Asian Immersion,” he recalls. “I owe a great deal to photography; it has provided me with the impetus to try to catch a world foreign to my experience….It is said that a poet must find her or his music or they are only speaking mere words. It is clear that a photographer must also find her or his music.”
The Solinsky and Francis shows run to Saturday, June 4, and officially open on Second Saturday, May 14 (3 to 7 p.m.). There’s also a Sunday artists reception May 15 (2 to 5 p.m.). Viewpoint is located at 2015 J. Street, Suite 101, Sacramento, CA 95811-3124. The phone is 916-441-2341.
One Buyer Be-Wary: The center is staffed by volunteers, not all of them with retail expertise—meaning, leave plenty of time for the cashier to figure out how to use the credit card device. I finally needed to leave after waiting 20 minutes to pay for a Solinsky print this past week (my parking meter was about to qualify me for one of the City of Sacramento’s draconian $50 tickets).
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Ed Goldman wrote a daily column for the Sacramento Business Journal for eight years, often about the arts, and in 2019 began a thrice-weekly online column, The Goldman State, which now has readers in 28 states.
He has been an art collector, painter and cartoonist for 50+ years.
Explore more from Ed Goldman at goldmanstate.com.
Show your support for the visual arts on the 2022 Big Day of Giving!
Starting at midnight on May 5, and for 24 hours, you can give big to support the nonprofits that matter to you, including those in the visual arts community.
Find your favorites in El Dorado, Placer, Sacramento, and Yolo counties and Give BIG! Donations start at just $15, and that can make a huge difference for the arts in our community.
Do your part today and join me in giving back.
View a full list of ARTS organizations that are participating in this year’s Big Day of Giving, and GIVE BIG!
by Ed Goldman
In my late 20s I was accosted in a small art gallery by a solid, stern older woman who began to tell me what I should buy—and why. Taking in her quasi-Mammy Yoakum ensemble and emphatic tone, I almost said something rude but thought better of it, life being short, seniors deserving respect and so forth.
Glad I kept my mouth shut. She was Adeliza McHugh, I was in the art gallery she created and ran in Folsom, and the piece she was suggesting I buy was called “Walrus, Wallabies and Wallflowers” by Maija Peeples. I did as I was told and thereupon entered the fabulous world of the California Funk movement.
The artists, art and founder of McHugh’s Candy Store Gallery are being celebrated in a lively retrospective show at the Crocker Art Museum that runs through May 1. Curated and documented by the Crocker’s clever and ever-accessible Dr. Scott Shields—not all curators are either of those, much less both— the show features some of the more imaginative works and practitioners of the period.
Among the artists featured, some of whose art I’ve been privileged to buy over the years, are David Gilhooly, Gladys Nilsson, Sandra Shannonhouse, Robert Arneson, Clayton Bailey, Roy De Forest, Irving Marcus, Jim Nutt, Jack Ogden, and Peter VandenBerge.
While this is the first full-fledged tribute to the Candy Store, which opened 60 years ago and closed 30 years later, various artists and fans have made attempts to memorialize it in the years since McHugh’s death in 2003, at 91. These have included Peter VandenBerge’s daughter Camille, herself an accomplished artist, who put on a show about growing up in the shadow of that bygone era called “Kid in the Candy Store” a little more than five years ago. But it was less a tribute to the original gallery than a showcase for mainly her own work (which I wrote about for both the Business Journal and Sacramento Magazine).
The Candy Store began life as an actual candy store, on a hill off Folsom’s main drag, Sutter Street. It had only two rooms. When the customers for confections died off (I hope I don’t mean that literally), McHugh turned it into a cluttered exhibition space for paintings, ceramics, drawings and, while it contributed to the crowded demeanor of the rooms, even some installation art.
McHugh had no formal art training, which may have been her saving grace even though many of her artists were formally trained artists and even art professors. What she had was an untainted-by-tradition eye—two, in fact—for the authentic, satiric, majestic and, especially in the case of Peeples’ and Gilhooley’s work, the whimsical.
Gilhooley, for example, created an entire fictitious culture ruled by frogs. One of my prized purchases was a sculpture that featured the frog god Osiris in his crypt, which was mounted on a pyre of ceramic dung. Out of his stomach grew the tree of life, flowered with clay cans and packages of junk food. I still regret selling the piece a decade ago but have replaced it with two other, if smaller, masterworks: Witches’ Sabbath (1970) and Giant Frog Burger from 1994, the latter of which looks exactly what it sounds like.
I focus on these pieces to underscore a point about Funk art and its adherents. The movement was neither about creating “safe” art, such as you might find in the conference room of corporations attempting to look mildly hip, nor true “outsider” art, which can prove disturbing and not likely to complement the over-decorated (but still basic-beige-motif) living rooms of homes in Granite Bay or Gold River.
Entering my then-home in East Sacramento some years ago, the wife of a prominent ad executive stood in the doorway eyeing the collection of modern pieces we’d collected and hung on every one of the house’s exposed three stories. “Oh, I like the art,” she sighed in the clenched-teeth style of Jim Backus’s Thurston Howell III, “but I just don’t know that I could live with it.”
This time, unlike in my first encounter with Adeliza McHugh, I did not keep my mouth shut. “I’m not sure anyone’s asked you to,” I said.
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Ed Goldman wrote a daily column for the Sacramento Business Journal for eight years, often about the arts, and in 2019 began a thrice-weekly online column, The Goldman State, which now has readers in 28 states.
He has been an art collector, painter and cartoonist for 50+ years.
Explore more from Ed Goldman at goldmanstate.com.
The annual conference of the National Council on Education for the Ceramic Arts (NCECA) provides opportunities to build and strengthen professional networks and experience lifelong learning with friends, colleagues, mentors, and students.
Ceramics shows will be on display at museums and galleries across the region. Be sure to check gallery websites for specific dates, times, and receptions. Many are free and open to the public, and several galleries have ceramics shows running all month.
View an entire list of Sacramento-area exhibitions –> DOWNLOAD PDF GUIDE
2021 Art Fur Paws Online Benefit Auction
Nov 18 – Dec 2, 2021
Register to BID at https://www.sspca.org/post/2021-art-fur-paws-online-benefit-auction
Follow the event online at: https://www.instagram.com/artfurpaws/
Charity and nonprofit art auctions can be thrilling and fun (especially after a few glasses of wine or a nice dinner) but ending up with a piece of art that doesn’t fit your collection, won’t fit in your car, and emptied your bank account is never a good time. It’s all well and good to donate funds to a favorite charity but remember you will be living with your art purchase for a long time.
Here are some helpful hints for scoring a great piece at a good price. If it’s in BOLD, remember it.
Many charity art auctions feature top notch artists who regularly donate gallery worthy pieces; however not all art auctions are the same. Some may feature unknown artists or un-curated works and you may be better off donating to your favorite cause directly. Look for auctions that pay a portion of the sale to the artists, or auctions that have been curated / juried or are invitational.
Well known auctions that have a long history garner better work from better artists, so research before you arrive or place an online bid. Many “big names” may sometimes donate pieces that did not sell in a gallery or are not up to par with exhibition pieces. This means that no matter how little you pay for the piece it may not translate into “I got a great deal!”
Most auctions have some sort of preview – either earlier than the live auction or online. Take advantage of a preview to research and carefully select (and set a price for) the pieces you are interested in owning.
Online and Virtual Art Auctions are auctions that you do not attend in-person. Over the years these have replaced many in-person events to broaden participation. While you may not fall trap to “I had too much wine” purchases in an online auction, there are still ways to maximize your advantage as a bidder and buyer.
Most important – avoid bidding until the last moments. Bidding every few hours or days just plays up interest in the piece and raises the price (remember my earlier tip to preview and set a price you are willing to pay – don’t artificially inflate your own price limit). Bidding near the end is also less time consuming and you increase the odds of being the winning bid. Many online auctions systems will allow you to set alerts on pieces you are interested in. Take advantage of these tools to stay informed.
Online auctions also remove the temptation to bid on something because “it’s a good price” resulting in that stack of frames in your garage. If you are participating in an auction, be prepared to bid near the closing of the item. Obviously “Bid High and Bid Often” is not the way to win your piece for a good price at any auction.
Live Auctions (usually accompanied by a paid ticket event and dinner with lots of wine) may result in a good buy because there are fewer people bidding than in an online auction. You also can examine the work up close, which is important if you are looking for investment pieces or important work. At live auctions my guidance is that you hold your bid until the “going once…”, or “jump the bid” (bidding higher than the auctioneer is asking by a good amount) because this often drives other bidders away and solidifies your position.
Many auction events include a “silent” auction component that involves bids written on a piece of paper next to a displayed piece of art and have a defined “closing time” or end of bidding. The same guideline applies to silent auctions as to online auctions – if you really want a piece, wait, and bid at the last minute (do not place any early bids). Stand near the piece and write in your bid a few minutes before it closes, and refrain from using your pencil as a weapon should someone else be doing the same thing.
If you are new at collecting you can often watch for the pieces that seasoned collectors and art dealers are bidding on. They only buy good work at a good price. Remember that you’re looking for fine artwork, so be discerning in your research and your selections.
Finally, remember you are supporting a charity or nonprofit. Don’t buy something just to support the organization if you don’t really love the piece. You will be much happier making a direct cash donation than staring at that giant fuzzy cat sculpture that you must explain every time someone walks into your home.
The Art Lady will be at PBS KVIE to help announce the winners of this year’s Art Auction. She’ll be joined by the KVIE Art Curator Jill Estroff, plus an award-winning artist. See a sneak preview of the art that will be up for bid and learn more by visiting kvie.org/events/art-auction.
Read on for exciting arts events and stories that you may not have heard about – from The Art Lady!
Express yourself through color at the Elk Grove Fine Arts Center‘s Colors of Humanity open competition. Deadline for entries is August 13 – learn more at https://elkgrovefineartscenter.org/exhibitions/colors-of-humanity-september-2021/.
WATCH: Verge Center for the Arts virtual interview series talks with 8 Sacramento Open Studios artists who focus on painting or printmaking. Watch the Video here.
The Toyroom Gallery’s 20th Anniversary Celebration – Watch the Good Day Sacramento interview:
Do you have an Art Need? When you buy something new are you fulfilling a decorative desire? Emotional need? Or perhaps art is an investment? Learn about the ABC of Building an Art Collection.
Have you heard of the Incredible San Francisco Artists’ Soapbox Derby? Take a look at this video from 1975:
Showing through August 27 at the Fe Gallery in Sacramento – Three Artists “Distinction” with Marjorie Darrow, Nicole Woodbury, and Trent Woolley. Take a look at this video to explore the collection and learn more:
Do you have a Story Idea for the Art Lady? Send in your ideas for consideration – just click the box below!
The gallery, located in The Russ Room (named after the late Russ Solomon), is just upstairs from the Solomon Deli on K Street.
Toyroom gallery celebrates their 20th anniversary this year. This gallery is focused on affordable low brow and street based artwork including hot-rods, trucks, motorcycles, punk rock, monsters, tattoo art, and more. The original garage-based location of the gallery now features a mural by Robert Bowen (recently featured on Good Day Sacramento). Toyroom Gallery has regularly shown work by artists such as Skinner, Chuck Sperry, and Shepard Fairey (known for his Obama HOPE piece among others).
Website: https://www.toyroomgallery.com/