THREE CHERRIES
we feature three works by artists we love.
featured artist #10 | David L. Cooper
David L. Cooper is a painter and musician living in Oakland, California. He earned his MFA from Mills College in 1993. He took a 20-year break from painting, working as a graphic designer, illustrator, and animator. He performed as a vibraphonist in bands such as Eskimo, The Beth Lisick Ordeal, and Dropsy. He recently resumed painting, but has not yet publicly exhibited his work.
Process Note
First of all, I’m as bewildered by my work as you are. But I steered toward that. I developed a method of semi-consciously drawing after accidentally discovering that the results were better. My office meeting doodles were quite mindless while my hand made them, and they were often more compelling than anything I drew with intent. So I cultivated that trance in the studio, silencing reason, focusing only on form.
It’s fair to say that my paintings are senseless, if sense is made of words. I think visual art, much like music, can offer us a shared respite from language. Paintings can go places words can’t. Picasso may or may not have said “The world makes no sense, so why should art?”
I would just tweak that to: “The world makes nothing but sense, so why should art?”
Should you seek in my work any resemblances to the known visible world, you’ll find some, but I try to both invoke and scramble familiarity, much as our dreams do. I feel more like a servant of my work than its boss. I intuit what it wants, and try my best to maximize its fruition. This, too, resembles dreaming; it’s all coming from a part of my mind that I don’t fully control. I’m in the audience.
I believe the purpose of art lies in the viewer’s (or listener’s or reader’s) reckoning with it. We don’t have a good word for that encounter. “Kapow,” maybe. But we all hope for it – that spark of connection between maker and recipient. It can be sensible or not, just like all love. We create for one another.
"Ascension"
oil on birch panel, 14" x 14"2025
“Assumption"
oil on birch panel, 14" x 14"2024
"Equinox"
oil on birch panel, 14" x 14"
2024
featured artist #9 | Roberto Benavidez
Piñata-based sculptor, Roberto Benavidez (b. 1973, Beeville, TX) lives and works in the Los Angeles, CA neighborhood of El Sereno. His work has been featured in American Craft Magazine, ARTnews, Artsy, Atlas Obscura, The Guardian, Hyperallergic, Orion Magazine, Politiken, The New York Times and This Is Colossal. Most recently he was featured in the New York Times Series “The Art of Craft.” Benavidez has exhibited his work at the AD&A Museum at UCSB, Craft In America Center, Mingei International Museum, Palo Alto Art Center, Self Help Graphics, Mesa Contemporary Art Museum and Riverside Art Museum; and this year his work was included in the 2024 Homo Faber Biennial in Venice, Italy. He is also featured in the “Play” episode of the Craft In America PBS series, and is the subject of the 2024 documentary short “Piñatas of Earthly Delights” directed by Tom Maroney. His work is in the permanent collection of the Detroit Institute of Arts, LA Metro, The Museum of International Folk Art and the Renwick Gallery at the Smithsonian American Art Museum.
Process Note
For over a decade my sculptural art practice has centered around the piñata form and technique. My work is informed by the multi-cultural history of the piñata and the star piñata as a proselytizing tool, allowing me to weave in both mixed-race and queer coding within my work. Each work begins as a paper mache form using balloons as support. These balloon forms are then refined with paperboard for each desired form. The crepe paper fringe covering each work is layered with multiple colors to create a vibrancy of hues. The fringe is all hand cut and applied in a meticulous fashion and flow to accentuate the form.
Bird No. 1
Illuminated Piñata No 21
Benavidez Stigmata Piñata
featured artist #8 | Masako Takahashi
Masako Takahashi is a visual artist who works in San Francisco, California, and San Miguel de Allende, Mexico. She was born in Topaz, Utah, a concentration camp, during WWII. After high school in San Francisco, Takahashi went to Bard College in New York, and (after dropping in and out of school for two years to travel) graduated from UC Berkeley, in California. Takahashi has exhibited in museums and galleries in Mexico, The Netherlands, Spain, Japan, and the USA. www.MasakoTakahashi.com has work and exhibition history.
Process Note
My work ranges from painting to the embroidery I do with my hair. I turned to embroidery after living in Mexico for a few years. The work is done on silk-- embroidered in a "text" I invented in order to communicate meanings that words don't seem to render. Each 'word' is as long as the length of its hair allows.
For the Friendship Series I chose colors reminding me of the complexions of friends. After a trip to Bhutan and Tibet, I composed the 'words' in the texts into Mandala patterns and ran them together without spaces between the words, so they read like chanting, one word running into the next.
My hair contains my history, lived simultaneously to the time any viewer has lived, and I hope that offers a subtle link. When I made my Journals, the 12 meter long scrolls stitched on uncut kimono bolts, I made the text vertical, as in Japanese calligraphy. As my hair turns predominantly white, I work on black silk.
Some of the work is as large as 5 x 4 feet, while others are done on small embroidery hoops. Interpretation is left to the viewer.
--
Black Hoop/1
2024
artist's hair, silk, wood, metal
8.5" x 8.5" x .25"
Black Hoop/6
2024
artist's hair, silk, wood, metal
10" x 10" x .25"
Black Hoop Series/4
2024
artist's hair, silk, wood, metal, needle
featured artist #7 | Laurie Steelink
Laurie Steelink is a cultural practitioner and multidisciplinary artist. She is a citizen of the Akimel O’otham Nation from Arizona and is a member of the Gila River Indian Community. Steelink’s primary focus is the exploration of her Native American/Indigenous ancestry communicated through assemblages, installation and events. Incorporating found objects, deconstructed paintings, sculpture, sound and photography, when orchestrated as an installation, she considers her work as a living diorama or form of theatre. Adopted at 6 months old in Phoenix, AZ, and raised in Tucson, Steelink received a BFA from the San Francisco Art Institute and an MFA from Mason Gross School of the Arts, Rutgers University. She is the 2024 Native Scholar in Residence at Pitzer College in Claremont, CA and she is on the organizing committee for the Many Winters Gathering of Elders held annually in San Pedro, CA since its revival in 2017. Steelink is also the founder and director of the project space Cornelius Projects in San Pedro, California. She currently resides in San Pedro on the unceded territory of the Gabrieleno-Tongva Peoples—the past, present, and future stewards of Tovaangar (Greater Los Angeles Basin and the Southern Channel Islands).
Process Note
My multidisciplinary practice addresses the complexities of division and fragmentation in my life from a contemporary Indigenous perspective. I'm constructing a bridge using the tools I've received-my education and experience-and embedding them in a kind of conceptual offering with a critical gaze while paying homage to my Akimel O'otham ancestry and the land I am a guest on. The process is an evolving decolonization exercise, a continuum where everything, including the materials I use, from re-purposed paintings, treated found objects, assemblage, installation to curatorial projects is a constant rethinking, blending, and recovering.
GHOST
2024
Mixed media assemblage consisting of found porcelain and cloth doll, hand sewn linen robe, acrylic paint on paper, PVA glue, polyester fringe and ribbon, wiggly eyes, leather cord, metal swivel hook, wood hanger
43 h X 14 1/2 w X 15 1/2 d inches (includes hanger)
At home in ways that people cannot be
2024
Mixed media sculpture consisting of cardboard, acrylic paint, paper, PVA glue, metal jingle and wire, horsehair
11 x 7 x 8 3/4 inches
SUPER BAD
2024
Acrylic paint, paper, PVA glue, cardboard
8 x 8 inches
featured artist #6 | Dan Nelson
Dan Nelson is a multi-disciplinary artist who plays with language and signifiers to look at how humans create meaning and social structures.
His diverse practice is realized in the multifaceted office-humor-meets-capitalist-critique The Corporation, in participatory works such as The Escape and Your Name Here, and in brazen material experiments like Oddballs, 90 miniature sculptures made of paperclips. Nelson is best known for his book “All Known Metal Bands”, published by McSweeney’s, which won an AIGA design award and was reviewed as the “The Best Bathroom Book Ever” by Rolling Stone.
Nelson has had numerous solo and group exhibitions in San Francisco Bay Area and New York venues including Boontling Gallery, The Compound Gallery, Faultline Art Space, The LAB, NIAD Art Center, Plexus Projects, ProArts Gallery & Commons, Swarm Gallery, and Your Mood Gallery. He lives and works in the Hudson Valley.
Process Note
At the start of 2024, a gallerist, who I'd met at his booth at an art fair and with whom I'd bonded over funny text paintings, offered to show some pieces at his gallery in the fall and said he liked the list-based work that he'd seen. Being a little tired of lists and feeling like it was a bit played-out in non errand-based contexts, I nevertheless wanted to oblige and just took it as a limitation to work within.
So here you see one piece that is the title of a listicle instead of the list itself. Which is like...50 movies? It would take me 5 years to watch that many movies, and when the next listicle arrives in 2 months then what, I ask you? And there is a painting featuring the names of towns I drove through on one of two consecutive cross-country drives made in the process of moving out here to New York state. They form something far more poetic than the hellish reality of US route 80, which I would suggest be your last of many options when making that trip. The third piece started with some lyrics by Mark E. Smith that reminded me to find stimulation in the tedium of repetition, in my case the endless march of items in lists. Along with the cross-country painting, it also shows a new approach: be sloppier and sketchier and let the marks be the beginning of the process which is then traced on the proverbial page. Ever since I read that handwriting accesses both the linguistic part of the brain and the part where drawing originates, I've been trying to hang out there more.
the four R's
50 Movies
cross country
featured artist #5 | Adrian Arias
Adrian Arias is an international multidisciplinary artist working at the intersection of visual arts, poetry, performance, and social justice. A descendant of the Mochica culture of ancient Peru, he embraces his culture’s use of dreams as a transformative catalyst between reality and imagination. Arias has created large-scale murals for public and private businesses such as Google and a three-story mural at the corner of Turk and Hyde in San Francisco, commissioned by the Luggage Store. He has recently created murals for Magic Theater, Freight & Salvage, Red Poppy Art House and murals in Mexico, Peru and Italy. He is the co-founder of Mission Arts Performance Project MAPP, and the creator of ILLUSION show and the Tarot in Pandemic & Revolution, a multifaceted collaboration by sixty two visual artists and poets in the creation of a community tarot deck that speaks to historic events that transpired over the pandemic. As a writer he has created 5 books of poetry and one of art and science fiction, in addition to appearing in more than 20 California poetry anthologies. http://adrianarias.com/
Three works by Adrian arising from the power of Dreams, and the need for social justice and peace of mind
River to the Sky
Latex-acrylic on wall, December 2021 - January 2022
2700 sq ft.
Located at Turk and Hyde in San Francisco, this three-story mural celebrates the Black Hawk Jazz Club, once a haven for legends like Miles Davis and Billie Holiday. The mural's journey began six months prior to its creation, inspired by my exploration of the Tenderloin area and dreams depicting the community's struggles. Initially, I sketched in black and white, reflecting despair. However, after engaging with local residents and artists, I uncovered the vibrant history of the Black Hawk, which sparked a new vision filled with color and hope.
A dream of San Francisco's subterranean waters rising to the sky inspired the concept of a "River to the Sky," where musical icons coexist, and an ancestral hummingbird spreads hope alongside California poppies, known for their calming effects. Bold "BLM" letters signify the movement's role in restoring hope and combating injustice, crafted from a mosaic of indigenous cultural imagery, including my own Mochica heritage. The design also honors the Ohlone territory with a wave pattern reminiscent of their basketry. This mural represents a healing journey and a musical celebration of resilience. Central to its essence is the idea of sanctuary, providing solace to the Tenderloin community. Thanks to Urban Alchemy, its vision extends into a park with exercise facilities, a children's play area, and tranquil pathways.
Commissioned by The Luggage Store Gallery and the Someland Foundation, the mural embodies renewal and connection for the community.
Timelapse: https://vimeo.com/manage/videos/682109842
Complete information: https://shorturl.at/Z9PpV
FOX-KTVU: https://shorturl.at/9o2Nl
Poem
A river rises to the sky,
from the streets of pain,
where shadows lie.
Dreams of jazz and colors bloom
on the wall of dark memories,
Miles and Billie cross the gloom.
A hummingbird sings the sweet plea of hope
In a shining ancestral flight
while poppies give us a breath of peace.
the waters lift darkness to light.
El Beso / The Kiss (in Pandemic with Fishes)
Ink and acrylic on Arches paper.
52 x 72 inches.
Private collection.
This piece, done in ink and acrylic on paper during the pandemic, reflects the profound impact of the enforced six-foot separation between people. As the world came to a standstill, prohibitions on physical contact, especially the simple joys of hugs and kisses, altered our expressions of affection, replacing them with a widespread collective fear of intimacy. Creating “The Kiss,” was an act of liberation and defiance. The artwork portrays a couple engaged in a catharsis of passion and tenderness. They merge as one, their emotions laid bare, invoking the elements around them, particularly water, a symbol of fluidity that proved so elusive to us during that time. Within this turbulent aquatic scene, more hands than usual emerge, as well as abstract sea creatures and fish, embodying our innate need for flow and reminding us of the currents of connection we were losing to the virus. “The Kiss” represents a journey of inner purification and transformation, born from a deeply impactful experience that initially instilled fear in me. The piece took place over three sessions, and after the first, I had intense dreams that inspired me and helped me continue with the drawing. I visualized effortless gliding fish, palpable sounds, and a heady sea scent that drew me into a world of vivid sensory exploration. Although I was inspired by Klimt’s iconic “Kiss,” I used my own visual language and dreamlike imagery to bring my vision to life, including my own hand and foot prints as part of this passionate ocean of imagery. Ultimately, “The Kiss” illuminated my fundamental longing for human connection and the giving of love. After finishing it, I found myself hugging and kissing with renewed fervor, rekindling the intimacy we had all missed.
Haikus for “The Kiss”
-I-
Six feet keep us apart,
forbidden embraces sigh,
fear hangs in the dark.
-II-
The Kiss blooms again,
hearts connected in gentle dusk,
water’s grace renewed.
-III-
Visions of the sea,
shadowed fish dance in the night,
fearless love flows free.
The Indigenous Woman is not invisible
Acrylic on canvas.
48 x 72 inches.
This work is part of a triptych I painted in 2023 during my artistic residency at CAST (Community Arts Stabilization Trust). It is part of a series dedicated to Indigenous Women, created with the purpose of making Native women visible and claiming their rights. The idea came from a deep dream, in which my grandmothers told me that they were not invisible. The central figure of the painting is inspired by the strength of four indigenous women from different regions of what we now call America: a Mochica woman from Peru, a Nukak from the Colombian Amazon, an Ohlone from the Bay Area, and Yuma and Papago women from the territories that extend across Arizona and Mexico. In this painting, the telluric energy of nature is manifested: the mountains, the lightning, the waterfalls, and the symbolic power of body art in the native cultures of the Americas. A prominent element is the golden fallopian tube that symbolizes the reproductive rights of indigenous women. On her right ear, the ancient Andean Chakana—a symbol that embodies the interconnectedness of the universe—connects the piece to a cultural legacy that is over four thousand years old. Meanwhile, on her left ear, the message “Say Her Name” links the fight for indigenous women’s rights to the broader movement against police violence and brutality towards women of color. Through the combination of these symbols, the work expresses a deep need for justice, recognition, and respect. My intention with this piece is to reclaim the narratives of indigenous women, ensuring that they are seen, heard, and honored as living, powerful forces shaping the future, not shadows of the past. The drawing that inspired this series was created in 2022, and from it three murals were born: one at the Magic Theater at Fort Mason, another at the corner of Folsom and 23rd Street in San Francisco, and one more on the door of Good Vibrations in Oakland.
Images of the original drawing and the murals can be seen here:
http://adrianarias.com/selected-murals-adrian/
Poem
Four faces of my land unite,
in a single form, their spirits ignite.
Mochica, Nukak, Ohlone stand tall,
and Yuma from dreams, she answers the call.
With painted face, her soul’s set free,
a woven hat bears threads of peace.
"My body is mine," her voice resounds,
Chakana's force in her heart abounds.
featured artist #4 | Vince Montague
Vince Montague is a writer and visual artist working with language and clay. He is the author of Cracked Pot (Latah Books 2023) a memoir about ceramics, writing, and grief. He is also the author of Next Door (Bottlecap Press 2023) a chapbook of experimental prose poems. He works with clay making vessels and pots exhibited across the country. His work can be found at Hugomento (San Francisco, CA) and Craig Krull Gallery (Santa Monica, CA) as well as the ACCI Gallery (Berkeley, CA). His work has been juried into recent shows at AMOCA (Faranheit 2024) and Kellogg Gallery at Pomona College for Clay and Ink 2024 as part of the PST Art (Pacific Standard Time Los Angeles) a city wide collaboration sponsored by The Getty Museum, Where Art and Science Collide.
Process Note
Working as a writer and investing myself in language to create poetry and prose is a type of conceptual art because the majority of the work of a writer is invisible. The sentence or fragment of poetry lives in the mind of the reader ultimately. The process shapes those words by using the skill and craft of good writing. Clay is a different type of material where the work is visible and manifest. The material of the earth is manipulated and crafted into vessels and sculpture that employ their own language. The labor can be felt just by touching.
Working with clay encourages the intuitive side of my brain, a brain not thinking about words or language, a mind open to the spontaneity and wisdom inherent in dirt and mud. A lot of the work here is simply done by playing around with shapes and looking to resolve whatever I started to reveal the piece. I don’t have an agenda with clay, whereas sometimes with writing I am more regimented, more tight. I wish I felt the same way with writing as I do with clay, but the two processes are feeding off of different sides of my imagination. One side is about sculpting ideas and shaping those ideas by editing and rewriting. The other is about starting out in the unknown to discover new territory.
Citizen
Ceramic 2024
16” x 14”
This is from a series of Big Heads I made as a resident at Township 10. These are hand built and fired to a high temperature. What interests me in this head is the volume I create by building by hand. The vastness of the human imagination, the protean nature of intelligence, the limits of the human experience are the concepts inside this figurative head.
Decency
Ceramic
2024
9” x 11” (2 pieces)
These figurative pieces are purposely ambiguous and non specific. They are part of the spectrum of imagination that keeps defining and redefining how we adapt and change.
Teapot
Ceramic
2022
This piece is part of my ongoing obsession with teapots, their relation to the body, to the soul, to the act of protecting and giving sustenance.
featured artist #3 | Wendy Lee Gadzuk
Wendy Lee Gadzuk is a visual artist, writer, musician and diviner living and working in the Mojave Desert of California, where she also co-curates La Matadora Gallery in Joshua Tree. Trained at the University of the Arts in Philadelphia as a jeweler and metalsmith, she now works in various mediums, resulting in 2 different bodies of visual art - finely detailed visionary work on paper incorporating free-form drawing and traditional Byzantine iconography techniques, and altar-like 3-dimensional mixed media assemblage pieces, often using recycled materials. Religious and occult imagery are recurring themes, though, contrary to popular belief, Wendy was not raised in a religious household. Over the past couple of years, her experience as a caregiver to her partner has influenced her work in a noticeable way, resulting in a series of large-scale assemblages using medical waste. The work all holds a similar thread, connecting in its own way to the collective unconscious desire to honor the mundane.Wendy recently created an oracle deck called Deconstructed Divination and released a limited edition book called 'The Magic of 8' to accompany it. She exhibits regularly in the Los Angeles area and beyond.
Process Note
My process is a mess. I suppose my process is that of bringing order to chaos, of reigning in this ever-expanding collection of materials (because EVERYTHING has the potential to be an art supply) until they flow with an air of refinement and a sort of sacred order. Collecting is part of my process. It can become obsessive. Digging through jagged, rusty burn piles, collecting and cleaning roadkill, picking up rusty bottle caps in parking lots, rummaging through swap meets and estate sales - it never ends. Saving cat food cans, jar lids, or anything else that I hear pleading for a new lease on life. Once a vague idea calls out to me from this massive pile of what some may call junk, I start "sketching." This really means laying the pieces out until they make sense together. Then the problem-solving begins. How do I actually make this work? Craftsmanship is important, so the pieces must be well-built. It's frustrating, but then it comes together, evolving during the process. And it's never done when I think it is. There is ALWAYS that last thing that comes after what I think is the finish line. And I've NEVER regretted that, though some say "less is more." Not for me. This is often where the magic happens. Who am I to get in the way of that?
@wendy_lee_gadzuk
www.facebook.com/wendyleegadzuk
And I’ll Be Waiting Here for You With Open Arms
Guest Speaker
Blue Charge
featured artist #2 | Lexa Walsh
Lexa Walsh is an artist, cultural worker and experience maker. Her upbringing as the only bad athlete in a family of fifteen, and coming of age in the Bay Area post punk cultural scene of the 1990’s informs her interest in alternative lifestyles, economies and communities. With a background in both sculpture and social practice, Walsh makes site specific projects, exhibitions, publications and objects, using an array of materials and often employing social engagement, institutional critique, and radical hospitality to question hierarchies, power and value. She recently relocated to the Hudson Valley.
Walsh is a graduate of Portland State University’s Art & Social Practice MFA program and was Social Practice Artist in Residence in Portland Art Museum’s Education department. She was a recipient of Southern Exposure’s Alternative Exposure Award, the CEC Artslink Award, the Gunk Grant and was a de Young Artist Fellow. Walsh has participated in projects, exhibitions and performances at Apexart, di Rosa Center for Contemporary Art, FOR-SITE, Grand Central Art Center, Kala Art Institute, Marin Museum of Contemporary Art, NIAD, Oakland Museum of California, SFMOMA, Smack Mellon, Walker Art Center, Williams College Museum of Art, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, and has done several international artist residencies, tours and projects in Europe and Asia. lexawalsh.com
Process Note
Remnants: Plaid Studies, one of my few abstracted series, are in alignment with all of my work: questioning hierarchies, power and value, including of materials and processes. These are made from scraps of leftover slabs when I make functional ceramics and medals. I reuse and weave, trying to make clay act like textiles, save clay reclamation labor from the hard working crew at the ceramics studio, evoke my catholic school plaid uniform, and play with some formal jazz (god forbid!).
featured artist #1 | Mark Dutcher
Artist Mark Dutcher brings together elements of abstraction, Surrealism, and Pop in paintings that incorporate layers of words and symbols, imprecisely rendered and frequently illegible. Often sampling song lyrics or names of former loves in his rough-hewn paintings, Dutcher explores notions of transience, loss, and death. He leaves blemishes and fingerprints visible and mistakes intact, emphasizing the artist’s hand and process. “I’m interested in flaws and systems that leave flaws, in the traces that demonstrate that things don’t always work out the way you think they will,” he has said. Dutcher experienced the loss of a partner and of friends during the AIDS epidemic, and his work has obliquely addressed these personal traumas. Influences on his practice include the work of the Russian avant-garde artist Alexander Rodchenko and the California artist Richard Diebenkorn. He lives and works in Los Angeles and The Sea Ranch, California.
