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Local arts & culture

Arts groups make the case for greater slice of public funds

Gianmaria Franchini, SF Public Press — Aug 21 2010 - 5:39pm

Nonprofit art organizations are big business in San Francisco, employing 28,000 people and providing tens of millions in state and local revenues. And they want politicians to pay attention. “There is nothing more important we can do than advancing art in America,” said Randy Cohen, vice president of local arts advancement at Americans for the Arts. He said the arts have a large impact on job creation and state and local government revenue.

Green hip-hop group pruned by budget cuts

Ambika Kandasamy, SF Public Press — Aug 20 2010 - 2:50pm

A local organization that promotes environmental consciousness through hip-hop culture is going on hiatus this fall after losing major funding from the city of San Francisco. Grind for the Grind hosted its first — and final — “eco-music festival” of the year in Oakland last weekend. The event, FreshFest, brought local hip-hop musicians, artists and sustainable food producers together for a day of solar-powered live jamming, healthy eats and green-themed crafts. After losing its San Francisco grant, the festival was free to move from Yerba Buena Gardens, where it had been for two years, to Oakland’s Mosswood Park. But there still wasn’t enough money to put on the usual four summer festivals.

Book Review: Journalist spins riveting tale of murder and intrigue along the California coast

Leslie Guevarra, Special to SF Public Press — Aug 11 2010 - 1:37pm

Colm MacCay, the anti-hero of Paul McHugh's novel "Deadlines" (Lost Coast Press, $16.95), is a besotted, arrogant and wildly insecure newspaper columnist beyond his prime, who swaggers and staggers onto a story of abused personal and private trust and wants to make it his own. Unraveling a seaside murder before the competition scoops him could resuscitate MacCay’s faltering career -- and, of course, bring a measure of justice to the victims.

Getting schooled in post-racial America

Rachel Swan, SF Public Press — Aug 10 2010 - 3:47pm

Any artist who promises to end racism in about an hour will earn his fair share of cynics. Comedian W. Kamau Bell was well aware of that when he launched his solo comedy show, “The W. Kamau Bell Curve,” in fall 2007.

Restored Depression-era maritime murals recall heyday of public art

Gianmaria Franchini, SF Public Press — Jul 19 2010 - 3:44pm

The Aquatic Park Bathhouse Building at the San Francisco Maritime National Historic Park at Beach and Polk streets is emerging from a rehabilitation project with a noticeable facelift. The Bathhouse was built in 1939 by the Works Project Administration and became the park’s Maritime Museum in 1951. The building, which was designed to resemble the bridge of an ocean liner, is teeming with sea-themed art, none more striking that Hilaire Hiler’s “Undersea Life” mural, which has also been restored.

Amid budget cuts and institutional neglect, San Quentin’s arts education volunteers keep working

Ezra Carlsen, SF Public Press — Jun 22 2010 - 12:35pm

On a cool Friday night in March, near the corner of Haight and Steiner streets in San Francisco, the hip boutique Tweekin Records hosted an unusual gallery opening of paintings, sketches, poetry and elaborate collages. It was created by inmates at San Quentin State Prison.

Organized by Kate Deciccio, an artist and a mental health and substance abuse counselor in San Francisco, the exhibit featured her own work, along with work by Eddie Sanchez and “Absent” Helean from San Quentin, and by inmates in the John Howard Pavilion at St. Elizabeth’s Hospital in Washington, D.C. — Deciccio’s former employers.

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Playwright Octavio Solis: ‘Shake These People Up’

Karen Macklin, SF Public Press — Jun 22 2010 - 12:07pm

Octavio Solis’ critically acclaimed plays have been produced around the country, from the Oregon Shakespeare Festival to San Francisco’s Campo Santo and The Magic Theatre. His most recent work, “The Pastures of Heaven,” based on the Steinbeck novel, is in production until June 27 at California Shakespeare Theater.
The transplanted Texan and Sunset District resident has primarily written about El Paso and the Mexican border, but in recent years he has turned his pen to San Francisco, writing about bars, bandits, poetry-writing wolves and his adopted “city of love.”

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Black and white graphic novel gets colorful in gallery exhibit

Ambika Kandasamy, SF Public Press — Jun 4 2010 - 3:38pm
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How to illustrate idiosyncratic personalities coping with the monotony of day-to-day life? For San Francisco artist Jamaica Dyer, it’s no longer just black and white. The characters from her black-and-white graphic novel “Weird Fishes” take on a new life with her use of a soft color palette and gentle brush strokes. It is the story about two teenagers named Dee and Bunny Boy who grapple with issues of identity and question reality. An exhibition of her work is on display through June 13 at the Cartoon Art Museum’s Small Press Spotlight.

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Dying Northern India art form revived in Bay Area

Ambika Kandasamy, SF Public Press — May 6 2010 - 8:15pm

For the past two years, Devendra Sharma, an assistant professor of communication at California State University, Fresno, has been resuscitating and reinventing a dying Indian folk operatic performance art — Nautanki — in the Bay Area. The opera, characterized by exuberant singing in Hindi about religious, mythological or sociopolitical-themed stories, is a nightlong communal event performed in outdoor venues in northern Indian villages.

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Banksy street art pops up around town

Shawn Gaynor, SF Public Press — Apr 26 2010 - 3:31pm

International graffiti artist Banksy has been leaving his mark around San Francisco on several buildings. The mysterious street artist is now also a filmmaker and his new film, "Exit Through the Gift Shop'' is playing in several Bay Area cinemas. Although he does not personally sell his artwork, collectors have been paying big bucks for his work at auction.

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