River of Words, Home to Roost at Saint Mary’s
Poet Robert Hass awakened a lifelong love of nature while a student at Saint Mary’s College. Now, River of Words, the art and poetry program he cofounded, has found a home at the college.
Art and Design
Circles in the sand
Now you see it. Now you don't. Jim Denevan creates art --very large art -- out of the most ephemeral media: patterns in sand which will wash away with the tide, tracings in the earth that will disappear with the first rain, etchings upon icy lakes that must melt with the coming of spring. Beach aficionados know him as "that surfer dude," but his artwork is reminiscent of masters like Christo and Goldsworthy.
Q&A With Cris Benton, the Bay Area’s Expert in Kite Aerial Photography
For kite aerial photographer Kris Benton, capturing images from the air is "more than just a hobby" - it's a way to record the history of a landscape.
BayWood Artists Exhibition Benefits Save the Bay
The BayWood Artists, a group of plein air painters who often hold art sales to benefit local environmental groups, are dedicating their current show at the Bay Model in Sausalito to Save the Bay, which is celebrating its 50th birthday this year.
Bay Area Nature 100 Years Ago, Through the Eyes of Painter William Keith
The Saint Mary's College Museum of Art is honoring California landscape painter William Keith a century after his death with 150 paintings from the college's permanent collection. "The Comprehensive Keith: A Centennial Tribute," on view through December 18, 2011, includes dozens of Bay Area views, from Pacheco Pass to San Anselmo. Some are startlingly familiar. Others are lost to roads and subdivisions. All will help you see local nature with new eyes.
“Washed Ashore” Exhibit Turns Ocean Plastic into Monumental Sculptures
The 16 giant plastic sea creature sculptures on display at the Marine Mammal Center arose from artist Angela Pozzi's desire to find solace in the ocean: "I went to the ocean to look for healing, but I found that the ocean needed healing before it could heal me." Her new exhibit, Washed Ashore, is on display through October 15, 2011.
Vegan Taxidermy: An Intersection of Art, Science, and Conservation
These days, taxidermy and conservation might seem to run at cross purposes outside the dim halls of natural history museums. Those dioramas come from a time when field science was rather more dangerous to wildlife than it is today. Artist Aimee Baldwin's unusual sculptures, which she calls vegan taxidermy, remove the inconvenient contradiction between loving nature and stuffing it. See her work through July 15 at Castle in the Air, a shop on Berkeley's Fourth Street.
Kids Clean Up and Make Art at Ocean Beach
How do you get 500-plus kids to sit still on the beach? Tell them a helicopter is about to fly overhead and take their collective photograph, and that by the way, they'll also be on television. It happened at Ocean Beach, and all in the name of ocean conservation.
Kids’ Ocean Day: Cleaning Beaches and Making Art
On May 19 thousands of kids from San Diego to Vancouver will gather on seven West Coast beaches to pick up trash and create impressive aerial art. These kids are participating in Ocean Day, part of the California Coastal Commission's Adopt-A-Beach Program.
Green Film Festival Coming to San Francisco
Washington, D.C., has one. Seoul has one. Bristol, Tokyo, and Turin have one. And now, finally, the Bay Area has one. The first annual San Francisco Green Film Festival will take place from March 3-6, joining a growing number of environmentally focused film festivals throughout the world.
