About: The images submitted are part of Internal Landscapes, an ongoing series of paintings exploring the inner workings of the psyche. I hold undergraduate and graduate degrees in art, and there learned to render representational depictions of people and things; however, in the lens through which I perceive the world, abstract expressionism best lays out my internal schema of dancing with nature and divinity, and with outcries wedded to hope, agency and human decency.
Sweeping colours juxtaposed to tight enclaves of textured details speak to the nuances of my being and becoming fully human. Here, visual tension and melodic movements reside in the marrow of my bones alongside jazz and the blues, alongside moans of I can’t breathe and sunlight dancing through thickets of trees. Jazz, the blues and abstract art, to me, is where intellect boogies to the door of the heart knowing it speaks her mother tongue.
My name is Yasmin Sayyed, I am a visual and poetic artist, an expressive arts therapist, a trainer of social service professionals and an unapologetic socialist. I am a mother, grandmother and great-grandmother. I divide my residence between the bay area and South Lake Tahoe. I have exhibited my work in the greater SF bay area, Los Angeles, Santa Monica, Hermosa Beach, NYC, the Tahoe Basin and Nevada, and authored an ethno-autobiographical book about painting with the splendour of spirit.
More info: Images: 1. Mother Earth is an acknowledgement of she who gives us sustenance and to whom we owe caretaking. 22″x30″, $2,000 original, $700 print on canvas 2. Brave Joy depicts a bold daring to know and embrace positive anticipation and joy in life. 22″x30″, $2,000 original, $700 print on canvas 3. Internal landscape illumines travels through internal schemas found in dreams and meditations about nature, 22″x30″, $2,000 original, $700 print on canvas
All Ages Online Class, Fridays, 12-1pm, Jan 22 – Feb 19
It’s going to be a big week. Join teaching artist Lauren Ari this Friday (or any Friday for the next five weeks) for a drawing class that is a mindful space to process and reflect. This is an all ages/intergenerational class so we can make and learn across generations. All levels of experience welcome. Simply bring plain white paper, a pen/pencil, and an open mind.
“I am a dual-credentialed educator and artist. I taught for five years as a special education teacher, but now I am focused on my art practice and anti-racist teaching work, specifically developing curriculum in Bay Area schools. At the moment I’m applying to MFA programs. This is all keeping me busy.” – Alex Martinez
We interviewed Alex Martinez to learn about her recent work and what it’s like to teach during a pandemic. Alex is teaching two classes at RAC this semester, Teen Journaling.
Image: Artwork by Alex Martinez, Disappeared Three Times (2020) (top); Alex Martinez teaching (right)
Exhibition Dates: February 11 – May 16, 2021 Artist Registration Deadline: Sunday, January 24, 2021
Art of the African Diaspora is the longest running event of its kind in the Bay Area. The event supports artists of African descent through representation, professional development, and building a creative community.
Are you an artist interested in participating in 2021? Join the Artist Info zoom session on Thursday, January 21, 6pm to learn about the 2021 program and ask your questions! Register HERE.
Image: Virtual studio tours will be a highlight of AOTAD 2021. See some tours are already online at aotad.org/wp/virtual-studio-tours (https://aotad.org/wp/virtual-studio-tours/)
In this class young artists will fill the pages of their art journals with fun projects using watercolors, colored pencils, ink, marker, paint, folded paper, and found objects.
Teen Class (Ages 12-17) Wednesdays, 3:30-5pm Jan 20 – Feb 10
Learn about the ways that contemporary artists address the environment and climate justice in their work, and incorporate these broader themes and strategies as inspiration for your own art.
Gather for community and positive dialogue about your art making process. Class will be held the Third Thursday of every month for four class meetings.
Enjoy this coloring sheet created by Richmond artist Tiffany Conway to honor the life and legacy of Martin Luther King Jr.
Tiffany says, “I’m deeply inspired by the legacy of our ancestors in particular, Martin Luther King. He has left a wealth of wisdom and guidance for us to utilize in times of despair. I am thrilled to honor his legacy.”
Artist Alex Martinez is a second-generation Queer, Mexican-American Chicanx, raised in Watsonville, California. She has lived in the Bay Area for 20 years, and is a teaching artist at Richmond Art Center.
Alex chatted with Amy Spencer, Exhibitions Director at RAC, on January 12, 2021.
Hi Alex! Let’s start with your art and teaching practice.
I am a dual-credentialed educator and artist. I taught for five years as a special education teacher, but now I am focused on my art practice and anti-racist teaching work, specifically developing curriculum in Bay Area schools. At the moment I’m applying to MFA programs. This is all keeping me busy.
What art project are you working on at the moment?
I’m continuing a series called Legacy of Resilience, which is about amplifying voices of transgender asylum seekers, and missing and murdered indigenous women. This was a collaborative project working with artists Eli Reyes and Malaya Tulay. So far we have created two large-scale portraits that highlight the effects of systemic racism on marginalized populations. The first portrait is called They Came Seeking Protection (2020, mixed medium, 48’’ x 65”) and shows Roxsana Hernandez and Johana “Joa” Medina Leon, transgender asylum seekers who died in detention at the US/Mexico border. The second portrait is called Disappeared Three Times (2020, mixed medium, 48’’ x 65”) and depicts missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls, two-spirit and trans people. These works feature painted acrylic portraits, beadwork, text, and appliqué, as well as embroidery and linoleum block printing on the borders. I started the Legacy of Resilience series as part of a YBCA Public Participation Fellowship last year.
Alex Martinez, Eli Reyes, and Malaya Tulay, Disappeared Three Times, 2020. Mixed Medium, 48’’ x 65”. Courtesy the artists.
What has it been like continuing to make work and teach online during the pandemic?
At first it really felt like a big challenge and pivot. But teachers are adaptable. I think we all took it as a learning opportunity. Right now I’m an art teacher for middle schoolers. It continues to be a challenge to engage with students as they go from screen to screen, and I’m seeing screen fatigue. But we are just trying to be compassionate and understanding. And create spaces where kids can express some of the complicated feelings they are going through right now.
What are you teaching at Richmond Art Center this semester?
A teen journaling class. The class is designed as a series of one-off activities where kids can engage as they want. I created it like this because of my understanding of how hard it can be for young people to show up online right now. I wanted the class to be available to suit individual kids’ needs. Each class session focuses on a different medium and way of expression, so students can learn how to add a new design dimension to their journal. It’s about helping youth develop their own visual language across a ton of different mediums. As well as giving them the opportunity for exploration and connection with other youth.
Art Journaling for Teens (for ages 12-17) starts January 20 and runs through February 10. More info about the class is online HERE. Alex is also teaching a kids class Junk Art! (for ages 6-12) this semester. Info HERE. And you can visit Alex’s website to see her work HERE.
Thank you Alex!
Thank you! Making new work and teaching during covid is challenging, but I’m grateful to be able to do it.
Alex Martinez, Eli Reyes and Malaya Tulay. They Came Seeking Protection, 2020. Mixed Medium, 48’’ x 65”. Courtesy the artists.
Special events: Tiffany Conway is embarking on her debut Solo Show titled “Ethereal Hue”. Opening April 26th, 2021 at Oakstop Gallery, 1721 Broadway, Oakland. Visit projectgetfree.com for further details. Sign up for the weekly newsletter to stay informed on the show’s progress.
About: Art has provided me with the tools to communicate in a way that was not able to do before. And for that, I am forever grateful for the practice. Art allows me to retreat, restore, and express all that I have learned from moving through the world as an African American woman. Art connects me to the energy that lives within myself that I’m not always able to see.
I focus a lot on the transmutation to grief and beauty. And creating a dialog with myself through painting. I have an interest in skin tone and all that we carry underneath the top layer, which is why my art is so textural. I have an interest in using color as a language for emotions and perspectives and the body as a vehicle. Even though my work displays the beauty of others, what lies behind that initial layer are parts of my personal evolution.
I believe that it is important to unmask the myth of what strong should be. My overall vision is to create art that empowers vulnerability, as I believe that this is the ultimate superpower. When creating, I try to portray “softness” through my technique with skin tone in the attempt to portray my community, with humanity. When looking at my work I would like my audience to also see themselves with beauty, without hard lines, multidimensional, and navigating the world from the inside out.
About: Xan Blood Walker was born in Seattle Washington in the heat of the summer. She learned print photography in high school and went on to obtain two BFA’s, one in printmaking and another in painting from the University of Washington. Many years later when pursuing graduate studies in counseling she obtained a Master’s certificate in Art Therapy. Prior to her higher education, she attended the school of hard knocks in Seattle, San Francisco, and Los Angeles, as an 80’s street punk at the height of the punk rock scene. With over 20 years in recovery, she finds a way to blend her varied experiences into a unique and personal style. Currently, she is branching out into two new areas: documenting the living breathing urban landscape through photojournalism, and incorporating mixed media into her photography. She has already begun using graffiti markers and hopes to add beeswax from her beehive, as well as dip back into her printmaking background with stenciling, lino block, and woodcutting.
ARTWORK Xan has exhibited her work primarily in group shows in Seattle, San Francisco, Emeryville, Alameda, Oakland, and New York.
HONORS AND ACTIVITIES Xan was awarded a Links Scholarship for her woodblock print depictions of her emotional experiences around rape. She contributed as an intern artist for the mural project on the Women’s Building in San Francisco, CA., in 1994.
More Info: Join Emeryville photographer Xan Blood Walker in a virtual presentation of her new book, Abandoned East Bay San Francisco: Where Graffiti Is King. She will be joined by librarian Steven Lavoie who will field questions about the particular structures and try to contribute some background about the locations.
This is a virtual event to be webcast live on the Oakland Public Library’s Facebook (@oaklibrary).
About: Shante’ has the artistic ability to create a range of art from realism to abstract. She has a diverse understanding of how to create art of all subject matters while using a variety of material and techniques. Her style embodies the essence of the human spirit in all of us as well as nature.
Shante’ has learned to push her work beyond her limits by creating work that is special. She has a raw style that captures expression with the simplest techniques/materials while exemplifying a volume of richness to every piece. She classified both her abstract and realism art as “Art Outside the Box” while “Capturing the Human Spirit.” In better terms she classifies her overall art as raw, rich, cut compositions, using the simplest techniques in full detail, while capturing the human spirit.
About: Always honoring God, life is as it should be. The countenances I encounter, fascinate me. This recent series of Cross Hatching through Life, began in 2018. Though I often mix media when creating my portraits, what I currently offer only uses ink and marker.
Each has the appearance of an iconic graphic, embedded in stock floral motifs. I feel the influence of social media, which I have a difficulty grasping, presents those who are willing, to show themself as an avatar.
More Info: I can be contacted through my friend Tōmye, (510) 823-9150
About: Orlonda Uffre is an artist, photographer, educator and independent curator, originally from Brooklyn, New York. Although very much an American, her mother’s Caribbean ways have forever permeated her sense of self, her thoughts, and her art.
She began her life as an artist, when she was accepted to the HS of Art & Design in New York City, and studied with Alvin Hollingsworth at the Art Students League in New York. She received her MFA from the California Institute of Integral Studies in 2009.
Her artistic trajectory was punctuated by her activities as a founding organizer of the Womens InterArt Center in New York, the founding Artistic Director for Brava! for Women in the Arts, in California, and most recently as a Curator for Art of the African Diaspora.
Uffre has exhibited throughout the US, and abroad, including shows at PCOG Gallery in New York, Limner Gallery New York, MarketWatch in San Francisco, the San Francisco African American Historical & Cultural Society at Fort Mason in CA, Bomani Gallery in San Francisco, Joyce Gordon Gallery in Oakland Ca, the Fort Smith Arkansas Convention Center, the National Steinbeck Center in Salinas, CA. and the Marin Community Foundation, in Novato CA.
She was a featured artist and interviewed by the International Museum of Women in 2008, and was included in the MOAD Stories Project, with her photographic collection of the aftermath of Katrina, entitled “Shelter from the Storm”. Additionally, she was honored by the US State Department’s Art in Embassies Program, which chose her paintings for the Ambassadorial Residence in 2001 -2003 in Maputo Mozambique.
Orlonda believes that it is critical to actively address conditions that block social justice, while working proactively to create healthy, respectful, inspiring communities, that include our true histories, and the healing properties of Art.
About: Born five months after Dr. King was assassinated, as a young child, I loved comic books and discovered that art could be my voice and superpower to cope with the stress that came with his skin tone. The challenges only increased as I grew in my truth as a young African-American man with a learning difference.
I realized that the beautiful worlds I encountered in the library could be brought to life with the stroke of a pencil or pen. I then began to paint on my mother’s walls. That’s when I realized I could imagine and bring to life anything I wanted. That realization I discovered then grew into creating a world that was safer than the world I lived in everyday. As I grew, so did my need to separate myself from the mundane and trivial things that caused me to isolate myself and find my world of comfort and solace. Within this world, the beauty of who I am became synonymous with what I believed.
Understanding I couldn’t hide in my imagination, I learned how to bring my imagination to reality. That’s when my voice was being molded. The artist…
My passion for life lives through the relationships I build with people. This same mantra is displayed through my art. When approaching the creation of my art, the process is the most fulfilling component for me. The style of my work is diverse but my first choice is mixed media. Using mixed media allows an incredible marriage between materials building one union. Within this process, I am able to leave the door open for the spiritual essence of who I am and what I create within the piece to develop. I allow the materials to speak to me creatively, as the chemistry between the materials maturates to a point of final execution. This is why my style is infused with the relationship I have with the subject matter, so the union can evolve right before your eyes. I truly learn more about who I am as an artist during this particular.
