Thank you to everyone who submitted proposals to Celebrate! San Francisco.  The quality of work we received made the task of selecting project participants very challenging.  Although we were not able to offer every deserving project or artist a space in the exhibition, great care did go into including work that reflects the diversity and range of experience that makes this city a truly incredible place to live.

The love and enthusiasm for Celebrate! San Francisco only confirms the greater need for such cultural programs.  By supporting our exhibition and public events, we hope to continue creating such opportunities for you in the future.


Celebrate! San Francisco™ Exhibition Participants


01.  Angela Angel and Robin David

         

• Angela Angel has worked on numerous projects focusing on youth organizing, immigrant rights, global justice and ecological sanity. She is a multi-disciplinary artist, documentary photographer, freelance writer and poet. When she is not documenting musicians like Latin soul singer, Joe Bataan, or the plight of coffee farmers in Africa and Central America, she is busy exploring the boundaries of what else is possible. Angela has exhibited and performed across the country and belongs to local art-activist collectives. flickr / wordpress 
• Robin David is a Filipina visual artist, born in Oakland, raised in Vallejo, and currently living in San Francisco, California. She began her career with the collective Swamps & Bridges, performing live paintings from the Bay Area to Los Angeles. As a mix media painter, she finds her inspiration from the daily grind of getting by. Her work is like a children's storybook documenting the grimy, beautiful struggles of everyday life. This up and coming artist continues to challenge the art scene with her notorious documentary style pieces. www.robinbirdd.com / blog

02.  Michael Arcega

        

• Michael Arcega is an interdisciplinary artist working primarily in sculpture and installations. His art, though visual, is largely inspired by language and jokes. He utilizes comedic strategies and tactics to express darker global issues stemming from asymmetrical power. He received his BFA at the San Francisco Art Institute and his MFA at Stanford University. Michael resides in San Francisco and is currently a Graduate Fellow at the Headlands Center for the arts. www.arcega.us

03.  Karen Brasier

        

• Karen Brasier holds a Master of Architecture from the University of Cincinnati. Her work in painting, sculpture, and installation has been exhibited in galleries in Cincinnati and San Francisco. Karen pursues a critical formalism in her work, questioning the perceived physical limitations or aesthetic expectations associated with particular forms, methods, and contexts, while working within them. She seeks to create delicate structures that subtly reveal both established historicity and fragility in the practice.  www.karenbrasier.carbonmade.com

04.  Robert Burnside

        

• Robert Burnside has lived in three of the most iconic San Francisco neighborhoods since moving to the city in 1968. In 1971, he began to work as a sculptor based on a geometric language he developed. He has worked on a variety of commissions and his sculptures are part of a number of museum collections throughout the Bay Area. He started the Positive Resource Center in 1989 and The Castro Star in 1995. Robert has a fondness for unusual architecture, unusual trees, and self-publishing books. www.geometricks.com

05.  Rosie Byers, Angelisa Candler & Jazmin Jones (Digital Pathways/BAVC)

       

• Rosie Byers was born and raised in San Francisco, where she presently lives with her mother and older brother. She is entering her senior year at Galileo Academy and plans to attend college in the fall. Rosie started her relationship with the Bay Area Video Coalition's Digital Pathways program during her sophomore year and has completed both the film making and 3D animation internships. She enjoys animation, digital art, writing, craftwork and singing. Rosie hopes to develop as a professional artist and start her own comic book series in the future.
• Angelisa Candler is an 18 year-old freshman at City College of San Francisco. Born and raised in the city, and a graduate of Gateway High School, she makes movies in her free time, loves taking walks, and enjoys narrative films.
• Jazmin Jones is a film maker and photographer who was born and raised in the East Bay. For the past five years, Jazmin has worked closely with the Bay Area Video Coalition; she currently works with BAVC as a youth video instructor. Jazmin's objective is to artistically document the untold stories in her community. She is presently at work on two projects: a feature documentary chronicling the perspectives of female graffiti artists in the Bay Area; and, a video installation that explores the complexities of intergenerational communication.

06.  Tân Khánh Cao

        

• Tân Khánh Cao is a mostly visual artist native to San Francisco. She has shown work or performed at Galeria de la Raza, Queen's Nails Annex, Southern Exposure, and I.C.A.N. Space, and curated Eulipia, a year-long monthly performance event at the Luggage Store Gallery with D. Scot Miller. She fluctuates between being engrossed in detail and open to chance.

07.  Susan Cervantes and Rafael Sanhueza-Leni

            

• Susan Kelk Cervantes is a muralist and dedicated artist for 47 years, a pioneer of the San Francisco community mural art movement, and the founder and director of the Precita Eyes Muralists. Cervantes is responsible for more than 400 murals considered some of the finest in the country. She is dedicated to enhancing the environment through the creation of public murals while involving and educating the community about the process and its history. www.susankcervantes.com
• Rafael Sanhueza-Leni was born in Chile under military dictatorship and immigrated to the U.S. when he was nine years old. He holds a BFA in Painting from the San Francisco Art Institute. He is a free lance artist and has worked on numerous community projects, including murals, CD covers, and shirt designs. He is an organizing member of Borderland Film Festival, co-founder of Kolectivo 911 al Cuadrado and a founder of the art group "Los Matamoscas." Rafael  presently focuses on painted sculptural objects that draw heavily from traditional piñata craftsmanship.

08.  Ilana Crispi and Raymond Madarang

                

• Ilana Crispi is a San Francisco based visual artist. Using ceramics, fiber and traditional craft along with contemporary technologies and junk materials, she creates excessively crafted objects and environments. Her creations are sometimes temporary and change over time. She focuses on ideas of perception, the ways in which we perceive our environments and the things we desire. Crispi has in part shown work at Little Tree Gallery, de Young Museum and Shanghai Normal University Gallery. www.ilanacrispi.blogspot.com
• Raymond Madarang's work has been included in several local and national venues including Octavia's Hayes Gallery, Museo Italo-Americano, and the Pastel Society of America. He meticulously crafts nostalgia using a variety of methods including painting, pyrography, photography, and performance using manual demolition tools. His methods offer an analysis of contemporary culture through the integration of heritage, methodical inquiry, and the exploration of the inner self. He is also the sole proprietor of A² Art Services.

09.  Darren de Leon

        

• Darren de Leon is Xicano. He is also a poet and vigilant man of the airwaves. An advocate of growing your own food, cultural understanding and social justice, he also makes time to enjoy a Raiders, Lakers, or Dodgers game in his free time. De Leon is an experienced educator at the high school and college level specializing in literature, creative writing, and composition. He presently works as the Youth Arts Manager at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts and hosts Radio 2050, a weekly Latino Arts and Culture Program on KPFA. www.myspace.com/radio2050

10. Toan Lam

        

• Toan Lam is the creator and host of www.GoInspireGo.com (GIG) 501(c)(3), a website that uses social media and multimedia platforms to inspire social change. GIG produces character driven stories that highlight personal contributions to the community. The goal is to help viewers discover their power and use it to help others through civic engagement. Toan has 10 years of television industry experience, both in-front and behind-the camera reporting in San Francisco (KRON), ABC, CBS and NBC affiliates across the country, and PBS's California Heartland.  He also teaches and writes curriculum for the Academy of Art and the University of San Francisco.

11.  Jane Martin

            

• Jane Martin is a licensed architect and artist whose work embraces all scales from urban planning to sculpture. In 2005 Ms. Martin founded Plant*SF, a San Francisco non-profit focused on storm water diversion through public space community planting projects. An educator since 1995, Ms. Martin has held teaching and administration positions in architecture, art and design at the California College of the Arts and the University of California, Berkeley. Principal of Shift Design Studio, a San Francisco Certified green business, she has been a resident and business owner in the Mission since 1998.

12.  Mike L. Miller

        

• Mike L Miller has turned a love of soap bubbles, San Francisco and high places with views into an ongoing work that celebrates all three. While the original project was to be as transient as the bubbles themselves, casual photography eventually led to videography. He recently participated in the grand re-opening celebration of the Oakland Museum of California and can regularly be seen trying out new bubble makers in Oakland's Lakeside Park. Away from buckets, he works as an independent Development Learning Specialist in San Francisco and Oakland. www.kermitbubbleboy.net

13.  Derrick Miller-Handley

        

• Derrick Miller-Handley is an emerging graphic designer and long-time community activist born and raised in the San Francisco bay area. The belief that all communities must be granted the right to thrive and be celebrated drives Derrick's creative and professional commitments. Most recently, Derrick art-directed and designed "Gender Dialogue," a series of posters commenting on gender identity and gender based oppression, installed at San Francisco's 16th Street BART station in collaboration with Lavender Youth Recreation & Information Center's Queer Educators and Intersection for the Arts.

14.  David Molina and Susana Valdez

                

• David Molina has created music for theater, dance, film, radio, installation and multimedia productions since 1995. He recently created the soundtrack to "Coming to California," a permanent video installation by Cause Collective at the Oakland Museum of California. He and Chris Webb were honored with a 2009 L.A. Ovation Award for their music and Molina's sound design to "Lydia" at CTG's Mark Taper Forum. His main personal projects are Ghosts and Strings and Transient. Both have toured NYC, Peru, Argentina, and the bay area.
• Drawing from the language of dreams, spiritual iconography, and popular imagery, Susana Valdez creates work that attempts to transcend a static notion of the self and femininity through the creation of a self-like character that populates the realm of her paintings and drawings. Trained as both a painter and photographer, Susana has explored a variety of media. She has shown locally and abroad, at Galeria de la Raza, MACLA, and El Museo de la Ciudad de Cuernavaca, among others. This is her first collaboration with her partner, Composer David Molina.

15.  Juanita MORE!

        

• Juanita MORE! has worked in the performance and visual arts community for over 25 years. She has created and inspired works that encompass all mediums from couture, photography, mixed media, painting, print making, and found objects, to body art, installation, and music. A fearless lover of beauty, Ms. MORE is also a committed fund-raiser for a number of non-profits serving the LGBT community. Recognized by civic leaders and cultural institutions alike, Ms. MORE continues to bring joy to the hearts of many on both the local and national level. www.juanitamore.com

16.  Ellen Murland

        

• Ellen Murland developed her style of documentary photography working primarily in black and white in New York City in the eighties. She has always been drawn to the juxtaposition of the old among the new. More recently, Ellen has been experimenting with color photography. As San Francisco hurtles towards the future, it is also easy to find images of our past. As Ellen wanders the streets, she is drawn to these ghosts of the past as they exist into our current day. All of her images are taken with 35 mm Kodak Portra film.

17. Diego Pacheco

        

• Diego Pacheco was born in Bucaramanga, Colombia, and has lived in the United States since he was nine. From an early age, he developed a deep love of art and design, with a particular appreciation for the minimalist aesthetic. He has studied and worked extensively around the world refining his design practice. Since graduating from PennDesign, Diego has been working on a compound of new buildings in Marfa, Texas. He is currently preparing for his architectural licensing exams and his first independent residential project is under construction. www.dp-architecture.com

18.  Virgo Paraiso and Tino Rodriguez

        

• Virgo Paraiso was blessed with a mother with a strong and gentle feminine aura who encouraged him to explore and trust himself as a young man and artist. She also nurtured a deep respect for beauty, a taste for nature and a sense of kinship with the Tarahumara Indians, their family ancestors. This kinship and profound respect in part inform the sensuous beings that populate Virgo's paintings. The luscious world that Virgo creates is a banquet for the soul and his paintings are gems that remind us the ecstacy of being alive. www.virgoparaiso.com
• Tino Rodriguez gained his first exposure to the art world in the Catholic churches of Mexico. In these mysterious, hushed interiors, images of saints and angels seduced him, the scent of the candle wax and incense beguiled him. The legacy of this seduction is visible in Rodriguez's work. His incredible paintings are present day fairy tales, their mythical qualities stemming from childhood. A citizen of the world, Rodriguez rejects the seriousness and sterility of modernism for the fantastic iconographic wonders of postmodernism and post colonialism. www.tinorodriguez.com

19.  Marilyn Yu

        

• Marilyn Yu has interwoven media, ideas and people in her creations for over a decade. In her latest works, Yu is creating the mythology for a contemporary heroine, Eva, with a team of creative professionals. By challenging the stagnant ideas of the dominant belief systems, Yu aims to empower people to take control of their thoughts instead of letting thoughts control them. Last year she released "Relationships That Suck: The Story of Eva and Dries," a piece of art in book form that bridges the worlds of fine art, fashion, and fiction. Her up-coming book project, "La Femme Fatale," is a gateway work that invites readers to have an intimate interaction with the beautiful and profound. www.marilynyu.com

20.  Zineblasters

        

• Zineblasters is a strictly Bay Area underground SF art group that explores topics such as street life, underground economies, traditional zine making, and post-graffiti art. Although its name derives from the culture of zines, the group's influence spreads from painting, photography, clothing, and bus culture. A certain raw aesthetic is applied when critiquing its topics. In 2010, Zineblasters conceptualized this into a website where one can buy zines, North Face jackets, and hats. www.zineblasters.com

Celebrate! San Francisco™ Event Calendar

September 15th 6-9:30pm:  Opening Reception, Admission $5

September 22nd 7-9pm:  Cenasata! We celebrate local, organic food and performers.
Admission $5-15
Mission Cultural Center's theater hosts dinner, with organic curry by Tomo of the Kick Ass Japanese Curry Party plus food samplings from Mission Pie and Gracias Madre . All served by life-size puppets, a cabaret performance including: theater/dance by Darya, Coicoi & Ofir; circus juggling by Kyle Johnson; sweet music by Ariel Eisen, Maya Dorn & Tbird; slam poetry from Lee Knight Jr; and finally the five piece Latin fusion band, Makru. Prepare for the unexpected. Bring your dancing shoes and delight in SF culture and cuisine!  Puppetry by The Big Tadoo puppet crew. Organized by BlessItUp.com.

September 29th 7-9pm:  Peak Experiences: a panel discussion with project participants moderated by D. Scot Miller. Free Event.
More than an interrogation or Q&A, this talk will focus on the works in the exhibition and how they came to be - the peak experience - that has brought us all together.

October 2nd 1-5pm:  Look Around: a fashion crawl and trunk show. Free Event.
Join us for an afternoon experiencing the incredible stylings of local designers, performers, vintage retailers, and much, much more!  Meet at MCCLA's theater 10-15 minutes early to pick up your limited edition Map/Zine with program. Departs at 1PM! Presented by Soulful Dress and Iraya Robles. Fashion crawl from 1-2:30 PM with Trunk Show and Reception to follow in Gallery until 5 PM. Zine $5-15

October 6th 8-9:30pm: Today I Will: an evening of performance, live soundtrack and live film. Admission $10-15
• Lost and Found. Composer/sound artist David Molina and film maker Anna Geyer present a multi-media work in progress. Utilizing found objects, traditional instruments, instruments built by Richard Waters, and electronics, Molina creates live soundtrack, while Anna Geyer mixes original 16mm film loops on 3 modified projectors to create ghostly, rusty memories, industrial landscapes, and dream like images from a distant past.
• Intermission. REQUIEM for a LOST LAND / Requiem para una tierra pérdida is a new performance intervention by Violeta Luna about the state of violence in her native Mexico, particularly due to the so-called "war on drugs" of the Calderón administration.
• 45x45 an Experiment on Collaboration. THEOFFCENTER, a queer multidisciplinary collective, engaged 45 art-makers and proposed to have the group create a collective score lasting 45 minutes. A decentralized creation experiment at its core, this thoughtful performance will be presented one time only.

October 9 3-6pm:  We Are Family. A special closing celebration of performance, fun and dance for the whole family.
Performances by Moving Beyond Productions (3pm), Dance Generators (4pm), and CALI & CO dance (5pm).
Each dance company will do a short presentation and will follow with an audience interactive piece. Arts & crafts for the whole family will take place in between presentations. Rebecca Weisser and Moving Beyond Productions host.


Celebrate! San Francisco™ Event Participants

See/Cristian Ellauri

                

• See/Cristian Ellauri spent the past four years directing Honolulu's Ong King Arts Center. He has written and directed three full-scale hip-hop theater productions: Hip-Hopalypse, Jaguar Priests, and Chase.  In 2009-10 his solo performance, The Fool Truth, toured festivals throughout the USA.  "Ellauri is a theater director and performer who merges aesthetics employing a diversity of elements in his original work," says the Honolulu Advertiser.  He recently moved to San Francisco to be closer to his Latino familia and the culture of freedom. www.blessitup.com

Tomo Saito

• Tomo Saito is a visual artist, photographer and designer from Japan currently working in San Francisco. He's an enthusiastic rep of "Japanese Curry" and throwing the parties notably recognized as "Kick-Ass Japanese Curry Party." www.tomosaito.com

D. Scot Miller

        

• D.Scot Miller is a Bay Area writer, visual artist, teacher and curator. He sits on the board of directors of nocturnes review, and is a regular contributor to The East Bay Express, San Francisco Bay Guardian, Popmatters, and Mosaic Magazine. He is completing a book of poems, his Afro-surreal novel, Knot Frum Hear, and has recently published his old fashioned manifesto simply titled: AfroSurreal. www.dscotmiller.blogspot.com

Iraya Robles

• Iraya Robles is an artist, musician, activist and performer who has a deeply rooted love for textiles, fashion, and sounds.  Ms. Robles has styled/costumed people for film, live performance/theater, video, bands and life. She recently started Soulful Dress, a Mission based project focused on vintage clothing, accessories, vinyl records and ephemera. Soulful Dress is honored to bring you "Look Around, and are truly amazed at this showcase of incredible local designers, artists and performers. For a complete list of participating artists, please visit www.soulfuldress.com.

THEOFFCENTER

        

• THEOFFCENTER was established to provide a stable, ongoing, supportive forum for creating and presenting performance art with queer sensibilities. Activities include presenting performances, artist talks, festivals, residencies, exchanges and workshops, as well as publishing in a variety of formats, including video. Artists invited to participate at the "Today I Will" event include Jorge de Hoyos, Honey McMoney, Wolfgang Wachalovsky, Julie Phelps, Maryan Brooks, Ernesto Sopprani, and others. www.THEOFFCENTER.org

Anna Geyer

        

• Anna Geyer is an award winning experimental filmmaker and writer. Her films have screened in many festivals internationally. Cameraless, non-representational work has been the emphasis of much of her recent effort, although she frequently describes her work as, "experimental with a narrative bent." Live three projector loop sets performed in collaboration with Composer David Molina encompass the technology of the past and present and include abrstract imagery, live action work and degraded imagery of the digital age. She teaches cinema classes at both City College of San Francisco and Solano Community College.

Violeta Luna

        
        Photo by Zach Gross

• Violeta Luna (Actress / Performance Artist) graduated from Mexico's Centro Universitario de Teatro. She is an associate artist of the interdisciplinary performance collectives La Pocha Nostra and Secos & Mojados. In San Francisco, she is also the associate director of El Teatro Jornalero!, and director of Teatro Colectiva de Mujeres theater companies that bring the voice of Latin American immigrant workers to the stage. Violeta has performed and taught workshops in Latinoamerica, Europe, Africa and USA. Her current work explores the relationship between theater, performance art and community engagement.

Rebecca Weisser

        

• Rebecca Weisser is excited to be organizing "We Are Family" for Celebrate! San Francisco. She hopes that this day will be a fun way for families to celebrate their uniqueness as well as their commonalities. Rebecca recently became Executive Director of Moving Beyond Productions (MBP). She is excited to continue the mission of providing high quality arts education and performance to children and adults in San Francisco. MBP had 50 kids from all over San Francisco performing this year in Carnaval, along with many teachers and parents. Please see www.movingbeyondproductions.org for more information.

Dance Generators: University of San Francisco's Intergenerational Performance Company

• Dance Generators redefines audiences' expectations of dance. Members of the company range in age from 18-82 years old, and come together through a shared commitment to innovative theater making. A Dance Generator performance is a vital theatrical event, interrupting assumptions of what we do because of what we look like. The company approaches dance/theater with technically honed movement, personal stories and humor, aiming to unpack cultural myths about aging while creating performances that meet high artistic standards for both the creators and the audiences. Co-Directed by Amie Dowling, Kristen Greco and Natalie Greene.