New this year! Quilts at the Nativity Exhibit!

After receiving some very special quilted donations and hearing interest expressed by many others, we are very excited to announce the 2013 Nativity Exhibit & Music Festival will include a Quilt Room!

The Quilt Room will contain quilted displays that reflect a Nativity or Christmas theme.  We have received several of these items in the past and are thrilled to have a dedicated space for them this year!  You will find the Quilt Room on the east side of the building.

If you or your organization would like to loan quilts for this special event, please contact a Public Affairs Representative or email me at kingwoodlds@gmail.com.

NOVEMBER EXHIBIT @ GALLERY NORTH

Curated by TOM FRANCO, Firehouse Art director
The artists of the November show at Firehouse Gallery North:

JULIA LAZAR
KELLI HILL
SCHEHERA VAN DYK
& TERRANCE GRIEBEL all met living in Bolinas for extended times.
Schehera Van Dyk and Terri Griebel still do to this day.

It's time to have a Bo-Show in Berkeley and celebrate the season with art, poetry and music. Tom Franco will also host an artist talk which should be lively considering the peeps involved.

OPENING NIGHT
FRIDAY, November 22, 2013
7 - 10pm

1790 Shattuck Avenue, Berkeley Gourmet Ghetto

Kelli Hill and myself Julia Lazar, met at Brighton Beach in Bolinas, when Kelli clad in her blue wetsuit, with blonde hair down to her butt, with her classic longboard was heading out to the 'patch' where her peers, some of them famous surf stars back in the day, caught those long slow waves. It was winter, so no naked surfing that day, but we met and became friends over the last 30 years. It's such a blast to have an art show with Kelli.

Schehera Van Dyk has lived on Brighton, where she now has her art and ceramics studio, living the life of her passionate dreams, with husband, son and mom. We've known each other for about 30 years now and I so appreciate Schehera's art style and exuberance. Her dinner ware is highly collectible, and
I can't wait for the Berkeley crowd to fall in love with it, as the Marin folks already have.

Terri Griebel is a force of nature, besides being the radest artist I knew in Bolinas, he also shreds on the surf board and was one of the first mountain bikers in the world. When I met him in the 80s, he was sporting a 'Cunningham' prototype and carving new trails down Mt Tam, chased by rangers.

Terri has several painting on exhibit, one of which was a gift to Kelli, a portrait of Michael Sims, aka Saint 11:11, not because he was pious, but as rad as any free spirit ever will be.


Michael Sims died at the age of 32, on Kelli's sofa one afternoon, and we all keep magical memories of him we shared as friends. Here is a video he did with Jimo Thomas and Martin Matzinger: "Dogs in Bolinas". Michael also was the first white hip hop artist we all knew. May he rest in peace and join up again anytime.

Posted by: Julia Lazar
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Black Cat Ribbon Cutting & Customer Appreciation Community Event

As one of the Covenant Organizations that supports The Humble Area Assistance Ministries (HAAM), we are pleased to make you aware of this event at their Kingwood Location:

Join us for the October 2013 General Conference

Join us this weekend, October 5th and 6th, 2013, for the General Conference of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

If you are in the Kingwood area you can participate in the conference through Suddenlink Channel 23, or visit the Church Newsroom here for links to websites that will be hosting the conference.  In Texas, you can join the conference live from 11:00 am - 1:00 pm and 3:00 pm - 5:00 pm on Saturday and Sunday.

KEVIN CHEAH PHOTOGRAPHY @ GALLERY NORTH

Opening Night

Saturday, October 12, 7-9pm

1790 Shattuck Avenue

KEVIN CHEAH

PHOTOGRAPHY EXHIBIT

October 5 to 31, 2013

Over the past few months art has become very therapeutic for me. Adjusting back to living in America has not been an easy process. I am at a big crossroads in my life; happy in the present and excited for the future, with a vivid nostalgia of people and places of the past. Photography is an eternal reality of time, allowing documentation of the places I will go and all the places I have been. Social media is the forefront way of staying connected with friends and family these days. With a click of a button, smart phone applications make it easy to feel the connection we long for on this lonely planet. My new series of work entitled “Art Therapy” involves some of the lovely people I have met and places I have been in the four years I spent abroad. Riding my bike around Berkeley, I began snapping photographs of things in my neighborhood. Then, I sent out 4x6 postcard sized print outs of 24 selected images to a select group of 24 friends from around the world. Along with each image, I wrote a handwritten letter:

"Dear Friend,
I am writing this to you. Yes you! You have changed my life in more ways than you may think you have. Every smile we shared, every laugh we made, all amount to a special moment that was shared in one moment in time. That moment will never happen again exactly the way it did.
You and I were a part of that moment. I will never forget it. I will never forget you. Although we are miles apart (Even just those who are only a few miles away), I wanna say that I miss you. Let’s reunite in another moment in time. Adding up a lot of moments with you is all that it would take to make me happy for eternity.
Because of you, I am the person I am today. Experiences are the world to me, and I am glad I got to experience them with you. Love, kevinHcheah"

Furthermore, I requested that they take a few photographs of things around their respective neighborhoods and email the images back to me. Proceeding, I took their image/images and my original photograph and collaged them together. Using a self-developed printmaking technique on tape, I proudly present to you the outcomes of my artistic therapeutic sessions.


Posted by: Julia Lazar
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Leaning in, full throttle

I would have had a perfect score on my motorcycle driving test if it hadn't been for the part where you're asked to perform a "sudden stop". I was so focused on the goal of performing this stop that I let back on the throttle well before my mark. I braked too soon and lost points.

"Don't put on the brakes. Accelerate." Sheryl Sandberg

I'm reading Sheryl Sandberg's book Lean In and I just finished Chapter 7, “Don't Leave Before You Leave.” It's all about women putting the brakes on their careers long before children are even a glimmer in their eyes, deciding not to take promotions and pursue demanding positions in anticipation of maybe someday becoming a parent.

From the driving test anecdote above, you've probably gathered that I think ahead- sometimes to a fault. And Sheryl Sandberg clearly states in Chapter 7, "When it comes to integrating career and family, planning too far in advance can close doors rather than open them." This concept makes sense to me. But I know I'm a planner and for now, I'm choosing to work with this tendency instead of against it:

I am pursuing my career with wild abandon because I know I would like to someday be a parent.

Now, I'm reluctant to talk about this because I’m sure it’s frustrating for parents to hear a non-parent talking about parenting. Also it's personal. I'm fighting this trepidation because I haven't heard anyone of my generation discussing this subject and this is a conversation that I want to have with my fellow museum professionals.

For me, being a parent will likely involve dialing back my career for a few years. I'll want to have reached a certain level in my career before I focus on children so I can more easily pick up where I left off. It's also important for me to co-parent in an equitable way so I want to be able to financially support my partner as well as my kids if need be. It may seem a little extreme, but I'm saving up now. I don't want anything or anyone to limit my or my family's options. That said, I acknowledge my privilege as a middle-class individual for whom having a career or a family are both choices.

Oh but you're still young, you might say, What if you change your mind? And you're right, that might happen- I change my mind about stuff all the time. But if when I'm older and have decided not to have children, I'll be reveling in my career and have a whole lot of money saved up. Maybe I'll buy a second home in Paris. Or maybe just some nice things at Whole Foods.

As someone who is excited about the prospect of parenting one day, I'm putting my tendency to plan ahead to work for me. I know I’ll be tapping on the brakes at some point but instead of focusing on that now, I’ll do my best to lay the groundwork for a future in which I can choose how I want to have a career and a family, however that ends up playing out in my life, regardless of my gender.

RASA CAFFE

Revolutionary Roast Redefined: 

Famed Activist Son to Open Chai & Coffee Shop at Firehouse Adeline Arts Spot.

Rasa Caffe Launches Kickstarter Campaign in Partnership with Firehouse Art Collective to serve South Berkeley's most authentic cup of Indian Chai and Locally Roasted Third Wave Pour Over Coffee.

There’s a new cafe brewing in South Berkeley - Rasa Caffe - which recently launched a Kickstarter campaign to help purchase equipment and inventory for it’s planned opening in October.

The word Rasa is Sanskrit for flavor, and Rasa Caffe founder Rasa Sun Mott is aptly named. A formally trained chef and professional taste tester, he has honed his culinary skills in celebrated kitchens across the country; from New York City's Windows on the World to celebrity chef Tanya Holland's Brown Sugar Kitchen and B-Side BBQ.

An Oakland native, Rasa has deep roots in the Bay Area as the son of two high-profile members of the Black Panther Party, educator Ericka Huggins and James Mott of the Black Panther singing group The Lumpen. "Growing up I was always surrounded by people movements , though I'm more of a culinary activist. I was profoundly impacted after attending Slow Food conference in Italy twice and will incorporate some of these principles of building community through good, clean and fair food into Rasa Caffe. It is going to be about Coffee, Chai, Community and Flavor.”

Rasa Mott has traveled globally developing his palate and collecting recipes. In addition to select locally roasted pour-over fair trade coffee, Rasa Caffe will offer authentic Indian chai – a recipe Mott learned as a child in India and perfected over the years while volunteering in ashram kitchens.

Rasa Caffe plans to open a Micro Caffe Cart at the intersection of Martin Luther King and Adeline Street this October and will work in collaboration with the award-winning Firehouse Art Collective to serve the local community. “We are excited to work with Rasa Caffe on food-related and other large capacity events after their opening,” said Firehouse Art Collective Co-Director, Tom Franco.

The company is hoping to raise $15,888 by September 22nd to meet its goals.
Donation options range from $10 up and feature rewards ranging limited edition Black Panther T-Shirts, to a catered five-course meal.

For more information and to donate to the Kickstarter campaign please click here.

Posted by: Julia Lazar
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