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Picasso: “Every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist once we grow up.” Recently I’ve been working on learning to love something that I usually try to avoid at all costs: Failure. In most walks of life we understand that developing expertise takes time. We don’t decide to become a doctor and expect to be performing brain surgery two weeks later. But for some reason when it comes to our art, we expect to be making fabulous interesting work almost from the get go. I’ve had quite a bit of formal training in art, and if my results are disappointing, I tend to want to give up.  So, in order to make the art that I dream of, I’ve been trying to tap into the deeper parts of myself in order to express what’s inside. I know what makes a good painting technically, and I struggle with trying to achieve that every time. I’ve been giving myself more time and space to experiment and not always rush for results. I’ve been trying to approach things with more curiosity and humility.  My fear of failure has sometimes stopped me from taking chances. But once I’ve taken chances and failed in my art, I’ve learned that nothing really bad happens! The sky doesn’t fall down. I just made a painting that didn’t work…..but in doing so I learned a lot. I’m learning all sorts of things to NOT try again…. and maybe I am coming up with some ideas about what might work better. It’s hard. I keep failing. But I want to make amazing work and have fun doing it.I hope you enjoy what I and the other amazing artists at 4th Street Fine Art are doing. - Hallie Strock 
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I’m Hallie Strock, and I’ve been involved with the 4th Street Fine Art group since 2006. I feel privileged to be a part of this wonderful collaboration of local artists. The diversity of work, the opportunity to learn from each other, and special friendships have meant a great deal to me. I am a painter, printmaker and quilter, and, for the past couple of years have been diving into collage and mixed media. I tend to focus on imagery, vibrant color and strong composition. I find elements in daily life that touch me, and invite the viewer to look and linger. I continue to explore, learn and look for breakthroughs  My collage technique has evolved from purchased decorative papers and magazines to hand-painted art papers. I can create my own paper palette and have more control over color, value, textures and pattern. I paint, stamp, stencil and make marks. I can even embellish purchased and found papers. Combining painting with collage lets me capture the transparency of watercolor, the brilliance of acrylic, the unpredictability of monotype.  I don’t plan my collages too carefully. Most of the time I just start and see where it takes me; I choose some papers that are “calling” to me at the time and start cutting and tearing shapes. Then comes the absolutely engrossing experience of laying the pieces out in pleasing and gratifying ways.  I learn from my mistakes. I’ll start something, and it’s a disaster, then I’ll correct it and it will look great, then I’ll do something else and it will be ruined! Every twist and turn makes a difference, until I feel the joy and optimism that happens when it all comes together.  Recently I have been studying the work of San Francisco artist Rex Ray. He takes the vocabulary of mid-century modernism and lets it splash and crash together in bold color combinations, and he reconfigurations things that already exist like imaginary plants, bottle shapes, flames and spinning ferris wheels. Other influences come from the work of Kurt Schwitter, Anne Ryan, and Perle Fine: all artists doing their best work in the 50’s and 60’s, and who were part of the Dada and Abstract Expressionist movement.  People often ask us which is our favorite season for photographing wildlife and we would have to say it is a tie between spring and fall. Spring is the rebirth of new life! There is a cacophony of sounds-birds singing to attract a mate or to protect their territory. The trees are leafing out and flowers are blooming, the lush green grasses and fields of mustard grass and poppies are intoxicating.  A male Western bluebird brings his mate a fat juicy caterpillar. During breeding season, he frequently brings the female delectable meals. In the early spring we search for birds displaying courtship behavior and then revisit those areas every few days. This spring we have been fortunate to locate a Western bluebird nesting cavity, an American kestrel nesting cavity and a rookery filled with nesting herons and egrets. We also spent time with a family of river otters.  A male snowy egret displays his magnificent plumageduring a courting ritual. We will never compromise the welfare of an animal just to get a shot. Although it is tempting to stay at a nest site or den for hours, we know our presence can be unsettling for the wildlife doing their best to survive. We photograph with long lenses and often crop our images rather than inching closer to wildlife-we know they appreciate not having humans too close!  A male spotted towhee guards his territory. We believe spending time with wildlife is sacred time and the goal for every photographer should be to be a voice for all animals and never compromise their welfare.  A river otter running along the sand dunes. Our images tell a story about the occurrences in the lives of various animals. We try to capture shots that are often not seen by many people, so the images are all the more distinctive.  Red fox vixen with three kits. We think the medium of metal prints enhances our wildlife photos and we can customize our images to meet your needs. We also create unframed custom sized giclée prints on hot press watercolor paper. Please come visit us at 4th Street Fine Art and the eighteen other talented artists that display their work in this gallery.
Camille Torres is one of the resident jewelers at 4th Street Fine Art. She has been with the gallery for about two years, showcasing her nature inspired work, which re-imagines the the geometric forms found in monarch butterfly wings and the simple beauty of celestial skyscapes. However, Camille is ready to turn a new leaf. When Camille bought her home in San Pablo, she was immediately enchanted by the many stories the previous owner, Brenda, shared about growing up in the house and her fond memories of living there with her mother. At one point Brenda brought out a small treasure chest of gemstones, which her mother had procured but never had a use for. Camille was deeply honored that these gems were offered to her and she purchased them without a second thought. It took four years to find the inspiration to use these gemstones. "They were just so special. I wanted to create something that felt right," Camille explains. She kept the chest in plain sight where the contents constantly called to her, but she just couldn't bring herself to make anything with them. The idea finally came to her one spring morning while she was looking out at the many colors of her blooming garden.  Gems in Bloom is her latest project. An amalgamation of stackable rings fashioned after the flora and fauna found in her backyard landscape. "I've wanted to tackle a project with stackable rings for awhile, but I've been looking for an angle that I haven't seen before. The little spots of color in these gems remind me of the bursts of color confetti that you see when spring is in bloom. For good measure I have designed some gem-studded insects as well."  This is a young project, only a couple weeks in the making, but stay tuned to Instagram to see the new pieces as they make their way to the shelves.  By Georgiana Krieger Like many artists the shelter-in-place of 2020 brought with it a change of focus and some new work. People mostly know me as a sculptor who has another life as a saxophonist. So it is surprising that during the pandemic I have produced a series of paintings. I have been painting in recent months because I had some painterly ideas occupying my mind and some time to explore that. Reflections is my new series of oil paintings on discarded mirrors. My goal was to take these discarded objects and turn them into something with organic beauty. The paintings depict a mysterious and imaginary biome of growing things. Small areas of the mirror show through to reflect the real world, but only in tiny bits. Mostly these works are an escape.  Biome 2021, oil on mirror in vintage wood frame 38”h x 27”w  Shelter in Place 2020, oil on mirror 23”hx19”w In my studio today there is a sculpture in progress on my workbench. This is a small piece depicting the earth supported by two polar bears. I’d like to cast this piece in both cement and glass. I began casting in cement a couple of years ago and then painting the surface in bright colors. I became interested in this technique after reading about the bright colors that the ancient Greeks and Romans painted their marble sculptures with. Here is an example. Water is Life, 2020 is inspired by water activist Autumn Peltier. The blue palette of Water is Life transcends traditional portraiture and sybolizes inner strength and moral clarity. She is supported by the earth. In her gaze, there is determination, in her heart, there is truth.  Water Is Life, 2020, cement and paint, life scale Being creative in different media is all about making the work I really want to see! (or hear) Sometimes what I’d really like to see is a sculptural idea, sometimes it's two dimensional, and sometimes it’s music. Moving between different media keeps me thinking in different ways while each work informs the others. For instance, my work in fused glass gave me the inspiration for painting on mirrors and my work in painting informed my work in brightly colored sculpture. I don’t allow myself to be reigned in by an arbitrary definition of what type of artist I am. I just strive to make the things that occupy my imagination.  Georgianna Krieger in her studio with beeswax model of Slipping 2021 Please introduce yourself. Who are you? Where did you grow up? Where do you live? I'm Vera Totos, I'm a handweaver and textile artist. I grew up in Hungary, and have lived in the US for 17 years. I live in the East Bay near Berkeley, with my husband, two kids, cat and a dog. A lot of what I do in art is influenced by the relationships around me - some of my works start as art lessons for kids; or with an idea about a community project, school fundraiser, a wrap to make a friend battling illness feel better; table linens that take on additional meaning after being used for particularly memorable holiday, and so on. I couldn't make the same art in a vacuum; it's all about people and experiences together.  Tell us more about what you create. What style(s) do you work in, mediums, etc. I do weaving, felting, spinning, dyeing, and whatever techniques my current project throws my way. Right now I am experimenting with 3D structures in weaving and through fabric sculptures using stiffened fabric.  How long have you been creating? All my life! I started fiber crafts around 7 or 8, when my great-grandmother deemed I was old enough to start learning sewing and embroidery. I have been "collecting" fiber crafts since then, adding knitting, spinning, weaving, shibori dyeing etc. Right now I am flirting with paper sculptures and woven basketry fiber sculptures. I have never done basketry, but it sounds intriguing!   When you're not making your art, what do you do? I teach weaving to adults and integrated STEAM to young children. What that means is that we use art (the A added to STEM) to explore art and craft techniques along with scientific concepts. It may be a project using colorful lights, creating light play and explore additive color mixing at the same time; or an engineering challenge to build the most stable structure out of common art materials.    Is creativity a luxury or necessity for you? Tell us more about that. I tried to put aside making things by hand for a while in college and graduate school and focus on reading and writing - I didn't last very long! I picked up knitting to keep myself sane, because it was portable and could do it during lectures.   Where do you find inspiration? People and important events in our relationships. Weddings, shared meals, friendships, babies and children, bouts of anxiety, pandemic isolation have all inspired pieces I made. I rarely separate art from functional art - a wearable shawl commemorates a wedding; and set of napkins becomes backdrop for important memories; a jacket carries self-expression, fabric designed for a garment ends up mounted on a panel and hanging on the wall - things become experiences and experiences become entwined with things.  Covid has drastically altered Jeff and Wendy’s wildlife photography. Typically, they are traveling to different parts of the world and within the USA photographing a wide variety of animals, but Covid has allowed them to focus on all of the amazing wildlife that can be found locally. It has also provided Jeff, who does wildlife drawing, with the opportunity to devote more time creating charcoal drawings of animals that are near and dear to his heart such as a gray fox, great horned owl and a river otter. Giclée prints of these animals are available for sale at the gallery. Wendy and Jeff at Work in the Field This fall, Jeff and Wendy enjoyed spending time with two juvenile great horned owls, who allowed them to capture some very breathtaking images of owl behavior. One image is of one of the young raptors taking flight and another image captures one of the owls having a stare down with its parent as it begged to be fed! The adult won the stare down and flew away! Juvenile Great Horned Owls Bobcats and river otters are two of their favorite subjects and over the past six months they have been able to observe and photograph these two apex predators on many occasions. They have also spent time photographing a variety of shorebirds and songbirds often capturing images of them in flight. They are also very involved in conservation efforts and time at home has allowed them to create Zoom presentations and write articles about conservation issues and ethical photography. They donate their images to Lindsay Wildlife, Sea Otter Savvy and River Otter Ecology Project to support nonprofits that are doing tremendous work promoting awareness and support for wildlife conservation issues. Jeff’s limited edition charcoal pencil drawings are also available for sale at the gallery. Please visit Fourth Street Fine Art where you can view their photographs and Jeff’s drawings that are on display or spend a little time exploring their website and step into a world of wildlife wonder www.jeffandwendyphotography. If you find an image you would like to purchase, please contact them and they will create a custom metal or giclée print produced just for you!
Jeff and Wendy’s goal is to capture images which promote an awareness and respect for all wildlife and provide people with a piece of art that reminds them of the importance of connecting with wildlife on an emotional level. So why not bring a little wildlife into your home- we know it will sooth your soul. Cindy has been preparing for a show that she will display with a botanical painter, Sal Petru, in January, 2020. Due in part to Covid, she has returned to an early love, painting flowers in watercolor. This is the story of one piece for the show. While she usually uses her own photos, the photo which she used as a springboard for this painting is a stock photo:  As she thought the coloring was a bit florid, and she decided to tone it down. Also this painting technique is more controlled then the techniques she used in some of the other watercolors for the show. In this technique, the petals are separately painted, with a large brush and very little pigment. Sequential layers use more pigment, are applied with smaller brushes, and vary in hue, e.g. color:  The three large flowers are the focal areas of the painting, so she decided to paint around them with more neutral shades of the pink, as the red in the photograph would have come forward too much:  Last, she decided to have some fun with the pistils. The result reminds her of 18th-century wallpaper. She calls it “For Ms. Delany”:  Why did she call it “For Ms. Delany”? In the late 18th century, the 72-year-old Mary Granville Pendarves Delany (1700–1788) began making cut paper collages in the manner of a botanical painting, or as she described it “…a new way of imitating flowers”. Over the next ten years, she created roughly 1,000 of these paper “mosaicks” that are of such accuracy and artistry as to be compared to the great botanical illustrations of the day. When completed, they were bound into ten volumes to become the Flora Delanica.
Delany’s method was to form the plants from pieces of wallpaper or hand-colored paper that she had cut with a scalpel and small scissors. (11/15/15 issue of periodical "Desert Breeze”. ) The show goes up on January 10 through February 28 and there is a reception from 1 to 3 PM on January 31st. Looking forward to seeing you there! Please introduce yourself. Who are you? Where did you grow up? Where do you live? I'm Celena Peet, an artist, graphic designer, and lover of plants and pets. I grew up in a small town called Hubbard, Iowa, and have been living in Oakland, California for the past 12 years.  Tell us more about what you create. What style(s) do you work in, mediums, etc. I call my work mixed-media fiber art - my pieces incorporate various fiber techniques, including embroidery, weaving, knitting, etc. as well as found vintage tools and toys, and objects from nature. How long have you been creating? I have always been interested in telling stories by making art, and have been intentionally creating art pieces for the last 25 years. I have been focused on sharing my work with others for the last 15 years or so.  When you're not making your art, what do you do? When I'm not making art, I take on freelance graphic design projects, tend a wild cottage garden in my front yard and far too many houseplants, walk my despotic chihuahua, and volunteer with groups including the Friends of the Oakland Tool Lending Library and Oakland Animal Services. Is creativity a luxury or necessity for you? Tell us more about that. Creativity is a necessity for me - it is part of everything I do. Making creative connections to solve visual and non-visual problems to better communicate is inherent to how I approach my life and the world around me.  Where do you find inspiration? I find inspiration everywhere from junk stores to natural landscapes to urban sidewalks to historical ruins to the hardware store. I am always wondering who was there before me, what lives objects lived before I encountered them, how materials could be used in an unexpected way, and how I can add to the story.  I began painting about 20 years ago to distract myself after a personal loss. I had always wanted to paint, but the need to make a living, and the intimidation factor kept me away until then. I am self-trained, with the help of many mentors, fellow painters, books, and museums. Currently, I paint acrylics and watercolors. My focus is on the beauty of ordinary things. Sometimes I can only articulate what moves me by painting it. Of all elements of painting, it is color that most intrigues me. In Fall 2019, I worked on acrylic pours, a fascinating combination of chemistry, chance and color.   This year, with the need to shelter, I’ve turned to homely subjects, my backyard and flowers. Here is my backyard:  This is painted in acrylic. I had fun with this, because I painted the frame to match and extend the design of the painting. In preparation for an upcoming show with an artist who does botanically accurate renderings, I have been working on painting flowers, mostly in watercolor, using a variety of techniques. The first two were painted after gessoing the other side, which restricted the absorption ability of the paper:   The next two were done with a freer hand and very quickly:   I have a ways to go on this proposed show, but as long as it’s a joy to pick up a paint brush, I”ll keep painting.  |
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