Art

Costs shut down Oakland First Fridays for the winter

Oakland First Fridays, a monthly festival on Telegraph Avenue featuring food and crafts, will shut down through March because of financial constraints, organizers say, and may be different when it reopens.  “This year, we’ve been losing money every month and we need to stop the bleeding,” said Shari Godinez, the executive director of Koreatown Northgate Community Benefit District, the nonprofit that runs First Fridays.  On Dec. 1, residents enjoyed “Frosty Friday,” the last First Friday event of the year. They…

Artists open Jingletown studios to give public a glimpse at what they’ve been up to

More than 20 artists opened their studios in East Oakland’s Jingletown neighborhood last weekend during East Bay Open Studios, a bi-annual tradition where visitors can see both artists’ creations and their creative spaces.  Inside the Gray Loft Gallery on Ford Street, nine artists showcased jewelry, paintings, and photographs. Jan Watten, the founder of the Gray Loft Gallery, has been participating in East Bay Open Studios for decades.  “Open Studies provides an opportunity to put a bunch of work out, and…

Don’t be alarmed — it’s a performance. Oakland’s Bandaloop takes dance to new heights.

Dangling from the sheer face of San Francisco’s Transamerica Pyramid 800 feet  above rubbernecking pedestrians, three orange-clad figures swayed gracefully on Monday morning in a gravity-defying dance.  This was not a stunt by daredevils. It was the latest public performance by Bandaloop, the expert Oakland dance troupe some might remember for their dance high on the face of Yosemite’s El Capitan in 2018.   Bandaloop’s signature technique, which they call  “vertical dancing,” combines features of rock climbing and dancing. Performers leap…

Oakland concert raises money for Palestinian Children’s Relief

Bay Area artists performed Sunday evening for more than 500 people at the Continental Club in West Oakland to raise money to help children in Gaza.  Organized by first-generation Palestinian American Janan Barance and artists AroMa and ASTU, the event raised over $13,000, all of which will be donated to the Palestinian Children’s Relief Fund, which provides free medical care to injured and ill children in the Middle East. The event featured Palestinian and Arab artists, poets and performers who…

Halloween show on Greenwood Avenue has enthralled kids since 2007

Every year, hundreds of costumed children and adults crowd onto handmade benches in an unassuming driveway in Oakland’s Glenview neighborhood to watch “Driveway Follies,” a free Halloween-themed marionette puppet show. This year’s show features psychedelic skeletons stepping out of their skins, a blue-skinned magician, and Mysterious Mose, a creature with the ability to duplicate itself on stage in the most extraordinary way. Closing night is Halloween. At the dress rehearsal, children disguised as unicorns, pirates and ninja turtles squirmed and…

Oaklanders are the art in new Uptown Station exhibit

Over the past few months, two photographers have been roaming Oakland’s streets, striving to capture the style of the city. Their work, a collection of 100 portraits, will debut to the public on Saturday at the “100 Faces of Oakland” photo exhibit at Uptown Station. The free exhibit, open from 4 p.m. to 6 p.m., is part of the inaugural Oakland Style Week, a new series of more than 50 events that opened this week and runs through Sunday. It…

How painting your life story can promote healing

Every Sunday for the last six weeks, Craig Morris has walked through Oakland streets populated by drug users to St. Mary’s Center, the shelter, soup kitchen and transitional housing provider that pulled him from the brink. There, Morris, who is 60 years old, painted a canvas as part of the Sacred Storytelling Art Project, a program created by St. Mary’s and the Center for ArtEsteem to uplift older Oaklanders. Morris and 11 others worked on self-portraits depicting some difficult aspect…

Oakland artists make strong showing in new San Francisco exhibition

Over 200 Alameda County artists — many living and working in Oakland — joined the ranks of world-renowned names when their works graced the walls of the de Young Museum in San Francisco on Tuesday. In its second year, the “de Young Open 2023” is an exhibition for visual artists from the nine Bay Area counties. It debuted Tuesday to the press and its 883 contributing artists, including 209 hailing from Alameda County.  Hundreds of people spilled into the seven…

AfroComicCon promotes support, healing: ‘The power of narrative therapy is that you get to rewrite your story.’

Mental health might not be the first thing that comes to mind at a comic book convention. But on Sunday, the seventh annual AfroComicCon at Oakland City Hall featured a lively panel of artists and therapists discussing safe mental health spaces. Sitting at a bench typically reserved for politicians, marriage and family therapist Perry Clark argued that comics have been “vilified as escapism.” For some people, he said, “reality sucks.” Relating to worlds like Wakanda — the futuristic home of…