Art
In 2009, Tomás Alvarez III sat at his desk as a group of nine teenagers filed into his classroom at Oakland High School. This was the fifth year of his Beats, Rhymes and Life program, which uses hip-hop music as a form of therapy for at-risk teenagers. Alvarez began the class in the usual fashion, playing instrumental beats on a boom box. As the class gathered in a circle and began to freestyle, Alvarez recalls, he recognized something particularly special…
At the Rockridge Out and About Festival on Sunday, hundreds of people crowded the boutique-lined blocks of College Avenue to partake in the eclectic mix of music, food, art, and games that were offered in the streets.
With the election season underway, nine artists will have the chance to express their political beliefs through art on Friday night at the Transmission Gallery in West Oakland.
The show, titled “Unrestricted,” aims to not only raise political awareness of this year’s presidential election, the environment and immigration issues in the United States, but to also help give artists a chance to show work that typically doesn’t get shown, said Ruth Santee, the gallery’s owner and director. “With the energy of the elections, we decided to have a political show,” she said. “Political work doesn’t usually get seen. If you are too overt, people have the tendency of not showing it.”
Community events and activities for the weekend of October 5-7, 2012. Got an event we didn’t know about? Please add it in the comments!
This year’s inaugural Art Gallery Week, which runs from October 3 to 13, showcases galleries through events like artists’ panels and curator-led tours.
Fragments of jazz progressions and classical nocturnes filled the air at Oakland’s Piedmont Piano Company last weekend as customers gathered to admire, play—and purchase—the store’s recently acquired inventory of pianos from the San Francisco Conservatory of Music.
Community events and activities for the weekend of September 28-30, 2012. Got an event we didn’t know about? Please add it in the comments! Friday, September 28 Bites Off Broadway: Mobile Food and Family Fun 5:30-8:30 pm 365 45th Street, Oakland A weekly outdoor food truck gathering with lawn games for the whole family that will run on Fridays through October 12. More information here. You can read Oakland North’s previous coverage here. Summer Nights at OMCA, Oakland Rover Street Party 5:00…
The 3rd annual Art in Nature festival featured more than 200 artists at Redwood Regional Park in the hills east of Oakland this Sunday.
Mike and John Manente stand proudly together as they look up at their recent creation: Sheila, a dignified woman with a gentle face blended from yellow ochre, alizarin crimson, and earth tones. The setting sun gives her an amber hue. She’s the subject of the “The Gardener,” the latest in an ongoing series of murals entitled “The People of Oakland” by the father and son team. Last year the two men, both professional artists, created the “People of Oakland” to…