Women and hip-hop: A discussion in downtown Oakland

Betti Ono art.

On Friday, the Betti Ono art gallery in downtown Oakland hosted a panel discussion about women and Hip-Hop. The “My Art, My Culture: Women, media, and Hip-Hop” three-part discussion was the product of the combined efforts of a number of Bay Area arts organizations including Beats, Rhymes, and Life, which uses Hip-Hop to empower young people, and the Daughters of Dilla Project, which offers media arts programs for girls.

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Art gets political at West Oakland gallery

Mary Shaw, who is in charge of the installation lighting for the "Unrestricted" gallery, sets up the lights for Friday's open at the Transmission Gallery in West Oakland.

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.”

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Salsa in the Park brings memories of Havana to Oakland

From Cuban exiles to Bay Area salsa fanatics clad in nostalgic Cuban revolutionary gear and chomping the occasional cigar, Oakland’s Splash Pad Park was a crucible of various cultures Sunday as San Francisco-based Cuban salsa outfit, Team Bahia, performed some of its best tracks for a crowd of more than 300 dancers.

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Through Oakland mural project, a superhero is born

On Thursday, the Oakland Superheroes Mural Project, an initiative by the Oakland-based nonprofit Attitudinal Healing Connection (AHC) to revitalize and add beauty to some of the city’s blighted areas, launched the first in a series of six planned street murals under the bridge on San Pablo Avenue and 35th Street.

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200 Yards project asks photographers to focus on downtown Oakland

Genevieve Brazelton, co-founder of 200 Yards, wants photographers to take a closer look at North Oakland. The premise of the project is simple: Draw a 200-yard radius around an alternative gallery or other landmark and invite photographers to cover that area with a hyperlocal focus and submit their work. The cream of the crop from the show’s Oakland version, which has the majestic oak tree as the center of its radius, will be displayed in a show at Oakland City Hall during the Art & Soul festival.

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Oakland Museum exhibits work by Bay Area jewelry pioneer Margaret De Patta

ring

If you’ve got a thing for chunky but understated rings, oversized pendants, or funky pins, you have Margaret De Patta to thank. The Bay Area artist, who modernized the art of jewelry making with her one-of-a-kind creations from the 1930s to the 1960s, is being honored in the exhibition “Space-Light-Structure: The Jewelry of Margaret De Patta,” at the Oakland Museum of California.

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Students at Oakland International High School describe their immigration experiences with graphic art

Thi Bui has just begun her fifth year teaching at OHIS. During her time here she has worn several hats. She taught social studies for one year, then art, reading and literacy for another; for the past two years she’s been the art and media teacher. As she begins her third year teaching a combined comic book and oral history curriculum, she finds she is doing a little bit of everything.

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