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On exhibition November 5, 2008 - December 21, 2008
The Gift of Art
Sueños Mensajeros/Dream Messengers
Luz Marina Ruiz | paintings, prints, mixed media & book arts
First Fridays November 7th & December 5th, 6-10 pm

Messenger

Sueños Mensajeros/Dream Messengers includes work by Oakland resident Luz Marina Ruiz in a variety of media: painting, printmaking, drawing, mixed media and book arts. Her work has been exhibited nationally and is inspired by the world of dreams and nature. Many of the bird images come from childhood dreams of flight. And, at times, the images of birds represent the opposite of flight—they may be confined or trapped by their own inability to free themselves. The bird image in the painting, Messenger, represents the subconscious at work, bringing clarity and meaning to everyday life. It embodies the voices we hear and the stories that are brought to us in our dreams.

Luz Marina Ruiz was born in Cali Colombia. She emigrated with her family at the age of three to New York, where she lived until she graduated from high school. She studied printmaking, painting and drawing at the University of California at Berkeley, where she received a BA, MA, and MFA. After graduate school, Ruiz pursued a career in teaching. She taught design, drawing, painting and printmaking at the college level. During her tenure at Diablo Valley College, she developed a printmaking program. Many of her students are accomplished printmakers and have gone on to establish their own printmaking studios.

Awaken

On exhibition November 5, 2008 - December 21, 2008
The Gift of Art
Photographs of a Floating World
Linda Elvira Piedra | photography
First Fridays November 7th & December 5th, 6-10 pm

Venerable Flowers

For photographer and Berkeley resident Elvira Piedra, it is the camera that opens a door inside her through which she observes the world and “often it is the camera itself that reveals the world.” She feels that the forms which emerge between the poles of darkness and lightness are what offer substance in our lives. Elvira discovered photography in her early childhood through looking at old family portraits. The impressions of these black and white images, of people related and dear to her, remain the most enduring influences on the work she has made. These early photographs also suggested something mysterious to her, and made her want to experience a world different from the one seen with ordinary sight.

Linda Elvira Piedra was born in Southern California and she spent her early adulthood engaged in dance, literature, and film studies at the University of California, Santa Cruz , and the University of Alaska at Anchorage . She also studied book binding at Le Centre des Arts du Livre in Paris, France . She began studying photography in 1995 at City College in San Francisco. Between 1997 and 2007, she lived in New Mexico where she met and was guided in the practice of photography by Walter Chappell who encouraged her to work with the 8x10 view camera. In February of this year, she opened a studio in Berkeley, California.