Winter Solstice

Transitioning into Lightness

by

Winter Solstice reminds us to move towards Lightness.

Lightness, as Italo Calvino impresses upon us in his remarkable series of lectures, Six Memos for the Next Millennium, is an agility of perception and awareness that we choose what and how to look at, play with, and represent any given thing. We like to think of Calvino’s Lightness as an intentional focus towards the positive and joyful. “Be light like a bird, not like a feather” is how French poet Paul Valéry stated it.

2025 has been a year which has given us lots to reflect upon, and the desire to lean into as much Lightness as possible. We have spent most of our time volunteering to help create a multidisciplinary Arts center in our town of Redwood City. The Center for Creativity (CfC) opened in May. Now, in December, we are wrapping up the development, curation, and facilitation of four two-month exhibition cycles for six exhibition spaces within the Center. With exhibition programming close to filled for 2026, we are pleased to pass the exhibitions torch to the next team. We feel fortunate to have mingled with so many artists in our region via the CfC project.

Here’s a few things ahead:

On the Table: Navigating Being

This Kent & Nan collaborative exhibition will feature a new configuration of Table of Traits, along with new works on paper, and conceptual works addressing personal identity.

One of Table of Traits seventy-two panels

Mission College
Vargas Gallery in the Gillmor Center
3000 Mission College Blvd, Santa Clara, California 
January 26–March 5, 2026

Opening Reception: Wednesday, February 11, from 2:30–4
MAP

finding, seeking

A solo show of Nanette’s recent mixed media monoprints.

In the Realm, Based on the underwater photography of Todd Gieseler,
Pigment and serigraphy on Rives BFK, 36” x 24”

Morris Graves Museum of Art
636 F Street, Eureka, California 
January 14–February 22, 2026
MAP

Entanglements

This month Nanette published the fourth Entanglements anthology which features her August residency cohort from In Cahoots Residency in Petaluma, California. The publication includes four conversations with printmakers: Macy Chadwick, Rebecca Gilbert, Christopher Hartshorne, and Sophie Loubere.

You can also read these conversations online at Whirligig.

Entanglements is featured in the exhibition Entangled Lineage by invitation of conceptual artist C.K. Itamura.

The San Francisco Arts Education Project @ Minnesota Street Projects
1275 Minnesota Street, San Francisco
The exhibition runs through January 31.
MAP

Entanglements 4 cover image: Sharing our last meal together at In Cahoots Residency

Publication in Taper (electronic literature)

Nanette’s 2025 elit work Redlined is featured in the online publication Taper. One of the interesting things about Taper is that all works must be under 2k in file size!

CODEX 2026

We look forward to exhibiting at the CODEX Book Fair in Oakland in February 7–10.

This Winter Solstice day which is followed by the longest night of the year, we are wishing you Lightness, whatever you conceive or need for it to be, and a Happy, Healthy, and Joyful year ahead.

With gratitude and smiles,

Kent & Nanette

Solstice Joy!

by

winter solstice card 2015

Here we are again, making our solstice card and greeting you on the longest night of the year. These cycles–they mean something to us. Most notably they provide us an opportunity to let you know how much we appreciate you, who are among the lights in our lives. We are thankful that we have the privilege to make, to share, and to be well.

May the force be with you. Live long and prosper. Peace on Earth.
With love and lightness,
Kent, Nanette, Jazpur and Smudge

Winter Solstice Greetings

by

manske_knowledge_sequenceKnowledge by Kent Manske

On this longest night of 2014 we wish you an abundance of lightness.

The news on our front:

Kent and Nanette both have prints exhibiting in Absence and Presence: A Printmaking Response to the Bombing of Al-Mutanabbi Street at the San Francisco Center for the Book through January 25, 2015. Absence and Presence is a project of the Al-Mutanabbi Street Coalition.

Kent is engaged in a new public art project creating four entry signs for the North Fair Oaks area (Unicorporated San Mateo County between Atherton/Menlo Park and Redwood City) where we abide as PreNeo Press. The 10 foot tall metal figures will represent the people who live and work in the community. Here’s an article on redevelopment of Middlefield Road including a video interview of Kent in the studio: Identity in infrastructure: North Fair Oaks banks on road project to revitalize area

Undercurrents, a themed portfolio of original prints by fifteen Bay Area artists has recently been acquired by The Achenbach Foundation for Graphic Arts at the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco.

In early December Nanette gave a LASER talk (Leonardo Art Science Evening Rendezvous) at U.C. Davis.

We welcome you to join us New Year’s Day for Open House at PreNeo Press in Redwood City, 1 – 6 pm.
• Soup on the Stove
• Cheer in the Air
• Art Project in the Studio

May your holidays be bright.