We are head over heels with this new Whirligig Interview with Sinjin Jones. Jonesis a transmedia artist, storyteller, and poet interested in the connections between diverse media forms which allow him to combine these in interesting ways.
In 2019, shortly before the reality of a global pandemic, Jones became the Executive Artistic Director of The Pear Theatre in Mountain View, California, where he has implemented dynamic, engaging, and fresh programming that both surprises and challenges. You can read Nanette’s interview with Jones here.
Exhibition extended to August 14th
Visit Art Bias for these upcoming events and see our exhibition First Sunday Open Studios: Sunday, August 4, 12–4pm Art Speak Easy: Monthly Conversations about Art & Art Practice. Thursday, August 8, 6:30–8pm A Curatorial Conversation with Lance Fung and Lisa Solomon: Wednesday, August 14, 2024, 5:30–7pm
Table of Traits, variable print collage installation, collaborative project, 2024
an art life: kent manske & nanette wylde
July 2–August 14, 2024
Art Bias Gallery, Studio 114 1700 Industrial Road, San Carlos, California MAP
M–F, 9am–4pm, and by appointment. Email or Text Kent
Visual documentation of our audience participatory installation Preserves in the exhibition What’s Cookin’? at the Palo Alto Art Center through August 18. Visitors tie on tags with their answer to the question “What do you want to preserve?”
June 21, July 6, August 1
Allow yourself to soar
NY2CA Gallery in Benicia, California recently commissioned Kent for a permanent interior installation in honor of artist and gallerist Terry Twigg.
A feature article on Nanette’s conceptual print project ebaybies: Genuine and Lasting Friends is included in the 2024 California Printmaker journal. The journal is published by the California Society of Printmakers and is available for print purchase and free online access here.
Nanette currently has three works on exhibit in Books Undone 2: The Art of Altered Books at The Gallery at Penn College in Williamsport, Pennsylvania. One of these is Nanette’s most recent electronic work, Leaving Digital which was also included in XXIII International Image Festival held in Manizales and Bogotá, Columbia this last spring. You can experience Leaving Digital here.
We both have mixed media prints in the traveling exhibition Printed & Stitched at the San Jose Museum of Quilts & Textiles in San Jose, California.
Our newest collaboration, Table of Traits, was on view at the Sonoma Community Center exhibition Resonance in Print. Both of these exhibitions were produced by the California Society of Printmakers. We will be showing Table of Traits in our upcoming Art Bias exhibition in July.
Kent Manske & Nanette Wylde, Table of Traits, 2024
Nanette is currently curating for the 2024 Entanglements. She has a few spots open for features on creatives whose focus is working in/with community and welcomes your recommendations.
Kent Manske: Making Sense at NY2CA Gallery presents original prints and artist books from multiple bodies of work that demonstrate the conceptual breath and creative practice of an artist whose well-being requires making visual narratives about the nature of things and matters of conscious. The artist, Kent Manske, considers his art practice as serious play. His work addresses the challenges of our complex times while celebrating the opportunity to reflect, learn, provoke and be more resilient.
Work in this exhibition explores human behavior, the environment, biology, aging, morality, politics and knowledge systems through many lenses including curiosity, spectacle, wonder, and empathy. Manske’s highly symbolic works are visual records of thoughts, feelings, and fears that seek understanding and insight while contributing to the visual language system he has developed over the last four decades.
Kent Manske, from Existential Epistemologies, 2024
EVENTS
Saturday, March 23 Artist’s Talk: Printmaking, 3–4pm
Kent Manske will describe the process of making hand-pulled prints including screen printing, etching & intaglio, relief, lithography, collagraph, and monoprints. He will bring the printing plates and tools used to make prints. He will address what is an original print, what is a reproduction, and things to consider when investing in prints.
Saturday, April 20 Artist’s Talk: Artist Books, 3–4pm
Kent Manske will share a brief history of art that takes book form. He will use books in the exhibition to talk about conceptual and technical approaches to making artist books. He will talk about who collects artist’s books and why.
NY2CA Gallery One Year Anniversary Celebration, 5–7pm Live printing event. Take home a print. By email invite only. Subscribe to email list at ny2cagallery.com
Kent Manske, Filter, 2024
EXHIBITION STATEMENT
I regard what I do as serious play. Asking uneasy questions feeds my studio practice. How does one make sense of the complex times we live in (pandemics, genocide, glacial meltdown, global mass extinctions, artificial intelligence)? How do we grapple with systems of control (authoritarianism, disinformation, algorithmic prompts, book banning, loyalty oaths, teaching restrictions) that deny these realities? We have many challenges here at the top of the food chain.
Paying attention, not being reactionary, and staying grounded is challenging. It’s exhausting to be constantly trying to decipher fact from fiction, information from noise, genuine beliefs from tribal influences. Navigating reality can be disheartening, but cherishing the light sometimes requires exposing darkness—processing concerns and moral predicaments in creative ways.
The work in this exhibition explores human behavior, the environment, biology, aging, morality, politics and knowledge systems through many lenses including curiosity, spectacle, wonder, and empathy. Each work is a record of an investigation that gives form to complex issues and emotions. They seek not answers but larger conversations and continued points of intersection.
We hope to see you out there, making sense of your own complex and beautiful lives.
The American Educator Encyclopedia was first published in 1919. It was discontinued in 1977. This ten volume set of encyclopedias was used by Kent in his youth from the mid 1960s to around 1978. In the late 90s Nanette turned the books into art objects, painting them pure white. After exhibiting them a few times she put them outside in the garden where they were left for several decades.
At some point it was decided the books had reached an aesthetically pleasing degree of decay, needed rescue, and were brought indoors. In 2023 we determined it was time to document the books, thus, Encyclopedic: Weathered Volumes was photographed to create this conceptual body of work.
Series of 20 views presented as archival pigment prints on Arches in an edition of five each Project webpage
Art Focused Community Service
In the collaborative spirit, Kent works tirelessly with other volunteers to advance art opportunities for our community. Two significant public projects achieved milestones in 2023.
Healthy Community Mural Project This community-inspired mural is 19 panels located on the 5th Avenue underpass pedestrian walkway in North Fair Oaks. Artist Emily Fromm completed the murals in September 2023. The need for public art in this location was identified in 2016. Visit Healthy Community Mural Project to learn more.
Center for Creativity The Center for Creativity is a grassroots vision to bring a permanent arts center to Redwood City. In Fall 2023 we completed an independent feasibility study and are now presenting it to civic leaders, officials, developers, philanthropists, and the public. Community discussions about the need for a local arts center began in 2012. Visit Center for Creativity for more info and how to become a supporter of this vision. If you have ideas how to raise 50 million dollars, please contact Kent.
This selection of work addresses Kent’s emotional and philosophical conflicts as a contributor and participant in consumer culture while simultaneously having deep concern and empathy for the survival of other species.
Nanette’s monoprint Milagros for Times Like These is included in The de Young Open 2023. The Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco magazine featured Nanette’s work in the inside front cover! Additional work in this series may be seen at The Main Gallery in Menlo Park.
De Young Museum, Golden Gate Park, San Francisco
Garland Variations
A California Society of Printmakers Risograph Anthology
Seven new drawings from Kent’s 2023 series Existential Epistemologies were created for, and published in, Garland Variations, a Risograph Anthology publication. Master Risograph printer Zach Clark of National Monument Press shares “Garland Variations exists as an experimental publication in which each of the participating artists collaborated with me to make original works intended for Risograph printing, many for the first time. The results are a collection of work I feel is truly unique within the intersection of Riso and traditional printmaking.” Garland Variations features the work of Beth Fein, Megan Broughton, Kent Manske, Kelly Autumn, LeeAnn J. DiCicco, Kevin Harris, & AV Pike.
Kent Manske, from Existential Epistemologies, 2023
Nanette reviews Transcending Physicality: The Essence of Place
through December 16, 2023
After visiting Transcending Physicality at SFACG—it is a poignant and engaging show—Nanette wrote a review published by Slippage.net. The exhibition was curated by Minoosh Zomorodinia. Nanette has been following Minoosh’s projects since interviewing her during a residency at Recology. You can read that interview at Whirligig.
October is a celebratory month for us—a newly curated exhibition by Nanette at WORKS/San José, a new Entanglements anthology, a showing of Encyclopedic at Palo Alto’s Rinconada Library, and the deYoung Open 2023.
Curatorial Projects Biophilia and Entanglements will launch together in October
Note there is 90 minute free parking in the underground garage. Enter on South Third Street just before Santa Clara Street. Stairs up to Second Street and WORKS. There is an option for this free parking at the parking ticket machine.
This 2023 anthology curated by Nanette Wylde has a theme of biophilia and features artwork and projects by Arturo Araujo, Willa Briggs, Shari Bryant, Israel Campos, Binh Danh, Annette Goodfriend, Emily Gui, Yunan Ma, Kent Manske, Hector Dionicio Mendoza, Jiamao Yuan, J. Adán Ruiz and The Biological Reserve Cerro Hermoso
Poems by James Cagney, Aileen Cassinetto, Chloe Chou, Veronica Kornberg, Eileen R. Tabios
Interviews with Sharmon Hilfinger (by Katherine Bazak), Judith Selby Lang (by Nanette Wylde), Zach Pine (by Richard Whittaker)
We are exhibiting from a series of conceptual altered books/photographs at Palo Alto’s Rinconada Library through the month of October.
The de Young Open 2023
Tino Rodriguez, Moonji L. Pickering, Liz Boeder, and Nanette Wylde with their works at the de Young Open 2023. We met up in the Goddess section of the exhibition!
We are pleased to share that one from Nanette’s monoprint series Milagros for Times Like These is included in the triennial regional exhibition, The de Young Open 2023. This exhibition runs through January 7, 2024. The museum is free on Saturdays. Additional work in this series may be seen at The Main Gallery in Menlo Park.
This is a fun and engaging exhibition featuring many of our favorite Bay Area artists.
Our friend Katherine Bazak interviews her longtime friend, Bay Area playwright and author, Sharmon Hilfinger for Whirligig, Nanette’s online platform for interviews with creative entities. Read this enticing conversation to gain insight about the writing life and regional live theater here.
First Sundays Open Studio at Art Bias Sunday, August 6, 12–4pm
We will present Meaning Maker as part of our hallway art on display outside our Art Bias studio #215. Meaning Maker is a conceptual art project designed for personal self reflection. Five editions of Meaning Maker will be featured this month, free for the taking by Art Bias visitors. Popcorn will be served.
Hand Bookbinders of California, Annual Members’ Exhibition August 7–October 1, 2023
Arion Press Gallery 1802 Hays Street, the Presidio, San Francisco, California Opening Reception: Saturday, August 12, 2:00–4:00pm. Hors d’oeuvres, beer and wine served with friends and literary eye candy! Gallery Walk-through: Thursday, August 17, 5:30–7:00pm
Kent Manske, Corpus Animare Volumes I, II, & III, artist books
We are showing four photographs from a new body of work titled: Encyclopedic: Weathered Volumes. Kent is also exhibiting his artist books, Corpus Animare Volumes I, II, & III.
Spark Gallery 900 Santa Fe Drive, Denver, Colorado in the Santa Fe Arts District
Westward Bound II is organized by Abecedarian Artists’ Books and asks the question What is The American West? Virtually every part of the United States except the Eastern Seaboard has been “the West” at some point in American history, linked in popular imagination with the last frontier of American settlement. For purposes of this exhibition, The American West refers to that vast stretch of plains, mountains, and deserts west of the Mississippi River. Kent and Nanette’s collaborative book Foodies: Seven West Coast Foodie Vignettes, and Kent’s book San Francisco Bay are on exhibit. The gallery is also featuring a separate exhibition of books by our artist friends Alicia Bailey and Rhiannon Alpers.
Kent is one of 34 artists that provide artistic responses about Earth, through works in printmaking, photography, painting, installation, sculpture, ceramics, textiles, and digital media. Curated by Jodi Roberts.
We’ve joined the Art Bias community!
Art Bias First Sundays Open Studio Sunday, July 2, 12–4pm
Join us for a fun afternoon of open artist studios, gallery exhibition, live music, workshop, and an artist talk. From 2–2:30pm in Studio 215, Kent will briefly describe the process of making hand-pulled prints including screenprining, etching & intaglio, relief, lithography, collagraph, and monoprints. He will bring the printing plates and tools used to make specific prints.
We are pleased to publish Richard Whittaker’s (works + conversations) interview with Bay Area Art with Nature instigator Zach Pine.
Cynthia Sears in the Sherry Grover Gallery at Bainbridge Island Museum of Art
Cynthia Sears is a creativity explorer and the founder of the Bainbridge Island Museum of Art (BIMA) on Bainbridge Island in Washington State. She is known for her extensive support of artists, writers and cultural entities. Her collections include paintings and sculptures; antique and finely bound books; and some 1800 artist’s books, which comprise the Cynthia Sears Artist’s Books Collection at BIMA.
A pioneer in cultural support, Sears has collected and donated numerous works of regional artists to BIMA, creating a rich legacy of Pacific Northwest artistic production. Her wide ranging appreciation of the arts is demonstrated in BIMA’s community-centered mission and diverse programming which includes musical and theatrical performance; hands on educational activities; lectures, tours, and a wide array of community outreach events including an online series Artist’s Books Unshelved. This year BIMA is launching four generous biennial awards to support both regional artists and an artist making books. These BRAVA Awards (BIMA Recognizes Achievement in the Visual Arts) are in celebration of the tenth anniversary of BIMA in 2023, and a further expression of Sears’ belief in the value of the arts to human existence.
We conversed via zoom over a span of four months, discussing a range of subjects which touch on aspects of Cynthia’s life and thinking, including her work in radio and film, social and environmental issues, collecting and philanthropy, education and the arts.
Meet Kathleen Canrinus, author of The Lady with the Crown: A Story of Resilience
Kathleen Canrinus with her mother Dorothy.
Interviewer Helen Gibbons writes: Bay Area native Kathleen Canrinus wrote The Lady with the Crown: A Story of Resilience to honor her mother, Dorothy. When Kathleen was 15, her mother suffered a traumatic brain injury in a car accident. After three months in a coma, Dorothy emerged partially paralyzed and cognitively impaired, upending the life of her family.
Kathleen’s memoir focuses on the relationship between mother and daughter, particularly its evolution during the 54 years between Dorothy’s accident and her death at age 99. There were plenty of challenges, but also lots of laughter and, oh, so much love. It’s a story I will enjoy reading again and again, finding some new insight or well-crafted sentence to relish each time.
This engaging group exhibition of environmentally focused art continues in downtown San Rafael.
Exhibition: February 3–March 25, 2023 Gallery Hours: Thursday–Saturday, 1–8pm Reception and Art Walk: March 10, 5–8pm Artists’ Talks via Zoom: Tuesday, February 21, 6pm Contact Kent or Nanette for the zoom link
Curated by Deanna Pindell In collaboration with Women Eco Artists Dialog (WEAD). Artists include: Lauren Elder, Michele Guieu, Juniper Harrower, Janette Kim, Kent Manske & Nanette Wylde, Daniel McCormick & Mary O’Brien, Zach Pine, Sharon Siskin, and Lisa Zimmer-Chu.
Nanette is published in A physical book which compiles conceptual books by various artists
This anthology, edited by Carley Gomez and Levi Sherman and published by Partial Press, contains about 150 conceptual books. Nanette’s contribution follows for your entertainment.
soul haiku
(A slight volume of undisclosed materials found where least expected)
Upon being lifted, the book notes the current environmental conditions.
The book registers the touch of the reader—hand size, texture, temperature, care in handling.
As the reader opens the cover to view the title page, the book peers into the reader’s eyes, reading the reader.
The reader turns the page to find the first line of a haiku, which the book has written for this singular moment.
Turning the page again, the book adjusts and connects to the reader’s history and mindset, offering the second haiku line, specific to this reader.
The third page turn reveals the third line—a marvel of exactitude and insight which will resonate with the reader, once the book is closed and returned to its resting place.
Afterwards, year upon year, when conditions are just about right, the poem will be remembered, considered, thought to be the original. Yet with each of these remembrances it will be new, revised to the reader’s current situation, although the reader will never find that book again.
Interactive and often playful, these eco-artworks offer inspiring visions, strategies, and solutions to help our communities build resilience for our changing climate. Each of these widely accomplished artists have created projects in service to the world beyond the gallery.
Several are games that help us solve regional issues; others combine play, work, and education to restore beaches, riparian habitats, and redwood forests. Our love of trees, grief over rising seas and extinctions, concerns about waste, and passions for the cultural histories of our local places are each addressed in enterprising community-engagement designed by artists and architects. Viewers are encouraged to envision a most desirable future.
Immunity by Kent Manske, Dimensions open: 9 x 105” One word per page reads: When Does Difference Lead To Slaughter
Truth: Artist Books and Broadsides
Exhibition: January 12–February 12, 2023 Gallery Hours: Thursday–Monday, 11am–5pm
Gallery Route One 11101 Highway One, Ste. 1101 Point Reyes Station, California
The Visiting Artist Program at Gallery Route One presents, Truth: Artist Books and Broadsides, an exhibition juried by Sas Colby. The word “truth” has become politicized in the US and continues to take a beating in politics and social media. Can “truth” still mean anything? Can an artist embody or express truth in their artwork?
For centuries, the book, in its various forms, was identified with the notion of “truth” —through encyclopedias, dictionaries, and books of scripture. Because of their visual and material relationship to historical books, contemporary artist books as presented here can be a medium for the expression of political, philosophical, and spiritual ideas.
Sas Colby is a visual artist whose practice includes artist books and work with text. Colby notes, “Truth is a rich and provocative subject in today’s world which one might say is more attuned to ‘truthiness,’ the quality of seeming to be true out of a desire for something to be true, as coined by Stephen Colbert. The concept of truth has long been associated with books, and there was a time when the printed word was taken for truth. In a gentler century, Emily Dickinson wrote, ‘Tell all the truth but tell it slant,’ not wishing to shock with the totality of a revelation all at once. Our digital world lacks this subtlety and our culture fiercely defends the principle that we’re each entitled to our own truth.”
Nanette was included, along with Paloma Lucas and Bryan Kring, in a feature article on Bay Area artists who make books.
The fascinating world of book arts: 3 Bay Area makers share their stories by Jessica Yadagaran, was included in a special magazine section called Bookish published by the Bay Area News Group on Sunday, January 15, 2023. Bookish was included in a handful of Bay Area newspapers including San Jose Mercury News, the Marin Independent Journal, and the East Bay Times.
Kent’s photograph Beyond the Reach has recently exhibited at the University of Iowa, the University of Illinois, and P21 Gallery in London as part of the Shadow and Light project, compiled by Beau Beausoleil, a poet and activist in the Bay Area, that memorializes Iraqi academics assassinated between 2003–2013.
WORKS San José is having their annual community auction. Check it out! Exhibition opens First Friday February 3, 5–9pm Exhibition dates February 4 through March 3 Auction night Saturday, March 4!
We have an exciting new curatorial project to share with you, this time taking form as a book: Entanglements: A curated collection of contemporary culture is a 126 page, full color print production featuring:
Artworks by Shari Arai DeBoer, José Arenas, Ellen Bepp, Harlan Crowder, C.K. Itamura, Bodil Fox and Larnie Fox, Reiko Fujii, Kathy Fujii-Oka, Elizabeth Gómez, Richard Lang, Cynthia A. Osborne, Linda MacDonald, Melissa Pagluica, Agnes Pelton, Na Omi Judy Shintani, and Minoosh Zomorodinia.
Essays by Katherine Bazak, Lyn Bishop, Richard Lang, and Jan Rindfleisch.
Interviews with Kathleen Canrinus, Elizabeth Gómez, Jane Reichhold, and Minoosh Zomorodinia.
Poetry by Georgina Marie Guardado, Lauren Lin, Jane Reichhold and Anonymous.
Helen Gibbons interviewed Palo Alto author Kathleen Canrinus specifically for Entanglements. You can read this insightful conversation online in Whirligig.
With the exception of the interviews posted online in Whirligig, Entanglements is a print only publication. Find out more.
Nanette curates Pathways: An exhibition about mapping, navigation, wanderlust and borders
Spirit Bridge for Brian by Neil Murphy
Nine Bay Area artists will be exhibiting in an interdisciplinary, themed exhibition at Art Ark Gallery in San Jose. The exhibition is curated by Nanette Wylde. It includes a wide range of media including artist books, conceptual works, glass, mixed media, painting, performance, printmaking, sculpture, sound, video, and installations. A collaborative, site specific vinyl installation for the gallery’s west facing windows is by José Arenas and Kent Manske.
Murmuration, detail of two-story vinyl window installation at Art Ark Gallery, José Arenas and Kent Manske, 2022
Artists: Afatasi The Artist, José Arenas, Carolina Cuevas, Casey Jay Gardner, Caroline Landau, Kent Manske, Neil Murphy, Melissa West, Minoosh Zomorodinia
Gallery Talks (performance*) March 5: José Arenas, Caroline Landau, Melissa West, Carolina Cuevas* March 12: Casey Jay Gardner, Kent Manske March 19: Afatasi the Artist, Carolina Cuevas*, Neil Murphy March 26: Minoosh Zomorodinia, Nanette Wylde
Nanette in The Fierce Urgency of Now: Socially Engaged Printmaking
Nanette’s 2021 print, Milagros for Times Like These VI, is included in The Fierce Urgency of Now: Socially Engaged Printmaking, at the Janet Turner Print Museum, CSU Chico, Chico, California. The exhibition was juried by Aaron S. Coleman. From the Turner, “The work submitted was extremely strong, and the juror’s job very difficult–with 133 artists submitting 436 pieces for consideration. Coleman chose work by 36 artists for the exhibition.”
Kent Exhibits and Reads in Shadow and Light at Arion Press
Beyond the Reach, Kent Manske, 2019
Kent is exhibiting a photograph in SHADOW and LIGHT: Al Mutanabbi Street Starts Here at Arion Press in San Francisco. A public reception and reading will take place on Sunday, March 6, 2022 at 3pm.
Local artist Elizabeth Gómez has been working on a mosaic mural for the Magical Bridge Playground in Red Morton, a Redwood City park, for two years. Now it is done. Nanette made an opportunity to visit Elizabeth on site and came home with a Whirligig Interview.
Elizabeth’s mosaic mural is beautiful! and a wonderful gift to our community, not just because of the beauty of the mural, but also because she involved so many community members in the making of it during these last 20 months of covid. Read Elizabeth Gómez’s Whirligig Interview here.
Elizabeth Gómez, Magical Bridge Mural, 2021
We are pleased to have our You Are The Tree project included in an upcoming book, Embodied Forest, published by ecoartspace.
Twelve of our artist books are now being carried by Country Lights Books at the San Gregorio General Store in San Gregorio, California. Spot on if you made the connection to City Lights Bookstore in San Francisco. Country Lights proprietor George is a big fan of Lawrence Ferlinghetti, who apparently was also a big fan of the San Gregorio Store as a music venue.
Positioning, Artist book, Nanette Wylde, 2019
Nanette is showing Positioning in the 23 Sandy Gallery exhibition UNSEEN. The exhibition takes place at form + concept, in Santa Fe, New Mexico through November 20. We are pleased to learn that The Bainbridge Island Museum of Art in Washington state has acquired a copy. Thank You BIMA!
Redacted Babar: ABC Free, Artist book, Nanette Wylde, 2020
Her book, Redacted Babar: ABC Free is on view in a Hand Bookbinders of California exhibition at the American Bookbinding Museum in San Francisco through October 30.
O Humboldt, O Muir: Worldviews, monoprints, Nanette Wylde, 2019
REI Co-op wonderfully and unexpectedly acquired two prints from Nanette’s O Humboldt, O Muir: Worldviews series for a new store in Sunnyvale, California. These monoprints were created at a Palo Alto Art Center printmaking residency in 2019. Thank you REI and Thank you Palo Alto Art Center. We are curious to see what REI does with them.
In early 2009 Nanette launched our Whirligig project. The impetus has always been to celebrate creatives in our communities by bringing a little bit of attention, and hopefully insight, into what they do and why they do it. The real benefit for us though, has been how the interview process helps us to get to know these individuals, and our resultant increased understanding and appreciation of their various practices and works.
The series name, Whirligig, comes from its historic roots as both a torture device and a toy, characterized by its whirling or spinning nature. We named it thus as a celebration of the creative life, which may sometimes be torturous, often leaves us spinning, but without a doubt is the most amazing playground.
Whirligig Interview with Minoosh Zomorodinia
Minoosh Zomorodinia, Resist
Minoosh Zomorodinia is an interdisciplinary artist and curator working in time, space and the natural world. Her current art practice involves nature walks which are documented via smart phone app. The resultant maps are then made tangible via a variety of both old and new technologies. There is an edgy, accessible humor in much of her work—this she calls “the abstract absurd.” In actuality, Zomorodinia uses all aspects of her making to parse and comment on current critical issues including borders and territories, colonialism, immigration, culture and identity, stereotyping, relations of the self to the environment, the power of technology, and the art world itself. Her work is both layered and engaging—smart, funny, and often visually exquisite.
Nanette’s artist’s books and prints are also on view at: The Main Gallery 883 Santa Cruz Avenue Menlo Park, California Tuesday—Sunday, 11am—5pm
We continue to look forward to times when we can gather together carefree. We wish you safe keeping, good health, engagement and hopefulness. Kent & Nanette
The days are getting longer, Northern California is opening up, the Spring cleaning is underway, the garden is in, we are starting to feel lighter and brighter, and we hope that you are too.
The Art of the Book at Seager Gray Gallery
We are pleased to be showing our collaborative book From This Earth in the 16th Annual Art of the Book exhibition at Seager Gray Gallery in Mill Valley, California. The exhibition runs through May 27.
Elephant Books at the Main Gallery
Nanette is showing three of her elephant themed books including her newest, Redacted Babar: ABC Free, at The Main Gallery in downtown Menlo Park, California.
With environmental stewardship close to our hearts, we are pleased to be participating in EXTRACTION: Art on the Edge of the Abyss a multimedia, multi-venue, cross-border art intervention which seeks to provoke societal change by exposing and interrogating the negative social and environmental consequences of industrialized natural resource extraction.
New projects addressing extraction issues include:
Kent Manske & Nanette Wylde, From this Earth, 2020
From this Earth is a collaborative artist’s book written, and produced while sheltering-in-place during the 2020 pandemic and while wildfires raged across California. It is a story of transformation. An individual journeys through a devastated landscape seeking relief, motivated by an inner impetus. Text by Nanette Wylde.
We are honored to have work selected for this California Society of Printmaker’s exhibition.
Searching for Meaning in our Changing World Environment April 3—May 9, 2021 Gallery Route One, Point Reyes Station, California
Kent Manske, I, You, Me, We, Us, 2021
New Books
Six of our new trade edition books are available through Hunger Button Books. Trade edition books provide us opportunity to reach a wider audience than our limited-edition and one-of-a-kind handmade books.
Election Countdown 2020, Kent Manske and change became, Don Drake & Kent Manske Thomas from Delaware, Nanette Wylde From this Earth, Kent Manske & Nanette Wylde Redacted Babar: ABC Free, Nanette Wylde Diverse Paths, Nanette Wylde (a flip book, what could be more fun!)
Book Arts
We are pleased to have Foodies showing in: C O N T E N T: an Artist Books Exhibition April 2—May 1, 2021 The Artery Gallery, Davis, California
We feel so lucky to have been spending some of our screen time getting to know more about Ever Rodriguez and his lovely La Feroz Press.
Ever is a letterpress printer, artist, poet, musician, community activist, and librarian! Read Ever’s Whirligig Interview here.
Election Countdown Series 2020 46 images/46 days/46th president
On September 17, Kent Manske launched a new series of artworks exploring reasons to consider casting a vote. One image per day via instagram. The series is documented here.
September 24. 39 Days to Vote!
Ruth Bader Ginsburg
A deep thank you to Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg for her unselfish work providing opportunities to women and men to discover their potential and break the destructive pattern of uncivil control and dominance over people’s lives.
Kent Manske, Thank you RBG, 2020.
Bird, Nest, Nature
The Bird, Nest, Nature exhibition will officially reopen at the Bedford Gallery in Walnut Creek, California from October 13—December 20, 2020 with advance reservations required. The exhibition can also be viewed virtually. Kent’s Nest IV was selected for this exhibition.
Emotional Numbness: The Impact of War on the Human Psyche and Ecosystems
Nanette’s On Judgment: The Book of Bully is included in this international exhibition in Tehran, Iran, curated by Atefeh Khas and Minoosh Zomorodinia.
View the Iranian exhibition in 3D interactive format here. Head upstairs to view On Judgment and many of the works in this exhibition.
A virtual version of this exhibition may also be experienced via the Women Eco Artists Dialog (WEAD) website.
Emotional Numbness: The Impact of War on the Human Psyche and Ecosystems September 18—October 16, 2020 Platform 3, Tehran, Iran
The gallery’s first exhibition in this Menlo Park location is Resilience. It features the work of 18 gallery artists. The gallery is open to visitors.
Resilience October 7—November 22 883 Santa Cruz Avenue, Menlo Park, California Gallery hours: Wednesday—Sunday, 12—6pm
Roadworks Steamroller Printing Festival
Our publishing platform, Hunger Button Books, participated in the 17th edition of the San Francisco Center for the Book’s Steamroller Printing Festival. This big equipment printmaking extravaganza was held online in September with live streaming of the steamroller as urban printing press.
Wyldeflower GardensFree Library
The upside of sheltering-in-place is the time we have given to tending projects both incomplete and in-waiting.
We recently got our tools out and made a neighborhood library box which is getting considerable visits and many transactions.
Remembering Big Basin
Our last visit to Big Basin State Park, 25 miles as the crow flies from our home, was a year ago on a research trip for our project You are the Tree. Weeks ago, in mid-August, fires swept through the park. The survival of Big Basin’s old growth, redwood tree groves are yet to be determine. Park Headquarters and campground facilities did not survive.
Memories of Big Basin hold a special place in our lives, from dancing around the campfire on our wedding night to our many overnights and hikes to Berry Falls. We honor the lives, sanctuary and the wisdom of these ancients. Pictured below is Methuselah, estimated at over 1800 years old, the oldest living tree in the Santa Cruz Mountains outside of Big Basin State Park. See Nanette in her preferred element, smiling in the upper right.
It has been a troubling and thought provoking 2020, fueled by a pandemic, wildfires, a hurricane, election propaganda and overdue calls for social justice reform. People across the globe, including friends and family, are facing unfathomable challenges.
We are seeking sanctuary in the garden and the arts as we grapple with current situations and potential futures. The studio continues to be a place to process, make things and share them for further contemplation, discussion and debate.
We send this update of some recent activities with wishes for your own good health and safety, and encourage you to vote.
Fallout: Art in this Time
Kent was recently interviewed for this online exhibition. Fallout asks artists to reflect on the ways their lives and artistic practices have shifted as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic and consider their work in the context of a post-pandemic world. Indian University Bloomington- Grunwald Gallery
In Cahoots Artist Residency
In June 2020, Kent produced an 8 x 12 foot print mural during a California Society of Printmakers sponsored two-week, shelter-in-studio artist residency at Macy Chadwick’s In Cahoots Artist Residency in Petaluma, California. Weave looks into the wonder and beauty of natural systems, our interdependency on them and the perils we face, and will face, if we do not respect the natural order of things. To see the completed work and how it was made, visit Weave.
Work-in-progress at In Cahoots Residency. Weave, screen-based monoprinting and chine-collé, Kent Manske, 2020.
Come to Your Census
Kent aided the 2020 Census campaign by providing artwork for their public service announcements.
Public service artwork, Kent Manske, 2020.
Bird, Nest, Nature
Bird, Nest, Nature features artists inspired by the exquisite beauty of creatures of flight. Birds have long captured the attention of humankind, the earliest evidence of which can be found in cave drawings that reflect all that we cherish in nature from flora to fauna.
Nest IX, screen-based monoprint, Kent Manske, 2018.
Women Eco Artists Dialog: The Legacy of Jo Hanson
Nanette recently co-curated an exhibition of environmental artwork with Janice Purnell of YoloArts in Woodland, California. Sixteen WEAD artists were featured in this dynamic and engaging show which ran March 19—August 22. Pictured below is Judith Selby Lang’s homage to Jo Hanson who was known for sweeping the streets of San Francisco.
We are excited to share our current project with you!
Join us in downtown Redwood City during one of our five public interaction events, or let us know a time that works better for you.
For this commission, we created a 400 year old, Coast Redwood Tree stump by making paper pulp from locally sourced, Redwood City, craft industry byproducts such as: spent beer grain, eggshells, fabric scraps, flower parts and hair. There are 25 unique bark sections which are tagged with legacy tree markers to identify both contributors and byproduct materials. Each section celebrates local labor and honors people who make things with their hands.
Exhibition: February 1—March 8 Outdoor viewing is available 24/7
Artists’ Interaction Dates: Kent & Nanette will be in the Art Kiosk: • Tuesday, February 11, 1—3pm • Wednesday, February 19, 2—4pm • Thursday, February 27, 3—5pm • Friday, March 6, 4—6pm • Saturday, March 7, 10—12pm and by appointment
Art Kiosk Courthouse Square 2208 Broadway Redwood City, California
You are the Tree was commissioned by Fung Collaborative Projects in collaboration with Redwood City Improvement Association for the Redwood City Art Kiosk in 2020.
detail You are the Tree, paper pulp from local craft industries’ byproducts.
Happy New Year! We look forward to seeing you with wide open eyes in 2020.
Save the Date For the last four months, we have been working with over 30 local Redwood City craft industries collecting and making paper pulp out of their byproducts. Our conceptual and sculptural installation, You are the Tree opens February 1, 2020 in Downtown Redwood City.
Please join us for this community celebration of art, history and local labor.
You are the Tree Opening Reception February 1, 2020, 4 – 6pm
Redwood City Art Kiosk 2208 Broadway, Courthouse Square Downtown Redwood City
You are the Tree was commissioned by Fung Collaborative Projects in collaboration with Redwood City Improvement Association for the Redwood City Art Kiosk in 2020.
