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
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?”
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.
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.
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.
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
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 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
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.
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 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
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.
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.
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.
Come to Your Census
Kent aided the 2020 Census campaign by providing artwork for their public service announcements.
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.
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.
Winter nears and as we have just been informed by artist/archaeologist, Judith Selby Lang, this is the optimal time to discover choice pieces of plastic on the beach.
Lang’s work includes artist books, mixed media objects, and a wide range of projects using plastic debris collected from 1000 yards of one beach on the Northern California coast. With a barn full of beach plastic—washed, sorted and boxed—collected over the years, Lang has an immense body of work, both independent and collaborative, which reflects our times while engaging viewers from all walks of life in conversations regarding possibilities for improving our environment.
For inspiration on scoring your own treasure trove of the best of the chunky stuff you can read her Whirligig Interview here: whirligig.hungerbutton.org
After 20+ years as a Professor of Art at CSU Chico Nanette makes the transition to full time studio with a solo exhibition in Mountain View.
Nanette Wylde: On Longing and Other Stories
Exhibition: December 14—January 27 Reception: Sunday, January 13, 4—6pm
About On Longing and Other Stories
The exhibition includes prints and handmade artist books which contemplate and celebrate various aspects of both the built and the natural world. These narrative works seek to tease out possibilities of interaction including observations, reflections, judgments and habits of thought and non-thought. The works explore ways to engage the minds of the audience (and the maker) with both visual and textual elements. CSMA Interview with Nanette
The Codex Foundation was conceived in 2005 by Peter Rutledge Koch, fine press printer, and Susan Filter, paper conservator. Its purpose was to create an environment for promoting the book as a work of art. They accomplished this by bringing together the Best of the Best book artists and fine press printers from around the world to share their work, explore new and old concepts, and to start an on-going conversation about the fate and future of the book as an essential art form.
The CODEX VII Book Fair will feature more than 200 Exhibitors from 22 countries and host over 3000 visitors including Special Collections Librarians and Private Collectors from the world’s best libraries.
Sunday, February 3, 12:30—5:30pm
Monday, February 4, 12:30—6pm
Tuesday, February 5, 12:30—6pm
Wednesday, February 6, 10am—3pm
Craneway Pavilion
1414 Harbor Way South
Richmond, CA 94804
Much has been revealed in this engaging and insightful Whirligig Interview with Felicia Rice. Rice is a printer, publisher, writer, visual artist, performance artist and award winning maker of books. She is known internationally for her artist’s book, CODEX ESPANGLIENSIS from Columbus to the Border Patrol, a collaboration with Enrique Chagoya and Guillermo Gómez-Peña. Rice recently celebrated 40 years as Moving Parts Press with a retrospective exhibition: Perseverance furthers: Moving Parts Press 1977-2017 at Felix Kulpa Gallery in Santa Cruz, California. We met up to experience her work, talk about making books, art and working with other creatives.
Sunday March 11, 2pm
Informal Artist Talk with Kent Manske
Conversation with Kent Manske around his installation Cell Garden. Points of departure will include biology, interconnectedness, life cycles, health, healing and epistemology. The artist will briefly talk about his experimental approach using screen printing to produce one-of-a-kind prints that evolve, mutate and synthesize from blank states to living, thriving organisms.
Saturday, April 7, 2pm
Informal Artist Talk with Ginger Burrell
“Subversive Comfort: Artists’ Books as a Tool for Raising Social Consciousness”
Artist Ginger Burrell will discuss the use of the book format by artists to explore political and social concerns. What is it about artists’ books that provide a unique opportunity and approachability not usually found in other artistic media? How can the selection of content, materials, images, scale and design engage a viewer and communicate an artist’s message? Explore examples of artists’ books that attempt to raise social consciousness, including three works by the artist included in the Echo Echo exhibition.
Sunday April 8, 4:30pm
Panel: “Big Dirty Secrets: Three Photographers Engaging in Environmental Advocacy in the San Francisco Bay”
Photographers Judith Selby Lang, Richard Lang and Barbara Boissevain will discuss their ongoing photography projects that address environmental issues in the San Francisco Bay Area. The panelists will share how the devices they use in their work aim to provoke discourse on local issues and encourage environmental stewardship. They will also discuss the relationship between contemporary photography and environmental and social advocacy, including the “Apocalyptic Sublime.” Managed and moderated by Barbara Boissevain.
Saturday, April 14, 4:30 – 6:30pm
“Constellations in Paper,” Bookmaking workshop with Anne Beck and Michelle Wilson
In this workshop, learn the basic of embroidery on paper. Bring a design of your own or use one provided to sew a design onto a sheet of decorative paper. Embroidery on paper can be a little different that the traditional form on fabric, but still can create a wondrous and exquisite design. At the end of this workshop, this embroidered paper can stand alone, or participants will have the option of turning it into a cover for a handmade book! No embroidery or bookbinding experience necessary, all materials provided.
In addition, Anne and Michelle are Artists in Residence at the San Jose Quilt and Textile Museum through March 24, working on the Rhinoceros Project. Visit www.sjquiltmuseum.org/artist-residency/ to learn how to participate in sewing circles and paper-making happenings.
We are appreciating our Bay Area Art Roots with this new Whirligig Interview with Jan Rindfleisch.
Jan is an artist, educator, writer, curator and cultural worker. She was the executive director of the Euphrat Museum at De Anza College in Cupertino for 32 years. During that time she laid the groundwork for an engaged and inclusive museum environment by continuously tapping the diverse local voices of Silicon Valley.
Jan continues her work as a community builder with Roots and Offshoots: Silicon Valley’s Arts Community, a history of the art of the greater South Bay area from the post-Mission era artifacts of our First Nation peoples to the artists and activists that have made the western/southern half of the Bay Area the rich and vibrant scene it is today.
Upcoming Events Book Arts Jam 2017
Sunday, October 15, 2017
11 am – 5 pm
A celebration of book arts presented by the Bay Area Book Artists (BABA), featuring:
• exhibition of artists’ books
• artists selling handmade books
• artist’s talks
• sale of donated books, art, and tools
• demonstrations and hands-on activities
Extra! Extra! Read All About It! It’s a new Whirligig Interview with papermaker, printmaker, bookmaker, conceptual and social practice artist, and art educator, Michelle Wilson!
We are metaphorically euphoric due to this Whirligig Interview with C.K. Itamura.
C.K. Itamura is an interdisciplinary artist, designer and producer.
Her work responds to a wide range of personal and social content; and is realized as richly engaging, metaphorically layered, participatory, conceptual installations.
C.K. is currently exhibiting a trilogy of works under the theme of s+oryprobl=m, in three North Bay locations.
Our own exhibitions during the month of May include: The Art of the Book at Seager Gray Gallery in Mill Valley, California; and #Resist at the Nave Gallery in Somerset, Massachusetts.
Whirligig is feeling the buzz
with a new interview: MicroClimate Collective is the curatorial project of Glenna Cole Allee and Victoria Mara Heilweil. In this interview they share their insights into the Bay Area Art Scene, discuss the concepts and challenges that go into curating diverse exhibitions, and reveal insights into their own creative processes and interests.Â
Read it here: whirligig.hungerbutton.org
The Undercurrents Portfolio which Kent organized last year has found three institutional homes in the Bay Area: The Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, The Oakland Museum of California, and The Peninsula Museum of Art. Many thanks to each of these for acquiring this rich and diverse portfolio of Bay Area printmakers.
Between Us, Nanette’s needle felted book, was recently acquired by Baylor University.
Whirligig is waxing poetic over a new interview with San Francisco-based poet and bookseller, Beau Beausoleil.
Beausoleil is the founder of The al-Mutanabbi Street Coalition, a multi-faceted, global response to the March 2007 car bombing of Bagdad’s historic bookseller’s street and the center of intellectual and literary culture in Bagdad.
In this interview, Beausoleil talks about poetry, writing, bookstores, and The al Mutanabbi Street Coalition as an act of witness.
On March 5th, the anniversary of the bombing, there will be poetry readings all over the world. Look for a reading in your area, or, in the spirit of creative community and witness, start your own.
Whirligig is singing all over the place after publishing this interview with composer, music educator, and concert pianist, Paul Davies who recently completed his first full length opera. The opera, Carlota, is based on the life of Charlotte of Belgium who was Empress Carlota of Mexico during the period in Mexican history known as the French Intervention.
PreNeo Press is out of the doll house over a new Whirligig Interview with Bay Area photographer and artist Diane Cassidy. Cassidy celebrates her 82nd birthday this month with the showing of a new series of photographs at the annual San Francisco Altered Barbie show, and the launch of her first website.
We are putting together the pieces with this summertime Whirligig interview with collage artist and curator Lisa Hochstein.
Lisa recently curated the exhibition Earth • Science • Art for the R. Blitzer Gallery in Santa Cruz. The exhibition paired 16 scientists from the USGS Pacific Coastal & Marine Science Center with 16 Bay Area artists.
Her work can be seen at several Santa Cruz locations this season. Â Find out where and Read Lisa’s interview at: whirligig.hungerbutton.org
Whirligig is all tooled up over a new interview with metal arts artist Valerie Raps and her recent public art project for San José’s  Alum Rock History Corridor Project.
Cultivating Community is a life-size, stylized spring tooth harrow created from fabricated steel and cast bronze. The tines of the harrow are made from casting the arms of ten San José community members.
The sculpture is located at Tropicana Shopping Center at King and Story Roads in East San José.
The dedication ceremony is Saturday, October 29, 10:15 – 11:30 am.