Taraneh Hemami, Lynn Marie Kirby, Cara Levine, and Ali Naschke-Messing

Thresholds of Faith: Four Entries into the Beyond provided the space for four visual artists of differing faith backgrounds (Buddhist, Christian, Jewish, and Muslim) to investigate the meaning of their spiritual practices and religious backgrounds through art making. The exhibition stretched traditional expectations of clear boundaries between faiths and uncovered significant underlying dynamics in the personal/communal journey that each artist explored.

In this exhibition example. Manresa Gallery uses contemporary art to highlight diverse expressions of faith. Each artist was provided a space to contemplate and expand spiritual practices through artistic expression and community exchange, creating unique vantage points from which broader platforms for interfaith dialogue could occur.

Installation Artists; Rebeca Bollinger, Todd Bura, Bryson Gill and Ranu Mukherjee responded both to parish archival material and also to the liturgical objects themselves through a process of investigative storytelling and poetic gestures. The artists offered alternate visual styles and materiality the existing art works and commissions. While transposing their reactions into other media, the artists sustained a balance between the known and the unknowable, the earthly and the heavenly. Each conversant object imparts a partial view of a larger whole often not seen, underplayed or easily lost from sight.

This exhibition was created in honor of the Centennial of St. Ignatius Church at her current site, Manresa Gallery builds upon a long history of commissions dating back to the 19th century. In Partial Views four artists engaged the themes, styles and functions of various objects long associated with sacred rituals at St. Ignatius Church.

Solo Exhibitions: Todd Bura, Michelle Blade, Bryson Gill, Alexander Kori Girard, Rachel Kaye, Jay Nelson, Oliver Halsman Rosenberg, Suzanne Husky, Kyle Mock, Elisheva Biernoff, Michelle Blade, Serena Cole, Hilary Lynn Pecis, Elyse Mallouk, Peter Scherrer, Tara Lisa Foley, Elaine Buckholtz, Christine Shields, Beth Cook, Eleanor Kent

Co-Director/ Owner 2005- 2011

Triple Base invigorated the local art community with experimental art exhibitions and provide emerging artists with artistic mentorship and financial support through art sales and funding through grants. The mission statement aligned with curatorial interests in site-specificity and the desire to provide new opportunities for local emerging artists. We aimed to foster exchanges between a growing network of national and international artistic communities which we believed believed to be one of the best ways to support the careers of emerging artists. Triple Base strove to give an artist the time, space, and resources to create thought-provoking artwork that was accessible to the diverse audience that Triple Base attracted, located along the 24th Street Corridor. The intimate nature of Triple Base’s approach was increasingly more rare as the art world expanded and globalized like never before. We provided an experimental exhibition space for ambitious and dedicated artists to take their work a step further and challenge themselves in their practice.

Yielding California, 2010 – Triple Base Gallery Pop Up Exhibition in Tribeca, New York

Exhibiting artists include: Korakrit Arunanondchai, Nate Boyce, Todd Bura, Michelle Blade, Bryson Gill. Kori Girard, Joseph Hart, Rachel Kaye, Lauren Luloff, Jay Nelson and Oliver Halsman Rosenberg.

California has long provided fertile ground for artists exploring consciousness, searching for utopia, and attempting to reconcile the natural world along with the allure of commercialism. Triple Base presented  bi-coastal artists that work with these ideas. From Beat Art to Bay Area Figurative painting to the Mission School, San Francisco in particular has a rich history as an incubator for innovative artists and art movements that parallel coinciding practices in New York and abroad. With the expansion of the art world and the constant flow of artists and exhibitions moving all over the globe, now the California frame of mind is no longer confined to one location but instead finds roots in like-minded artistic subcultures all over the world

 Open for Making, A Residency for Creativity, 2009

Open for Making was an public art residency program that was inspired by my trip to The Banff Centre in Alberta, Canada where I met with Paul Butler, Director of the Creative Residency Reverse Pedagogy at Banff in November, 2008.  Once back home in San Francisco, I designed a residency program that would take place at Triple Base Gallery every Saturday for five weeks. The goal of these residency was to create an inspiring and productive environment for creative thinking – even if only for one day.

Each day was organized with varied programs and special guests from the community.   This innovative residency program was molded from art school, working directly with practicing artists, embracing new fields of study and by examining alternative teaching models.

Open for Business, 2008

This exhibition was designed to activate Triple Base gallery with alternative art commerce. A weekly rotation of artist booths was designed by fourteen contemporary artists and creative inventors. Each provided an offering of goods, services or information.  I worked closely with triple base artists that were already working with public as part of their art practice.  The set-up facilitated an active space for exchange and social interaction, allowing the artists to highlight their influences or endeavors outside of their regular visual art practice. Each week (Thursday through Sunday) various artists or artist groups manned their custom-designed booths and conducted projects that engaged the public.

Artists: Jesse Schlesinger and Jerome Waag

Site-specific sculptural installation at 155 Grove Street during the international Slow Food Nation event . Schlesinger and Waag are San Francisco-based artists who share a passion for both food and art. The Grove Street collaboration explored the intersection and extend the vernacular of food to social, political, economic and environmental issues. Their conceptual installation took the form of a proposal for a new branch of the San Francisco Library dedicated to seed exchange, as well as the loaning of gardening tools and literature associated with farming, gardening and urban greening. From the street the viewer could see a archetypal model, which embodied the essence of the proposed seed library. In Schlesinger’s view the Grove Street installation represented two potentials: a new branch of the San Francisco Public Library system devoted to a specific environmental effort, and the possibility that individual citizens would think about how art could incite social change.

Sponsored by The San Francisco Arts Commission Gallery, in partnership with New Langton Arts. Co-curated with Australian Curator Justine Topfer

The Art of Change: The Influence of Rock Music and Art on Social Change                                     San Francisco City Hall, 2009

As part of the ongoing Art at City Hall program, I worked for the San Francisco Arts Commission Gallery to present an exclusive multi-media exhibition featuring iconic photography, rock and roll poster art, and live music memorabilia. Wolfgang’s Vault is the world’s largest collection of live concert recordings and music memorabilia, which includes the vast archive of Bay Area music promoter Bill Graham. The San Francisco Bay Area has long been a hotbed for social activism and inventive musical performances and the materials included in this exhibition reveal the stories that have both contributed to and documented significant social changes of the past five decades.