SOMArts Cultural Center

Action Speaks! #2: Fight the Budget Cuts! Community Feedback Event for Fundraising & Advocacy

When: Tuesday, February 16 from 6:30pm to 8:00pm
Where: SOMArts Main Gallery, 934 Brannan St, San Francisco

On February 1, the San Francisco Arts Commission approved a $104,000 budget cut for SOMArts in 2010-11. Help us fight the cuts by coming together to share ideas for advocacy and plan a fundraiser. SOMArts’s Executive Director Lex Leifheit will present some ideas that have been suggested by the staff, including a benefit concert, printmaking marathon, and online auction.

The success of ALL our ideas hinges on community support, fun, collaboration and creativity, so if you rent our space, show your work or volunteer at SOMArts—please join us and tell us what would excite you, what you think would be successful, and how you can help.

A light dinner will be served, so please RSVP in advance to debbok@somarts.org.

Opening tonight: Prints Byte

Please join us tonight for the opening of “Prints Byte: the cutting edge of printmaking.” We are trying something new and hosting a brief curator & artist talk at 6:30pm. Come early if you would like to hear more about the ideas and artists who shaped this show, or come between 7pm and 9pm to celebrate and enjoy music by DJ Juan Luna-Avin. We hear that The Great Tortilla Conspiracy will be making an appearance!

In addition to more than 30 artists, several organizations and collectives will be participating in this exhibition, including Chrysalis Print Studio, Creativity Explored and Mission Grafica, among others. “Prints Byte” explores many of the ways that the field of printmaking is redefining itself with new technologies, new processes and new direction.

For more information about events related to Prints Byte, click here.

Design Your Valentine at SOMArts’s Printmaking Workshops

As part of the upcoming exhibition “Prints Byte,” SOMArts is offering two very special Valentine’s themed printmaking workshops. Tuition is $50 and includes materials.

To register, please read the registration and attendance policy, and fill out a registration form.

Valentine’s Day Printmaking Fest for Grown-ups
Saturday, February 13, 1:00pm to 3:00pm
For Valentine’s day, dip a naked toe into the fabulously fun art of printmaking! Linocut transforms the simplest of images into bold, dramatic prints that can be transferred to paper or fabric. In this workshop you’ll carve a simple design and then use your linocut plate to print colorful and unique rainbow-roll Valentines. The hand-printing techniques you’ll learn will enable you to continue printmaking at home! Beginners welcome. Instructor: Katie Gilmartin

Valentine’s Day Printmaking Fest for Kids (age 8-13)
Saturday, February 13, 10:00am to 12:00pm
Come explore the serendipitous world of monoprints using your fingers, brushes, rags, rollers, leaves, fabrics, stencils — and dazzling color! At the end of your printing time, you will take home cards and images for Valentines. Monoprints are unique images, so no two prints are ever exactly alike. Bring with you a few leaves or flowers, doilies, or other thin, flat items you are willing to ink up in your printing experiments! Instructor: Sarah Jelley

Reminder: Curatorial Residency Q&A Today

Last-minute reminder! SOMArts is hosting a virtual opportunity to talk directly to The Commons program organizers and ask any questions you might have about the application process, today at 2pm. Chat online, in real time, with SOMArts’s Executive Director Lex Leifheit, and Curator & Gallery Director Justin Hoover. To access the online chat room, paste this url into your browser: http://www.chatzy.com/491156529827.

Submit! Deadline for 100 Performances for the Hole is This Week

Image credit: Ariel Goldberg, 100 Performances from the Hole #1—Garage Biennale)

With 100 Performances for the Hole—Take Two, San Francisco’s premier experimental performance art exhibition returns, and we want YOU to submit!  Beginning at 5:58pm on March 6, SOMArts will commence a progression of one hundred two-minute performances, concluding when all pieces are completed. This tour de force of the gentle expresses the zeitgeist of Bay Area experimental culture and beyond.

To submit a work please fill out the online submission form. Deadline for submissions is January 31.

For examples of past two-minute performances, presented at The Garage, click here.

Reminder: Figure Drawing & Curatorial Walkthrough Today

The sun is shining! Looking for an excuse to get out of the house … or a reason to flex those creative muscles? Look no further.

What: Saturday Morning Figure Drawing at SOMArts
Where: Brannan St entrance, upstairs classroom
When: every Saturday from 10:30am to 1:30pm, except holidays
What else: admission is only $8, moderator and live model provided. Drop-ins are always welcome.

What: Curatorial Walkthrough and Closing Reception for Invisible Homes
When: Saturday, January 23, 1:00 – 2:00 PM
Where: Main Gallery
What else: Visit the gallery for one last time before Invisible Homes comes down.  This is your chance to barrage the curator with your comments and questions.

Reminder: Visual Arts & Community Conversation Tonight At SOMArts

Have you ever wondered how the city’s six cultural centers select visual artists and serve the community as a whole, or individually? Tonight, you can learn more about the role of the cultural centers in building strong communities through the arts, and have your questions answered during “Definitions,” an open forum with visual arts representatives from each of San Francisco’s six cultural centers - African American Art & Culture Complex, Bayview Opera House, Queer Cultural Center, Asian Pacific Islander Cultural Center and Mission Cultural Center for Latino Arts, as well as SOMArts. This is the first event of the Community Leadership Roundtable Series, a new program designed to foster dialogue between the public and the cultural centers about leadership and cultural communities.

What: Definitions, an open forum moderated by SOMArts Curator & Gallery Director Justin Hoover
When: 7:00pm, Thursday, January 21, 2010
Where: SOMArts Main Gallery, 934 Brannan St
Free Admission

Queer Cultural Center Seeks Submissions for Chronotopia

In keeping with the theme of this year’s National Queer Arts Festival, “Making History,” the Queer Cultural Center has announced the call for entries for its visual arts exhibition Chronotopia, which will take place in June 2010 at SOMArts.

Chronotopia will present work that engages queer history as its catalyst. This exhibition explores the past, present, and future temporalities of queer people and records histories in new and challenging ways.

For more information, or to download an entry form, visit www.queerculturalcenter.org.

Save the Date: Prints Byte Opens in Main Gallery February 5th

(image: Branches by Christina Empedocles)

Exhibition: Friday, February 5 through Saturday, February 27
Opening: Friday, February 5, 2010, 7:00 – 9:00 PM
Artist Talk: Friday, February 5, 6:30 – 7:00 PM
Gallery Hours: Tuesday – Friday 12:00  – 7:00 PM, Saturday 12:00 – 5:00 PM

Beginning on February 5, 2010 SOMArts Cultural Center’s Main Gallery invites the public to experience Prints Byte: the cutting edge of printmaking, an exploration of experimental, digital, and installation-based printmaking. Co-Curated by Justin Hoover and Hanna Regev, Prints Byte looks at new ways that the field of printmaking is redefining itself with new technologies, new processes and new direction.

For more information about events related to Prints Byte, click here.

SOMArts Seeks Proposals for The Commons Fund & Curatorial Residency

SOMArts Cultural Center Executive Director Lex Leifheit announced today a new source of support for artists and curators—The Commons Fund and Residency. With support from the Fund, up to six curators each year will receive free exhibition space in the SOMArts Main Gallery, and those living in San Francisco are eligible for financial support to engage the Bay Area’s many cultural communities, expand their practice and turn vision into reality.

Leifheit commented, “the SOMArts Main Gallery was founded by San Francisco Art Institute graduates as an alternative venue for unique and non-mainstream work, and 30 years later we are still an essential large-scale venue for any artist or curator who wishes to engage the Bay Area’s cultural communities. By creating the Commons Fund and Residency, we are expanding our commitment to artists during a time of great need, and encouraging their continued work of fostering a vital cultural life in San Francisco.”

At press time, SOMArts had secured resources for up to six individuals or organizations to receive the following: financial support consisting of a curatorial stipend and materials reimbursement ranging between $500 and $1,000, a month-long exhibition in the SOMArts Main Gallery, technical assistance, and marketing support. Leifheit said they were still actively pursuing individual donors and like-minded foundations.

The deadline for proposals is Wednesday, February 17. For more information and application materials, click here.