Sacred Terrain, New work From Ed Kirshner... Opening Party 2/12/11

Sacred Terrain

Black & white photography by Cathy Shine,
Illuminated by the plasma sculpture of Ed Kirshner.
Guest curator Craig Riedel , free psychic readings by Virginia.
Show runs February 1^st through March 19th
Opening party February 12^th, 2011 6 to 9pm
Live improvised music by Cornelius Boots and Freddi Price

About the artists:

Cathy Shine

Photographing since 1974, Cathy has performed her own darkroom responsibilities, including printing, developing, artistic editing and composition. Working exclusively in the medium of black and white, her efforts have achieved technical elegance demonstrating a true quality un-touched by the onset of the digital age. From 2001 on, Cathy has illustrated her mastery in Sepia thereby enhancing the historical quality of the finished product. Each ultimate piece is a true work of art, sometimes taking 30 hours to complete.

These prints are unique, hand-prepared and timeless. Her photographs of forgotten scenes and now historical memories depict life on the Earth's most spectacular, aesthetic and sacred terrain. All photographs produced in her inventory are hand-processed in a darkroom, hand-spotted and sepia-toned by individual effort. Her images are produced in the traditional concept and not digitally captured or enhanced. Completed photos are burned, dodged and printed on fiber based paper, (now approaching extinction), that demonstrates, (since 1977), years of devotion to her craft. Any Cathy Shine photograph will be an appreciated piece of art and an addition to one's legacy collection. cathyshine.com 

Ed Kirshner 

Artist statement:

Like Dr. Frankenstein in his lab, I hover over my glass and gas plasma work, spending many hours mixing, balancing and fine-tuning. Still, the plasma light behaves in a way that I can never completely control. I can change or direct its behavior by varying the pressure and mix of gases, or the frequency and the voltage of the power, but I can never fully predict the detailed effects any of my actions will have. Though frustrating at times, this unpredictability is at the very heart of my work. This is the personality, the mystery, the life that I try to create in my sculpture.

Ed Kirshner of Oakland, California was born in New York City in 1940.  He studied architecture and sculpture at Cornell University, the University of California at Berkeley and the Oskar Kokoschka School of Vision in Austria.  After thirty years of developing and financing affordable housing, he returned to study art at the California College of the Arts in Oakland as well as at Pilchuck and Corning glass schools and Northlands Creative Glass in Scotland.  His glass and gas plasma sculptures have been exhibited throughout the U.S. as well as in Taiwan, Japan, Australia, Austria, France and Turkey. His work, “Cone of Chaos”, was a Corning Glass selection in 2000 and is included in Corning's recent book "25 Years of New Glass Review."  His piece, "Java High," was a recent acquisition of the di Rosa Fine Arts Preserve in Napa, California.  Ed has taught glass and gas plasma workshops in the U.S. as well as in Asia and Europe and is on the faculty of The Crucible Fire Arts School in Oakland and the Glass Furnace in Turkey.  He is also on the Technical Advisory Board of the Museum of Neon Art (MONA) in Los Angeles and served several years as its Treasurer and a Trustee.  aurorasculpture.com 

About the Guest Curator, Craig Riedel:

Professional photographer and owner of Gamma black + white photo lab in San Francisco, Riedel has been printing and processing “Old School” negatives for over 30 years.  gammasf.com.

Opening night music:

Cornelius Boots and Freddi Price will be creating structured, improvised textures in response to the artwork utilizing shakuhachi (Japanese bamboo flute), Taimu (bass shakuhachi), clarinet, bass clarinet, electric guitar and drone loops.

East Bay reed renegade Cornelius Boots is a progressive rock composer, bass clarinet performance specialist, wu wei woodwind instructor and Zen flute adept.  Since 1996, he has led and released two albums with Edmund Welles, the world’s only composing bass clarinet quartet, for which he has composed and arranged over 60 pieces of virtuosic “heavy chamber music.”  Recent projects include Sabbaticus Rex (elemental sound-structuring ensemble) and mukyoku etudes: 27 Training and Performance Pieces for Taimu shakuhachi (large Zen bamboo flute). He has three music degrees (clarinet, audio, jazz) and is currently working towards his shihan (master teaching license) in shakuhachi. sabbaticusrex.com