Gisela Alvarado has been extensively involved with the Latino Photography Project and has exhibited at Gallery Route One, Toby’s Feed Barn Gallery, the Bolinas Museum as well as the Center’s annual Photographer’s Group Show and the Spring Art Show.

She states “I like photography because it reminds me of unforgettable moments, transmitting different sentiments that happen in each instant of my life. Life is full of illusions and challenges to face; every day I see myself growing. To be fully in the moment is the most beautiful experience, observing and capturing the smile of a child, the beauty of a landscape. It is like the sun illuminating our days, seeing the clouds with different shapes. Seeing helps me to sense textures and smells.”

“The best part of photography is the connection between time and space. That’s why I think that with both the art of photography and magic, there is only the now. It’s the expression of stories lived and living.”

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Artist Statement: My name is Tim Arnoux I am 73 year old.  I was born in a small town on the south shore of Long Island, NY and have resided in the San Francisco Bay area for 50 years.I am a retired contractor and one of my passions has been woodworking.  I love the look, smell and textures that woods possess, and how they capture the senses and imagination.   I use woods from around the globe, from the black woods of Africa, to the rich violets of South America.  I also use many of our local woods.  I do not use stains or dyes in my work but would rather let the richness of the woods speak for themselves. My passion is inlay and enjoy laying each tiny piece into intricate patterns.  My style is fashioned after the 18-19th century French and English cabinets.  

My wife and I own a 122 year old home in West Marin which I have been restoring since 1985.  My love of marquetry started with the floors in our home and has extended to my furniture.  Each of my pieces is one of a kind.  I hope you enjoy my work.

Contact information:  Tim Arnoux, 415-717-0136, PO Box 156, Lagunitas, Ca 94938 Instagram:  Tim_arnoux_woodworking

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Artist Statement

I have been involved in painting and photography for over 50 years. I always enjoyed the creative process since I was a small child. I enjoy painting the world around me so therefore many of my paintings are of landscapes and flowers. I paint mostly in watercolor, Acrylic and pastels.I love to travel and I am a travel consultant. I take many photographs on our many trips throughout the world. I paint from these photographs and also do some plein air painting on trips when time permits.For me painting is meditating. It is my quiet time to sit with myself and feel emotions- letting thoughts come and go. It is the celebration of life and a way to express my feelings for nature and the beauty of God’s world. Painting paths I’ve walked and places I have been keeps my memories alive and brings back the place, path or person to my mind. I love painting flowers and growing them.

Tim Cain is a Woodacre resident who grew up in San Anselmo. For decades, listeners have been impressed by Tim Cain's prodigious musical abilities. As a sax player, he co-founded the popular San Francisco rock group Sons of Champlin in 1965.

The band appeared regularly at the Fillmore Auditorium, Avalon Ballroom and Winterland when they were not on the road touring nationwide throughout the late 60's. They released 6 albums for major labels and shared the stage with groups such as Jefferson Airplane, Grateful Dead, Big Brother and the Holding Company, Taj Mahal, Van Morrison, Moby Grape, Joe Cocker, Steve Miller, Santana, The Byrds, Chuck Berry, Jan and Dean, The Righteous Brothers, Dick and Dee Dee, The Ventures, Band from Big Pink and many others.

After he parted ways with the Sons in 1970 he joined a communal farm in the Six Rivers National Forest, near Willow Creek California, wanting to raise his young family in the deep woods. After 14 years they left that farm and headed back home towards Marin, first spending a year on the island of Kauai before returning to Tim's beloved West Marin in 1985.

When back in Marin, Tim began to pertorm for kids. This tun pastime blossomed into a joyful 30 year career of sing-and-dance-along performances and recordings for children. Tim's concerts provided an opportunity for children, as well as parents, to participate in a positive group experience with singing and movement. His warmth, good humor, and spontaneity made his shows engaging and accessible to all. Lots of laughter accompanied a rollicking good time! He knew that happy childhoods last a lifetime, and his efforts contributed to that goal by giving young audiences a dose of joy they would cherish and remember. In his work, he not only imparted his love of music, but offered himself as an example for the kids; at age seven Tim contracted Polio and was paralyzed from the waist down, needing crutches for walking for the rest of his life. Nonetheless, he believed children benefited from seeing him, with his handicap, as "just a regular person whose legs don't work".

'. He charmed his young audiences with the same indomitable spirit that helped him overcome adversity, and his happy-to-be-alive attitude is infectious and inspiring.

"I've always loved painting, but until the pandemic arrived I was too busy with my music to devote as much time to it as I would have liked. Covid 19's "introvert's paradise' allowed me to spend much more time at the easel, and I am proud to present to you my work from the last 2 years."

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"My love of the natural world originates in my childhood, growing up in the forests of upstate New York and the rocky coast of Maine. Currently I’m a retired high school art teacher enjoying the free time to paint and ride my bicycle. My work tends to be eclectic in approach and subject matter. It ranges from magical realism to bird portraits to boats, incorporating landscapes, flora, and a variety of animals."

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Owen Clapp is a bass player and writer living in the San Francisco Bay Area.He has had the opportunity to play upright and electric bass for a diverse range of artists, including Anderson .Paak, Dumbfoundead, George Watsky, India Carney, Ari Afsar, and Grammy award-winning Jazz musicians Jonah Levine, Ruslan Sirota, Mads Tolling, Evan Price, and Bill Cunliffe. His recording credits include work with Grammy-nominated producers Julian-Quán Việt Lê and Jeff Kolhede.Owen’s writing focuses on the people and history of West Marin, California, and appears in publications like the Pulitzer Prize-winning Point Reyes Light newspaper - as well as in a book in the nationwide Images of America series.

http://owenclapp.com

I moved to the valley when i was in kindergarten and have an art studio at my house. I am a very creative person and enjoy making art and doing theater. I have lots of memories of enjoying art when i was younger and will love to make more.

Albert Flynn DeSilver (besides being the development coordinator at the San Geronimo Valley Community Center) is an internationally published poet and prose writer, sometimes visual artist/book-maker, speaker, and workshop leader. Albert received a BFA from the University of Colorado and an MFA from the San Francisco Art Institute.  Albert taught as a California Poet in the Schools for more than a decade and served as Marin County California’s very first Poet Laureate from 2008-2010. He is the author of several books of poems including Letters to Early Street, and his work has appeared in The New York Times, Chicago Review, Adventure Journal and more than 100 literary magazines worldwide. Albert is also the author of the memoir Beamish Boy, which was named a “Best Book of 2012” by Kirkus Reviews. His latest nonfiction book, Writing as a Path to Awakening: A Year to Becoming an Excellent Writer and Living an Awakened Life—based on his popular writing workshops by the same name—was published by Sounds True in 2017. Albert is also a teacher and speaker having presented with U.S poet laureate Kay Ryan, bestselling authors' Cheryl Strayed, Elizabeth Gilbert, Maxine Hong Kingston and many others. He is the founder of the 100,000 Word Weekend event series and teaches writing at various institutes and literary conferences around the world. More information about his work can be found at www.albertflynndesilver.com or www.100KWW.com

Rudi Dundas is a photographer focused on travel, wildlife and environmental issues. She photographed wild tulips in the Tien Shan Mountains for Michael Pollan’s film, BOTANY OF DESIRE, as well as in Rwanda, Ethiopia, Uganda, Tanzania, Malawi, and Indonesia covering sustainable farming for Peet’s Coffee, US AID, and others. She has photographed extensively in Ethiopia, Uganda, Kenya and West Bengal for drinking water issues.

A recipient of fellowships from the NEA, NY Foundation for the Arts and the Adobe Foundation, she was nominated for a Lucie Award for international photography in 2014.  Rudi served on the board of directors of Artforum magazine for 20 years and served on the board of The American Photographic Artists in San Francisco from 2011-2015.

Rudi lives in the San Geronimo Valley when she is not traveling in her Airstream trailer, photographing “on the road…”

Instagram: @rudi.on.the.road

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Anne Faught:

I am a long time Woodacre resident and have a studio in the historic ICB in Sausalito’s Marinship District. I am a mixed media artist and have worked in watercolor, acrylic, oil, drawing mediums, photography, film, printmaking, ceramics, fiber arts and sculpture including bronze casting, teaching most of these mediums.  I have taught studio art and art history most of my adult life.  I am also an art therapist working with a variety of populations. My work is in many corporate and private collections in the US, France and Greece.

B.F.A. San Francisco Art Institute

M.A. University of San Francisco at Lone Mountain

Doing art is the way I have always integrated experiences; bringing the outside to the inside, the inside to the outside, the invisible to the visible and I love working on that ambiguous edge.  My drawings lean towards the representational, my paintings pushing into more numinous realms, the sculptural pieces spanning both. Sometimes I incorporate materials into my work that have had a former function; ephemera, maps, tickets etc, bringing bits of memory and experience into the work. I am very interested in routes and lines, how we are connected through time and space by visible and invisible strands of communication lines, blood lines, shipping lines, boundaries, mark making, harmonies. . .  the variety of trails that make up the constellations of our lives. Starting new work  I usually pursue a theme I am interested in but sometimes color, experiences I want to work with will trigger a beginning. The painting in this profile is called "Drift Dive", 36" x 36".  As a scuba diver, one can dive a wall or a reef and stay in an area. A drift dive means you let the current take you whatever direction it is going(and the boat will follow you).  My painting is often this kind of process.  I direct it and it directs me--a conversation. The practice of art making is a constant process of renewal and discovery and the surprises on the canvas can sustain us as artists. I feel very fortunate to have found this practice early in my life.

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Essence recently received national and international acclaim for her work with Bernie and the Believers through NPR’s Tiny Desk Concert series and BBC. “The story of Bernie and the Believers is the most powerful I've ever come across at the Tiny Desk.” - Bob Boilen, (host and creator of NPR's online music show All Songs Considered and NPR's Tiny Desk Concerts series.)

Essence has released six albums of her original music on both independent and major labels and had numerous film and television placements. Her forthcoming album “Father’s Daughter” is an honest and at times humorous account of her losses and wins; to the bone and from the heart. The album is fully steeped in the rich traditions of Appalachian, Americana and Country music and slated for release in Fall 2023. She is also one half of the tribute project “Johnny and June Forever”, in partnership with Danny Uzilevsky shining light on the music and legend of Johnny Cash and June Carter Cash. When Essence is not in the studio recording, or on the road touring, she is a voice coach and leads powerful workshops called “Finding Your Voice '' for artists and business professionals. Essence is also the founder and executive director of a powerful non profit called ‘Believe Music Heals’ which is dedicated to transforming lives through the healing power of music. Essence is also a dedicated mother to a wonderful son and daughter.

Minouche Graglia is an artist whose visionary paintings depict the sacred and interconnectedness of all forms of existence.

Born in Southern France in 1957, she was imbued with the beauty of frescoes in houses, in churches.

As a child, the natural world was her playmate and her companion.This is when Minouche developed a genuine love for the earth, and for all forms of Life.

At age 10, Minouche was touched by the Healing Grace of Mother Mary. It saved her from severe sunstroke.This set her on her path as a healer.

In 1993, she received a diploma from the International School of Frescoes, in Venice. For two decades, Minouche worked in Europe, creating murals and frescoes.

In 1998, Minouche made Marin County,her home. At her son, Loucas' school, Minouche dedicated her painting skills to empowering children of all ages to express their creativity.

In 2002, a voice in her head clearly said to her, "You are going blind." This message led her to a successful surgery saving her sight from glaucoma.

Church frescoes. Love of Nature. Divine Grace. Her sight saved. All of this prepared Minouche to receive her first painting message from the spiritual world in 2004:

“IT IS TIME TO PAINT THE PEACE LEADERS.”

She dedicated six months of her life to rendering a 5’ x 8’ mural using earth pigments on canvas: “Peace Makers, The 13 Indigenous Grandmothers Council.

She became an artist of visionary painting as healing and awakening art.

ARTIST STATEMENT

"Beyond painting and gardening, I am good for nothing." Claude Monet.

I am a painter and landscape artist.  The interactions of earth,air, water and fire intrigue me and inform my art.  My favorite place to paint is the liminal zone: where ocean meets land, lakes lap the shore and rivers tumble over rocks.  Awash in sounds, light and wind, I hold on to my palette and paint my love of the world.  Fifty years of meditation help me observe the balancing act of the elements during the painting process. I trust in the wisdom of my sensations to paint me home.

I have a serious addiction to color and have burrowed deeply into the color theory of Johannes Itten.  My composition derives from the play of hues. In my abstract work, I invite the viewer to experience internal light through the play of color and form. To whet my appetite for fire, I follow the pilgrimage to Burning Man to create art on the playa.

My paintings are a prayer to heal myself and share my amazement with this big beautiful ever changing world.

BIOGRAPHY

Growing up in Ontario, Canada, most of my days were spent playing in the woods and the water.  My sisters who were partners in exploration are also wonderful artists.  From these experiences, I have deep connections and trust in the natural world.  In high school, I won a scholarship to Doon School of Fine Art.  After finishing school at Queen's University, where I spent a lot of time in the art studio, I ventured to India where I had many meetings with remarkable men and women. I found my path of meditation. While traveling, I would trade sketches for food and lodging when I was low on money.  Drawing and painting have been a constant in my life.  I met my husband in a monastery in Bodh Gaya, India.  We have two children and lived in Mendocino, California for twelve years.  I began gardening professionally there, creating romantic landscapes for inns on the Pacific Coast.  Monet had seventeen gardeners.  At one point when we moved to Marin, I had a cast of forty gardeners to help install and maintain the landscapes I designed.  My landscape company thrived and now my two children are in charge.  I am free to paint full time.  I love painting plein aire in California as well as on the shores of Lake Huron.  Connie Smith Siegel and Jackie Kirk are painters I have studied with.  I treasure their generosity of spirit.

Peg Hunter is a freelance documentary photographer and videographer. Her work focuses on climate justice, social justice and immigration, and highlights the communities and creative activism that come together to work for positive social change.

Her images have been published in Yes! Magazine, SF Examiner, Common Dreams, NACLA, Truthout, Grist, Ms. Magazine, KQED, Food and Water Watch and Earth Island Journal, and several images were recently added to the Library of Congress permanent collection.

Peg graduated with a film degree from California Institute of the Arts and spent over 3 decades working with challenging visuals in the film industry, both locally at Industrial Light & Magic and in New Zealand at Weta Digital, before transitioning to documentary photography and videography.

Peg is a member of the Guild Freelancers Unit of the. Pacific Media Workers Guild.

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Lars Johnson was born in 1949 in Seattle Washington and grew up in San Francisco. After high school he worked as a merchant seaman, attended college, and spent time living in France and North Africa. Additionally, Lars began playing the piano at the age of 9. From the late 60’s through the early 2000’s he composed original music and performed with his own band on radio, television, and in concert. He continues to find inspiration from music today.Always interested in process, Lars makes his own oil paint and printing ink by the traditional method of mulling raw pigment with linseed oil. This allows him to super saturate the medium with pigment, giving his palette a unique look.Lars Johnson continues to work as a painter and printmaker in his studio in the Hunters Point Shipyard in San Francisco.

instagram: @studiolarsjohnson.com

Richard Lang is a poet, short story writer, performer, painter, and printmaker. His stories seek to link the modern human with the natural world.

As a studio artist, Richard Lang draws with a variety of mediums including the notoriously difficult monoprint and watercolor, that he describes as either rock climbing or downhill skiing. For 20 years he has been transforming his studio into “The Large Hadron Collider”, a device for discovering the Higgs/Boson Particle of Art. He feels he has uncovered the elusive critter—awaiting peer review. He is a recipient of the Marin Arts Council Individual Artist Grant in poetry which funded the production of his artist book, Restaurant Stories, that is now in the special collections at The Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley.

Richard was co-founder of Electric Works serving for 20 years as President and raconteur for the gallery, store and fine art photography and printmaking studio in San Francisco. He has a BA from George Washington University in Washington, DC and an MFA from the University of Wisconsin.

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I grew up in San Francisco, California and consider myself a California artist, influenced by a multicultural, creative and thoughtful environment. We did take our family to live in Israel for a few years and that added another dimension of culture to our lives.

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I studied Art and Botany in college (Mills College and UC Davis) and always merged the two in my artwork and designs. I consider myself a painter, who is in love with ceramics. I learned ceramics at a young age (11 at Ruby O’Burke’s studio in SF) and have always found a way to work with it and continue learning more about it.
I ran my own textile product design company for 10 years, Liz Lauter Designs where we screen printed my garden designs onto useful textiles, like aprons, totes and t-shirts and sold wholesale. (www.lizlauterdesigns.com). I continue designing products on a smaller scale now through other manufacturers.

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In 2000 I needed a regular income and so I began teaching high school art in Marin County, at Redwood High School where I live. I was first hired to teach Photography even though I knew NOTHING about darkroom photography. I learned quick, and soon took over the Ceramics program where I taught for almost 20 years. I retired in 2019 and finally have all my time to myself to create my work.

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We live now just north of San Francisco in a heavenly place called, West Marin, which was the safe haven for the SF Hippies of the 1960’s. In many ways, it still is.

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The Tree of Life is my constant source. I love it in folk art form as an embellished ritual object, the “Arbol de la Vida” candelabra. And it is my fantastical stage set for narratives with Adam and Eve who’s daily life moments I tell from Eve’s perspective. The worlds I create are decorative animated Persian gardens where arabesque coils whip and curl with dangling birds, berries, fruits and flowers. My work is evolving as a feminine expression of what it feels like to be Eve through abstract and narrative forms. Unabashedly bejeweled with beads and botanical forms, I reference my early studies in plant anatomy to invent my own blossoming personifications.Terra cotta clay feels like Mother Earth to me when I create my decorative worlds of abundance. Delicately sculpted flowers, leaves, birds, fruit dangle on wires, animating the whole. I attach my own hand worked glass baubles onto some of my finished pieces. I glaze my pieces with Italian majolica glaze and imported Italian hand painted colors using traditional majolica techniques.

Artists Statement and Bio
I started making art before understanding what I was doing. Art was just part of life since the beginning, watching my father make his living as an artist.As far back as I can remember, I only wanted one thing: be an artist too. Once I purely painted for beauty, serenity, and the moment to share the changing qualities of the life and environment surrounding us, but I now also work as an historian, documenting this moment in time.

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I look for the play between reflected light and cast shadows and reduce it to the simplest shapes and forms. I seek to capture that evasive moment as it changes from minute to minute; light shifts, wind plays and weather rearranges. As I advance with my work, colors deepen, shapes simplify, mystery overshadows sweetness, suguestion replaces precision. I think of my art as alchemy: bits and pieces of strokes and materials are transformed into something of value. This value resonates in the hearts of the individual who comes in contact with the work. In this way, my art has been the catalyst in my bonding with people and places I deeply treasure.
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As I progress, my desire is to create mood and story. I look to be moved myself, to feel something. When it all comes together and it works then the magic happens and I feel it like a strong wind is lifting me up and carrying me away.

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Art is not essential for life, it is life.

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Barbara Lawrence is an award winning artist and teacher, working in pastels and oils specializing in our local landscape and our natural and man made environments. Living and working in Marin county California for over 50 years, this area is truly home to her unique vision. She has many collectors including one that has collected over forty paintings in the past 10 years. And as a teacher, she finds it thrilling to see a student progress from an awkward beginning to his or her own awakening as an artist. Many of her students have gone on to win awards.

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You can visit Barbara at Art Works Downtown in San Rafael, CA.

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After a long and successful career as an art director and designer in the fields of graphics, products, and user interface, my focus is once again on fine art. I've also been an illustrator for Detroit based publications and for a time, designed and marketed sumptuous carpets for clients such as Neiman Marcus.BFA University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.

Artist Statement: My work is driven by the often felt absurdity of living. One has to have a bit of a sense of humor in order to survive a life that can be overwhelming and includes that consciousness of the fates that await us. My depictions of human and animals are usually one in the same and my paintings portray characters as friends and friends as characters.Important in my work is my design sense in appreciating shapes and forms of living beings as well as inanimate objects such as trains or hats. My influences include contemporary or historical cultural references ranging from ancient military insurrections to childhood memories of being enamored by Universal Studios films of classic monsters.

My earliest memories are of making art and wanting to be an artist. I studied Drawing, Painting, Printmaking and Textiles at Cal -State Fullerton, earning a B.F.A.  I moved to San Francisco and worked as a cartographer and scientific illustrator for several of years, then returned to academia to earn an M.F.A. at Claremont Graduate University.  While at Claremont I also studied Painting, Printmaking and also developed a deeper appreciation of Art History and Architecture. These studies, coupled with my time traveling and living in Europe, have given me much personal inspiration for my own work.

"I am a healer, author, poet, solo performance artist and radio host. I originally came to California to work with 30 women having surgery for breast cancer. My book "Hands Of Life" has been published in five languages. I perform at open mics Marin and San Francisco. I recently started a business called "Poetry By Choice" to write poems for other people, especially for birthdays, weddings, anniversaries and other celebratory events. I also help people write poetic wedding vows and eulogies."

A PAINTER’S BOOK OF DAYS. These cautionary tales, perceptions, poems, meditations and mysteries are my way of thinking in pictures. They are snapshots of my mind. I have long been involved with a common theme. A union of opposites. Even my painting techniques are involved with it. A quote that I have had pinned to the wall in my studio for years says: "The opposite of Love is not Hate, it is the persistent use of the rational mind."

There is a table in my studio piled high with hundreds of images that I have collected over time. The sum total becomes a giant tapestry. The pictures move, they collide, they exchange energy, they build and fall back. It is a table with multiple questions and answers. A collage will surface and start to take a shape of its own, maybe a face, perhaps a story, and it will become a painting. My rational mind has learned to relax. It will recognize the rightness of the vision.

I used to think that the power of transformation would turn the lights on in the human spirit, that our consciousness would heal the past and transform the world. When the Berlin Wall came down and the Cold war ended the world seemed to be headed ni that direction. We seemed to be learning that communication and negotiation were powerful ways to solve our difficulties. The information highway was created to this end. Through it all, terrible events were brewing and they began to surface again, but our leaders weren't doing their homework, Instead of facing a situation which presents profound new challenges, they preferred to retreat into past feuds and delusions, giving us Ukraine and Israel Hamas, The Trump Administration, Fundamentalism, Murder, Mayhem and WAR.

I have had a wonderful life. I have a beautiful family. I have love and stability. I have dear friends and deep relationships. I live in a beautiful place. I am very aware of all that is positive in my life and am aware of the wider world where wisdom and ignorance whirl in their frenzied dance.

And on technique: I have developed a technique to give my paintings the dimension that is pertinent to al this. I want to enrich the various sides of my visual dialog. I come from a theatre and a glass background and have long been interested ni the play between transparent light and opacity, between reflective surfaces and dul mat ones, the union of opposites at work. I love complex composition, intricate pattern and color because ti embraces the chaos of life and the order I try to bring to it.

I use liquid acrylics and the various mediums that allow for different drying times that I apply with squeeze bottles to build my images like a mosaic.

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Born San Francisco in 1939, parochial and Jesuit school til 12th grade; art education : San Francisco City College, San Francisco State University, BA and graduate work, California College of Arts and Crafts. Standard Secondary Credential in Art and English. Taught High School art 1970-1998.

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Sherry Petrini received her MFA from the SF Art Institute. She’s exhibited in numerous shows with the Community Center including the annual Spring Art Show as well as other galleries and venues throughout the Bay Area.

Sherry writes of her work:  "Trying to escape the bleakness of my early life and the restrictions caused by a serious disability from before memory, I create in my paintings environments where I can encounter the creative, rich life of the spirit. Without my consciously intending to do so, many of these recent works are set in Europe where I traveled many times in my young adulthood to assert my independence. I work quickly, delineating forms with simple lines. The pictures are also touched by the dilapidated charm of darkness and humor caused by the tension between aspiration and unavoidable accident."

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Alicia is an enthralling storyteller and visual arts performer of original and interactive Indigenous stories for all ages. She thrives on exploring Trickster/Shape-Shifter stories like those of Coyote, Raven, Rabbit and Frog. In her expressive telling, they become interesting, funny characters, who embody a range of human emotions and reactions while providing opportunities to transform preconceived ideas and unite audiences in laughter.

Fully embracing the unique personality, body, movement and spirit of each of her characters, Alicia is especially fond of retelling Indigenous stories from her travels to honor the original inhabitants and their land. She also incorporates music, including songs of her own composition in English, Spanish, and various Indigenous languages, along with ethnic instruments (like the didjeridu taught her by the Aboriginal Australian Tjapukai people). Some of her performances include her handcrafted, 7-foot cornhusk puppets as well. Alicia has shared her work at various Indigenous gatherings statewide, including the Coast Miwok Big Time Summer Celebration at Kule Loklo, Point Reyes National Seashore, and the Siakumne Tribe and 4 Element Earth Education at the Salmon and Bear Celebrations at Pata Pnaka Indian Billage (Burton Educational Preserve).

Born and raised in San Diego California, Alicia spent her summers in Huatabampo, Sonora, Mexico, a Yoreme (Mayo) ceremonial town, and traveling along the West Coast and across the US to national, state and historic parks. Growing up in a bi-lingual, Mexican-American household sparked her fascination with cultural diversity and natural history. She has lived, traveled and explored the ecosystems and Native cultural arts in California, Mexico, Hawaii, Panama and Australia. For more than a year, she lived in a deserted, ancient Hawaiian fishing village to deepen her relationship and understanding of nature. She speared fish and lobsters to eat and trade with a Native Hawaiian fisherman, who regularly brought tropical fruits and precious fresh water to her in his outrigger canoe.

Currently, Alicia is studying her own heritage of Yoreme (Mayo) and Yoeme (Yaqui). Her most recent piece, “Two Bears, Woi Hooso, Dos Osos,” adds a twist of fate to the traditional Yoemem “Two Bears” legend of love, betrayal and redemption. In 2021 she told her version of the story at the Tejas Storytelling Conference, “When Home is Two Nations,” with Tim Tingle, Oklahoma Choctaw teller and author, the Silicon Shakespeare Summer Festival “Folktales from Around the World,” and Indigenous People’s Day at Dominican University in San Rafael.

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Alicia resides in the unceded land of the Coast Miwok in Marin County. The former education director for the Museum of the American Indian in Novato, California, she has provided Indigenous cultural education and natural history tours on land and sea along the Southern and Central California Coast since 2005. Alicia is a member of the Miwok Archeological Preserve of Marin, the Marin American Indian Alliance, the National Storytelling Network, the Storytelling Association of California, and the Sierra Foothill Storytelling Guild.

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A resident of the San Geronimo Valley for the past 23 years Sharlyn Sawyer founded Afsaneh Arts - Ballet Afsaneh in 1986. The nonprofit organization first began as a dance and performing arts company, expanding through the years to include a variety of programs.

A prolific artist and choreographer/director Sharlyn Sawyer is considered to be a pioneer in world dance. She has produced and choreographed dozens of original works, as well as expanded traditional Central Asian and Mid-East dance forms for contemporary theater presentation. Her work melds ancient expressive art forms with modern dance and theater in a unique, richly imagistic approach, drawing on cultural heritage to create artwork that resonates with universal ideas. Her knowledge of traditional dance and creative passion led her to make a significant contribution to the preservation and development of Persian/Afghan/Central Asian dance at a critical time in history, directly as a dance artist, choreographer/director, and through the ongoing legacy of her many students.

During a career spanning over 45+ years Sharlyn Sawyer has produced and choreographed performances for the Asian Art Museum of San Francisco, Farhang Foundation/Los Angeles, Cabrillo Music Festival, Marin Symphony, the Aga Khan Foundation, Museum of Fine Arts Houston, Golden Thread Productions, Festival of the Silk Road, Nowrouz San Francisco City Hall, Neekon Festival in Golden Gate Park, and the San Francisco Ethnic Dance Festival. Working internationally, Sawyer has created performances for the British Museum, and was sought out by the San Francisco philanthropic foundation, The Christensen Fund, to establish an ongoing performing arts exchange in Tajikistan. Sawyer has received prestigious grant awards for her work from the Creative Work Fund – Walter & Elise Haas Fund, California Arts Council, the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, The James Irvine Foundation, Silicon Valley Community Foundation, as well as honorary awards from Persian, Afghan and Turkish cultural and humanitarian organizations.

Judith Selby Lang is committed to the creation of positive symbols and life-affirming images to energize the conversation about social, political and environmental issues.

By giving aesthetic form to what is considered to be garbage, Judith serves as both cleaner and curator. While the content of her work has a message about the spoiling of the natural world by the human/industrial world, her intent is to communicate and celebrate.

In an ongoing project, One Beach Plastic, she collaborates with her husband Richard Lang to collect and repurpose beach plastic, transforming the perils of plastic pollution into beautiful and thoughtful works of art. https://www.beachplastic.com

Her ephemeral public art works have graced the San Francisco Civic Center Plaza, the Palo Alto Baylands Nature Preserve, and Stanley Harbor, Hong Kong to name a few.

As a dynamic speaker about the creative life she has presented at the Pitzer Institute for Entrepreneurship in Claremont, CA, Applied Brilliance in Jackson Hole, WY and the Newseum in Washington, DC.

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Virgil Shaw was raised on the coast near Stinson Beach and in Fairfax, he now lives in Forest Knolls with his family. He was born into a family of artists (three generations) who reveled in both visual and musical art and it shows in his work.

He is a renowned singer-songwriter as well as a talented painter and cartoonist. As a musician, Shaw recorded and toured nationally with Dieselhead (including performing two U.S. tours as the opening act for Link Wray). He later toured as Virgil Shaw and the Killer Views and has recorded a number of well received solo albums including Quad Cities, Still Falling and At the Time I Didn’t Care.

As an artist, Shaw has exhibited at San Francisco’s Gallery 16 and the Capsule Gallery in New York. He’s participated in the annual Spring Art Shows but this is his first solo exhibit at the Community Center. Shaw says as much as he likes to paint he currently can’t always find the time. He’s found the ideal creative outlet he needs in his sketches and cartoons which he says he can do at the kitchen table.

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I was born in Cape Town, South Africa. Escaping persecution of those opposed to apartheid, my parents emigrated to the Bay Area when I was one. I was blessed with parents who began collecting my art and transcribing my “spoken poetry” when I was three, and celebrated my countless hours writing and making visual art throughout childhood. I attended Da Nahazli, the school they founded in remote Taos, NM.. Central to its focus were the creative arts as tools of self-discovery; nonviolent conflict resolution; and honoring individuality. I received degrees from UC Berkeley in psychology and environmental studies in 1984. Soon after, with art still my central focus, and much to express after these studies, I took a brief workshop in ceramic tile painting, and fell in love with it as a fine art medium with the exciting added potential for architectural application. As a single mother, I explored innovations with glazes and tiles, and began doing custom pieces for homes and public spaces, and selling my one-of-a-kind tile artworks at juried fine art and craft festivals. In 1994, I married. My husband, Clive Bridges became my work partner, learning to skillfully produce hand painted limited edition copies of my artworks. Clive and I raised two children in the San Geronimo Valley. The natural beauty of this area is very important and powerful to me, as was that of Northern NM. Clive and my work has been incorporated into public places and into many ordinary and extraordinary homes. We have frequent visitors to our studios, cherish our relationships with many collectors and love hearing about people’s personal connections with my imagery. I also continue to work and play on canvas and paper as well as writing, dancing and doing vocal and theatrical improvisation.

Biography- John Torrey

John Torrey was born in New York City and lives and works in Lagunitas, California.  He has been drawing since he was a young boy. His training has included drawing at the Art Students League in New York with Robert Beverly Hale and painting with Chester Arnold in California. John received a Master’s Degree in Architecture from UC Berkeley. His travels have taken him to many parts of the world including a six year period in the gulf states of the Middle East where he worked as a city planner. John's art- consisting of drawings, paintings, and sculpture- often has themes taken from his travels and his work tends to be expressionistic in nature. All of his art, including the sculpture, has a basis in drawing.  John’s portrait of Descartes was included in the Sep, 2009 issue of Architectural Digest.  He has exhibited in the San Francisco Bay Area and other areas of the US, and is in private collections in New York, Boston, San Francisco Bay Area, Cologne, Copenhagen, Hong Kong, and Puerto Vallarta.  Gallery representation: Room Gallery, Mill Valley and Andrea Schwartz Gallery, San Francisco (Hotel Yountville shows).  John has dual citizenship with the USA and the Republic of Ireland.

Artist Statement- John Torrey

The smell of paint and linseed oil is intoxicating to me.  Studios, especially big, open and well lighted studios, are special places.  I grew up in New York City where abstract expressionism was still the dominant force in painting.  What I learned from those days is never go anywhere without a sketchbook for recording ideas, images, experiences.

When I first started traveling, I went to Europe and then after that the Middle East where I lived for a number of years.   Here is where you experience the elementary passions of living.  To walk into a suuq and experience the everyday life, the colorful clothing, the sense of centuries past, the smells, the sounds of the mosques- all this encouraged me to record glimpses of what was around me.

What I am trying to do in my work is to merge my subject matter with compositions in oil- combining line, color, and arrangements into a single image.  The important thing is to maximize the force of imagination in the painting or sculpture so that there are no hesitations in making decisions.  The hand must be free to act quickly and spontaneously, allowing the expression of the art piece to identify itself.

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Graduate of the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts and the University of Pennsylvania. "Pastel with an edge. I paint the energy of things