Oct 16 2005
Home and/or Homeless @ The 2nd City Council
Last night I attended the opening reception of a themed art show called Home and/or Homeless. One of the three jurors were in attendance, as were many of the participating artists. I found it fascinating that, even though there were an amazing variety of media and concepts, the entire show felt cohesive. Photographs, paintings, sculptures, mixed media, and installation pieces lived comfortably together in the gallery space, and outside in the Sato Garden.
Cheryl Bennett, founder and Executive Director of the 2nd City Council Art Gallery + Performance Space, was the gracious hostess, warmly presiding over the award presentations. Her mother, always smiling, helped at the bar, and husband Dwight made sure everything went smoothly. Live entertainment, provided by a group of musicians and dancers dressed in Gypsy garb, lent an exotic air to the proceedings.
There were lots of folks in attendance, including a smattering of local luminaries including Shelley Rugg-Thorp, Rick Frausto, Louise Kripal, Ruben Munoz, Eva Kovlosky (please forgive me if I misspelled!), and countless others. Despite the rather heavy subject matter, the mood of the room was light and positive.
Winning the 1st place award was Margie Darrow, whose piece dealt with Hobo symbols. Eight symbols were presented on plaques that were mounted onto what appeared to be cabinet doors. The piece had a very nice feel to it, with the paint on the plaques crackled beneath the black markings. My brother, who was visiting from Oakland, commented that it reminded him of a recent trend of people marking buildings that had unsecured wireless internet access.
The show runs for about a month. The gallery is open, typically, Wednesday through Sunday from 12-5 PM.
Your brother was talking about Warchalking.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warchalking
Some people have claimed that because Wi-Fi is now so common, Warchalking is no longer necessary, and is therefore dead, even before it really had a chance to catch on.
http://webword.com/moving/warchalking.html
They may be right, but it’s still kind of sad, since the grass-roots aspect of Warchalking had the nice side effect of strengthening the techie community who made and used the marks.
Sometimes I think that I’ll find groups of people parked in front of my house, tapping into my unsecured wifi connection.