Art Exhibit Submissions

Professor Nobu Kurashige

Professor Kurashige was born in the Kochi prefecture and graduated with a Master’s degree in International culture from Yamaguchi Prefectural University, Yamaguchi, Japan. After she married, she moved to New York and worked at the Bank of Tokyo. Upon returning to Japan she enrolled at Ikenobo Kensyugakuin training school where she received the highest honor in all classes.

Since 1986 she has travelled abroad to more than 50 countries to demonstrate ikebana. She was sponsored by the foreign ministry and the headquarters in Kyoto. During this time she was also teaching at the Ikenobo Junior College and was a lecturer for the Doshisha University. She has arranged at the Tokyo National Museum and the Bonn National Museum, and at the Akiyoshidai International Art Village.

In May 2010 she moved to San Francisco to accept an appointment as Head Ikenobo Professor and Managing Director of Ikenobo Ikebana North America. She was appointed to this position to fulfill her mission of expanding the knowledge and study of Ikenobo Ikebana throughout North and South America and regions of Europe.

Prof. Kurashige and her Artwork:

Claudia Borgna

Claudia Borgna graduated from Genoa University (Italy) in Foreign Literature in 1998 and received a Fine Art BA degree from London Metropolitan University (UK) in 2005. Since then she has been leading a nomadic life style exhibiting nationally and internationally and attending several fellowship residency programmes. She is a recipient of the Joan Mitchell, the Pollock-Krasner Grant and the Royal British Society of Sculptors Bursary Award as well as the Pritzker Foundation Endowed Fellowship Award. She was short-listed for the BBC2 documentary: “School of Saatchi” in 2009 and in 2010 was voted winner of the Public Speaks for the Broomhill National Sculpture Prize (UK) as well as short-listed and commended for the British Women Artists Prize.

Her work entails the investigation of what she calls the “evolution of landscape”, a process started and affected by modern life-styles and consumerism. Her installations are the materialization of an ongoing observation and questioning of how the “plastic” and the natural realms interact with one another and thereby come to create new ephemeral orders. She mainly works with recycled plastic bags, which always travel with her all over the world.

Claudia's Art Submissions:

Einat Shteckler

Capturing his environmental installations with photography, Shteckler’s work reminds us of our individual responsibilities to pick up a piece of trash and the impact of our rampant consumption. Creating ecological statements regarding the damage and disposal of plastic waste, Shteckler activates the natural environment by inserting plastic bottles into unpolluted areas, often using his city of Eilat in Israel as a location." Disaster" is a startling and powerful message for the times. Through his subject matter and composition, Shteckler demands his viewer to see humanity’s intrusion into the natural world.

Einet's Art Submissions: Disaster Series

Lisa Jetonne

A native Californian, Lisa Jetonne is one of the identical twin granddaughters of JBL and Altec-Lansing founder James Bullough Lansing. Growing up, she traveled between the working-class home maintained by her grandmother and mother in San Diego, and the Los Angeles home of her writer-filmmaker father. From these roots she developed a deep appreciation for creative inquiry and intelligent tinkering. Lisa studied conservation biology and chemistry at University of Nebraska, and later completed a veterinary technology college program; she worked with animals in zoos, wildlife centers, and veterinary hospitals for more than a decade before switching to the arts. Her interest in science and conservation remain key influences in her artwork. Lisa’s home and studio are in the Bay Area of northern California.

Lisa's Art Submissions:

My entries are both large sculptures. Two views of each are attached; one with the standard gradated gray photo background for the best monitor viewing; one with a dark background that is better for projected images. A final attached image is one of the entries, with two people also in the frame, to give you a better idea of its relative size. (This last jpg is only for your reference information and is not included in my release; I did not shoot that image in any case and thus cannot release it for publication.)

Cropland
Stoneware and Porcelain, 17 inches x 17 inches x 6 inches.
Abstracted, aerial view of flooded croplands, this sculpture is intended to prompt discussions and ideas about the positive consequences of rice field flooding, which include the creation of fish nurseries, migratory waterfowl habitat, and increased soil fertility in the following crop years.

Earthtide
Stoneware, 17 inches x 17 inches x 8 inches.
Tide pools, estuaries, bays, rocky shorelines: visual images entwined with memories of a coastalchildhood, these habitats are fragile ecosystems, delicate and beautiful.
Although these are 3-d sculptures and exhibit well in-the-round, they are formed in such a way that they also show well on a pedestal that's up against a wall; this is often how they've been exhibited. The images I've sent are the "fronts" of the sculputures.

Robin Goodfellow

Robin Goodfellow is founder of Mandala Fluteworks in Oakland, CA, where she teaches music, art and science to adults and children. She is an accomplished musician, paper artist and innovator with a passion for recycling and creative reuse of materials of all kinds. She has consulted on projects for Klutz Press; written books including "Cutting Corners" about what to do with the corners of used envelopes, and "Card Game" which shows many uses for old greeting cards. She creates wind instruments from soda straws and fashions obsolete calendars into new boxes, castles, carousels and paper doll clothes. With her development of a unique way to make free-hand cut paper animals, she has taught and entertained children and adults in libraries, schools, recreation programs, birthday parties and senior centers. She has also performed with musical instruments and paper cutting at the Iowa, Kentucky, and Washington State Fairs, Oregon Art Museum, Renaissance Faires, and in Hawaii. Robin gave seminars at three conventions of the Guild of American Papercutters, of which she is a member. Robin recently added a delightful addition to her presentation: her little dog, “Poochinella," a Bichon Frise, a breed trained for centuries to do tricks with street performers.
Robin can be reached at Mandala Fluteworks (510) 530-7835 robingdfllw@earthlink.net

Robin's Art Submissions:

Tamar Assaf

Tamar's Art Submissions: In Flight Series - Artist Statement

For too long, the environment has been taken for granted. Today we understand that entire ecosystems function as a delicate balance of species interacting in a woven tapestry of interdependencies. Even from a human-selfish point of view, Nature Deficit Disorder should raise concern as the environment is important to our existence.

Evoked by the sudden disappearance of bees from the wild, in what is known as the Colony Collapse Disorder that began in late 2006, and the efforts made for their restoration, my In Flight series focuses on the pollinating force of our planet.

Using animal photography as an important part of my artistic process, in this series of atmospheric landscapes I portray bees in flight as if captured through a camera lens. Focusing on the tiny insect, the bokeh (out-of-focus) background is blurry. Capturing the speed and movement of the fragile creature in mid-air, In Flight, the bees too are out-of-focus. The tiny insects may seem insignificant in the large landscape but are crucial to preserving entire ecosystems.

I grew up on the outskirts of a small town famous for its orange orchards, surrounded by rolling hills of wildflowers. I spent long hours fascinated by ants hauling grains along endless trails. In the winter I played in the seasonal pond where tadpoles grew into frogs. As years passed the town expanded, housing projects took over the orchards and wildflower fields. Asphalt roads, concrete slabs and sterile gardening now dominate the landscape. The pond is gone and ants are considered a nuisance.

Due to human activity, animal extinction rates are rising rapidly. Global warming, overexploitation of land and destruction of habitats create imbalanced ecosystems. Many animals no longer exist in the wild and are found only in zoos and reserves.

My artwork is my way of commenting on the loss of animals from the wild.

Tamar's Art Submissions: Crows - Environmental Sculpture

Conscious of human activity that pushes species to endangerment, often opposite influences on synanthropic* species are disregarded. Ecologically associated with humans; these animals adapt to living off of human habitats.

Many of these species are animals that humans try to get rid of, like rodents, cockroaches, lice and pigeons. They flourish in response to expansion of human habitats. By developing resistance to human effort to restrict them, they become immune, grow resilient and actually thrive.

Crows are an example of such synanthropic birds, found in close proximity to human habitats. Whether in sparse rural areas or in crowded cities, crows are always nearby.

Crows are remarkably intelligent, they are known to manufacture and use tools in their search for food. They learned to utilize human environment to their benefit - using bread crumbs as fishing bait, dropping nuts into heavy traffic for cars to crush and expose their inner core.

*from Greek: syn-, "together with" + anthro, "man"

Other Submissions on "Sustainability"

Bill Jackson's Art Submissions: Planet Earth

This image is of an old tree trunk found on Treasure Island, an island in the middle of San Francisco Bay. In Photoshop, when I enhanced the colors already present within the tree trunk, an image that very much resembles the earth appeared. When I look at this image, with its growth lines and aging cracks, it reminds me of how vulnerable this planet is and how we collectively need to protect it by focusing on sustainable activities and smart use of resources.