Category Archives: downtown oakland

bayVAN

This post continues the chronicle of my escapades this past Friday night, another “First Friday” in Oakland. In fact, the rest of the week will highlight the various venues hit… expect posts to get shorter and images to get blurrier as evening progressed!

And a bit of a heads up… next week (while I am on vacation ~ woo hoo!) I’ve got some posts lined up about some of the key influential African American leaders in Oakland’s history. I took a walking tour last weekend (provided free of charge thanks to the city, despite their budget woes) and it was fascinating! I hope you will find it equally so… please tune in next week to read more about the first and second generations of black leaders who shaped the city we live in today.

Last note: cool show at the Stork Club tonight.  9-9:30ish.  Two drummers.  One sax.  Experimental.  OUT THERE.  Come check it out if you’re feeling brave…

In the meantime… second stop Friday night…. bayVAN, which stands for Bay Area Visual Arts Network. It’s a gallery, housed in a tiny but beautiful space nestled between Broadway and Telegraph Avenues, on the third story of 455 17th Street. But it’s not your run-of-the-mill conventional gallery… Their focus is “[sourcing] opportunities for artists to display, lease and sell original artwork outside traditional gallery venues,” and large scale residential and commercial applications seem to fit this bill quite nicely. They currently have an artists’ registry of 100 strong, and though their 2010 Open Call to Artists is currently closed, you can check back here for future openings later in the year.

BayVAN is headed by three women who’ve been formative in developing the East Bay arts community:

  • Brooke Baird is a painter and illustrator who has been working and teaching in the Bay area for 15 years. With non-profit management experience as well as skills in high-end art advertising and real estate marketing, she “takes great pleasure in using original art to bring together beautiful and unique spaces while creating economic opportunities for fellow artists.”
  • Kerri Johnson “is a working artist, arts administrator and curator. She is the co-owner of Blankspace gallery, a contemporary art gallery she co-founded in 2005. Ms. Johnson has been a member of the Bay Area fine art community for 9 years and has worked with internationally renowned artists including Keith Boadwee and Anya Gallacio.”
  • Nicole Neditch “has been part of the Bay Area Art community for over a decade, as an independent curator, arts administrator and graphic designer.” She opened Mama Buzz Cafe and Buzz Gallery in 2002, and later, with the help of other new gallery owners in the Uptown district, “founded Art Murmur, Oakland’s ‘First Friday’ art walk, which now hosts thousands of Bay Area residents at more than 15 galleries surrounding the Mama Buzz Cafe.” She also recently designed and executed the city’s new art & culture website: OaklandArts.org

The current exhibit, up for the next two months, is a group show that hosts a number of artists with whom they’ve worked over the past year: Brian Caraway, Jason Byers, Steuart Pittman, Modesto Covarrubias, Maryly Snow, Zoe Ani, Eric Larson, Martin Webb. The show is mostly small works, which seem well suited for the narrow profile of their space. It’s not clear to me if the gallery has other open-to-the-public hours, aside from First Fridays. You can check their blog or contact them directly.

First Friday, First Stop: MUA

Friends and I checked out the Art Murmur scene on Friday night… I missed the last one (it fell on New Year’s Day) so I was excited to mingle among the artists and hipsters once again.  My artist friend C came from San Francisco (I love that city folks are the new “bridge and tunnel” crowd… trekking to Oakland on the weekends for edgy art and sublime dining).  Unfortunately, she got hung up in traffic due to an accident on the bridge which gave me an extra hour to kill, so I met friends at MUA for a drink.  Or two…

mua lounge, mua on broadway, auto row restaurants

First of all, a bit of a disclaimer… I have yet to actually eat dinner at MUA, so those looking for a full dining review should just skip to the end and check some other links I’ve provided. But I have been to MUA a handful of times for drinks and/or snacks and I have to say, I just love this place. Everything about it, from the ginormous warehouse space and the way their minimalistic asian-shic decor perfectly meshes with the raw materials and scale of the larger industrial space, to the edgy urban art, the ultra-modern unisex bathrooms, and the artistry they apply to their simple but delicious food & drink preparations (and yes, I just mentioned bathrooms and food in the same sentence, but who really cares?). The whole place exudes a modern, but warm, aesthetic and the crowd inside (both staff and patrons) feels like modern-Oakland in my mind. It’s hard to explain, but it’s really one of the few spaces I’ve been in in Oakland where I really felt, for a moment, like I was in New York (or Brooklyn rather, because this is a huge space.)

mua, mua oakland

And that’s one of the things that’s so impressive about MUA. They’ve been open for 2 years now and I remember thinking when the first opened, ‘Man, that’s a big space. How are they gonna keep that full consistently?” But they do, and I’m so happy to see this enterprise going strong on a mostly abandoned stretch of Broadway’s Auto Row. Granted, there are a few other things going on there… but there are also a lot of large empty car dealerships, and a couple redevelopment plans already in the works for the area. Here’s one specific plan and EIR (Environmental Impact Report) if you’re interested. It’s actually pretty fascinating reading… The redesign of a city, in progress.

BROADWAY / VALDEZ DISTRICT Specific Plan and Environmental Impact Report

You can chime in if you have something to say. There are already great discussions going on here…
Building Up Broadway on A Better Oakland
Oakland’s Growing Pains on Living in the O

But I digress. Back to MUA, which is right in the thick of the redevelopment zone on Broadway at 24th Street… I meandered upstairs to see Ross Simonini putting the finishing touches on his portion of a two-man show in the upstairs area of MUA. The next two photos are his pieces, which were collaged creations of crayon, paint, and, if I remember correctly, “sandpapered” photographs. The room was rather dimly lit, but amidst the raw textured surfaces of compressed plywood and more sophisticated asian-influenced furniture, I thought his pieces looked, well, perfect. In fact, his whimsically constructed lanky figures, who seemed to be battling or dancing – I couldn’t quite tell, reminded me of the slender figures of Indonesian shadow puppet batiques. Beautiful. Simonini is also an editor at Believer magazine and has a blog here where you can read about more of his work, and many other artistic things of interest.

mua art show, ross simonini

William Saroyan, the other artist displaying works, is known more for his writing than his painting. His paintings were difficult to see by candlelight, and alas, I had a cold drink waiting for me at the bar downstairs, so I will have to go back to see his pieces by the light of day (the picture below does not do them justice). In the meantime, I’ll provide you an excerpt from Simonini’s recent blog post about the show…

“His vein of abstract expressionism came not from New York but from Fresno, his home, and contained an intensity of ferocious markings and firework colors, often quickly scrawled on butcher paper. As a writer, he received Pulitzer for “The Time of Your Life,” but turned it down, and was given an Oscar for his screenplay, “The Human Comedy,” but sold it to a pawnshop. Like Steinback, he wrote extensively about central California, though Saroyan was widely known for his work about San Francisco.”

Sounds interesting, eh? Go check it out… this place is cool.

mua art show, william saroyan art

More reading and reviews…
MUA on Yelp
MUA on City Homestead
MUA on Oakland Magazine
MUA on East Bay Express

African American Museum & Library

To commemorate the beginning of Black History Month, I made a visit to the African American Museum & Library on 14th Street, just a couple blocks behind City Center. I have to be honest, and I am ashamed to admit this, but this was my first ever visit to this museum which opened 8 years ago. I guess I’ll just say it was well worth the wait, because it really is a gem of an institution.

First of all, the building itself is absolutely gorgeous! Both an Oakland City Landmark, and listed on the National Register of Historic Places, it’s an architectural delight with lovely arched windows and doorways, detailed exterior stone work and incredible craftsmanship inside.

beautiful oakland building, oakland city landmark

The building was spear-headed by Charles S. Greene, Oakland’s City Librarian from 1889 to 1926, who realized the city was outgrowing its first public library (a wooden structure erected in 1878 where City Hall now stands). He initiated a campaign to build a new one and, along with others including a women’s organization called The Ebell Society, found funding assistance from Andrew Carnegie’s Foundation, which offered $50,000 for the construction of the building. It was designed by architects Bliss and Faville in the American Beaux Arts style, and served as Oakland’s main library from 1902 until 1951.

“The elegant exterior of tan brick and terra cotta is incised with names of authors and disciplines and “Oakland Public Library.” “Free to All” is inscribed above the main entrance. The interior exhibits elaborate oak paneling, classical columns, and ornamented plaster ceilings. The second floor with its coffered, barrel-vaulted ceiling supported by massive columns, is one of Oakland’s most imposing interior spaces.” [Historical Plaque co-sponsored by Oakland Heritage Alliance]

barrel-vaulted ceiling

Once the new main library (at 14th and Oak streets) was opened in 1951, this building served as a branch library, at which point it was renamed the Charles S. Greene Library. It later became city offices, and was eventually abandoned after the Loma Prieta earthquake in 1989. “Following extensive restoration, it reopened in 2002 as the new home of the African American Museum and Library at Oakland.”

The mission of the Museum & Library is to discover, preserve, interpret and share the historical and cultural experiences of African Americans in California and the West for present and future generations.

The library is housed downstairs and consists of unique archives and reference materials on the history of African Americans in Northern California. The reference library houses approximately 12,000 volumes whose subjects include “religion, the military, Martin Luther King Jr., Malcolm X, the Black Panther Party, Africa in relationship to the African-American experience, genealogy, and California history.” And the archives contain diaries of prominent African Americans, newspapers on microfilm, videos and oral histories, and much more.

The museum is upstairs and “regularly hosts traveling and original exhibitions that highlight the art, history and culture of African Americans.” Here are two of the murals that greet you as you take the stairs to the second floor…

oakland murals, african american history, african american mural art

The current temporary exhibit is titled Access to Life: Faces from a Quiet Revolution and will be up through February 27th. It’s a powerful photographic exhibit by 8 Magnum photographers who focus their lenses on AIDS patients both before and for months following their antiretroviral treatments. “The project documents individuals in Haiti, Mali, Peru, Russia, Rwanda, South Africa, Swaziland, and Vietnam; countries chosen because of the diverse contexts and circumstances driving the epidemic in each one.” To learn more, visit accesstolife.theglobalfund.org. Here are a couple shots…

Access to Life, African American Museum

Access to Life, African American Museum, AIDS photo essays

There is also a permanent multi-media installation titled Visions Toward Tomorrow: The African American Community in Oakland, 1890-1990. “Visions documents the historical accomplishments of generations of African Americans in Oakland from the era of pioneering and settlement to those eras of community formation, development of the press, establishment of local churches, and creation of a lasting legacy of music and the arts.”

If you’ve never visited this wonderful institution, might I suggest that there is no time like the present. In honor of Black History Month, I plan to focus on more African American cultural events and institutions as February continues…

The Layover – a hip new spot

So my friend invited me to The Layover the other night. Have you been there?

It’s a pretty new joint in downtown Oakland… they opened a little over 3 months ago on October 9th in the old spot occupied by Pat’s, Franklin Street between 15th and 17th. Look for the neon green martini glass…

downtown oakland, the layover, layover bar in oakland

We went on a Tuesday night, which is comedy night… live stand-up comedy, followed by live music… no cover charge. Did you catch that? No cover charge. How cool is that?!

the layover, layover bar, layover bar in oakland

We saw 5 comedians, each with about a 15 minute set, and I can honestly say that four of them were quite hilarious. The emcee for the evening mentioned that the comedians are all students, and that The Layover is their training ground to try out new material.

The room was packed, which doesn’t take much, as this little club only holds 49 peeps. It’s an intimate vibe, further accentuated by the plush living room decor. Beautifully re-upholstered vintage pieces in warm velvety colors… one of the owners, RaeAnne Turner, is responsible for the fabulous seamstress-ing.

And what’s even cooler is that all of these gorgeous pieces are for sale! It’s a neat concept. They stock the house with sweet vintagey finds… including not only tables, chairs, & couches, but also light fixtures, pillows, and more… you take ’em home (if inspired and the price is right). That way they’re consistently restocking the venue with new interesting pieces. Keepin’ it fresh ya’ll!

In addition to the furniture for sale, the space functions as an art gallery too… with an associated gallery next door. They had a pretty eclectic mix of stuff up… one of a kind artist-modified light fixtures, small scale paintings, mixed media pieces, and the gorgeous collaged canvases of Daniel Healey featured in blankspace’s This Is Not My Beautiful Life show.

tuesday night comedy night, comedy at the layover, the layover bar

The last shot below was taken after the comedians wrapped up and the musicians were gearing up to get started with the live music. Don’t let the empty chairs fool you… everyone was just at the bar refilling their glasses!

I wish we could have stayed to see the band… Tuesday nights feature something of a “house” band with a rotating cast from Rogue Wave, Crown City Rockers, Persephone’s Bees, Bright Eyes, & more. Man, that sounds awesome! But it was a school night and I needed to get to bed…. waaahh.

RaeAnne’s husband, Zachary (aka Prozack) Turner, is in charge of the musical program at The Layover… selecting DJ’s and live bands, and it looks like he’s got a pretty astounding line-up. Even the house music playing Tuesday night while the band was setting up was super groovy. Can’t wait to check out the Friday night Sure Shot Soul Review (featuring DJ MTM spinning soul, funk, disco, and afrobeat)… again, no cover.

There’s a great article in the East Bay Express: Oakland’s New Layover that highlights more of Zachary’s musical background, as well as the contributions of his other business partners, Tim Martinez & wife Christie Vaughn, in the creation of The Layover.

layover bar in oakland, the layover, interior of the layover

The Layover is located just two blocks from the 19th Street BArt station, the Fox & Paramount Theaters, and a nice little collection of local restaurants: Pho 84, Spice Monkey Cafe, Awaken Cafe‎, and a whole lot more… do check it out!