Category Archives: north oakland

Royal Nonesuch Gallery (Art Murmur – Act III)

Our last stop of the night (our last gallery stop… more on our real last stop later) was the Royal Nonesuch Gallery on Telegraph between 42nd and 43rd Streets. As far as I know, this is the newest addition to the Art Murmur tour, having just opened about 2 months ago.

Royal Nonesuch Gallery, art murmur

You literary folks may get the reference, but for those who don’t, Royal NoneSuch Gallery was named after “the crafty theater troupe in Mark Twain’s novel Huckleberry Finn… in the spirit of participation, interaction, and art making of all kinds.” The space is run by two local artists: Elizabeth Bernstein, a photographer, and Carrie Hott, who works in mixed medium (drawing, painting, installations), and their focus is to provide more dynamic and interactive experiences than the typical conventional gallery space. Judging from the descriptions of their brief history of events, they seem to be hitting the mark spot-on: craft markets, barbeques, parlor game nights. How fun!

small works holiday show, royal nonesuch, urban yeti, aaron terry

Their Friday night event was called “Small Works! Art for Under a Hundred Bucks.” Not a bad price point for original art. The “Urban Yeti’s” above are wood and paint constructions by artist Aaron Terry, and the “Venom Dip Collection” below is the work of artist Ben Venom.

ben venom, royal nonesuch gallery, royal nonesuch small works

Their next event is this Sunday, December 13th: Sunday Craft Market & BBQ! (1 – 5pm) I’ll mention this again in my guide to all the holiday sales, artisan markets, and craft fairs around town this weekend, so you can get your holiday shopping needs met while supporting local artists. Check back tomorrow for that.

And finally, our last last stop of the night was just down the street to Pizzaiolo for delectable late night delight (chocolat pots de créme… you must say this in french… exquis!) I love this restaurant and the fantastic fare that Charlie Hallowell and his staff consistently put out. I’ll give them their own in-depth post in the future, and plan to hit his new restaurant (Boot and Shoe Service) opening this month on Grand Avenue too!

Are you feeling it?

That holiday spirit I mean.

I thought I kicked things off pretty well yesterday, and I’m going to keep the energy flowing… or at least I’m going to try.

I thought it would be fun to document some of the more spectacular holiday light displays around town and decided to start at one of my very favorite places in Oakland, Mountain View Cemetery. Their display is a little kitschy, but that’s kind of what it’s all about isn’t it?

I saw them unpacking the lights and wrapping the trees last weekend when I was there for a jog… young men on step ladders stringing trees, and others placing Santa and his reindeer in their arc around the entrance fountain.

The sign says the “Circle of Lights” display will be up each evening in December from 5 – 9pm. There’s even accompanying holiday music if you tune into the FM station listed. All I can say is I was there at 5:05pm today, and while a few things were lit, the reverential circle was certainly not. Bah humbug. Here are a couple shots, but clearly I’ll have to go back…

holiday lights at mountain view cemetery, oakland holiday lights

holiday lights at mountain view cemetery, gothic church, oakland holiday lights

Keep tuning in for more holiday cheer, unless you’re feeling Scroogey of course… because I’ve got lots of joy to spread around. I’m hoping to make it to:

  • The official city tree lighting ceremony with the Mayor downtown tomorrow (5pm Thursday the 3rd at City Center Plaza)
  • The Zoolights display at the Oakland Zoo (Starts Friday… it sounds pretty cool and I’ve never seen it)
  • The lighted yacht parade on the Oakland/Alameda estuary this Saturday
  • And much much more

Plus I’ve got snowflake how-to’s, cookie recipes, Santacon!!, and who knows what else. Let’s have some fun, eh?

Oh yeah… and Art Murmur is Friday! So I’ll cover some non-holiday stuff too for you Grinchy types.

Crude & Gats

So I’m a little late getting this one up… always so hard to catch up after the long holiday weekends… busy busy busy. And even though this is a new week, it’s the last day of the month and I really wanted to finish up the graffiti focus of last week with the stellar and ubiquitous work of a couple of local artists…

“Dead Eyes” is the tag you’ll see on much of one guys work, but he’s a West Oakland artist who actually goes by the moniker “Crude”. I know this because my graf friends tell me these things. Thanks Endless Canvas!

He’s enough of an entity that KQED actually did a brief feature on him as part of their arts program Spark… you can check out the clip here.

I’ve featured his works before… I think the first one was a hand-drawn USPS sticker right outside my home. You can use the search feature to find all the other posts if you’re curious… He does lots of faces with a wide flat nose and thick lips. He embellishes many of them with more ornate elements reminiscent of African masks.

Crude, graffiti art, sticker art, dead eyes sticker

In the shot below, the smaller sticker top right is his… it says “Dead Eyes”… duh. The sticker below and slightly left (with the beard) is the work of another artist named Gats (short for Graffiti Against the System). This is one of his simpler pieces… You’ll see a developing trend…

Gats, gats sticker, gats graffiti art, west oakland graffiti

Here’s another pair… Crude on the left (Army of One) and Gats on the right… This face with the beard seems to be his trademark.

crude sticker art, stickers by crude, dead eyes stickers, dead eyes graffiti, graffit art oakland

A lot of these works seem to be unique hand drawn stickers (rather than mass produced)… maybe that’s why one was ripped off below….

Dead Eyes Stickers, Crude stickers, West Oakland Sticker art, west oakland graffiti

This one below is the most detailed of Gat’s images that I’ve seen…. it’s incredible.

solidarity forever poster, poster art by crude, dead eyes graffiti art, wheat paste

Another Dead Eyes with a handful of other folks…

sticker art by crude, dead eyes stickers

And two more Gats…

wheat paste by gats, gats wheat paste

gats wheat paste, sticker art west oakland, wheat paste by gats

Question Everything.

It’s graffiti week here at Oaktown Art, and here is your next installment…

I’ve been wanting to feature these works for some time now, but kept hoping I would find another one to add to the mix.

Here’s the first one I found… a wheat paste on the same abandoned building as the lovely mural “May Peace Prevail on Earth” across the street from Ghost Town Farm.

oakland graffiti, question mark, yellow question mark, question mark etc, wheat paste

I found the next two in the Rockridge / Temescal area. This one seems to be painted right on the sidewalk.

oakland graffiti, yellow question mark, yellow question mark etc, ? etc

And then another huge wheat paste…

oakland graffiti, yellow question mark, ? etc., question mark graffiti

And this one is the true stunner. How in the heck did they do this?! If anyone has any thoughts, please send my way.

oakland graffit, yellow question mark, question mark etc, ? etc. graffiti

I love this campaign… it’s so simple, and yet you can’t help but wonder, and question, and think. If you’ve seen more of these around, please send locations… I’d love to go snap ’em.

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Here’s another… added after a reader sent in the location. Thanks Mike!!

wheat paste, yellow question mark, ? etc., wheat paste on bart support