Oh, the places you'll find artwork

0 Comments | Oakland Tribune, May 10, 2007 | by Robert TaylorSTAFF

THEY'RE not exactly starving artists, or desperate artists: They're just finding more and more ingenious ways to get their work into the public eye.

There are libraries and community centers and picture framing shops, of course. But there's a vast new world of walls for artists to fill beyond that: a Berkeley tattoo parlor, a gallery at the Tri- Valley SPCA in Dublin, the windows of a garage across the street from Berkeley Rep, a San Pablo Avenue pub, a Solano Avenue restaurant and in the lobby of the Lucky Ju Ju Pinball Gallery in Alameda, behind Tillie's Diner on Webster Street.

"Exposure is everything," says Robin Purcell of Danville, known for her watercolor paintings of Mount Diablo. "And anything is better than letting them stack up at home in the front hall."

Here are stories of East Bay artists and how they've found a way to say "Look. Here. Now."

Getting funky at Eclectix

Berkeley painter Travis Eiden calls himself a "conceptual realist," influenced by, among others, Caravaggio and Chuck Close. But there are plenty more influences on the way into the back-room gallery at Eclectix, Patricia Zemanek's funky shop at the top of Fairmount Avenue in El Cerrito.

The door to the gallery is framed by a faux leopard coat, a black cocktail dress and a rack of vintage purses; the shop is filled with plastic novelties, vintage ceramics, Hawaiian shirts and LP albums such as the indelible "Quiet Village: The Exotic Sounds of Martin Denny."

Zemanek contacted Eiden for last month's group show through the Academy of Art University in San Francisco, from which he graduated last year. His own one-man show opened Tuesday at one of the university's galleries at 79 New Montgomery St. Eclectix's next show, "Kool Kidz," continues through May 27.

"I like this neighborhood," Eiden said. "It's kind of quaint, almost like Solano Avenue, and I'm hoping Patricia can expand her gallery space. I'm just happy with the exposure, I really am."

One of Eiden's paintings is in something called the "Rolling Gallery," on the sides of Academy of Art buses and next to the ads above the windows in San Francisco's Muni buses. Given the number of graduates the Bay Area's art schools turn out, finding exhibit space can be a struggle.

"It's dog-eat-dog out there, it really is," Eiden says. "I was just in a tattoo parlor somewhere in downtown Berkeley where I heard they displayed art. There's a year's waiting list."

Opening an ARTery

When Lorri-Marie and Rob Jenkins decided to open their home on West J Street for Benicia's open studios tour last year, they cleared out the living room for their glasswork, constructions and paintings by several friends.

"I wasn't that crazy about the furniture, so I just put it out in the street," Lorri-Marie says. "Eventually somebody picked it up.

"After Open Studio, we thought, why would we turn this back into a living room? It's the perfect place for our art," she recalls. "Either we leave this as a gallery or we schlep all this art back into the closet."

That was the beginning of the Main ARTery Gallery, now filled with the work of 28 artists, which has spilled from the living room into the dining room as well. "When we have friends over," Lorri- Marie says, "we dine in the dining room amongst the art. It's absolutely delicious."

They got a business license from the city -- Benicia is known for supporting artists -- to open the gallery as long as they don't hang a permanent sign. "It's not a typical gallery, and not a typical home," Lorri-Marie says.

Her husband, Rob, who's a carpenter in his day job, displays his glass sculpture and did some work around the house to accommodate as many as 60 pieces of art: "I put picture rails up, and hooks, and things like that so we could change the exhibit without pounding holes in the plaster."

Rob has shown his work elsewhere, in 15 shows last year from Novato south to Moss Landing. Lorri-Marie, who's been making art for three years, has exhibited in Martinez, Walnut Creek, Fairfield and Napa.

"I think I've checked out every major gallery that might be interested in my work," Rob says. "The Bay Area is a difficult scene because there are a lot of artists here. Trying to find your niche is a tough call." But unlike most artists, Rob and Lorri-Marie Jenkins have found a niche called home.

Re-framing a frame shop

When Robin Purcell recently sent out postcards of Mount Diablo -- her painting of Mount Diablo, that is -- they included a kind of "Wish you were here" message.

Wish you were at the FastFrame shop in Lafayette to see her watercolors, or the Carmel Art Festival, or the Alamo/Danville open studio tour. If you can't get to these, there's always the online gallery and newsletter at groups.msn.com/ watercolorpaintingsbyrobinpurcell.

"I have lots to say about alternative spaces," the Danville painter says. "It's how I got my start."

She's exhibited in a corridor at the Danville town offices, loaned paintings to home stagers to dress up million-dollar houses for sale and shown her work at libraries and bookstores.