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Susan O’Malley, Advice From My 80 Year-Old Self, 2015

Print Public Residency Program

Print Public is one of Kala’s on-going artist programs. From its founding days, Kala was envisioned as a place where people gather to exchange creative ideas and share technology and tools. Expanding on this idea, Print Public takes print media and socially engaged art projects and meets people where they are, on the street, at bus stops, churches, markets, and in the neighborhood, connecting artists and the community. Through Print Public, Kala aims to provide opportunities for artists to work on interdisciplinary projects with digital or print media while also animating public space. And through these projects, reach new communities, build local partnerships, and deepen neighborhood ties. Print Public is supported, in part, by the James Irvine Foundation, National Endowment for the Arts Our Town program, and by UC Berkeley Chancellor’s Community Partnership Fund.

The first iteration of Print Public (2013-2015) launched with six artist/artist teams including Taro Hattori, Taraneh Hemami, Susan O’Malley, Sue Mark, Swell, and Imin Yeh, working along San Pablo Avenue to create a range of projects.To view the publication for the first iteration of Print Public and learn more about their projects, please look here.

2016-2017 Print Public Artists, Projects, and Bios

Drew Cameron - Rags Make Paper
Rags Make Paper is a Print Public project that emphasizes an exchange of remnant textiles for handmade paper. The ritual of transforming textile rags into handmade paper is centuries old and lends itself to the innate stories and characteristics imbued into both. In this contemporary iteration community members will have the opportunity to donate unwanted rags in exchange for sheets of handmade paper as well as investigate the process further through reoccurring open enrollment workshops at Kala Art Institute.

Drew Cameron is a second-generation hand papermaker, trained forester and former Army soldier. He is a founder of Combat Paper and has been facilitating workshops with veterans and the community in which they transform military uniforms into handmade paper since 2007. His workshops have reached thousands of people throughout the country in 30 states through more than 125 workshops. His work is held in 34 public collections and has been exhibited nationally including the Brooklyn Museum, Corcoran Gallery, Courtauld Institute, Library of Congress, Museum of Contemporary Craft, Museum of Craft and Design, Craft and Folk Art Museum and Southern Exposure among others. Combat Paper is now operating in four locations: New York, New Jersey, Nevada and California with open and ongoing programming.

Ramekon O’Arwisters - Crochet Jam
Crochet Jam is a community-based art project that invites participants to crochet strips of fabric into large, free-form, organic rag-rug tapestries in a safe environment to foster creativity, liberation, and social interaction. No attempt is made to dictate the creative process and without any concern for the finished product. Participants are welcome to bring fabric to contribute to the project. Instruction in single-stitch crochet is provided. Crochet Jam is family friendly; all ages are welcome. Crochet Jam is rooted in a cherished childhood memory that is steeped in the African American traditions of weaving and quilting making. Ramekon’s grandmother allowed him the freedom to add any color or pattern he wanted to her quilts. Togetherness and sharing stories, while calmly quilting without rules in a non-judgmental environment, was important.

Ramekon O’Arwisters is a social-practice artist who is known for creating collaborative, community-based projects infused with folk-art traditions that foster a culture of community building. Born in Kernersville, North Carolina, Ramekon earned a M.Div. from Duke University Divinity School. He was an artist-in-residence at the de Young Museum (2013), the Djerassi Resident Artists Program (2003), and the Vermont Studio Center (1991), and has received grants from the San Francisco Foundation, the San Francisco Arts Commission Cultural Equity Program, and Artadia: The Fund for Art and Dialogue, New York, NY. He was a 2014 Eureka Fellow, awarded by the Fleishhacker Foundation, San Francisco and 2016 Artist-in-Residence Program at Recology San Francisco.

Mildred Howard- TBA
My Print Public project will bring to the public the voices and stories of historical and contemporary women from the San Pablo corridor who are in control of their own destiny. My project will identify and celebrate women from the surrounding neighborhood who have chosen to live their lives their way; in defiance of the voices telling them there are only a few options appropriate to their sex, these women have possessed the courage and ambition to make their own opportunities. My project aims to bring these private stories of trailblazing, independent women to the public; I would love to see their faces and stories on bus kiosks and billboards. In addition to providing inspirational examples, I also aim to prompt a consideration of the benefits and challenges faced by those in positions not traditionally designated for women, and to explore whether popular attitudes toward these women have shifted with time.

Berkeley-based artist, activist, and educator Mildred Howard is best known for large scale installations invoking both collective history and personal narrative. She is a highly visible figure in the landscape of public art in the Bay Area, with Shipyard, San Francisco General Hospital, BART Parking Structure, Richmond, CA and the Sacramento International Airport. Howard has taught at major Bay Area universities and art institutions to include; Stanford University, the San Francisco Art Institute, and the California College of Arts and has conducted programs and exhibitions in locales ranging from England to Latin America, Egypt, Ghana, and Morocco. She is represented by Anglim Gilbert Gallery in San Francisco.

Marksearch and Anisha Gade- Commons Archive
Commons Archive is a memory bank housed at the Golden Gate Library that illustrates the lived experience of this North Oakland community. Initiated by cultural researcher Sue Mark (marksearch) and urbanist Anisha Gade, it is a tangible and organic way to share and collect a neighborhood’s history. During regular sessions at the library in Spring, 2017, Sue and Anisha will collect neighbors’ photos, ephemera and memories. This material, along with archival material from the Oakland History Room, The African American Library, and The Emeryville Historical Society forms the ongoing, participatory archive. In collaboration with community members, Sue and Anisha will also organize public programs and installations at the library to showcase the archive’s materials. This project builds on Communities’ Crossing, a two-year interdisciplinary research project about this neighborhood.

Cultural researcher Sue Mark (marksearch) creates performance-based projects exploring intersections of lost history and cultural complexities. 'marksearch' (with Bruce Douglas) situates their cross-disciplinary work along the evolving continuum of social practice art by creating sculptural structures for improvisational collaboration in public spaces. Since 2000, marksearch has collaborated with non-profits, community groups, students, historians, urban planners, and municipalities worldwide to create projects that move beyond aesthetic experience. marksearch explorations have been presented throughout the US and Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Germany, Norway, Portugal and Spain with support from California Humanities, Creative Work Fund, Fulbright Commission, Oakland's OPEN Proposals, The National Trust for Historic Preservation, San Francisco Art Commission, and Trust for Mutual Understanding. marksearch has received an NEA fellowship to research Japanese cultural preservation in 2016.

Researcher and urbanist, Anisha Gade is interested in developing innovative, mixed-methods approaches to understanding public space and the needs of urban communities. She has assisted with concept development, research and analysis, and project implementation of marksearch projects in Oakland’s Golden Gate neighborhood. Her current work also involves both quantitative analysis of regional housing markets and real estate development as well as in-depth, ethnographic studies of Asian American immigrant communities in Silicon Valley. Previously, she was involved in community development and urban design for a neighborhood park corridor in Washington, DC. She holds a Master of City Planning and a Master of Science in Architecture from the University of California, Berkeley, where she received the Chester Miller Fellowship for her thesis research.

Kelly Ording and Jet Martinez- Madame O’Cult
Madame O’Cult is a multi-disciplinary project that includes printmaking, muralism and installation. This project will also feature a component of public outreach and participation. Madame O’Cult is a persona created by the artists; an anonymous fortune teller who answers the questions posed by those in the community. The artists will partner with a property owner on San Pablo Avenue to create a fictitious storefront. People passing by would have the opportunity to ask Madame O’Cult any question they’d like on a card. The cards would then be answered by Madame O’Cult and displayed at a later date in the storefront window so anyone passing by could read both the question and the answer.

Based in Oakland, Kelly Ording creates artwork that blends organic and geometric shapes with exact lines, pairing intuitive and mathematical mark-making. She has exhibited her work both in the U.S. and Internationally since graduating from the San Francisco Art Institute in 2000.  In addition to her works on paper, canvas and collages, Ording has created several large scale public works and murals:San Francisco’s landmark Clarion Alley, the Palega Park Recreation Center, Facebook Headquarters, Genentech, as well as other locations throughout the Bay Area and Internationally. Ording is currently working on a large-scale paving project on Ocean Avenue in conjuncition with the San Francisco Art Commission and the San Francisco Department of Public Works. 

Oakland-based artist Jet Martinez is known for creating vibrant works of art that put a contemporary spin on folk art motifs. Originally from the small beach town of Tuxpan, Veracruz, Mexico, Martinez takes inspiration from his native culture’s rich traditions of pottery, weaving and embroidery. Martinez has exhibited in reputable galleries and art institutions nationwide, including Joseph Gross Gallery, 111 Minna Gallery, White Walls Gallery, Museo de Arte y Cultura Latino Americana, Syracuse University and many others. He has painted murals in locales as diverse as Oaxaca and Zurich and created commissions for companies like Facebook, Hilton, Kiehl’s, John Fluevog and Redbull.

Jenifer K Wofford- TBA
I’m interested in the power of clear illustration, and how personal histories intersect with broader political and historical narratives. Time and subjectivity do funny things to the facts, but these does not diminish the truth of a felt memory. I hope to engage and activate public space through more private conversations with local residents and workers by collecting stories/memories from longtime Kala neighborhood locals and then illustrating a series of compelling images for these tales. Focusing on a small group of 3-4 people to create both focus and diversity, I’d like to make something akin to simple comic-book/leaflets with locals’ stories, as well as make larger works on the sides of neighborhood buildings. I hope to work with youth interns as well. This is an image-driven project with simple concise text captions, as well as a small web project.

Jenifer K Wofford is a San Francisco-based artist and educator whose work plays with notions of hybridity, authenticity and global culture, often with a humorous bent. Wofford’s work has been exhibited in the Bay Area at the Berkeley Art Museum, Oakland Museum of California, YBCA and Southern Exposure. Further afield, she has shown at Wing Luke Museum (Seattle), DePaul Museum (Chicago), Silverlens Galleries (Philippines), and Osage Gallery (Hong Kong). Wofford’s awards include grants from the Fleishhacker Foundation, Art Matters Foundation and CCI. A Bay Area native, Wofford received her BFA from the San Francisco Art Institute and her MFA from University of California, Berkeley. She currently teaches at the University of San Francisco and UC Berkeley.