From Mariya:

I was born in Odessa, the beautiful city in Ukraine by the Black Sea. I started drawing when I was two years old. Music, books, movies, fashion, people and nature inspire me to create new works. As I walk through life I create what I feel, see, hear or smell. The rest, I leave to the viewer to interpret any way they feel.

Mariya Milovidova welcomes the chance to interact with anyone interested in her work, and would love to provide advice and support to others. She may be reached at masha_art@yahoo.com

Marconi Calindas, a journalist and writer by profession, is making waves in San Francisco City and around the San Francisco Bay Area. He has graced invitations to display and exhibit his works at the Bayfair Mall in San Leandro and Newpark Mall in Newark. He is set to hold group shows at Aspect Gallery, Sudachi Restaurant and San Francisco City Hall Office of the Supervisors. He also has been invited this year to display his Mariana Art at the House of Representatives on Capitol Hill. He also has invitations to showcase his unique and colorful art at the University of California, Berkeley and a high school in Orlando, Florida in 2010. Marconi Calindas continues to work on more paintings to showcase the beauty of San Francisco and the Bay Area and the world around him. Marconi’s art has been popular in the US territories of Guam and Northern Mariana Islands as his clothing line Wear-A-Marconi™ (www.wearmarconi.com) since 2007. He translated his art onto shirts that depict the beauty of the islands. His works have been published on popular magazines and newspapers in the Pacific and as far as Japan. The Japanese and the Russian tourists of the islands have been the major fans of his work in the islands. For more information about Marconi’s art you may contact him at marconicalindas@yahoo.com.

From Ilana Davis:  

Art is the freedom to express your thoughts and feelings. Spontaneous creative freedom is expressed through the art of sculpture where the only restraints are technical, according to the medium. The elasticity of clay generates an immediate relationship and flow of ideas. Feelings can pour, unrestrained, directly to the medium; the clay becomes a tool through which the artist’s feelings and soul become tangible. 

Creation with metals is rigid and powerful, which compensates for clay’s shortcomings. With recycled scrap metal it is possible to create independent and immediate sculptures, free from supports. However, work with metal must be more premeditated and the free flow and connection with the medium is limited.

Sculptures are an extension of reactions to daily life, and reality is translated through figurative abstract sculpture. The influence of everything from books to current events to music is translated into solid expressions. Even somber ideas are presented aesthetically; illustrating that in pain there remains an outlet of beauty.

Ilana Davis may be reached through her website, http://www.mysculptures.com or at ilana@oran.com and welcomes discussion and networking with other artists.

ARTIST STATEMENT

My work is the physical expression of my life’s experience. I have been an artist since a young child, working in a variety of media from bronze, glass, ceramic, oil and acrylics and neon among others. I began as a sculptor at the age of seven and returned to my primary medium at thirty-three. After half my life as a mural painter, portrait painter, silk-screen printer and interior designer I found myself returning to my first love, sculpture. Working in ceramics, both basque-relief and three dimension eventually led to bronze. I have been working primarily in bronze and clay for the past sixteen years, creating portraits, installations and basque-relief sculpture for private, and public commissions for patrons throughout Northern California, Canada, Europe and New Zealand. Currently, I have been chosen as a finalist to complete a commission for Emanuel Medical Center. I will be sculpting a nine-foot bronze angel for the entrance of their new hospital wing. In addition, I recently completed a portrait of Henry Seishiro Okazaki to be presented at the National Karate Ceremonials. I have been exhibiting works of art for the Foundation of Higher Learning since 1995, creating basque-relief and wall installations for several of their international retreat centers.

For private commissions involving portraiture, I begin the process by getting to know my subject in terms of expression, character, personality and mannerisms. If my subject is deceased or an historical figure, I gather research and photos from family, friends and a variety of sources prior to the actual execution of the sculpted figure. I like to capture the “essence” of my subject in the final work of art. When completing a portrait of Leonardo da Vinci for Mario and June Biagi (Biagi Vineyards) in 1994, I first researched the life of Leonardo before deciding on a rendition of him in his later years, while living in Southern France with King Francis l. The final work included a portrait of Leonardo in his chateau, (which was connected to the King’s castle by an underground tunnel), where he spent his final days conversing with the King, surrounded by his few possessions including, The Saint John, The Mona Lisa, The Cellini Salt Cellar and twenty-two of the most current books in science and religion, a Bible and his famous note books.

To supplement my work as a professional artist I am currently teaching art at Columbia College and have taught in several other College institutions in the greater Sacramento and Foothills area, elementary schools and privately for the past sixteen years. I am currently completing research for consideration of a doctoral degree, comparing quantum physics, world-wide spiritual belief systems and the evolution of human consciousness. I hold a Master’s of Fine Art degree from the Academy of Art College in San Francisco, a Bachelor’s of Fine Arts degree from the Union Institute and University, in Studio Art and Multicultural Studies which included in-depth archaeological research and field studies. In addition, I have a background in Fine Art and Human Services at the Associates level.

I moved back to my studio and home in the Sacramento Foothills in 1998 after three years of working, exhibiting and maintaining my studio in San Francisco. While in San Francisco, I completed my two largest installations, “Union” and “Transfiguration l”, which I aspire to exhibit internationally. Each of these has involved a four to five year process of research, material exploration and finally, completion of the body of work which is then installed in a gallery. Each time these works have exhibited, they have undergone a transformation. My background in interior design has been vital in understanding how the artwork should feel in its intended space. It must meet the needs of the location in terms of interior/exterior media, architectural design, intended viewer, lighting and color in the existing space. What may be appropriate for one space can be completely different in another while still using the same works of art. Meeting the needs of my client, the space intended and the media required is the challenge that continues to keep me creating art. Every new creation is a unique experience in which I relish.

My personal endeavors include continued research in the various esoteric and ancient belief systems or our planet, quantum physics, neurobiology, cosmology, anatomy, biology and other natural sciences and their connections to our existence. My interpretations of these subjects are the concepts I convey in my installation works. Currently I am conducting a comparative study of the Lost Books of the Essenes and Candace Pert’s research for her book “Molecules of Emotion.” A Synthesis of these will be expressed in my next installation sometime in 2006, entitled “Transfiguration ll.” My life has become a continual manifestation of the art I create. It is more than what I do, Art has become who I am and how I communicate to the world.

Kathleen Ball may be reached at kballadonai@yahoo.com and welcomes the chance to network with other artists and interested viewers!

As the common adage goes, cancer is not just one disease, but more like millions of individual conditions. If research continues along the directions many of the scientists speaking at San Francisco State University’s annual Personalized Medicine 3.0 conference predict, a cancer diagnosis may initiate a journey through a medical flowchart. Patients, geneticists, and oncologists will examine a person’s DNA makeup for thousands of possible variations which may affect the severity of his/her disease and the likelihood of its responding to particular pharmaceutical formulations.

Dr. Michael Goldman, chair of SFSU’s biology department, highlighted this emerging concept as the event’s theme while attendees enjoyed a luscious healthy fruit and pastry feast. Soon afterwards, David Duncan, author of Experimental Man and director of UC Berkeley’s Center for Life Science Policy, regaled us with tales from his genome. Duncan paid for complete analysis of his entire genetic makeup, which proved that he was basically healthy except for a predisposition to heart problems if he continued to gain weight. Responding to this news by losing ten pounds, Duncan advocated the potential positive consequences of learning more biologically about ourselves.

Other researchers continued the trend of linking basic science research to practical and clinical applications, including Dr. Steven Anderson, chief scientific officer of Monogram Biosciences/Labcorp, who took part in a panel discussion on diagnosing cancer. Anderson discussed mutation profiling of the DNA of cancer tumor cells to determine exactly which genes were altered or under/overexpressed in a particular person’s condition, with the pathology of four basic subtypes of breast cancer as an example. As a leader in the molecular oncology field, he helped develop many of the diagnostic assays making this level of genetic analysis possible, relying on molecular biology and immunology methods which identify mutations and gene expression levels.

Another panel speaker, Dr. Jeffrey Lawrence of Roche Molecular Systems, related how the pharmaceutical industry now works towards coordinating the development of diagnostic tests for one’s cancer subtype with the production of a specific medicine for its treatment. Also, Richard Shippy of Affymetrix, described new microassays which can detect the presence of certain alleles (particular forms of a gene) to identify a potentially pathological loss of genetic diversity in a patient’s cells. And, finally, just before lunch, Dr. Jerald Radich of the Fred Hutchison Cancer Research Center elucidated methods of determining the likelihood that a patient’s acute disease will return after a period of remission. The research he referenced held implications for metastatic melanoma skin cancer and acute myeloid leukemia, two types of cancer where medical science still has a long way to go when it comes to improving long-term survival rates.

  Continue reading →

From Stephen Mead:

As far back as I can remember I have been doing artwork.  In my later teen years it began to dawn on me that this visceral process was most likely going to be life long.  During my late thirties I started to realize and define doing art as some sort of vocation as opposed to a mental aberration.  In the interim, however, despite my dubious relation with the craft, I did attempt getting some schooling for art, and also underwent sporadic attempts of having the artwork shown.  Underwent is the key word, for I wasn’t the least bit comfortable either with contacting dealers let alone being in the same room with anyone while my work was being scrutinized.  Now that I have actually reached my mid-forties, (a surprise to me), I have become less intense about both making and showing art, a little less of a fool to my own hypersensitivity, but not entirely.  Still, I have come to recognize that the fever chart of my own interior landscape is a barometer for how art uses me as a vessel, a conduit.  There is abundance to the universe which simply demands to be expressed.

My early artworks were that of any other child able to make use of opposable thumbs.  Crayons, pencils, (colored or not), ink, chalk, markers, glue:  all were tools or, to be more precise, instruments of unconsciousness becoming defined.  When I began making choices as to what medium I’d use, I was very drawn to, and quite comfortable with pastels.  I went through a long phase, with these as my friends.  At one point, however, I was given a garage sale box of art supplies.  Contained within this treasure chest was a tin of watercolor pencils, circa 1950, that I eventually began putting to use as well. It wasn’t until after my brief stint in college, where I did not find myself happy using oils, (having allergies did not help), or sticking to a black ‘n white regimen, (having worked in color and using other mediums for years by then), that I found myself, upon dropping out, really delving into a world of mixing mediums more and more.  Still, feeling as if I had something to prove about oils, these went into the mix as well.

Looking back at over two decades of doing art, I realize how much experimentation was rooted into me at a young age, and how mixing media was part of a natural progression.  These mixed media pieces usually start with a water-soluble oil pastel base and then branch out from there.  Acrylics, glazes, glues, glitter, jewelry, spices, earth, collage material…  I try to keep the wonder of a child going back into that garage sale treasure chest to explore what these mediums can do when set free to roam.

All of my work must have emotional resonance for me and is part of life-long spiritual exploration.  Seeing myself as an outsider Folk Artist, I’ve also gravitated to using the today’s technology both as a way of connecting more with others, but also as a way of simply seeing what happens when the ages-old process of painting (and the not so ages-old) process of photography meets video and sound. 

Two of the pieces shown here, “Great Wall Submerged” and “Stonehenge Submerged”, are two examples of this form of Folk Creativity in-process, photomontages used as film stills in a piece entitled “Underwater Trilogy”.  Of course, also being a writer, I am challenged by what words are strummed up by images and their interplay, and still love making narratives in book-form.  “Our Book of Common Faith”, an exploration of world religions/cultures in hopes of finding what bonds humanity as opposed to divides, is my latest effort in combining images with text.  The piece “The Temple of my Familiar” pays homage to animals in all of our lives no matter what belief systems we may or may not ascribe to.

Images:

Great Wall Submerged, photomontage from the film “Underwater Trilogy”

Stonehenge Submerged, photomontage from the film “Underwater Trilogy”

Threshold, 35 MM

Visions of Johanna, mixed media on paper, part of the series “Not Stopping for Death”, incorporated into the DVD “Captioned Closeness”, Indieflix.com

Temple of My Familiar , mixed media on canvas, part of the series “Our Book of Common Faith”, Amazon.com

Stephen Mead is a published artist, writer, and maker of short collage-films living in NY.  He would love to talk and network with and mentor other artists, and would enjoy the opportunity to provide advice and feedback on others’ work! He may be reached through his Amazon page: http://www.amazon.com/Stephen-Mead/e/B002P5TVQC/ref=ntt_dp_epwbk_0/178-9316259-8711759 or at mead815@yahoo.com

Call for submissions: Milk Money
http://www.milkmoneymag.com/index.php/site/submit/
(go to website above for submission information)

Milk Money seeks fiction, prose, and poetry submissions.
Deadline for our next volume is June 15th.
Please see our website for submission guidelines.

www.milkmoneymag.com