Tuesday, January 31, 2012

In The Music Box, New Orleans Residents Hear Hope

We are so pleased that NPR's "All Things Considered" has published a piece about one of our 2010 grant recipients, the Music Box. The Music Box is an interactive environment built from the remains of an 18th century derelict cottage in New Orleans. This imaginatively reconstructed, and ultimately livable “house”, has become a musical instrument to be played by visitors. Instrumentation will range from the rudimentary banging of wooden boards to more elaborate sounds mechanically triggered by opening doors or pulling levers. In addition to visitors, a range of local and national musicians, including a regional high school marching band, have been invited to play the house for the project’s Block Party series, which are free and open to all.

To read the NPR story, click HERE

Photo: Morgan Sasser/New Orleans Airlift via NPR

Sunday, January 29, 2012

THE PAINTINGS OF LEE HARVEY ROSWELL

Blowfish Sushi is pleased to announce the first in a series of ongoing art exhibits curated by Christine Kristen aka LadyBee: Paintings by Lee Harvey Roswell. The opening will take place on Wednesday, February 15 from 6-9 at the restaurant, 2170 Bryant Street, San Francisco. 20% of the profits from this exhibit will be donated to the Black Rock Arts Foundation.

RSVP HERE

Lee Harvey Roswell is a self-taught artist from Freefall, New York, whose work is noted for its blend of angst and humor. Themes of death and entropy, tribulation and futility run amok in his distinctly surreal, sometimes slapstick, sometimes nightmarish world. The result is at once mocking and melancholic.

Lee draws his imagery from the rich sources of vaudeville, silent films, circus and mythology, and blends them in idiosyncratic, often autobiographical situations. He is not bound by conventional space; his characters wander through a skewed world where reality and fantasy collide.

In Lee’s words: “I'm interested in exactly this: creating narratives involving the fantastic images there to be culled forth from those fertile depths of the creative, neurotic-like mind. Concrete objects in mad motion, reflecting all the seductive, terrifying elements of existence. The inarguable forerunner of the senses is the eye. We are primarily an optically reliant species. So, as pictorial illusionists transforming nothing into artifacts of spiritual sustenance, I'm holding the potential painter up, not just as an admirable tradesman, but much, much more. He resides as a high-priest over that all-devouring human reality, a conducting channel through which nothing triumphantly becomes something.”

Lee now lives in San Francisco, and his work is shown, collected and published internationally.

painting: Lee Harvey Roswell

Wednesday, January 11, 2012

Bliss Dance

Bliss Dance by Joe Dsilva
Bliss Dance, a photo by Joe Dsilva on Flickr.

Have you seen this fun complilation of Bliss Dance Photos? Thanks to Joe Dsilva for making us smile this morning.

Thursday, December 15, 2011

The Raygun Gothic Rocketship Gets a Tune-Up

Following the Port of San Francisco's recent approval of a 1 year extension of the Rocketship installation at Pier 14, the Rocketship crew is planning a maintenance weekend, and would like to invite the public to come out and meet the crew, ask questions, and help make the Rocketship truly a part of the community.

Weather permitting, the Rocketship crew will be onsite this weekend, December 17th & 18th (as needed), from 10 AM till dark. Work will include a rebuild of the plinth, repair of the Rocket Stop audio system, and a general refresh of the installation.

Some of us from the Black Rock Arts Foundation will be stopping by and we hope you will too?

Monday, December 12, 2011

Introducing the Bay Lights Project

Artist's Rendering

We at the Black Rock Arts Foundation would like to tell you about a new, exciting project that's in the works, spearheaded by our very own Advisory Board Member Leo Villareal.

Greatly influenced by his first experiences at Burning Man, back in 1994, Leo has created an impressive body of work of large scale, immersive light sculptures. He continues to dazzle us (literally!) with his groundbreaking use of L.E.D. sequencing technology and pioneering methods of using light as an expressive medium. Check out his past projects. Be ready to be wowed!

Leo impresses us with each of his new endeavors, but this one is sure to outshine (literally!) all the others. We'd like to introduce you to his newest proposal: The Bay Lights.

The Bay Lights from Words Pictures Ideas on Vimeo.

The sculpture will be installed and illuminated over the course of the Bay Bridge’s 75th Anniversary. Similar to the ambitious lighting of the Eiffel Tower for its 100th anniversary, The Bay Lights will commemorate the Bay Bridge's 75th Diamond Anniversary at seven times the scale of the famous Parisian landmark. The installation will live for two years, providing a stunning fine arts experience for the entire Bay Area and its visitors. The 25,000 LED’s will stay in place through the opening of the new East Span in 2013.

Learn more about the project, and about how to support it, at and follow this project on facebook.

Thanks, Leo, for all your past support of BRAF and Burning Man, and for your artistic contributions to our culture!

Monday, December 05, 2011

More About The Bike Bridge


The Bike Bridge - Part 1 from ONE ANT RED on Vimeo.

The Bike Bridge is a monumental sculptural collaboration between artist Michael Christian and 12 young women from 7 different Oakland schools.

The Bike Bridge project is presented by The Black Rock Art Foundation in association with The Crucible.


Please help us finish and install this monumental sculpture in Oakland this spring! Donate to the Black Rock Arts Foundation today!


Wednesday, November 30, 2011

Ecstasy's Departure

P1020615 by grace.tang2004
P1020615, a photo by grace.tang2004 on Flickr.

Ecstasy has left Patricia's Green in San Francisco. We are sorry to see her go! We will miss you Ecstasy, thanks for hanging out with us for such a long time!

Cardboardia - A Country Built Out of Cardboard

Tomorrow is the big day for us to receive your Letter of Intent to apply for a Black Rock Arts Foundation Grant for your off-playa project. We are looking forward to reading all of them.

We thought you might like to see what one of our prior grant recipients is up to. We found this video to be completely charming, and we hope you do too.


Cardboardia, a country built out of cardboard by Zoomin_UK