East Bay Open Studios Returning to Piedmont Center for the Arts

June is coming and it’s East Bay Open Studios time again! Piedmont Center for the Arts (PCA) will host four local artists during the first weekend of ProArts East Bay Open Studios, which kicks off with a reception Friday, June 6, 2014, 5-8:00 pm.

The second weekend of Open Studios will rotate the roster to feature a different group of local artists. For the third year in a row, PCA will put Piedmont on the Pro Arts studio map, connecting our community to the massive East Bay art event.
 
For forty years, Pro Arts has produced East Bay Open Studios, the largest art event of the East Bay, which brings some 60,000 arts patrons from all over the Bay Area directly to the artists. All of the artists participating at PCA both weekends live in or very near Piedmont.

The following four artists will be showing during the first weekend: Bonnie Bonner’s botanical watercolors (www.BonniesBotanicalArt.com ) are a combination of scientific accuracy and the creativity of fine art, which was first explored during the sixteenth century. She will also exhibit her succulent wreaths and garden art creations that provide refuge for beneficial insects and pollinators while beautifying garden walls and fences.

*Bonnie will show both weekends.

Debuting this year is sculptor Chere Hickock (www.cherehickock.com) whose magical totems are informed by her years spent as a bird and wildlife rescuer. She combs Northern California beaches for driftwood and other found objects to capture the animal’s essence. Teacher and painter Larraine Seiden (www.larraineseiden.com) uses encaustic wax paint, collage, and fabric to explore moments of transcendence in her Passages series.

She will also be showing new works from her colorful Sensate of Place series. Her layered abstract paintings are etched by repetitive gestures that echo traditional stitch work, marking time in the wax paint. Artist Lorna Strotz paints in encaustic (beeswax) and watercolor. Both realism and abstraction inform her work, which can be seen at www.strotzart.com.
 
Second weekend artists are: Photographer Kathy Burden (kgburden@aol.com) has been working in a plein air style since her college days. For open studios she will showcase unaltered photos taken from her Piedmont home and also in England.

Jane Reed is a local watercolorist who paints what she sees around her. Much of her work is by commission. The Open Studios exhibit at PCA will be open the following hours: First weekend group (Bonner, Hickock, Seiden and Strotz): Friday June 6, Opening Reception from 5 to 8:00 pm Saturday & Sunday, June 7 & 8, 11am-6pm Second Weekend group (Bonner, Burden, and Reed) Saturday & Sunday, June 14 & 15, 11am-6pm

—Information provided by ProArts Open Studios