Last Opening on Grand Avenue

A lot is happening in the community life of Mercury 20 Gallery! We just celebrated our last opening at our current space, 25 Grand Ave, Oakland, Ca. Mercury 20 was started three years ago by a group of artists that wanted to create community and have a gallery where we could experiment and exhibit our work. Well, it has been a fabulous ride that has included a lot of on the job training. Now we are on to our next adventure. Our new gallery will be on 25th Street, only 3 blocks away, but I will save all the details for a later post.

Now for the opening:

Dave Meeker exhibited his amazing circus of moving sculpture. This piece is titled "Dandy." It slowly inflates and deflates. It is positively mesmerizing to stand there and watch the gentleman's attire come to life.


Dave's work created a lot of smiles that night.


This collection of work has the electrifying feel of a science fair/fun house. Most of the pieces have buttons that you can press to inflate, light up or create a fake snow blizzard. This little beauty inflates inside her house when you press the button. Title:"Housewife"

I love to include these shots that give you the feel that you are pressed right up against the crowd. There is never a dull moment on first Fridays with artists, kids and dogs running around.


It's "Story Time" with Dave.




It is such a kick to hear Dave's explanations and wise cracks about his work. This particular sculpture has a motion sensor on it, so the boxes jump up out of one another as you walk by.





The shocking part about this inflatable piece on the right is that Dave made this when he was in 4th Grade! It collapses and then rises to the ceiling.

I would love to meet his parents!





I included a recent piece that I made in response to our move to a new space. It is an 8 ft ladder made of old maps and a small resin bird at the top. I purposefully used maps at the top from the east coast and the bottom are from the west coast. Migration has many rungs in this ladder.




The backroom show is titled, "Don't Look Back" Margaret Chavigny, Kathleen King, Jill McLennan, Charlie Milgrim.
Charlie filled the gallery with some of her biggest works, not an easy task!!
Looks like the photographer caught a few folks touching the balls!





This is such a great shot of Tony hanging out upstairs with the " Works on Paper" show.
Chela Fielding, Patricia Gillespie, Maya Kabat, Jamie Morgan, Joan Weiss and I exhibited our paper work together.





We did manage to sneak away for a quick peek at some of the new galleries opening in the Murmur. Alan Chin's towering mountain of plastic hangers was at the new Firehouse Collective South Gallery on 24th street.

Stay tuned for our announcement about the new Mercury 20 Gallery located on 25th Street in Oakland!