Antonio Inserni is a metal sculptor in the East Bay. While the majority of his time and talent are spent supporting fellow artists with their UnScruz and Burning Man projects, many of his pieces are on private display throughout the Bay Area. Find examples of his work on Instagram: @aainser1 

Barbara Vanderbeck is a San Francisco-based ceramic artist who designs much of her work to be displayed in the garden. Her earthy yet vibrant ceramics is inspired from the natural world and her extensive travels and studies. Her garden sculpture has been commissioned and collected throughout the Bay Area and beyond.

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David and Reed Bowman are a father and son studio with over 80 years of collective experience in metalwork. David is almost entirely self-taught, having begun working with silver in the early 1970s, just after Reed was born. Working mostly with simple hand tools, David progressed into working with brass and copper, steadily making larger designs from vases and candlesticks to large wall sculptures. Since the 1980s, most of the studio’s work has been colored with traditional and modern sculptural patinas, applied with metal. Reed has continued to build upon the techniques and has added more free-standing sculptures as well as tables to the repertoire.

Diana Markessinis {Mar-ka-seen-iss} is an Oakland-based artist that utilizes mixed media, metal, and clay to explore the interconnectedness of humans to their environment and each other. A major element is authenticity and accessibility – having a relationship with the work through holding, touching, moving amongst. The work is purposefully approachable, playful, and designed to bring nature and humans closer. Markessinis holds degrees in Sculpture from MFA {CSU Fullerton} and BFA {West Virginia University} with work on view throughout the country in public and private spaces.

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My artwork derives from my personal and professional background: my upbringing and residence in various places around the world (such as Romania, Israel, China and recently California), my professional background as Socio-Anthropologist, and the rich Jewish heritage that I’m part of,” said Henriette Ponte. “I enjoy exploring ancient and traditional forms and motifs – such as pomegranates and totems – through an extensive usage of vivid colors and textures that reflects my Mediterranean background. I mainly use hand building techniques, and every piece I create is unique and one of a kind.

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My artists life began as a child sitting in the back seat of a 1957 Chevrolet with a drawing tablet – only the best from the art store – and my favorite #2 pencil.

My mother would throw me and all of her drawing supplies into the car and drive all around town looking for interesting buildings, homes, or people to draw. Always on a busy street, cars whizzing by with all the noise that accompanies them; no matter, we were there to draw whatever was out the side window of the car.

I’d say my drawings were never much to look at, but I always received tons of “that’s beautiful” or “I wish I could draw like that” from Mom. Sometimes my scale would be off, sometimes my perspective, no problem, Mom encouraged me.

Each adventure would top the last – and each finishing with a quick roll up of the window, a buckle of the seatbelt, and a retreat to home where mom would pull out her recent work and “touch up” her drawing – then – she begin to paint. This was the best time.

The fumes of oil and turpentine would fill the house. We, my sister and I, would run over and open a window to get some fresh air into the room – Mom was painting! We would watch her paint, and then, for some unknown reason (except for being a kid) we’d find something else to do – until our curiosity sparked us to again go and see how far she had come with her latest “masterpiece.” This was my introduction to art.

My art evolved over the years, sometimes taken with painting, sometimes drawing, until that one special day that I discovered welding.

My father-in-law, Chet Christison, lived in Fresno. We would visit him and his wife Thelma at least three or four times per year. His workshop, a huge outbuilding on the property, was filled with woodworking tools. Little did I know that he also loved metal.

Inside his workshop, in a corner that you could barely get to without disturbing all the feral cats he loved so much, away from everything else, was an oxy-acetylene torch set, and next to it, a small welder. “What the heck is this?” I asked him. “Oh that, you wouldn’t know” he said. “That’s for welding metal.” I asked him if he wanted it, since I could see it had not been used in some time. “What are you going to do with it? You don’t even know how to use it.” I finally got him to give it to me.

The welder went into the back of my truck, along with the oxy set. I was determined to put them to good use. I must be able to find something that needs welding.

I believe that art should evoke curiosity. Instead of giving answers, it poses questions. Do not expect art to make you a better person, it may disturb you.

My pieces do not look like they came from the same artist: I change every day and so do my creations. They are born from what I feel at that moment: seeking harmony and protection or fighting an ailment and aggression.

I do not try to please, but rather, to represent an idea and ask for your own interpretation to the question I have molded.

Nature is my biggest influence. I first started building totems in a drought year, thinking of them as sort of hardy, year-round ceramic plants for the garden. I’m attracted to plants that have totem-like spires: verbascums, hollyhocks, acanthus, etc. I love to see totems of different heights in small groupings, interacting with each other, and with the surrounding foliage in my garden. Most of the forms are of my invention, inspired by my experience of plants and seedpods and the like, rather than seeking to reproduce any plants in particular. As a painter, I find that my work in painting informs my work in clay and vice versa. I’ve lived and worked in Sonoma County for over 20 years, where I also teach art at Santa Rosa Junior College. A lifelong painter, ceramic sculpture is relatively new to me.

Lucy Ruth Wright Rivers was born in Morocco and raised in rural central California. She earned a BS from UC Davis and an MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Her artwork is in private collections and public settings. Lucy particularly enjoys working with found color, making art from discards and detritus, materials that can bring their own narratives to the artwork. She collaborates with her materials to best capture the changes of light and atmosphere throughout the day.

Lynn Jones is a sculptor and mosaic artist from Berkeley. Lynn has been making sculptural
mosaics for more than 20 years. She is drawn to mosaic for its long history and proven
durability. Her playful sculptures of animals embody a sense of action and personality, while the
mosaic surfaces fabricated from broken dishes reveal a witty interplay of image, color, and
pattern. Lynn’s work can be seen at Schoolhouse Creek Commons in Berkeley, at the Albany
Bulb and at the Berkeley Marina.

Mark Oldland creates art furniture, sculpture, architectural elements and occasional poems. He enjoys playing/pulling at edges, as between animate and inanimate, between functional and purely aesthetic. Juggling may aptly describe this pursuit. He’s learned to accept and even relish the vulnerability this tack creates and developed a taste for working from the ’empty cup.’ Compelling fuel for an adventure in design.

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Although I was trained as a painter at Yale, I am a sculptor and mixed media artist at heart. My interest is in the figure and in concepts about beauty, desire and memory.

I work as responsively and unconsciously as possible, inspired by folk art, the children I teach and my practice of yoga.

This work is also about the innate sensuousness of the materials used. Clay is like skin and body. I want to move the viewer to a personal, body response.

I graduated from UC Davis with a degree in Textile Design.  While I still do tapestry weaving, I wanted to make three-dimensional work. I started with plaster.  Eventually, I developed a process to produce more durable sculptures.  Welded steel, layers of aviary wire, several layers of concrete, sealed and painted allow the sculptures to be outside.  The sculpture will change with time – paint may fade depending on how much sun it receives, lichens grow and the relentless water will get into cracks – that is all part of the process of change.

https://nwgrahamart.com/ 

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Patti Kjonaas has been working in clay studios since she was 13, lived in London where she studied drawing, has a BFA from The California College of Arts and Crafts, was on the faculty of the Richmond Art Center for 13 years, and developed and ran an innovative ceramic sculpture and AP-3D studio arts program at a California Distinguished high school also for 13 years. She feels she is a very, very lucky soul.

Her favorite thing is to design and create columns, planters, and fountains for garden spaces. To see more of her work visit her Instagram @pattikj510

My name is Rachel, I am a self taught mosaic artist from the South Bay. As a stained glass artist, I saved all my leftover glass for an opportunity that came when I received a pair of glass nippers and a bag of grout from a close friend. I started experimenting and quickly fell in love with the art of mosaic. I make 2D and 3D art work for both indoor and outdoor, working intuitively with design, color, and form.

What kind of art do I make?

Making thoughts visible is my goal.

My focus is to produce a high-quality metal sculpture. Beginning with sheet metal, I shape and weld pieces together, creating a three-dimensional form. To make a sculpture that looks as if it was carved from a solid chunk is part of that focus.

The sculptures I make represent phases of my life such as: my thoughts, dreams, experiences, or just interesting shapes I have thought up and developed over time.

I grew up on the edge of a woods in New England and I spent all my free time wandering amongst the trees. Though I have been living in California for all of my adult life, you cannot take the New Englander out of me. It is a part of me. I’m determinedly independent, critically frugal, I don’t take myself too seriously, and yes, there’s the sarcasm. For over 30 years I have been making portraits of people, real people, as a photographer for advertising and editorial clients worldwide. Along the way, I have pictured large sculptural pieces in my mind – pieces I never had the space to create.

Fast forward a few decades of city life, and I’m back living on a farm, this time in the Oakland hills. When I started to make sculpture under the shade of a 60-year-old Cedar, I was back home again, back in the woods of New England, back playing with trees.

Inspired by nature, my work reflects on the interconnections between all living systems, creating allegorical sculptures that highlight the invisible bonds that unite us. Through hybrid forms and symbolic elements, I explore the delicate balance between humanity, the natural world, and the transformations that shape our shared existence.

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I came to be a metal worker in my thirties when I trained as a brazer and CNC operator with the flagship British brand Brompton Bicycles. For over 7 years I learned their craft and production discipline. I then joined Hall Conservation, a company specialising in the restoration of heritage metal work, fine art and sculptures, as well as bespoke interior and exterior design pieces. I was with Hall Conservation for a number of years, and coupled this with advance training and qualifications. Since moving to California in 2022, I have been exploring and developing my own practice as an artist, which is the work you see shared on this site. 

My home town in the Czech Republic is famous for its glass production. My mother is a trained glass painter, and my father is a metal worker. In my work I aspire to honour their respective crafts by bringing together their creativity and skill.