I live on a small island in San Francisco Bay, originally an oak-covered peninsula that now is separated from the Oakland shore by an estuary. Alameda was settled in the mid 19th century, and has an astonishing number of old neighborhoods remaining in relatively pristine condition. A man-made lagoon snakes its way through the island, and beyond that is the bay. We are surrounded by water, and can hear the container ships, and the fog horns out on the bay from our house, as well as the trains coming and going from the Jack London station just across the estuary. Old oaks from Ohlone times still grow in Victorian gardens, and the sun sets over the great bay with the skyscrapers of San Francisco silhouetted on the horizon.
It's an evocative place for a painter. So many of my pictures are of quiet, mysterious corners of our island, often in twilight, that when Vines Gallery offered to host a one-woman show of my work, my husband suggested a name for the collection: "Secret Alameda". The artist reception and show will be on June 5, 2010, and the paintings will remain on display for a month.
