Contents Summer 2014
SIDE DISH
Lucky Dog Hot Sauce
Abesha Ethiopian Restaurant
La Cocina alums launch East Bay businesses
UC Berkeley’s student grocers
East Bay food tours
FINANCING OAKLAND’S NEW RESTAURANTS
FIBERSHED
Recipes: Kerrs Dinner to Dye For
ABOUT OUR COVER ARTIST
Artist Celia Wedding is a California native now living in Piedmont. She received her formal education in painting at UC San Diego and Oakland’s California College of Arts and Crafts (now California College of the Arts), continuing with devoted studies in figure drawing and printmaking. She has won many awards, including first place in Palo Alto’s Pacific Art League’s 2010 West Coast Prints exhibition.
“There has always been a voice inside my head that repeats, ‘pick up a pencil; make a mark.’ That voice continues to push me to create drawings and improve the precision of my drawing skills. My work has evolved as I expanded my choice of medium, but it is always informed by a deep connection to draftmanship as I explore the images that move me,” she says.
An avid cook, she likes to compare the culinary process with that of printmaking: “In each there are learned techniques that get better with practice. When techniques have been mastered, the experience can be repeated with new ideas and materials. The cook’s tastes in ingredients guide the direction of the creations. Happy accidents happen, colored by the cook’s hand. And when the cooking is finished, there is something to share. All this is true of making prints, if you imagine a press as a stove. It may be that a print is not literally nourishing, but I do enjoy cooking them up.”
The cover image, “Black Sheep,” is a dry point. It differs from an etching in that it is drawn directly onto a zinc plate. By scratching into the plate, a burr is thrown up that catches the ink. It is a more direct way to incise the surface of the plate than by etching and has a softer quality of line. The colored print on page 46 was made as a monoprint with colored ink on the same plate and then embellished with pastel. “Hummingbird Hen” above, is an etching.
Her work will be shown at the annual East Bay Open Studios, June 6, 7, 8, 13, and 14 at Uptown Auto Body, 401 26th Street, Oakland. Look for times online at uptownopenstudios.com
