Aug 1 @ 7:00 – 10:00 pm (Performances)
Aug 2 @ 11 am – 12:15 pm (Kitchen Printing, Workshop by Ali Blum) |1:00 pm 2:00 pm (Possibilities, Workshop by Elena Mencarelli)

Click here on the day of the event to see the live performance streaming Live on our Facebook page.

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Launched in 2003, Mission Arts & Performance Project (MAPP) is a homegrown bi-monthly, multidisciplinary, intercultural happening that takes place in the Mission District of San Francisco. On the first Saturday of every even month of the year, the MAPP transforms ordinary spaces, such as private garages, gardens, living rooms, studios, street corners, and small businesses into pop-up performance and exhibition sites for a day/night of intimate-scale artistic and cultural exchange among a kaleidoscope of individuals and communities. This program is funded by the California Arts Council Local Impact Grant. We are excited and grateful to continue our work in presenting unique artistry to the communities that we serve.

In an effort to continue presenting this deeply important program, Red Poppy Art House is presenting our second online MAPP. Workshops and performances live stream from artist’s homes to your homes on August 1st and 2nd.

Now, more than ever, we need your support to continue facilitating relationships between the artists and our community, and building a sonic bridge between today’s challenging time and a brighter future. Please consider investing in the future of the artists and the important role of the live performing arts in our community.

Click here to make Make a gift to Red Poppy Art House today!

TEAM
Curator and Moderator: Dina Zarif / Artistic Director
Workshop #1 Introduction: Renee Baldocchi / Visual Artist / Leadership team
Workshop #2 Introduction: Puja Kapur/ Visual Artist / Leadership team
Tech Support: Leeav Sofer / Musician
PR and Digital Marketing: Sarika Dagar / Filmmaker & Designer

AUGUST 2nd WORKSHOPS (ONLINE)

11:00 am – 12:30 pm, SUNDAY, AUGUST 2nd

Kitchen Printing / Workshop by Ali Blum
Create your own artwork using printmaking techniques including mono-printing, food stamping, and foam prints
 
ABOUT THE ARTIST
Ali Blum received her BFA from Cornell University in Painting and her MFA in Printmaking from Washington University in St Louis. She has had residencies at Curtiduria Printshop in Oaxaca, Mexico, and the De Young Museum in San Francisco. Ali actively exhibits and selected group and solo shows include De Young Museum, Cornell University Hartell Gallery, San Francisco Public Library, Museo de la Filatelia de Oaxaca, Ligne Roset, Front Gallery, Somarts, Paxton Gate Curiosities for Kids, The Mission Cultural Center, and The San Francisco Jewish Library.

Ali teaches at Drew School and the students serve as a constant source of energy and inspiration. She has conducted workshops and Live art demonstrations at the SFMOMA, De Young Friday Night Events, The Academy of Sciences, Asian Art Museum intern program, and The Jewish Museum. She is a member of the California Printmaking Society.
More info: Facebook | Instagram | Website

ARTIST STATEMENT
Art has been a constant in my life. I am interested in capturing the moment when something changes and the magic in the everyday. Hiraesh- a homesickness for a home to which you cannot return, a home that maybe never was; the nostalgia, the yearning, the grief for the lost places of your past is essential to my work. My interior world is of memories of childhood, books, songs, and nature all of which steers my work.

I have always loved the versatility of printmaking and work mostly in mixed media including mono-printing, screen printing, transfers, drawings, and gouache. I arrive at my images through the process of mono-printing.

Folktales and myths have also been integral to my understanding of the world. Over time, hybrid creatures and genetic engineering have blended with mythological images of my childhood and I find myself drawing connections- the web of life to the environment, politics, climate change, fires, food production, COVID19, and our planet.

The last several months teaching my high school art classes virtually, I found myself turning to options around the house and especially the kitchen to inspire new printing ideas and make it increasingly accessible.

WORKSHOP DESCRIPTION
In this workshop, we will learn a variety of printmaking techniques including mono-printing, food stamping, and foam prints. Emphasis is on experimentation and play. All ages are welcome to participate and enjoy!

In the first part of the workshop, we will explore mono-printing and stamping. In the second half, we will move into foam printing and mixed media. Each section has two materials lists. The first specialized and the second back to basics meaning that you can purchase specific materials or look around and use what you have in your home. Feel free to ask questions and share along the way.

MATERIALS

Monoprinting and Stamping

A Back to Basics List:

• Bucket with water
• Palette: Flat surface to roll out ink
• Ink: Tempera or acrylic are fine though they dry more quickly
• Paper: Construction or copier
• Printing Matrix: Flat surface perhaps a cookie tray or on styrofoam
• Printing Tool: Wooden spoon Paint brushes, sponges
• Removal of color: Paper towel, cotton swabs, paperclip
• Printmaking stencils: Paper to cut stencils and scissors, onion, baking potato,
  feathers, apple, leaves, cut paper, tinfoil, lace, glass, or jar rim or lids.

A Specialized List:

• Sink
• Palette: Flat surface to roll out ink
• Ink: Blick Water Soluble Block Printing Ink
• Paper: 10 pieces of printmaking 100% cotton cut to a little larger than the size of your plate
• Works best including Stonehenge, Arches, and Strathmore 500
• Printing Tool: Plexiglass plate
• Printing Tool: Barren
• Blow dryer
• Removal of color: Kitchen towel or paper towel, cotton swabs, paperclip, knife
• Printmaking stencils: Pencil for drawing into styrofoam, cotton swabs for removing ink, onion,
  baking potato, feathers, apple, leaves, cut paper, tinfoil, lace, glass, or jar rim or lids.
  Paper to cut stencils and scissors

Directions:

1. Squeeze ink onto a palette and roll out with roller or spread with a brush
2. Ink up a printing matrix using a roller or brushes
3. Place stencils down on plate – paper cut out shapes
4. Place paper on top when you have completed design and print with barren or spoon
5. Blow-dry and print the next object
6. You may start a new print and not use a matrix
7. Ink up leaves in another color and press print
8. Ink up the plate and use stencils again
9. Carve potato and stamp onto new paper or the same print
10. Play, experiment, share out and ask questions

Styrofoam Prints

 
A Back to Basics List:

• Pencil
• Sink
• Palette: Flat surface to roll out ink
• Ink: Tempera or acrylic are fine though they dry more quickly
• Paper: Construction paper, copier paper, pages from an book
• Printing Matrix: Styrofoam picnic plates, styrofoam meat/vegetable container, or take out containers
• Printing Tool: spoon
• Paper towel and blow dryer

A Specialized List for Styrofoam Prints:

• Pencil
• Bucket with water
• Palette: Flat surface to roll out ink
• Ink: Blick Water Soluble Block Printing Ink
• Paper: Printmaking 100% Cotton works best including Stonehenge, Arches, and Strathmore 500
• Printing Matrix: Styrofoam specialized plates
• Printing Tool: Baren
• Blow dryer

Directions:

1. Squeeze ink onto a palette and roll out with roller or spread with a brush
2. Draw into styrofoam with pencil
3. Ink up plate
4. Place paper on top of the plate and print using barren or spoon
5. ReInk plate and print again. Pull several prints
6. After you have pulled four prints wash your plate and dry it
7. Now add more details into your plate using a pencil.
8. Ink up the plate with added details and register first pull onto second inking and print (this will be shown during class)
9. Now you have a two-color print
10. You may do another reduction or experiment with mixed media. I recommend oil pastels

1:00 – 2:00 pm, SUNDAY, AUGUST 2nd

Possibilities, the Art of Resilience / Workshop by Elena Mencarelli
Create your own shadow box transforming a challenge into an exciting possibility through the power of resilience.

 
ABOUT THE ARTIST
Elena Mencarelli is a polyhedral visual artist. She started making art when she was little, and throughout the years she used painting, objects manipulation, writing, photography, and botanical art to express herself. Her work has been exhibited in Milan (Ita), Melbourne (AUS), and San Francisco (USA).

The different cultural settings she encountered during her travels in different parts of the world, and during her life experiences, helped to develop an interest in multiple creative practices. Nonetheless, her works are unified by an honest love for figurative art. Art Nouveau, Surrealism, and Narrative Art inspire her art practice, while Symbolism and Mythology feed her conceptual research.

In 2016, she accomplished a Master’s Degree in Visual Arts at the DAMS University (ITA). In 2018 she collaborated on the text of A Better Landscape exhibition’s catalog (Unimedia Modern, Genoa, Italy), and in 2019 she published a monographic essay with Silvana Editor (M. R. Ballestra, A Phenomenology of Posthumanism). She worked for Red Poppy Art House as a performances host and art curator from 2016 to 2020.

 
ARTIST STATEMENT
I have always been fascinated by nature and found objects, and through my art practice, I manipulate these two elements with a poetic language. My artworks tell stories of reinvention, of hope, and of beautiful human fragilities. As a cultural worker with a career started in Italy and developed in international settings, my aim is to unify and nourishing the several communities I encountered along the years through inspiring art projects that can foster values such as human connection and empathy.

Through my last work Possibilities, linked to the “Manifesto of Uncertainty” that I wrote for the Italian art platform Resilience, I hope to encourage anyone to use his/her own creativity to become a more resilient person. Resilience allows us to live life challenges in a constructive way, and to cope with the uncertain historical moment positively.

“Creating art and culture represents the prayer of those who don’t settle for mundane promises and dogmas, of those who suffer, of those who think, of those who can’t express themselves with the limited vocabulary of the common language. Creating art saves us from the world collapsing. Any artwork realized in the midst of this ruins is a talisman preserving hope”. Elena Mencarelli, Manifesto of Uncertainty. More info Website

WORKSHOP DESCRIPTION
“Possibilities, the Art of Resilience” is a fun workshop where we will build together an art shadow box taking inspiration from a personal challenge. Possibilities is a project conceived during the lockdown for Covid-19. Between April and June 2020 I have created 5 shadow boxes representing different moments lived during the shelter-in-place; each one of them transfigures a challenge produced by the social isolation and by the fear of uncertainty into a possibility for personal growth. This is the power of resilience! Let’s use our creativity and our imagination to cope with these odd times. We’ll take what we think it’s for us unbearable today, and change it into a treasure chest of wonders!

If you can’t build the shadow box with me, you will still learn how to stimulate your resilience and your creativity, and how to apply them through craft skills in the future. You don’t need to have any previous artistic background to enjoy the workshop.

During the workshop, we’ll create the shadow box “Carpe diem” — how to change the grief for an ended experience into a celebration for a new life phase. Using resilience, we can elaborate “endings” as meaningful transitions towards changes.

 
MATERIALS

• Wooden box with a lid (see Blick or Amazon), about 6’’w x 9’’h. If not, you can use cardboard boxes, like a shoe box
• Super strong liquid glue
• Long wheat stem. If not, use anything that looks similar
• Small candles, about 2,50’’h (the dimension that fits into the box’s border)
• Box of matches
• Dried flower petals
• Gold marker/gold paint

 
What you can add to your list:

• Glitters (if so, bring a glue stick to fix them onto the box)
• 1 small picture representing one of your dreams (could be a place you want to visit, an object you’d like to possess,
  a job you’d love to do, a person you miss.) — I suggest glue stick or double-sided tape to bring along

*You can paint the box of your favorite color ahead of time.

 
Time: 11am – 12:15 pm (Visual Art Workshop #1) | 1:00 pm – 2:00pm (Artist talk and Visual Art Workshop #2)
Admission: Free (donations are encouraged)

Tune in 10 minutes before each event starts to test your devices for connection.
The event will be streamed live through Red Poppy Art House Facebook page

Tune in 10 minutes before each event starts to test your devices for connection.
The event will be streamed live through Red Poppy Art House facebook page
Ali’s Facebook event page

 

Elena’s Facebook event page

 

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