PATTERNS AND TONES

  Opening night for my solo exhibition "Patterns and Tones for A Paper Ballet"  on  Saturday June 21, 2025 was well received indeed. Friends and family came from far and wide to help me celebrate three bodies of work which cohesively came together in one exhibition. I was delighted to see members of the Kipaipai and Shoebox art community, as well as gallery owners, collectors and art critics. It was truly a memorable evening. Please click on this link to see footage from opening night! Aria Gannon  From 5 - 9pm, the room was buzzing with various conversations about my process, the materials used and how it all fit into our current cultural and political climate.  As an added bonus, Grier Cooper (the ballarina featured in "A Paper Ballet") graced us in a paper costume as she glided effortlessly across the floor.   If you were unable to attend, please enjoy this footage of the opening captured by Eric Swenson here . Grier Cooper  "Patterns a...

Grier began ballet lessons at age five and left home at fourteen to study at the School of American Ballet in New York. She has performed on three out of seven continents with companies such as San Francisco Ballet, Miami City Ballet, and Pacific Northwest Ballet, totaling more than thirty years of experience as a dancer, teacher and performer. She writes and blogs about dance in the San Francisco Bay Area and has interviewed and photographed a diverse collection of dancers and performers including Clive Owen, Nicole Kidman, Glen Allen Sims and Jessica Sutta. She is the author of WISH, a ballet fiction novel for young adults. Links: website: http://www.griercooper.com Amazon Author page:   http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B00LPUJWSK Barnes and Noble: www.barnesandnoble.com/c/grier-cooper Twitter:   http://twitter.com/griercooper Facebook:   http://www.facebook.com/griercooper LinkedIn:   http://www.linkedin.com/pub/grier-cooper/1a/63/357/ I...

After much preparation, organization and scheduling, the first phase of the project took shape and a photo shoot with the dancers in costume was set. What better location than a dance studio used by the ballerina to stage the shoot! We all met at Suzie's Studio in San Rafael. I had driven up with a car so packed with paper portfolios, that I could barely see out the back window! The excitement of actually seeing this project take flight filled my heart with joy. The two dancers for the project, Mymuna Demora and Grier Cooper, were there when we arrived already warming up. Coming from very different backgrounds in dance, one a classically trained ballerina - the other coming from the inspirations of the great 20th century modern dancer and choreographer Martha Graham , I had a feeling the tension created by these varying approaches to dance would further my exploration of balance and instability within the image. They did not disappoint! The talented Gwen Allen documente...