In a time where we turn from each other, the opportunity to gaze into even our perception of someone and the relationship- how deep, shallow, sideways, engaged - can be elusive. In this Sense Lab, we get to experience privately an opportunity to meditate on this person or entity. Then, we are invited to make marks of this person - a portrait in mark making, shape, and intentional drawing; to make seen that which otherwise we might turn away from. Participants are invited to bring their own supplies and utilize the studio as theirs, with the sole prompt to listen to the meditation and then draw, paste, and create a mark of the person, being, entity. There will be supplies available as well.

Mary Tremonte is an artist, educator, and DJ based in Pittsburgh, with a piece of her heart in Toronto. A member of Justseeds Artists' Cooperative, she works with "printmaking in the expanded field,"

The idea of the exhibition is to show the process of the project, to give a sense of its organic, chaotic expansion (started as a scrapbook and turned into a group project). The exhibition is also intended to give people ways to notice exercise their own attention. Learn More about Christie here.

Creator of the community medicine cabinet, Madelyn Berg is an artist, herbalist, community connector, and teacher.Graduate of Oberlin College, Madelyn's thesis focused on sculpture, exploring the nexus between, healing, our bodies and nature.   ​ Learn more about Madalyn here.

As someone who has held many conceptions of what Life is, and therefore what and who I am, the character of Changeling, a fairy being left in place of a human, feels so familiar to me. As if through the touch of a fairy, I have met a new form of self many times. Sometimes a new way of being me, has unfurled like a gift, given. Though sometimes the acts of change have taken work. I don’t want to give the impression that it’s always been easy to keep hanging on ;) Change has kept me living.

An exploration of all things mycological; structure, meaning, identity and beyond. Part educational demonstration/ part conceptual art.

With her 2nd site specific work of this kind, Weidinger took time in conversation with the people of Occidental about what they loved about their town and what was missing. The work that came out of these conversations, both fine art prints and goods needed, created the Occidental Specific store. This included a small bookstore, socks, soap and roller skates.

A longtime resident of West County and accomplished wire artist, Seth presented a whole room of wire faces to revel in and take home.Made from one piece of wire, they are full of life and create magnificent shadows. They continue to be for sale at the Neon Raspberry Store.

Being an emotional being is so hard. Ash Hay asks us to rest our weary bones for a second and consider how it might be special. In CRY HARD LAUGH HARD, Hay explores happiness and sadness, life and death, and the complicated soup they make when they all coexist and coalesce for a while. Through examination of their own ancestral line, Hay calls in imagery of quilts and portals exploring death, living, and rebirth.

A photographic and auditory exploration of the intersection of sexuality, geography and belonging. LGBTQ+ perspectives between California and the Southeast (KY, NC,TN)

Yoshiko Rasmussen is a public art coordinator by day and an artist by night, like Bruce Wayne and Batman. These two sides of her life inform the other. In 2020 during the first summer of COVID-19, Jessica created the United States Portal Service, an interactive public art project which prompted participants to send and receive handwritten letters to the past or future, via a golden mailbox in Santa Rosa’s Courthouse Square. With the help of incredible volunteer Portal Professionals (responders) and one bodacious excel spreadsheet, she facilitated over 80 letters and their mailed responses. Building on the quasi-formal and administrative aspects of the Portal Service, Va Va Vortex Art Service was the natural next step. Jessica mails subscribers original artwork each month, sometimes accompanied by a mini art history lesson or info about what inspired the piece. The mundane framework of a subscription service gives Jessica the freedom to get playful with the actual art. Since the continuity of Va Va Vortex is the structure itself, the artworks can be completely different from one to the next. They are snippets, little dreams. Over time, the act of sending and receiving monthly bite-sized artwork makes up a larger conceptual piece. The unabashed transactional quality of charging money for “art service” brings up a lot of questions around the value of art and its role in our everyday lives, access to art, and art as a commodity. Frequently asked questions Q: Who is this for? A: Anyone who needs: beauty, magic, mail, irreverence, questions, joy, delirium, or an additional subscription service Q: Wait what am I getting again? A: Art Q: What if I don’t like the art? A: This is an eternal question which should only be answered by the subscriber. You may unsubscribe at any time, though we do not recommend this option

Long-time collaborators Conor Buckley and Eric Lister began the Brainsplosion Series in 2016, capturing creatures in ecstatic throes of conflict working in mixed media: primarily paintings on canvas, metal and wood and large scale murals. The evolution of the series mirrors more ferocious hostilities in their new show ISOLATION + ALARM. Seemingly indistinguishable equals vie for arbitrary dominance outside the archetype of predator-prey. The wild ecstasy of outrage is absurd, but quiet indifference now shares the space. http://conorbuckley.com/brainsplosion Instagram: @themisterlister @c.buck.draw #brainsplosion

Amidst seemingly constant states of disaster and crises in our world, individuals find (or try to find) ways to maintain and manage their own realities. Through the language of plants and symbols, and explorations of natural cycles and patterns, Eriko and Vanessa seek to create portals--entryways into other-worldly dimensions--while still being present in our current reality. Exploring these openings and gateways helps us to question our own realities and perceptions. At what point do certain realities become tangible / intangible? Where does one find validity in a world with such strict margins? About Eriko Hattori: Eriko Hattori (they/them) is a Pittsburgh-based artist. Hattori uses imagery, symbolism, and folklore to investigate the tension between their queer identity and Japanese heritage. Hattori's work has been shown in duo and group exhibitions across the country and has been featured in Art Maze Magazine, the GIFC World Tour, and online for Field Project Gallery's Corona Care project. Their work has been included in exhibitions across the country including New York, NY; Los Angeles, CA; New Orleans, LA; Pittsburgh, PA and belong in multiple private collections. “My work centers around personal mythologies and cultivating folkloric narratives that relate to sexuality, fetish, and perceptions of femininity. I depict scenes and interactions between icons and avatars in my work that are intimate and playful, blurring the lines between relationships that can be perceived as romantic/sexual or platonic. I draw heavily from Japanese folktales, ghost stories, and cinema to create mythological scenes and use them as launching points to talk about gender and sexuality in relation to my heritage and perceptions of the culture. The characters I gravitate towards are often figures who were shunned by their societies or lived through a great loss or trauma, continuing to haunt the places they used to inhabit or called home. Many of the characters I depict in my work come directly from folktales and ghost stories (the ‘nureonna,’ ‘jorogumo,’ ‘yurei,’ and the harpy), and the work I make places these characters in new worlds and contexts in attempts to redeem and honor them. Being part of a culture and demographic that’s highly sexualized and fetishized influences my work heavily, and my work is a result of the confusion and pain that came from navigating these paradigms and my observations of them. My aim is to present scenes that subvert ideas of gender and sexuality that are often associated with Japanese culture and how it’s perceived. It’s also my attempt to heal from past traumas and gain ownership of my identity.” About Vanessa Adams: Vanessa Adams is an artist from New Orleans, LA based in Pittsburgh, PA. Vanessa has a BA in Urban Studies from Brown University and has continued their studies at Penland School of Crafts, Louisiana State University, and Tulane University. They’ve taught at community organizations such as New Orleans Community Printshop, Women’s Studio Workshop and the Mattress Factory. “In my recent work, the life cycles of night-blooming plants and the phases of the moon, serve as visual signposts for stages of growth and transformation. Night-blooming plants have a long association with magical states of being, mystery, intoxication, and the divine. The moon shifts tides and emotional landscapes, and is a doorway to dreams and visions. The moon’s cycles are used by many to set intentions and schedule the planting of seeds. I use these elements to investigate possibilities for queer magic, ritual, and healing. These pieces look for ways to inhabit places of darkness, harness intuition, and transform in the face of the unknown.“

“Looking back, the work that became the questions project (made in 2020) was created more out of necessity than probably any other work I’ve created.” “It kept me sane in the usual ways that making tends to, but the added bonus of thinking mostly in questions gave me the much needed feeling of ‘an open door’ even when there were none to be found. The questions gave the illusion on some days, and the harsh reminder on most others, that there is still a choice. The choice might not be how I envisioned or in a language I could comprehend, but asking questions to problems where I have absolutely no answers is what I like to think of as a deliberate practice in imagining. If I can’t dream up what to ask, I certainly have no chance at an answer. The questions are the beginning, the middle and the end. The questions serve as openings + invitations to practice my ability to summon & interact with the unknown; to choose again, choose differently. To understand when there is no choice & question within those constraints. To invent a new set of variables, to begin again, & again & again…” -e bond e bond is an artist + writer + bookbinder + educator & designer. Currently, she makes digital spaces by day, handmade books by night, hangs out with trees on weekends and writes something close to poems in the spaces between. Under the studio name roughdrAftbooks, created in 2003, she makes one-of-a-kind artists books, printed pieces and abstract drawings that merge and blur the boundaries of art, craft, design and poetry. e holds a BFA in graphic design and art history for Moore College of Art & Design and an MFA in Creative Writing and Book Art from Mills College. She has been a visiting artist and lecturer and taught workshops for future artists in places as close as Oakland and Philadelphia and as far as Hoi An, Vietnam. Her artwork has been exhibited at B Square Gallery, The Kimmel Center and in conjunction with the Philadelphia & San Francisco Centers for the Book.

Sonoma based artist Annette Goodfriend’s solo exhibit is a playful and surreal portrayal of the molecular battle to vanquish the SARS CoV-2 Virus. Through her innovative sculpture, Goodfriend presents us with a whimsical mediation on antibodies in action. A multimedia sculptor, Goodfriend’s work focuses on science, nature and the role of humans in our environment

Du-Good in Unity makes open edition posters to exemplify unified action and positivity. Du-Good In Unity launched during the January 2018. Women’s March, one year after the inauguration of Donald Trump. Founders, Leslie Diuguid and Erin Lynn Welsh, select women artists annually to publish works that promote equality. Proceeds raised through print sales go to the artists’ charity of choice. They have been used and seen in political protest nationally and movement work over the last two years. The Du-Good in Unity Series is printed by Du-Good Press. Established in 2017 by Leslie Diuguid, it is the first and only Black Female owned Fine Art Printshop in New York and collaboratively prints for artists, designers, illustrators, and galleries.

We have seen democracy in the US and around the world tested in ways few could imagine since 2016. Although these challenges on our democracy have been underway for decades, it is all ripped bare now. Homage to Democracy documents the constant change and fragility of the social and political crisis happening around us. The pieces spring from mapping, government data and journalism collected over the past three years. I present a visual reminder of the constant, torturous tug at our democracy and our collective trauma as a nation. Based in Sonoma, Kathryn Clark works with the traditional mediums of embroidery and quilting to document global societal issues. Her work has been widely exhibited across the U.S. and has been featured in several publications including Textile Travels, 2020, The Craft Companion, 2016, as well as American Craft Magazine, Planning Magazine, Uppercase and New American Paintings. Her work is in permanent collections at the Smithsonian American Art Museum, the International Quilt Study Center & Museum, the ACLU and Michigan State University Museum.

"Art is Spirituality in Drag" This quote by Jennifer Yan sums up my approach to art. Art, activism and magic are one and the same to me. As far back as I can remember I have collected things and then put them together in a ritualistic manner. My earliest memory of this is creating a shrine to Barbie in a shoebox after an overnight with a Catholic friend in kindergarten. I make things out of things and everything I make is a spell, an invocation and a prayer. I feel compelled to put pieces together to make a new whole. I never know what that whole will be when I start, but I know my intention and I begin. I’m especially drawn to using the detritus of femininity – buttons, hankies, old costume jewelry – to create spells which not only challenge, but devoke patriarchy and white supremacy. Themes that are recurrent in my lifetime have been hands, bees, hearts and eggs. Bees pollinate, hands do the work of change, hearts are meant to open and eggs represent birth. Since the 2016 election, all my art and magic have been focused on Waving Goodbye to the Patriarchy. I started out making prayer flags that were imbued with this sentiment and this eventually resulted in portable prayer flags in the form of vintage women’s hankies. My other art (all mixed media) has carried this sentiment forward and have been invocations of the same.

Veronica Ceci’s work is an inquiry into tactile beauty and societal ugliness in the life of a queer femme working as a maid. Cleaning and art making both use tools and potions to change the perception of objects and surfaces. The artist manipulates devices used in the work of cleaning to remove their use value and transform them into objects worthy of careful consideration. In reducing the presence of the implements of cleaning to golden shapes, drawn lines and rectangular abstractions, the essential elements of functional design are presented with new context. As the figure interacts with these manipulated objects the matter of gendered hierarchical relationships to physical labor is exposed. The exaggeration of curves, emphasis on textures, and use of reflective materials moves these formerly invisible connections into the realm of hypervisible. Invoking the precise repetition and stamina honed over decades as a Master Printer, Ceci reveals parallels between high art and what is mislabeled as unskilled labor.

Curated by Mahea Campbell of Neon Raspberry, this group show presents new work made between Mid March and Mid May 2020. They are works that reflect that period of time, the early, immediate months of pandemic and quarantine Many forms are represented, including painting, writing, sculpture, fiber art, photography and drawing. NR deeply thanks the artists for sharing this recent work, made during a time of great vulnerability and questioning. Artists included are: Robyn Twomey Bud Snow Connor Buckley Christie George Catherine Sieck Supriya Pillai-Lopez Ash Hay Nicole Markoff (Nica Celly) Ibrahim Abdul-Matin Melissa Jones

A student of humanity, eternal optimist and lover of words, Petaluma based Andy Rado creates meaning by making playful thought provoking design, art and products. Interested in the intersection of commercial and visual art, Andy's work blurs the line between the two by delivering personal messages through the medium of design and illustration. He combines his professional design background with early training in fine art to create reason to ponder and dream. Ordinary objects painted in bright colors and illuminated with messages that contain a touch of wit and humor, invite the viewer to make the ordinary extraordinary, brining more presence and depth to our everyday lives. Pour yourself some optimism, remember that feelings matter, consider your doubts and open a door to accepting that, in our collective humanity, everyone is someone you know.

Catherine Sieck is an artist and farmer who makes work informed by folk art traditions which accompany ritual, devotion, and storytelling. Her narrative cut-paper pieces celebrate the moments of beauty and grief which continually pull us apart and remake us—the elemental, the erotic, the mundane, the familial and the unfamiliar. She seeks to make work imbued with the vitality of the cycles of death and rebirth. “Eating Honeyed Pomegranates” is the body of work made in the wake of her mom’s death. About 17 moons, held as a spiral, not a clean linear arc of healing from a loss. The time, and likewise the work, moves between deeply personal, visceral reckoning with death and panning out to encompass more of an exploration of ancestral death practices & regeneration myths and folklore. The name “Eating Honeyed Pomegranate Seeds” comes from the Persephone/ Demeter story, as the honeyed pomegranate seeds that she ingests in the underworld are what gives her the capacity to move between this world and the other.

In Holding Space, Chelsea brings together the full spectrum of her creative life. She works with a variety of mediums and finds a flow in moving from one to another. They invoke the search for space, evolving identity and a desire for a room of one’s own. “Being in this space has allowed me to bring all of my selves together. Drawings are a declaration of a feeling and my work is an evolving reflection of self. As there’s room for all my work to exist in the same space- there’s room for all of me to exist. The space creates the whole person. I am all my reflections.” East Bay born and raised, Chelsea Lakis is a multimedia artist living and working in Occidental. She received her BFA in drawing from CSU Chico. She has studied at ENSA in Dijon, France and spent a summer session at Penland School of Craft studying experimental drawing with Joseph Hart.

Originally from Australia, Natalie Woodlock works in printmaking, illustration, stop-motion animation and installation. These "Queer Portraits" were a part of her 2018 MFA show at the University of New Orleans entitled “Secret Society”- a collection of the artists illustrative representations of her community.

Mich Miller is a Los Angeles based printmaker, painter, and muralist who uses they/them pronouns. Miller composes playful and suggestive forms in relation to hard edged geometric abstraction; compositions greatly influenced by landscape, light, design. Architectural and bodily forms are enlivened through flat, bright colors and gradients. Using their experience and lens as a queer maker, themes of the queer body and human presence have emerged across many series of Mich's work.

Raisa Yavneh is a bay area raised, queer artist and freelance illustrator working and living in West Sonoma County. Her work can be seen in a number of print and online publications, including The Bohemian, The Bold Italic, The East Bay Express, Polyester Magazine and in the horoscopes for Them. - Conde Nast’s queer news platform and social media community.

Through her sculpture, painting and installations, BUD SNOW creates a fantastical world of mythic creatures, archetypes and messages in vibrant color and fluid painted languages. Dive right in and smile big!

Melanie is a longtime activist/artist based in the Bay Area. She creates visual art that is inspired by the people around her and her communities’ desire for radical social transformation. Melanie has exhibited extensively nationally and internationally including at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (San Francisco); National Museum of Mexican Art (Chicago); and Museum of Modern Art (New York, NY). With her partner Jesus Barraza, she founded the graphic arts collaboration Dignidad Rebelde. Following principles of Xicanisma and Zapatismo, they create work that amplifies people’s stories and to create art that can be put back into the hands of the communities who inspire it. This show presents vivid portraits of political activist elders.

Kristine Virsis is an artist and print maker living and working in New York City. She is a member of the Just Seeds Artist Cooperative. Ali Norman is an artist currently completing her MFA in printmaking and book arts at the University of Georgia. She is a graduate of SCAD (Savannah College of Art and Design)

Pussy Fury explores our modern world and its struggles through an alter ego, a sourpuss cat who brings a critical eye to injustice and imbalance. Occidental based, Jones draws and paints daily and takes inspiration from her internal and external landscape. She'll also share work from her daily practice and a 3d interactive monopoly game based on current Sonoma county housing dynamics.

"I saw the crudy past and the synthetic future, which wrapped itself around me like a golden necklace."

We're highlighting the art of Robin Einsenberg, an artist and illustrator based in Los Angeles. Her cast of characters, from alien girls to skeletons to mermaids inhabit her imagined world with moxie and intrigue, asking us to envision the kind of world we wanna be in. We're be showing a set of canvas prints through mid summer and also have a bunch of loose prints available.

The massive transition of governmental power and perspective in the last six months has been met at times with shock, excitement, fear, resistance, hope and worry.The works included in this group show offer varied perspectives on leading with a radical sense of love: for ourselves, for our communities, for the larger world and for the stranger on the street. Artists: Beyon Wren Moor Nicole Markoff (Nica Celly) Georgia Carbone and the printmaking shops of: Hecho Con Ganas Just Seeds Artists Collective

Victoria Wagner will show her mind-bending and mind-deepening oil paintings and her magical, graceful wood rocks this November and December. We at NR and Hinterland are super excited to share space with Victoria's vision this holiday season. The Sonoma County based painter and sculptor summons the kaleidoscope of nature in her work and pairs the abstract with the organic in a truly wondrous way.

Axiom: logical, universal truth. How does this relate to a place like Ethiopia? A country hugely significant to so many, yet largely misunderstood by outsiders. A country that has never been colonized, one of the first Christian nations, the Rastafari promise land, and the birthplace of humanity. Yet Ethiopia is currently experiencing a never before seen opening to globalization from business and governments of the "developed" world. On the streets of the capital Addis Ababa the economic boom is palpable as the city transforms on a daily basis. What will remain, what will change? These are questions photographers Xiomara Castro and Daniel D. Zarazua asked themselves while on assignment for Pochino Press in the summer of 2015. Join us for this visual and written exploration at Neon Raspberry.

"Even though water has supported our ancestors for millions of years, we can no longer take it for granted. It’s time to think hard about what we put in water, how we use it, and where and how we live. In creating the collection of images in Wellspring, we at Justseeds hope to further the dialogue about this elemental issue. Our hope is that these images will generalize to become a useful buoy in a sea of bad news. We know that this offering is just a drop. Much more will need to be expressed as we acclimate to our role protecting our precious water sources, embodying the hydrophilic, water-loving qualities that created us."

The talented photographer Lindsey Ross will be at Neon Raspberry November the 26th and 27th for two days of in-house photography. To book your appointment for either a tintype (metal) or ambrotype (black glass) photo please schedule here. Appointments are filling up fast so please make yours as soon as possible.

I’m looking at the very bottom of the Western Interior Seaway, folding and draping landscapes, in and over interior spaces, using light and photography. This practice grows from an inquiry begun in 2013 around orogenic suturing (one geological phenomenon of mountain making) and thought production, and the ways in which our psychology, from a nondual perspective, operates more like geological forces than we realize now. A note on process… The secret to the Motown sound is the echo chamber. The soul clap’s reverb sound is the result of recording in the basement, wiring it to a vaulted ceiling in the roof, and re-recording it. This is how I work with landscape. I record landscapes, and send them into variegated shapes on interior architectural spaces. This is much in the same way that we can record a memory in a photograph, put it into our back pocket, and pull it out 20 years later, and it appears completely different, or, record a clap, send it to the ceiling through a speaker, and re-record it’s richness and all the nostalgia that it took along with itself through copper wires. The net experience is akin to episodic memory. I hope that these works question the absolute and the relative moment- what is projecting, and what is being projected. Beyond this didactic narrative, a moment of suspension is what peeks my highest curiosities. At once flat and holographic, these particular works consult mountains as three dimensional chunks, and ancient oceans as potential immersions.

Growing up Catholic in the eighties, Lacayo's imagination was bombarded with religious icons and imagery and he has found as an adult that he seeks out these images in the world. These works question how to modernize conceptions of Catholicism, as well as highlight the science, sacred geometry and Pre-Judeo-Christian images that have always existed in Catholic imagery but were often denied.