Iconic at the Lexington Club
Opening Reception Tuesday, May 9th from 7 - 9 pm
3464 19th St. (between Mission and Valencia)
Mission District, San Francisco

Show continues through June 16th



"please me, please be mannish, do please me" Cut wood panelling. 4 ft x 5 ft. Quote is from Gertrude Stein's essay "An Exercise in Analysis" written in 1917.




Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas are one of the famous most famous lesbian couples of all time. Interestingly, they both grew up in the Bay Area and Alice was a survivior of the 1906 earthquake. They met in Paris just after the earthquake and spent the rest of their lives there. Gertrude became famous for her modernist writing style, which was as incomprehensible at the time as Picasso's cubist paintings. In amongst her writings, there are glimpses of her relationship with Alice, which was an open secret at the time.

The wood panel collages in the show are inscribed with quotes from Gertrude's writings which speak to her intimate relationship with Alice, and which are surprisingly contemporary considering they were written almost one hundred years ago.

The show also includes smaller, embroidered pieces which each capture an image from a tattoo of a famous lesbian.



The tattoo embroidered here belonged to Portia de Rossi. It was a ring tattoo which incorporated the initials of her former girlfriend Francesca Gregorini. She had the tattoo removed when she became Ellen Degeneres' partner.

Femina Potens Gallery presents
New Work by Teri Claude & Kirstyn Russell
February 3rd - 24th, 2006.

The idea for the show began with a road trip the two artists took together, exploring remote areas of the Southern California desert. Both artists are drawn to the edges of development, and to the traces people leave behind. They are especially drawn to those traces which suggest a story or narrative for a space. Through sculpture and photography, the show will bring these remote places to the gallery.





Kirstyn Russell, Salton Sea. 2005.

Kirstyn Russell returned to San Francisco four years ago after living on the East Coast for 10 years. Searching beyond geographic boundaries into psychological, historic, and identity based understanding of the areas being photographed. “I am interested in looking at queer spaces where the expected signifiers are very subtle.” Her work includes images from her series Outposts; photographs of rural gay and lesbian bars.
more images of her work can be seen at http://www.theblackdahliashow.com/russell/


My work for the show included three pieces from the series "Finding Water in the Desert". All are based on memories of having grown up in the desert on an Air Force Base, living in cinderblock military housing. These memories are brought back to me whenever I visit the Mojave Desert, which is increasingly becoming a suburb of Los Angeles.









Mojave, California. A fragment of cinderblock wall, constructed of wood-panelling and veneer cinderblocks. The blocks are littered with embroidered cloth notebook pages. 2006. Kirstyn Russell's photographs can be seen in the background.





Rosamond, California. A part of a decorative cinderblock wall, through which a makeshift urinal has been constructed using a garden hose and plastic jugs. 2006. Cinderblocks are constructed of wood panelling and veneers. Kirstyn Russell's photographs can be seen in the background.




Quartz Hill, California. Cut plywood, epoxy, tin can and crystallized salt. 2006.

Aesthetics of Ecology: Occupying Space for Sustainable Living
November/December 2005
Oliver Art Center, CCA Oakland Campus

My work for this show was constructed entirely of reclaimed materials taken from the Victorian house I am restoring. During the restoration process, I am digging through layers of the history of the house from the original Victorian wallpaper to the extensive wood panelling from the 1960's. The wood panelling and shag carpeting for this show were reconfigured in the studio to reference these histories.


Rec Room Installation, cut wood panelling and shag carpet, 2004.




"Aesthetics of Ecology" examines the global ecological impact of various fabricated and natural materials, and considers the function of the materials in their immediate surroundings. The artists, designers and architects featured in the exhibition draw attention to ways in which everyone affects the environment's capacity to support life. They seek answers to questions such as: What is the meaning of sustainability? What kinds of visionary thinking will lead communities to be in sync with local ecological systems rather than doing further harm to the earth?
The exhibition includes works by Teri Claude Dowling, William and Elizabeth Hathaway, Douglas Jacuzzi, Daniel Krivens, Matthew Laughlin, Anthony Marschak, Gail McDowell, Hector Dio Mendoza, Michele Pred, Wesley Ramirez, Jessica Resmond and John Colle Rogers.
Jurors for the exhibition are Shoshana Berger, founder and editor in chief of ReadyMade magazine, and Erez Steinberg, industrial designer and cofounder of Studio eg.
The exhibition is part of the CCA alumni exhibition series, a project of the CCA Alumni Council that promotes awareness of CCA and its community of artists.






Victorian Ornament, cut wood panelling. 2005.

Somnambulisms Show at Pigman Gallery with Ellen Babcock
September 2005

Have you ever had a dream where you keep seeing something, it's right in front of you. The story of the dream takes its various turns, but keeps coming back to this object. The thing relates to your dream in some kind of symbolic way. Then you wake up, and that thing from your dream is the thing right in front of you...the coffee cup left on the nightstand, except that it your dream it didn't look like a coffee cup, it looked like a cup you had as a kid, and it seemed very important...

"Somnambulisms" means dreamwalkings. For this show, Ellen Babcock and I reconfigure everyday, domestic materials to create scenes which contain a story, or part of a story, or at least move beyond their humble origins.



Outside the Frame, cut wood panelling, 2005




Drag Dollars Series, embroidered dollar bills, 2001-2005






Intimacies, pantyhose-covered saucers, 2003




Finding Water in the Desert Series, Mom's Liquor and Donuts, cut wood panelling, 2005







Artist's Statement:
Having grown up in the desert of Southern California, the Landscape of the West and the Western style of living is central to my work. My current sculptural work combines a claustrophobic domesticity with an absence of focus, a feeling I remember from the desert, living inside a small cinderblock house, surrounded by the vastness of the landscape.