San Rafael Public Library

Library Updates

First Wednesday Art Talk – Lunar New Year – Asian Art Museum

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Lunar New Year is a fun and fact filled exploration of the practices and symbolism surrounding the celebration of the new year in Asian countries.  The new year – 4716 by Chinese reckoning – will begin on February 16 for a year of the Earth Dog.  Find out what that all means during the talk.

According to the Chinese 12-year animal zodiac cycle, the Chinese year beginning in 2018 is the Year of the Dog. Each Chinese zodiac year begins on Chinese New Year’s Day.

Chinese New Year, also known as the “Spring Festival” in modern Mainland China, is China’s most important traditional festival, celebrated at the turn of the traditional lunisolar Chinese calendar, which consists of both Gregorian and lunar-solar calendar systems. Chinese New Year can begin anytime between late January and mid-February.

Asian Art Museum Docent Speaker: LauraBeth Nelson

 

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First Wednesday Art Talk – Revelations: Art from the African American South

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Revelations: Art from the African American South

Docent Speaker: Sharon Walton

On view from June 3, 2017 – April 1, 2018 at the De Young

Revelations: Art from the African American South celebrates the debut of the Fine Arts Museums’ major acquisition from the Souls Grown Deep Foundation.  The exhibition explores 62 works by contemporary African American artists from the Southern United States, including the renowned quilters of Gee’s Bend.

Included in the current acquisition are paintings, sculptures, drawings, and quilts by 22 acclaimed artists, including Thornton Dial, Ralph Griffin, Bessie Harvey, Lonnie Holley, Joe Light, Ronald Lockett, Joe Minter, Jessie T. Pettway, Mary T. Smith, Mose Tolliver, Annie Mae Young, and Purvis Young. The history of the partnership between the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco and the Souls Grown Deep Foundation dates back to 2006, when the Museums hosted the loan exhibition The Quilts of Gee’s Bend.

The cultural origins of these artworks can be traced back to the African Diaspora, slavery, and the Jim Crow era of institutionalized racism, which restricted both physical freedom and freedom of expression for African Americans. Despite these barriers, in the segregated and comparatively safe spaces of churches and cemeteries, as well as in the fields and forests, African Americans created a cultural language that led to the evolution of distinctly African American musical forms such as gospel, blues, jazz, and rock ‘n’ roll.

These rich musical traditions were paralleled by visual traditions that typically were symbolic in form or concealed from view in order to escape censure or destruction. Working with little or no formal training, and often employing cast-off objects and unconventional materials, these artists have created visually compelling works that address some of the most profound and persistent issues in American society, including race, class, gender, and religion.

Only during the modern civil rights movement did these visual traditions and their messages move into the open—initially in the private yards of African American homes, and later in commercial galleries and public museums. Historically marginalized, patronized, or promoted with reductive terms such as folk, naive, or outsider, these artists have earned equal consideration in the history of American art. Put in the context of the larger American Art collection at the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, the works—which include some of the finest contemporary art created in the United States—have the potential to influence American cultural studies to more accurately reflect the nation’s historical diversity and complexity.

A companion exhibition, drawn entirely from the recently acquired Paulson Fontaine Press archives, will also feature prints by Lonnie Holley, as well as four quilters centered around Gee’s Bend, Alabama—Louisiana Bendolph, Mary Lee Bendolph, Loretta Bennett, and Loretta Pettway.

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First Wednesday Art Talk – Degas, Impressionism and the Paris Millinery Trade

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DEGAS, IMPRESSIONISM and the PARIS MILLINERY TRADE

Docent Speaker: Virginia Ernster

 

 

Join us for a colorful exploration of a remarkable period in Paris, when the millinery trade was at its height and Impressionist painters captured the latest trends in hats.  From 1870 to 1914, one thousand milliners in the city created a rich array of hats, covered with silk flowers, ribbons, ostrich plumes and even whole birds.  Hats were fascinating to artists such as Edgar Degas, who appreciated the creativity and talent of the modistes who made them and reveled in depicting their sumptuous textures.  Featuring 60 Impressionist paintings and pastels, including key works by Degas, Renoir, Manet, Cassatt and Toulouse-Lautrec, along with 40 exquisite examples of period hats.

Now on view at the Legion of Honor, June 24 – September 24, 2017

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First Wednesday Art Talk – Teotihuacan: City of Water, City of Fire

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Teotihuacan: City of Water, City of Fire

Docent Speaker: Gretchen Turner

Experience the ancient, mysterious city of Teotihuacan, the most visited archeological site in Mexico and home to the largest pyramids in the Americas.  Monumental and ritual objects from Teotihuacan’s three pyramids will be shown alongside mural paintings, ceramics, and stone sculptures from the city’s meticulously planned apartment compounds. The exhibition, organized in collaboration with Mexico’s Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia, will feature recent, never-before-seen archaeological discoveries.

On view September 30, 2017 to February 11, 2018  at the  de Young

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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First Wednesday Art Talk – Gustav Klimt: Dialogues with Auguste Rodin

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Gustav Klimt: Dialogues with Auguste Rodin

Docent Speaker: Kathryn Zupsic

 

 

 

 

 

 

Join us for a discussion of the masterpieces of Gustav Klimt and the Legion of Honor’s Rodin collection. The first Klimt exhibition of this size to be presented on the West Coast, this is an extraordinary opportunity for Bay Area audiences to view the work of this great Austrian master of Modernism.  Featuring works from the artist’s estate in Vienna and the Österreichische Galerie Belvedere, with the largest collection of Klimt paintings in the world.

On view October 14, 2017 to January 28,2018 at the Legion of Honor

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Summer Book Sale @ Friends Book Store

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Come to the beautiful downtown Friends Books store, 10am – 4 pm Tuesday, July 18 through Saturday, July 22 and browse Super Summer Reading for the whole family – Books, Cds, Dvds…all on sale!

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Marin Master Gardeners – Invasives: More Than Just Bugs and Blooms

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Invasives brought in from other parts of the world represent a significant challenge to the natural environment of our country and our home landscapes of Marin. When a gardener thinks of an ‘exotic invasive,’ it is usually an insect or a plant. These are, indeed, awful threats, for sure, but there are also exotic invasive diseases, aquatics and mammals that also pose important threats to our native species and environments. Come and learn about examples of these alien threats and what California is doing to deal with them.

The Speaker: Before becoming a Marin Master Gardener in 2014, Bob Mauceli was a Master Gardener for 9 years in New York. Also a member of the California Native Plant Society and a birder, he has built natural habitats in all of the places he and his family have lived. His current landscape includes native trees, shrubs, ground covers and perennials.

CE:  1 CE unit, UC sponsored

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Cascada de Flores

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Don’t miss this wonderful mix of Mexican storytelling, music and dancing from Cascada de Flores. For the entire family.

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Circus of Smiles

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Don’t miss the wild acrobatics and hilarious juggling tricks of Circus of Smiles! For the whole family.

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  • 4th Street Pop-Up Library

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