"Secret Lives of Teachers"

San Francisco University High School has turned out some amazing visual artists and arts professionals over the years:  Tauba Auerbach '99, 2008 SFMOMA SECA Award winner; Benicia Gantner '88, 2006 SECA Award finalist; Natasha Boas PhD '82, curator and writer; Lisa Lindenbaum '97, director at Haines Gallery, and Slater Bradley '93, whose work is in the permanent collection at the Guggenheim, are just a few. (Full disclosure- this author attended SFUHS as well '89.)

So it shouldn't be a surprise that the Jackson Street Gallery has been showing the work of professional artists since the very beginning in 1975. Nestled in a 1917 Julia Morgan building in residential Pacific Heights, it's a hidden gem.  

Each visual arts teacher curates one show per year, in addition to the three student shows per year, and alumni shows every so often.  This show, “The Secret Lives of Teachers” turns the tables and showcases the teachers as art professionals.

Matthew Scheatzle’s sculpture demonstrates his mastery of ceramics and its glazes through experimentation with surface quality and color.  His creations are influenced by artists Ron Nagle, Dennis Gallagher, and Viola Frey, evidenced by his intrepid experimentation with color, form, and texture. Matthew's art process is inspired by his medium and its potential for beauty.   
 
Matthew graduated from Sonoma State University where he received a well rounded studio art education, getting experience in all aspects of the visual arts including classes in printmaking, drawing, welding, and bronze casting.  Matthew went on to Mills College in Oakland for his MFA where he changed his emphasis from pottery to sculpture, infusing his work with a fresh contemporary perspective and an interest in design and architecture. 
 
In 1999 Matthew was awarded the prestigious Jay DeFeo Award, granted annually to a graduating MFA artist whose work demonstrates excellence and great promise. Since then Matthew has gone on to receive much recognition from the art community, including a 2004 residency at the John Michael Kohler Art Center in Sheboygan, WI, where the visiting artist works on the Kohler factory floor next to the production line. Most recently (2009), Matthew showed at MG gallery in Oakland, and was in residence at the European Ceramic Work Centre in the Netherlands, where international architects, designers, and artists converge to push ceramics art and technology forward into the 21st century and beyond.

Jenifer Kent’s quiet, intricate ink on paper and ink on board drawings look like sea anemones, or something you might see under a microscope.  She is interested in the process of making marks inspired by systems of movement and growth including maps, diagrams, plants, and the body.  Jenifer often works in installation, displaying her drawings as a mass or collection representing the whole experience or process of drawing.   Artists Agnes Martin, Kiki Smith, Cy Twombly and Maya Lin are a few of the artists whose work she admires.

After receiving her BFA in painting from Mason Gross School of the Arts at Rutgers University, Jenifer attended the MFA program at Mills, where she was awarded three merit based scholarships.  After graduation, Jenifer worked for her former teacher, artist Hung Liu, and her husband Jeff Kelley, an art historian, writer and adjunct curator at the Asian Art Museum.  
 
Jenifer has been involved with the acclaimed Mission District non-profit art incubator space, The Lab, since 2003.  Jenifer is represented by Cecile Moochnek Gallery in Berkeley, and the Bryant Street Gallery in Palo Alto, both known for showing the work of emerging artists that is esoteric, abstract, and minimalist, with a decorative element.  Jenifer’s work is included in The San Jose Institute of Contemporary Art’s annual Monotype Marathon – a print exhibition and fundraising event that features more than 100 original works on paper created by some of the Bay Area’s finest printmakers; opening March 6th.  

Danny Plotnick’s films are based on his own absurd real life experiences, dressed up with kitsch humor and retro nostalgia for a time that Danny didn’t even live through, and then completely blown out of proportion.  

Danny Plotnick saw the anarchic films that inspired him to be a filmmaker while taking Eastern European and Russian history classes at the University of Michigan.  Later Danny went on to get his Masters in Film at San Francisco State University. He is inspired by the work of directors Milos Forman and the Kuchar Brothers.

High quality hand held cameras and editing software are accessible and affordable now, but back in the 80s, the only two options for a DIY filmmaker were wildly expensive 16mm and barely affordable Super 8 (video sucked).  There was no such thing as iMovie editing software, so Danny had to learn his craft through trial and error.  (Spielberg got his start with Super8 too.)

When Danny was starting out, indy festivals were hard to break into, so he booked bars, warehouses, and cafes, acting as his own projector man.  Since then Danny has made over 20 films and his work has been screened in countless (legit) film festivals, plus on MTV and IFC.  In 1999 Danny’s ’86 film “Pillow Talk” was included in MOMA’s Super8 retrospective; and in 2008, the Underground Filmmaker Film Festival honored Danny with the Top Filmmaker Prize, granted to a filmmaker with an outstanding body of work.  

Gale Jesi’s photographs in this exhibition are paired into series of conversations, referencing the cultural and formal synergy between the two. This is a departure for Gale, who has worked in a documentary and conceptual dialog for years.  Currently she is working on a contemporary interpretation of “the mother and child” in art.  
 
Gale says she learned to teach through none other than Joan Brown’s example while taking painting as an undergrad at UC Berkeley. She studied at UC Davis at a magical time in the early 90s when the school hit one of its many peaks and was rated #1 public graduate art program by US News and World Report.  In those years she was privileged to study with Conrad Atkinson, Carrie Mae Weems, Lynn Hershman Leeson, Wayne Thiebaud, Squeak Carnwath, and Mike Henderson to name a few.  While an MFA candidate at Davis, she won the Ellen Hansen Prize for Excellence in the Arts, competing against all fine, visual, and performing artists for the honor.  
 
Gale’s work has been shown in numerous solo and group shows both nationally and internationally. She has been a curator for the Yerba Buena Gardens in San Francisco, and was on the Art Selection Committee for the Federal Courthouse in Sacramento. Gale recently founded Photocrit.com, an online teaching site dedicated to bringing visual literacy to a wider audience.