Exhibition: ANTI-WAR MEDALS at Velvet da Vinci Art Jewelry and Sculpture Gallery, San Francisco

Participating artists:
Carmen Amador • Alison Antelman • Hratch Babikian • Boris Bally • Brad Bartlett • Rosa Batalla • Brooke Battles • Heidi BigKnife • Nancy Blair • Rebecca Blankley • Richard Blue • Susan Brooks • Douglas Bucci • Emily Bullock • Tina Cartledge • Bridget Catchpole • Pierre Cavalan • Ellen Cheek • Norman Cherry • William Clark • Tracey Clement • Lori Colina-Lee • Deborah Corsini • Jennifer Cross-Gans • Paula Cunningham • Scott & Lisa Cylinder • Ann Davis • Sylvia deMurias • Kristin Diener • Jan Donaldson • Diana Dudek • Robert Ebendorf • Liisa Eckersberg • Lisa Fidler • Hilary Finck • Glenna Fleiner • Autumn Dawn Griffiths • Lynn Guenther • Joan Hammond • Erica Harper • Amy Haskins • Anne Heinz • Tom Hill • Leonor Hipolito • Mike Holmes • Joyce Hulbert • Alison Hunt • Xavier Ines Monclus • Elaine Jek • Mary Frisbee Johnson • Masumi Kataoka • Linda Kaye-Moses • Bailey Kivett • Guigui Kohon • Olga Kosica • Francisca Kweitel • Florian Ladstatter • Timothy Lazure • Marie Lechat • Kim Eric Lilot • Yu-Chi Liu • Shanna LoPresti • Theresa Lovering-Brown • Susanne Lowell • Deborah Lozier • Marcia Macdonald • Kelly Mann • Samuel Martinez Saavedra • Ashi Marwaha • Susanne Matsché • Agata Max • Jo McAllister • Judy McCaig • Karen McCreary • Anne Michie • Mike & Maaike • Christina Miller • Michelle Milner • Charlene Modena • Taweesak Molsawat • Valeria Morato • Lucia Moure • Dawn Nakanishi • Suzanne Nayduch • Patty Nelson • Katie Nichols • Rita de Oliveira Ruivo • Olle Olls • Anna Onofrio • Susanne Osborn • Kathryn Osgood • Rebecca Overmann • Monterrat Pascual Salat • Catherine Patyk • Leslie Perrino • Hilary Pfeifer • Ingrid Psuty • Ramon Puig Cuyàs • Ana María Ramírez • Bruce Raper • Todd Reed • Susan Remnant • Camille Rendal • Doug Ridgway • Christopher Rizzo • Diana Maria Rossi • Haldis Scheicher • Diane Serakos • Kristin Mitsu Shiga • Alison Shiboski • Jan Smith • Catherine Stafford • Sondi's Studio • Ralf Stautner • Sarah Suloff • Sherry Terao • Eva Tesarik • Vernon Theiss • Pamela Thomford • Lydia Tjioe • Jen Townsend • Sarah Troper • Olga Turu Joies • Jeremy Waak • Maciek Walentowicz • Silvia Walz • Heike Wanner • Jane Wells-Harrison • Jennifer White • Donovan Widmer • C. Greg Wilbur • Jenny Williams • Jennifer Wolfe • Natasha Wozniak • Sally Wright • Yuko Yagisawa • Sayumi Yokouchi • Noël Yovovich • Laura Zell

ADDITIONAL PARTICIPATING ARTISTS AT ELECTRUM GALLERY IN LONDON
Jesse Bert • Heather Blume • Helen Carnac • Rita Marcangelo • Wilhelm Tasso Mattar • Ron Pascho • Jane Petrie • Gerhard Rothmann • Carla Shanks • Timothy • Clara Vichi • Polly Wales • Diana Zeiler

ADDITIONAL PARTICIPATING ARTISTS AT THE VENUES IN NORWAY
Ingrid Cimmerbeck • Emily Collins • Liavali Coquet • Putte Helene Dal • Kari Elfstedt • Marie Fangel • Monica Guevara • Britt Hennie Halvorsen • Inger Larsen • Ingrid Larssen • Lene Lunde/Nina Skarra • Ulf Meyn • Ragnhild Lie • Dick Monshouwer • Inger Anne Nyaas • Solveig Ovanger • Hiroko Ozeki • Olvia Papailiou • Anita Schmid • Silja Skoglund • Lulu Sylvest • Jessica Thomas & Stuart Conran • Luis Torres

ADDITIONAL PARTICIPATING ARTISTS AT FAD IN BARCELONA
Ester Albertí • Anna Batlle-Amat • Manel Capdevila • Kepa Carmona • Gemma Draper • Drophius • Carmen Esteba • Ana and Lidia Estany • Catalina Estrada • Nicolás Estrada • Toni Fuentes • Christian García • Miquel García • Felix Llorente Zuazu • Roc Majoral Ballester • Catherine Maymó • Lali Mensa • Hiroko Miyamoto • Kathrin Nitschke • Carmen Pintor • Patricia Plá • Ana María Ramírez • Abril Ribera Valiente • Annabelle Royo • Carol Salazar • Blanca Sánchez • Markus Teipel • Miyuki Tokunaga • Natàlia Torné • Pilar Val

Also on view during the San Francisco exhibition:

WORDS FOR PEACE
a collaborative installation by Thomas Ingmire, Betsy Raymond, and Kazumi Atsuta

In March of this year, dismayed by both the imminent war in Iraq and ongoing U.S. defiance of the global community, Thomas Ingmire invited approximately eighty friends and colleagues to participate in a collective calligraphic project on the subjects of war, fear, and peace. Each person was asked to write out a statement on a 5" x 20" sheet of paper and send it to Thomas, who would then arrange these pieces into a work that would be shown as part of the Friends of Calligraphy exhibit, Kalligraphia X, at the San Francisco Public Library. Thomas also requested that the participants invite their friends, families, and colleagues to contribute statements; children, in particular, were encouraged to take part. To date, more than 750 people from twenty-eight nations have responded.

With the invitations issued and pieces arriving daily in the mail, Thomas set about exploring various formats he might use as the unifying structure for the project. It soon became clear that creating a work whose "whole was greater than the sum of its parts" was going to be a challenge. Meanwhile, something unexpected was happening: Thomas began to realize that the participants' statements were raising questions for him which often felt as provocative as the statements themselves.

One such question was if a war is already in progress--or, in the case of Iraq, is about to begin--then no matter how eloquent or heartfelt the protests against that war, do they come too late? A war does not simply start on one day and stop on another; its roots run wide and deep. If we truly want peace, Thomas reasoned, we must do more than protest against war at the eleventh hour. Instead, our day-to-day lives must reflect that desire. Thus the question "how do we achieve peace?" became for Thomas the more encompassing question "how are we to live ...as individuals, as nations, as fellow inhabitants of the Earth?" and from that one question, not surprisingly, sprang many others.

Thomas decided to incorporate these questions into the work with the hope that they would prove thought provoking and even, perhaps, inspirational. In the end, he chose lanterns to serve as the structural heart of a sizeable installation. The lantern--a symbol not only of the desire to bring light into a world which seems so increasingly dark but also of the challenge which faces us to become more enlightened in and about the world--was a perfect choice.

This installation at Velvet Da Vinci is the second showing of the project and includes about one half of the statements received to date. WORDS FOR PEACE is an ongoing project to which you are encouraged to submit your own words. For additional information, see the Words for Peace web site at Words for Peace.

Thomas Ingmire:

Words for Peace.
ThomasIngmire.com.
(415) 673-4938