Collection: Bookends, Selected By Ellen Lake (online exhibition)

About the exhibition

Bookend (plural bookends) A heavy object or moveable support placed at one or both ends of a row of books for the purpose of keeping them upright. ... one of two things occurring or located at either end of something else.  For this exhibition the ceramic works of Ann Meade and Saul Alegria are the supports holding together a shelf full of treasures by NIAD artists. This is an eclectic collection of work with subjects ranging from shoes, a toaster, and headphones as well as abstract work created in diverse media including ceramics, graphite, tape and collage, mixed media. watercolor on paper, and a two-color serigraph. Thank you to the artists for the inspiration: Ann Meade, Stepahnie Welch, Karen May, Sara Malpass, Phyllis Carr, Heather Hamann, Eddie Braught, Luis Estrada, Billy White, and Saul Alegria.

About the selector

Ellen Lake is an interdisciplinary artist living in Oakland, California. She has a BA from Amherst College and MFA from Mills College where she focused on painting, video, sculpture, and installation. Her work experiments with technology, explores archives and collections, returns time and again to painting and process, and ranges from public art to site-specific installation. She is a recipient of several awards, including a 2018 Rauschenberg Residency award for artists/arts administrators, 2016 California Arts Council Artists Activating Communities grant, and 2012 Experimental Media Arts Lab residency at Stanford University. Ellen is the Co-Director of Kala Art Institute, an artist residency program and community art-making hub in Berkeley, CA. Find Ellen on instagram @ellendlake .