Martha Rodriguez is a Chicana artist, living in San Francisco. From childhood to adulthood, Martha has been intrigued by color, cultures, creativity, lifestyles., Using that curiosity she creates artwork rich in color, shapes, styles. With her 2011 Leukemia diagnosis and remission, Martha lives each day enriched by daily life.

I have always been drawn to visual art. However, it seemed so futile, uneconomic, unimportant, as the common sense voices said. Without a living mentor/example, it was difficult to see a way forward. I have tried to deny it, to avoid it, even to give it up. At times, survival seemed all that I could manage. But I returned to art again, and again. Nothing else fits who I am.
I am drawing on the foundation of the California Plein Air Painters. I want to capture something of the outdoors that seems to restore my soul. I hope to translate that with watercolors to remind people of the greatness and wonder of Creation. And this even in the presence of crass, unthinking exploitation, in the midst of the rush of busy lives.
J. S. Bach signed his compositions with S. D. G. (Soli Deo Gloria). Even the Coffee Cantata was so signed. Although my work is far more humble, my motive is the same

Drawing is the "Lucy" of art.  It is the source of all two dimensional expression.  Drawing is the precursor of all written language. If you want to see how an artist thinks look at her drawings.

I believe in the craft and trust the ingenious expression that only drawing can convey. Fascination with the human condition as shown in the everyday movement, weight, tension, ease and torque of the body is my constant and continuing inspiration. All the art I make, drawing, painting or collage, is an exploration of how the spirit inhabits the body.  What does it mean to be human? Can I portray it with a few strokes in only a few minutes? The exploration is lifelong, endlessly fascinating, always challenging.

Nature is my palette; a bird on the feeder, the profile of a mountain and the flowers, animals, lights and shadows that surround me -- all conspire to inspire.

With my new series of paintings of raining scenes in San Francisco, I have invented a way to amalgamate representational with abstract. Representatioal is figurative and abstract is arbiturary on the canvas. Representational is what I see as I look around me.  It is visual and is the combination of shapes and colors of things of my environment.  Abstract is what is in me as I feel, remember, imagine, think and foresee. It is so much more than the visual perception. I am stuck in the middle between representation (what is aound me) and abstract(what is in me).  My reality I create in my mind lays in the balance between representational and abstract as the idea that the phenomenological experience of self and world is one continuous whole.

The new series of paintings liberate me from both representational and abstract by letting me see them putting up with one another on my canvas from a distance while I am painting and also after completing the painting. As those are being painted and eventually have gotten stucked on the canvas I break free from them. I am not any more in the middle between those. Therefore the distance open up between the painting and me. The distance transcends me. It takes me to another level where to contemplate those.

With the newly found distance, I have understood what is elemental in my painting is the surface of the bubble in which I am. Now I see representational and abstract happen in the outside of the surface over there and are on the surface. Those are intensely pushed away with the surface metaphorically and are integrally adhered to on the canvas. Meanwhile the bubble paradoxically involves me with those, regardless of the distance between me and the surface of the bubble causes me to be with. It is certian that there is no way to get out of the bubble as you live but you stay in it. It is the conceptual liability of life. It is my abstract realism.

Born and raised in Portland Oregon. He graduated with a B.A. in Political Science from the University Of Oregon in 1980. In the summer of 1982 he became extremely stimulated from a visit to the New York Museum Of Modern Art and realized he was an artist. David moved to San Francisco and took various classes at the San Francisco Art institute over the next several years. McGraw is mainly known for large welded abstract figures. Lately, David has utilized mixed media including found objects to further his vision of Bauhaus inspired ‘” Total Art”.The artist lives and works in San Francisco and Sonoma County.

Kate Simmons derives inspiration from the landscapes surrounding her home in Northern California. Her oil paintings, most 3.5 feet or larger, are abstract and atmospheric. The paintings evolve from a personal and emotional place, and are built in layers of colored pigment, glazing and wax. Many canvases have layers stripped away, and are then rebuilt with new transparent layers on top, allowing the viewer to see glimpses of what is hidden underneath.

Kate has shown her work in group shows in Los Angeles, San Francisco and Baltimore. She currently resides in San Francisco.

In addition to creating visual art, Kate also writes short story fiction, flash fiction and poetry. Her fictional short story entitled 'Your Next Girlfriend' has appeared on KQED, The Writers' Block.

Mike Scagliotti is creator of Oddly Gone Comix, a philosophical comic strip about relationships and magical dimensions. He exhibits his original comic strip art along with a series of abstract paintings.