Oakland Public Library, Rockridge Branch
5366 College Ave
August 22–October 24, 2025
The artists—I mean staff—of the Oakland Public Library are makers and painters, wielders of hot glue guns, spray paint, and slow-process film cameras. Until October 24th, you have the opportunity to check out some of their creations, take a peek into their minds, via a small collection of works on the walls—and in one case pedestal—of the second floor of the Rockridge branch.
Head of Bender Rodriguez, Ryan Lindsay (L), and “Third Room”, Sadie McClendon
Light filled, full of school-and-middle-aged foot traffic alike, and unfortunately on the day I visited, some overpowering body odor in one area, the building’s white walls are prime candidates for the hyperlocal works they boast. A left turn at the top of the stairwell boasts Ryan Lindsay’s “Head of Bender Rodriguez,” flanked above and to the right by Sadie McClendon’s “Third Room”, greeting guests with an uncomfortable, flashy smile and happy, bright colors. Bender’s modest construction of cardboard and duct tape, with little effort to hide his seams and flaws, stands in lovely and stark contrast to McClendon’s tidy and precise geometry and eye-popping hues. I found the combination confusing and delightful.
The wall opposite, arranged gallery-style with around a dozen pieces, was more difficult to enjoy, a table below most of them fully occupied, making most difficult to view closely. The same was true of the other walls as well, but to a far lesser degree, and they held a fraction as many frames. Erica Siskind’s darling postcard sized watercolors of Totoro visiting exotic (Biscayne, FL, and Corvallis, OR) locales stood out for their petite precision and cheeky, joyful content.
Around the corner, “Klofifa, Iceland” by Anita Bowen, offers a blurred stand of white-topped stalks, teemed before a series of sloped hills. Does the silver gelatin print depict dead dandelions, cotton buds? The title, it turns out, offers the answer: not a location, as I’d guessed it indicated, but a plant species, a sort of false cotton flower. I’d stopped, arrested by the beauty of the print, the range of values and depths and textures offered, the details and the soft, perfect blurs, but also under the assumption that the fluffed heads were at least intended to elicit cotton-coded reactions.
Chris Waterman’s “Bill Murray” portrait bore deep into my soul despite his eyes looking nowhere near my direction, and Suzie Nasol’s “Untitled” oil on canvas still life of a single rose leaning delicately from its small blue vase offered a more traditional and gentler use of the medium.
Unfortunately, no further information is being offered about the art or artists so for now I cannot know (for their safety, I was told at the front desk, fair nuff on the human front, but their process and time frames?). I do hope that more details might be shared in future shows.
