Book and Wheel Works : artist’s statement . cv | Oscar Melara . Kate Connell
Statement
As a pair of collaborating artists who are also a bus driver and a librarian, we see our artwork as a public service with the same intention as our day jobs—to work together with our community.
The experience of our daily lives is the focus of our collaborative work, which began in 1995. Our first joint undertaking, The Nacimiento Project, centers on our artistic and cultural community, our second, Our Work Life, was organized around the people we work with. Made in the Portola, our third collaboration, is centered on the people we live with. Our projects either evolve over several years of engagement or are ongoing annual events. Together we have produced community story telling projects that take the form of installations, murals, exhibitions and events. Our work makes use of a variety of media, from digital to ceramic. Our roots go back to the late 1960s and 1970s in the arts community of San Francisco’s Mission District where we first began to do community-based artwork.
In addition to collaborating with each other, we have collaborated with writers, musicians, a transit system, an archive, libraries, cultural festivals and trade unions. Our individual work has been shown internationally, is in university collections and has been funded by councils, foundations, and businesses.
Kate Connell, artist and librarian, co-produces multimedia installations. Her work has included mechanized sculpture carved from balsa, redwood and pine as well as drawings, paintings and ceramics. In addition to collaborating with Oscar Melara on community based work, she has produced installations with musicians John Santos of the Machete Ensemble and Bruce Ackley of the ROVA Saxophone Quartet.
among others. She has received grants from the California Arts Council and from the NEA/Rockefeller Foundation awarded by New Langton Arts. As artist-in-residence at the Galería de la Raza, she conducted the arts education program from 1989 to 1992. She has curated community art exhibitions and exhibitions at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art Library and San Francisco Public Library.
is a founding member of La Raza Silkscreen Center. The Center was founded in 1969 to design and print silkscreen posters on national and international political issues, and on local community concerns and events. Its mission was to serve the predominantly Latino Mission District of San Francisco. From 1969 to 1982 Melara held the position of co-director, designing and printing posters, and training community members in the process of silkscreen printing.