Arts and Culture

Heaven Meets Earth in David Bruce Graves Work Showing at the Joyce Gordon Gallery

Published

5 years ago

January 16, 2020

David Bruce Graves’ work gives the viewer a lot of room to think.

“Heaven and Earth,” the title piece in the window of the Joyce Gordon Gallery in downtown Oakland features a Black woman’s face. Her eyes are closed, her countenance serene, lights shine in her hair. Her bare shoulders glimmer beneath what appears to be a watery surface.

Is a Black woman the link between heaven and earth? Are heaven and earth a Black woman’s dream? Is this what it looks like to exist between the two?

Now in his mid-60s, Graves has traversed a career that includes commercial and fine art with an imagination and skill in multi-media that seems to know no bounds.

Born in Pittsburgh, Pa., yet raised in Oakland, Graves has been drawing and making art all of his life. His career began in the commercial art field when he graduated from the Academy of Art at the University of San Francisco before heading for New York City, where he lived and worked for many years, returning to the Bay Area in 2012.

Graves credits his success to his relationship with his dear “Aunt Ann Tanksley who was and is a fabulous artist and her husband, John, [who] was one of the best photo re-touchers in New York City,” Graves said. “When my family would visit their home in New York as a child, I was enchanted by their world and how they were so successful at it. Aunt Ann inspired and mentored me as she still does.”

Once he moved to New York, John Tanksley mentored him. “The many hours I spent looking over his shoulder as he retouched and manipulated photos for major advertising agencies had a big influence and closely relates to the technique I’m currently working in.”

Graves is shy about talking about his work, but visual art is the kind of medium where silence is often justified. In Graves work, the viewer wants to just live in the painting, and project what a subject might be thinking.

One example is “The Griot’s Wife,” where we see a man with a bag and his musical instrument, the kora, preparing for a storytelling journey. His wife walks with him, yet her eyes speak volumes as she appears to contemplate her husband’s impending departure.

Graves uses a mixture of digital and traditional techniques and his compositions allow histories or multiple narratives to exist simultaneously. The works are not stagnant, but invite us into the medium to share our perspectives. We are in the now and then, joined at the horizon or along the edges where, as in African mythology, two calabashes meet, Damballah or the sacred snake holding the two hemispheres of the universe together.

Each of the 31 pieces deserves its own audience. Besides the art in the window, “Heaven and Earth,” there is “Bush,” featuring a woman with an Angela Davis-size Afro hairstyle crossed with Eve and Adam’s abode … or maybe it’s the countryside just outside of Accra – a place untamed, natural, pure. This “bush” is a world atop a woman’s head. Butterflies and hummingbirds like her energy, too – symbolic images that populate many of Graves’ landscapes.

Like an artistic DNA, the motifs allow the viewer to trace artistic creations through the large gallery from wall to window, across multiple canvases.

There are images of warriors standing unafraid with wild animals as others show subjects dissolving, turning swiftly, spinning into funnels. One painting of liberated women stepping from the plantation into commerce and prosperity indicates Graves’ fascination with the period after slavery when Africans could join this American society as participants economically and politically.

So, we see these women dressed for success challenging prejudicial and racist ideas of worthiness or equality.

In fact, the majority of the subjects are Black women with emancipated, take-charge personas, free from white pathology. It is no wonder his work flies from the walls wherever he exhibits.

David Bruce Graves “Heaven and Earth” exhibit at Joyce Gordon Gallery through Jan. 31, 2020, 414 14th St., Oakland, CA, 94612.

Wanda Sabir

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Related Topics:Bruce Graves John Tanksley University of San Francisco Wanda Sabir

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Arts and Culture

BOOK REVIEW: Love, Rita: An American Story of Sisterhood, Joy, Loss, and Legacy

When Bridgett M. Davis was in college, her sister Rita was diagnosed with lupus, a disease of the immune system that often left her constantly tired and sore. Davis was a bit unfazed, but sympathetic to Rita’s suffering and also annoyed that the disease sometimes came between them. By that time, they needed one another more than ever.

Published

3 days ago

April 28, 2025

Oakland Post

Love Rita Book Cover. Courtesy of Harper.

By Terri Schlichenmeyer

Author: Bridgett M. Davis, c.2025, Harper, $29.99, 367 Pages

Take care.

Do it because you want to stay well, upright, and away from illness. Eat right, swallow your vitamins and hydrate, keep good habits and hygiene, and cross your fingers. Take care as much as you can because, as in the new book, “Love, Rita” by Bridgett M. Davis, your well-being is sometimes out of your hands.

It was a family story told often: when Davis was born, her sister, Rita, then four years old, stormed up to her crying newborn sibling and said, ‘Shut your … mouth!’

Rita, says Davis, didn’t want a little sister then. She already had two big sisters and a neighbor who was somewhat of a “sister,” and this baby was an irritation. As Davis grew, the feeling was mutual, although she always knew that Rita loved her.

Over the years, the sisters tried many times not to fight — on their own and at the urging of their mother — and though division was ever present, it eased when Rita went to college. Davis was still in high school then, and she admired her big sister.

She eagerly devoured frequent letters sent to her in the mail, signed, “Love, Rita.”

When Davis was in college herself, Rita was diagnosed with lupus, a disease of the immune system that often left her constantly tired and sore. Davis was a bit unfazed, but sympathetic to Rita’s suffering and also annoyed that the disease sometimes came between them. By that time, they needed one another more than ever.

First, they lost their father. Drugs then invaded the family and addiction stole two siblings. A sister and a young nephew were murdered in a domestic violence incident. Their mother was devastated; Rita’s lupus was an “added weight of her sorrow.”

After their mother died of colon cancer, Rita’s lupus took a turn for the worse.

“Did she even stand a chance?” Davis wrote in her journal.

“It just didn’t seem possible that she, someone so full of life, could die.”

Let’s start here: once you get past the prologue in “Love, Rita,” you may lose interest. Maybe.

Most of the stories that author Bridgett M. Davis shares are mildly interesting, nothing rare, mostly commonplace tales of growing up in the 1960s and ’70s with a sibling. There are a lot of these kinds of stories, and they tend to generally melt together. After about fifty pages of them, you might start to think about putting the book aside.

But don’t. Not quite yet.

In between those everyday tales, Davis occasionally writes about being an ailing Black woman in America, the incorrect assumptions made by doctors, the history of medical treatment for Black people (women in particular), attitudes, and mythologies. Those passages are now and then, interspersed, but worth scanning for.

This book is perhaps best for anyone with the patience for a slow-paced memoir, or anyone who loves a Black woman who’s ill or might be ill someday. If that’s you and you can read between the lines, then “Love, Rita” is a book to take in carefully.

Oakland Post

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Activism

Faces Around the Bay: Author Karen Lewis Took the ‘Detour to Straight Street’

“My life has been a roller-coaster with an unlimited ride wristband! I was raised in Berkeley during the time of Ron Dellums, the Black Panthers, and People’s Park. I was a Hippie kid, my Auntie cut off all our hair so we could wear the natural styles like her and Angela Davis.

Published

3 days ago

April 28, 2025

Oakland Post

Karen Lewis. Courtesy photo.

By Barbara Fluhrer

I met Karen Lewis on a park bench in Berkeley. She wrote her story on the spot.

I got married young, then ended up getting divorced, raising two boys into men. After my divorce, I had a stroke that left me blind and paralyzed. I was homeless, lost in a fog with blurred vision.

Jesus healed me! I now have two beautiful grandkids. At 61, this age and this stage, I am finally free indeed. Our Lord Jesus Christ saved my soul. I now know how to be still. I lay at his feet. I surrender and just rest. My life and every step on my path have already been ordered. So, I have learned in this life…it’s nice to be nice. No stressing, just blessings. Pray for the best and deal with the rest.

Nobody is perfect, so forgive quickly and love easily!”

Lewis’ book “Detour to Straight Street” is available on Amazon.

Oakland Post

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Activism

Golden State Warriors Program Is Inspiring Next Generation of Female Engineers

Breaking down barriers and biases that deter young girls from pursuing STEAM subjects is essential for creating a level playing field and ensuring equal opportunities for all. By challenging stereotypes and promoting a culture of inclusivity and diversity in STEAM fields, experts believe young girls can be empowered to pursue their interests and aspirations without limitations confidently. Encouraging mentorship, providing access to resources, and celebrating girls’ achievements in STEAM are all crucial steps in creating a supportive environment that fosters success.

Published

1 month ago

March 23, 2025

Oakland Post

Front Row: UC Berkeley Steel Bridge Team Back Row: Girls, Inc. Participants. Photo courtesy of the Golden State Warriors.

By Y’Anad Burrell

The Golden State Warriors and e-commerce giant Rakuten are joining forces to inspire the next generation of female engineers through Building STEAM Futures, part of The City Calls campaign.

Organizers say the initiative is founded on the idea that science, technology, engineering, arts, and mathematics (STEAM) are crucial fields for innovation and progress, and empowering young girls to pursue careers in these areas is more important than ever. Studies consistently show that girls are underrepresented in STEAM fields, resulting in a gender disparity that limits potential and hinders diversity.

On Saturday, March 8, International Women’s Day, the Warriors and Rakuten hosted 20 middle school girls from Girls Inc. of Alameda County at Chase Center’s Above the Rim for a hands-on bridge-building experience. The young girls from Girls, Inc. of Alameda County had an opportunity to design, build and test their own bridge prototypes and learn the fundamentals of bridge construction from the Engineering Alliance and the UC Berkeley Steel Bridge Team.

This STEAM experience for the girls followed the first session in January, where they took a behind-the-scenes tour of the Golden Gate Bridge, learning about its design and construction from industry experts. The City Calls campaign, tipped off with the unveiling the Warriors’ new bridge-themed City Edition jerseys and court design earlier this year.