Hospitality House’s Community Arts Program (CAP) presents another round of solo exhibitions, featuring works by Ronnie Goodman and Jason Rivers. The Artist Reception for these exhibitions takes place on Friday, November 11, from 5:00pm – 7:00pm at the CAP’s temporary gallery space at the Luggage Store Gallery, 1009 Market Street at 6^th Street.

Both artists describe that making art has been crucial in providing them a form of salvation in difficult times.  Although both received a solid art foundation during their childhood, it was not until reaching adulthood that they were able to focus on art, developing their talent and finding a way to survive through adversity

For Goodman, whose compositions from San Quentin balance the hardships of cellblock life with the hopefulness that only art can bring to him, it was finding the Arts in Corrections program at San Quentin, which helped him rise above his ten year sentence. He was not only able to focus his time on his work, but he was also able to teach other inmates the art of the linocut.

For Rivers, whose imagery bears the ambiguity of trying to piece together a dream or the elusiveness of recalling a forgotten childhood memory, it was art making that helped see the light and slowly emerge out of the dark place he found himself after a deep and personal tragedy. His perspective is reflective in his works that carry almost imperceptible phrases like “trying over and over, never giving up” or “trapped inside an invisible landscape I was afraid to let go.”

The exhibition runs from November 11 through December 9, 2011 with an artist reception on Friday, November 11, from 5 to 7 PM. The reception is free and open to the public. The Community Arts Program is located at 1009 Market Street, at Sixth Street, on the ground level of the Luggage Store Gallery.  For more information, contact Ivan Vera at 415.553.4525 ext. 304 or ivera@hospitalityhouse.org

video by: Sean Desmond