The Free Gallery

THANK YOU 

to EVERYONE

who is donating to

The Free Gallery:

Sholeh Asgary

Stan Askew

Gwynessa Balvanz

Evan Barbour

Jennifer Brandon

Andie Lucia Bustillos 

Kenna Cabral

Sohyung Choi

Maggie Cockrell

Claire Colette

Susanna Corcoran

Madelyn Covey

Alix Critchley

Russell Dudley

Veva Edelson

Peter Foucault

Hilary Galian

Tracy Ginsberg

Matthew Gottschalk

Michael Hall

Daniel Healey

Dana Hemenway

Sarah Herniesen

Maryellen Herringer

Amy M. Ho

Jorge Luis Iniguez

Emily Jan

 Becky Johnson

Samuel Levi Jones

 Mary Kenny

Kevin Keul

Michael Koehle

Matthew Kowalski

Jeff Kramm

Barbara Laukat

Theodore Lillie

Hung Liu

Dara Lorenzo

Keegan Luttrell

MAP (Mobile Arts Platform)

Lauren McDougald

Kath Irwin McGaughey

Michael Mersereau

 Guerda Mezidor

Nadja Eulee Miller

Doug Millison (Little Free Art Gallery)

Seth Minor

Camilla Newhagen

Sheri Leigh O’Connor

Jennifer Pace

Tressa Pack

Meri Page

Chelsea Pegram

Michele Pred

Simon Pyle

Tara Reinertson

 Kate Rhoades

Yvette Rolufs

Rtystk

Alex Rubio

Dickson Schneider (The Free Art Cart)

Kent Rodriguez Segura

Jenny Sharaf

Sofia Sharpe

Sam Sheppard

Kate Short

Lili Smith

Matthew Felix Sun

Gina Telcocci

Kelsey Thorne

Chris Treggiari

Marilyn Treon

Molly Unquera

Elka Vera

Katy Warner

Brittany Watkins

Angie Wilson

Daisy Wong

YOU GUYS ROCK

and a special thank you to Tressa Pack for photographing the installation

The Free Gallery

Press Release from Pro Arts Gallery, Oakland CA

By Free Utopian Projects | Exhibition Call Selection 2013

Exhibition Dates: February 26 - March 29, 2013

Preview: Tuesday, February 26 - Friday, March 1

Artists' Reception and Free Art Launch: First Friday, March 1, 6-8pm

The Free Gallery, by Free Utopian Projects, is a new exhibition presenting free artwork, found objects and art ephemera to the public.

The Free Gallery is both an interactive experience of an alternative art economy, as well as a study of art as a consumer product. Who makes art? Who exhibits art? Who buys art? The Free Gallery explores the collapse of these distinctions by offering a subverted gallery experience where not only admission is free, the art is too.

Participating artists donate work to the exhibition to be presented salon-style in a continually evolving cycle of giving and taking art. 

A 'Preview' will be held from Tuesday, February 26 to Friday, March 1 to allow viewers an exclusive preview of items that will be available free to the public from the Artists' Reception onwards. A practice of taking one work per person will be encouraged. The project proprietor Jocelyn Meggait will be onsite most gallery hours to discuss the project with visitors, coordinate artwork, and document the selection experience.

The Free Gallery brings a distinctly Bay Area tradition of free community happenings - from The Digger's Free Shops in the 1960's to thriving First Friday's in Oakland - to an exhibition experience. By embracing the potential for visual chaos and participatory mayhem, The Free Gallery seeks to highlight alternative routes for accessing, valuing and experiencing art.

CALLING ALL ARTISTS TO PARTICIPATE! To have your work included in The Free Gallery drop it off to Pro Arts' gallery on Saturday, February 16 between 11am and 4pm. View Pro Arts' Standards of Exhibited Work before making your donation.

Participating Artists: Gwynessa Balvanz, Evan Barbour, Jennifer Brandon, Kenna Kristen Cabral, Sohyung Choi, Susanna Corcoran, Madelyn Covey, Alix Critchley, Veva Edelson, Peter Foucault, Hilary Galian, Matthew Gottschalk, Michael Hall, Dana Hemenway, Sarah Herniesen, Amy M. Ho, Becky Johnson, Samuel Levi Jones, Michael Koehle, Matthew Kowalski, Barbara Laukat, Hung Liu, Keegan Luttrell, Lauren McDougald, Kath Irwin McGaughey, Michael Mersereau, Nadja Eulee Miller, Doug Millison (Little Free Art Gallery), Seth Minor, Camilla Newhagen, Sheri Leigh O'Connor, Tressa Pack, Meri Page, Chelsea Pegram, Simon Pyle, Kate Rhoades, Alex Rubio, Kent Rodriguez Segura, Jenny Sharaf, Sofia Sharpe, Kate Short, Kelsey Thorne, Chris Treggiari, Marilyn Treon, Katy Warner, MAP (Mobile Arts Platform)... more artists to be announced soon!

About Free Utopian Projects: Free Utopian Projects is an ongoing alternative art project exploring Utopian economic systems by creating free, socially active installations. Curator/proprietor/artist Jocelyn Meggait has installed Free Projects at Kala Art Institute, Mills College Art Museum, and most recently at the alternative art space A Temporary Offering in the Renoir Hotel, San Francisco.

About the Annual Call for Exhibition Proposals: The Annual Call for Exhibition Proposals establishes an open submission process for artists and curators to present and produce a curated exhibition in collaboration with Pro Arts. The program provides a platform for exceptional and unexpected presentations of work from a range of artists and curators.

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For questions and comments, contact info@proartsgallery.org
Copyright © 2003 - 2013 Pro Arts | All Rights Reserved
Phone 510/763-4361 | Fax 510/763-9470

items for the next free installation...wherever it is...

elbow grease is free

Really Really Free Market in Redwood City, CA

Free Utopian Project participated in the 

Really Really Free Market in Redwood City, Ca 

which occurs on the first Sunday of every month, on the corner of Main and Beech Streets.

The Really Really Free Markets are loosely organized across the country:

reallyreallyfree.org

Inventory List:

small antique wooden chair

2'x3' painting by me

2 small paintings by Mike K.

Used art supplies, crayons, pencils, oil paints from Mike

4 2inch pots of succulents

8 inch ceramic pot with an azalea

a succulent in a palm pot

drascaena that Mike had used as an art project

3 Ziplock baggies of beads 

Ziplock baggy of beer bottle caps

industrial size potato masher from Sofia's project

Ziplock baggy of fused bead necklaces

Ziplock baggy of sequoia cones

6 garden bean stakes

an old wood sash window

a small yucca in a ceramic pot

4 3inch ceramic spheres

2 soft cover books

a very sad, desperate for attention palm tree 

a player piano scroll

a small wall mirror with hooks

2 small picture frames

a desk organizer

a large square plastic plant pot

a wire stand on wheels with 3 baskets, super cute and perfectly rusted

scented geranium cuttings

small agave in ceramic pot

small ground cover plant

a hanging metal candle holder with glass lamp shade (not sure why, but one person took the metal part and left the glass lamp shade...someone else took that a few minutes later)

What surprised me most about the event is the stuff that people took, (beer bottle caps) the stuff that was left, (the antique chair and window) the speed in which things disappeared - immediately, as soon as something was put down it was swept away and we had no opportunity to get a photo of the complete installation.

The only disappointing moment was one old guy, presumably an organizer,  who critiqued the art that we brought: 

"Is that your masterpiece?" indicating a painting

"yes", 

"well I've seen worse"

really? Really?

Luckily the other people hosting the event were really really nice, helpful and engaged in the purpose of free. They informed us that the person who lives in the park was quite concerned when they showed up and he called the police who told him not to worry, they were good people.

really really wanting free stuff

really really happy shoppers

Items purchased:

Kent - 2 of my plants

me - a carved urn from Thailand for my next free installation although at the moment it's sitting in my garden

palm pots are free

a palm pot

made especially for the free shop

making jewelry for the free shop

Dalai Lama

Given the scale of life in the cosmos,

 one human life is no more than a tiny blip. 

Each one of us is just a visitor to this planet, 

a guest who will only stay for a limited time. 

What greater folly could there be 

than to spend this short time alone, 

unhappy or in conflict with our companions? 

Far better, surely, to use our short time here in living a meaningful life, 

enriched by our sense of connection with others and being of service to them.

http://www.facebook.com/DalaiLama

Posts to the Facebook Page 

(http://www.facebook.com/pages/Free-A-Utopian-Project/171870759568173?ref=tn_tnmn) 

are free 

" Breathe, become, be, exhale, let go, you're free. Utopia is alive in me. You make your own utopia, and by sharing it can foster other Utopianists. We create utopia by being utopia, we become utopia by thinking utopia, we feel utopia by constantly meditating on and immersing ourselves in utopian visions. As each of us visualizes, so we direct and become utopianists. Utopianists arise, generate utopia now!!!!!! Don't let life beat you down, plan utopia, dream utopia, measure, color, sketch, CAD, video, carve, paint, spread, swim in/ through, drink, breathe, digest, excrete Utopia!!!! I love utopia, I am utopia, I share utopia. All we are saying is give UTOPIA a chance!!!! "

subtext is free

SF bay area craigslist > east bay > for sale / wanted > free stuff

Potted Cacti & Succulents (albany / el cerrito)

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Date: 2011-12-23, 10:46AM PST

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Losing home so they must go, today. About a dozen, mostly smallish/med cacti and succulents and one LARGE Blue Candle Cactus, all in nice ceramic/terra cotta pots.

Must pick up today. Will not hold.

reviews are free

KQED review by Kristen Farr:

 Jocelyn Maggait's Free: A Utopian Project was the aforementioned pile of junk, which is what it looked like at first glance. This makeshift store of objects was culled from the free section on Craigslist, then curated and stacked together in poignant, aesthetically pleasing piles of handled objects, many of which had a creative bent. The artist invited her audience to take something home and consider the history of the object. I scored a plastic hot dog bun for my fake food collection and wondered how many children or animals had slobbered on it since 1987, which was the production date stamped on the bottom.

http://www.kqed.org/arts/visualarts/article.jsp?essid=93421

SFChronicle review by Leah Garchik

This year's Mills College master of fine arts exhibition, "The Last Show on Earth," 

on all through May, features work by 12 artists.

Jocelyn Meggait's "Utopian Free Economy Project" is described in the online catalog as "a socially interactive installation in which all objects are offered for free with one small caveat - consider the object's past, present and future economic and ecological presence." The artist gathered a pile of stuff - including a piano, Polaroid cameras, labels, plaster molds and costumes - offered free on Craigslist, and is offering it free to gallery goers.

The photo installation of Susanna Corcoran, who tipped me off about this, is described as "intervening in the commonplace" to create "temporary situations." She poured colored milk into a reservoir, a bay and small containers, creating what she describes as "lunar landscapes or brain scans."

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2012/05/09/DDV31OD0IL.DTL

tossing things into the kiln

just to see what happens is free

 cropping is free

some things are still free

smiles are free

the hits of the 80's are free

vinyl is free

"I only get it for the articles" are free

opening day time lapse is free

openings are free

Free Installation 

before the April 28 Opening Reception

 at Mills College for

The Last Show On Earth