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Visionaries Steven Barich and Shanna Maurizi do it their way. Behind the Red Door Oakland artists take a look into their own back yard By Sara Zaske Great art often happens on the edges. Oakland, a city which is focusing more and more on finding its center, would do well to look to its edges. Because on the perimeter of the Fruitvale district, among the gray warehouses criss-crossed with train tracks, in the same places people go to dump their trash and their unwanted pets, something interesting has been happening. Communities of artists have been living in the warehouses along San Leandro Street for years, working in relative obscurity. Recently however a door opened, a double red door to be precise. The Red Door Gallery opened in the fall of 2000, fueled solely by the dreams, ambitions, and pockets of two working artists. "We opened it because we could," said photographer and filmmaker Shanna Maurizi as she stood inside the Red Door on a cold December afternoon. Wearing a knit cap and finger-less gloves, Maurizi made start-ing a gallery sound a bit like climbing Everest, but both Maurizi and her co-curator, painter Steven Barich, stressed how easy it was. All it takes is what you have to spare in change, time, and space. "You could do it in your own living room," Maurizi said. Housed in a live/work space on 40th and San Leandro Streets, the Red Door Gallery is literally built out of Maurizi and Barich's living room. The space is so ample, two large rooms with white walls extending toward the high warehouse ceiling, you have to wonder how much room they left for the dishes and the laundry. The Red Door developed out of a conversation about how to exist independent of the established art world. Opening the gallery was a way for Maurizi and Barich not only to show their own work but also to expose the work of other Bay Area artists. Together, the two artists have managed to pull together six full shows. Most focused on different mediums: painting, sculpture, video, photography, and installation, but they are particularly proud of their last show of the season, which combined a variety of artists and media and centered on the theme of the urban landscape. Entitled Experimental Architecture and the Cultivated Landscape, the show mixed literal and the metaphorical representations of city environments, each piece exposing the apparent concreteness of urban landscape, solid buildings, and hard pavement, as actually being fluid, open to change and interpretation, or "malleable" as the curators put it. Antonio Vigil's photo montage merges scenes of Hispanic neighborhoods in several cities. The combination of different cityscapes was so seamless, that on the first glance, I was sure I was looking at the Oakland skyline as seen from the Coliseum BART. On the more metaphorical line, David Hinman's mountainous topographies give 3D form to normally intangible landscapes of city living. One piece tracks the sound waves of breaking glass in sharp clear plastic. Another, showing a red plain with abrupt jutting peaks, depicts the statistics of prostitution. An installation of 'Freeform Architecture' by Steven Gagala and Kris Mills shot across the doorway between the gallery's two rooms. Consisting mostly of string tied at artful angles, the piece created the illusion of a solid architecture, which at the same time felt fragile and penetrable. "There's something different about an exhibition space run by artists compared to others who are in it for the business," Barich said and I could see what he meant as I walked through the well-curated show. Because Barich and Maurizi fund the Red Door Gallery out of their own pockets, they are free to do it the way they want, to try out new themes and show untested artists, and if the cultivated landscape show is any indication, the results are dynamic and exciting. But there are also limits to running a gallery this way. While Barich joked that they could sell 'do-it-yourself gallery kits,' both curators' talk wavered from how easy opening a gallery was to how difficult it was to find funding outside of their own pockets. Both curators willingly admitted that they have only sold two pieces since they opened. Then, selling is not the goal, exposing Bay Area talent is. While the Red Door seems right in line with Oakland's espoused goals for the arts, the gallery was passed up for a city grant, and the curators have had no luck securing other financial support. "There's a big hole in arts funding," said Maurizi. "You have to be established for a couple years to get funding, but you can't get established with-out funding. It's a viscous circle." Maurizi and Barich expressed frustration with the slow support for the arts in Oakland. While Oakland has one of the largest populations of artists per capita in the country, many still have to go to San Francisco to find places to exhibit and sell their art. "Oakland really needs to start recognizing local artists because they are damn good," said Barich. "We need to look in our own back yard." There is definitely something different about The Red Door Gallery and its latest offering demonstrated the value of Oakland art spaces. Emerging from the Red Door, I turned new eyes on the urban landscape where the gallery lives. To the left, the backs of warehouses block the view to the estuary. To the right, the flats of Oakland stretch up toward hills of high-priced homes, whose glinting windows look away from their back yard to stare out across the Bay. The Red Door is taking a hiatus for the winter and will re-emerge in the spring as a moveable gallery. Call 510.261.4517 for more information. Sara Zaske is a freelance writer caught between the edges and the hills of Oakland. She can be reached at [email protected]. [ East Bay | Metroactive | Archives ]