Author: Justin Nagle

Thursday September 9th 2021 at 7:00PM

$25/person

Come enjoy The David Ireland House between sunset and dusk. When the sun drops on the horizon, the exhibition, Light Repair, subtly illuminates textures, shapes, and material with a special glow from the many light sculptures placed throughout the House. Come alone or with friends. An artist guide will be on hand to answer any questions.

Light Repair features the work of artist and electrician Rico Duenas. The exhibition is inspired by the transformational power of light in a room and the implications of highlighting and staging stripped-down everyday objects in an elevated view.

Rico Duenas was born and raised in San Francisco. As a child, he spent time on the east coast with his grandfather, a sculptor and founding member of Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture. In San Francisco, he also often accompanied his father to flea markets and garage sales, where his father bought, fixed, and re-sold furniture. It was there that he was introduced to artist Kevin Randolph, who was repurposing lights, and quickly developed a love of lighting and sculpture. He lives and works in San Francisco as a union electrician and artist.

A reading with poets Lourdes Figueroa, Karen Llagas, and friends

Tuesday, September 21, 2021

Doors open at 6:30pm. Poetry begins at 7pm.

Reserve Your Free Tickets

To poet Lourdes Figueroa, “Everything is Poem” and on Tuesday, September 21, 7pm at night, she will be reading several with fellow Bay Area poet Karen Llagas and friends. Figueroa further states, “Every project is a movement, a ritual full of lessons and love. I dive in with my whole body, the entirety of what has made me, made you, essentially made us — siempre letting the heart & lung of the work guide me.”

At night, foregrounded by the light sculptures of Rico Duenas, the House glows a certain way – contextualized by the Brechtian installations of David Ireland, poetry takes center stage for this event. Join us as we open the house at twilight once again. Tickets are limited.

The poetry reading will take place outdoors on our terrace. Please dress accordingly.

Special thanks to Nina Sazevich for the title. 
Photo of the House at Night by Eric Ruby. 

Lourdes Figueroa is an oral poet. Her poems are a dialogue of her lived experience when her family worked in el azadón in Yolo County. The words el azadón are used by the ones who work in the fields — the work of tilling the soil under the blistering sun. She is the author of the chapbooks  yolotl and Ruidos = To Learn Speak, completed during her Alley Cat Books Residency. She received her MFA in Poetry at the University of San Francisco. She works and lives in San Francisco with her wife, filmmaker Peggy Peralta. She is a native of limbo nation. Lourdes believes in your lung and your throat.

Photo of Lourdes Figueroa by Peggy Peralta

Karen Llagas’s first collection of poetry, Archipelago Dust, was published by Meritage Press in 2010. A recipient of a Filamore Tabios, Sr. Memorial Poetry Prize, Hedgebrook residency, and a Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Poetry Prize, her poems have appeared in Rhino Poetry, Crab Orchard Review, the anthologies Troubling Borders, An Anthology of Art and Literature by Southeast Asian Women in the Diaspora (University of Washington Press, 2014), The Place That Inhabits Us: Poems of the San Francisco Bay Watershed (Sixteen Rivers Press, 2010), among others. She lectures at UC Berkeley and lives in Los Angeles and San Francisco.

Saturday, September 25, 2-5pm

$160/person ALL AGES*

This event is sold out

Come and tinker with us as artist and electrician Rico Duenas leads a lamp making workshop for all ages to learn the basics of putting together a lamp. All you need to bring is a positive attitude. Materials are included in the workshop. Seats are limited.

Rico Duenas was born and raised in San Francisco. As a child, he spent time on the east coast with his grandfather, a sculptor and founding member of Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture. In San Francisco, he also often accompanied his father to flea markets and garage sales, where his father bought, fixed, and re-sold furniture. It was there that he was introduced to artist Kevin Randolph, who was repurposing lights, and quickly developed a love of lighting and sculpture. He lives and works in San Francisco as a union electrician and artist.

*Children 12 years and younger are required to be accompanied by adults