Andree Singer Thompson
Andrée Singer Thompson is a long time Bay Area artist and teacher who has exhibited internationally and nationally. Much of her sculpture and interactive and educational site specific installations deal with individual and communal survival issues. She often collaborates with other artists on public art projects involving community participation. Her main focus since 2005 has been making art about and teaching environmental and social justice activist art. Her ceramic works specialize in combining raku-fired metal and clay, and anagama wood-fired works. She lives in Berkeley, teaches at Laney College, and gives numerous workshops around the country. She developed and taught a summer Eco-Art Literacy program and is active in the eco-art movement as a member of board of directors of the Women Ecoartists Dialogue. She lives in a yellow house with purple steps and has chickens and compost in the garden.
A short Video of Survival Matters, a brief history of her work and wetwork performances is available online at Vimeo. Andrée’s drawings of endangered species and California natives are avialable through Calliope’s Bucket, under Eco art. Andrée Singer Thompson is a longtime Bay Area artist and teacher who has exhibited internationally and nationally. Much of her sculpture, site-specific
installations and performance pieces deal with individual and communal survival issues which are interactive and educational. She often collaborates with other artists on public art projects involving community participation. In a 2002 exhibition at Scripps College in Claremont California, at the request of curator Nancy Selvin, she revived “Skins”, a series of wet clay performances begun in the 1970s about transformations. “Modulations” is part of that series.
For four summers, she worked with Camp OH-NEH-TAH children, ages 8-12, teaching and developing a literacy, eco-art and ceramic program she created at this self -esteem camp for inner city girls. Her 50 foot Golden Trout, Guillermo, made of recycled metal, adorns the Richmond Civic Center auditorium wall above the Richmond Art Center, part of a large installation about drinkable water and endangered species. This state fish, endangered in 1986, remains on view, a symbol of healthy survival due to human intervention and creative attention. Local children and invited artists contributed artworks as part of the installation.
Collaborations with artist Susan Leibovitz Steinman include public projects about disappearing birds: For the Birds, Birds’ Own Depot, Domestic Nature, Spatial Politics; recycling issues: Back to the Garden; the Oakland Artship Celebration; and a bench renovation in Peralta Children’s Park working with Oakland elementary school children making tiles to cover the bench. Ms. Steinman commissioned her to paint banners of California native plants and animals as part of a permanent installation, California Native, in Palo Alto, California. She also paints endangered creatures on cars. A yellow Volvo covered with endangered California salamanders was among the Art Cars at the How Berkeley Can You Be parade.
Past works also include installations about violence, Olive Tree Requiem, and a tribute to the sardine industry, Cannery Row Catch, both with Valerie Otani and Elizabeth Stanek, with whom she worked on installations for 25 years.
A large installation of wood/clay sculptures at the Judah Magnes Museum, Survivors, was a tribute to family and other survivors of the Holocaust, a recurring theme throughout her career. Ms. Thompson has also exhibited ceramics and ceramic sculptures in Korea, Japan, and Europe as well as nationally. Her ceramic works specialize in combining raku-fired metal and clay, and anagama wood-fired works. Ms. Thompson lives in Berkeley, teaches at Laney College and gives numerous workshops around the country. She is active in the eco-art movement as a member of the board of directors of the Women’s Environmental Art Directory. She lives in a yellow house with purple steps and has chickens and compost in the garden.
