Alula Editions

Alula Editions
April 2 – May 1, 2011
Opening Reception: Saturday, April 2, 7-10pm
Prototype Sessions: Sunday, April 3, Saturday April 16 & Sunday April 17, 12-5pm
San Francisco Chronicle Review

Triple Base Gallery is pleased to present Alula Editions, a textile art subscription project that makes becoming a collector as easy as subscribing to a magazine or a CSA veggie box. The opening on Saturday, April 2 from 7-10pm will feature a live performance by Sara Magenheimer (WOOM), Alula Editions’ most recent collaborator.

Alula Editions is an initiative spearheaded and hand-crafted by San Francisco-based artists Helena Keeffe and Amber Cady. The duo’s show at Triple Base will be, in part, an exhibition that showcases past editions and artwork from collaborators such as Jason Jägel, Allison Smith and Headlands Center for the Arts. The gallery space will also be used as a production studio on Sunday, April 3, Saturday, April 16 and Sunday, April 17, with gallery visitors invited to help prototype the forthcoming edition made in collaboration with New York-based film/video artist Sara Magenheimer.

Keeffe and Cady started Alula Editions as a way to bring patterned textiles and contemporary art practices together in the form of a limited edition multiple. Inspired by fellow art subscription pioneers such as The Present Group and The Thing, Alula shares the conviction that this model provides an avenue for art production that see-saws nicely between the worlds of commerce and experimentation. Much like a CSA (community support agriculture), subscribers provide the funds needed to make the editions and receive artworks in return for their investment. For only 55 cents a day ($200 a year), subscribers get four art objects – each made from hand silk-screened textiles conceived in collaboration with artists. The objects are designed in response to the concepts embedded in the textile and range from something as functional as a tie to a more whimsical take on a drawing kit meant to inspire close observation of nature and it’s elements. Alula prints on fabric made from organic and sustainable fibers using plant pigment and water-based inks.