Exhibitions


PERSPECTIVE POINTS

Group Show - Minnow Arts, Santa Cruz, CA

Curated by Nat Saia

October 8 - November 28, 2025

ABOUT THE EXHIBIT

In this group exhibition entitled ‘Perspective Points’, the artists invite us to see beauty in both the building and deconstructing. They remind us that construction and creativity are deeply linked—and that labor, far from being separate from art, is often where art begins. In this work, the passage of time occurs through both the collective action of tedious, meditative tasks and material decay. Whether it’s a pencil, a needle, a camera, or a brush, tools become extensions of the body, drawing a line between physical effort and creative expression. By showcasing common industrial or domestic materials, the artists sew poetic potential into the everyday. They shape materials—and in doing so, shape meaning.

Each work endures time—creating intricacy through repetition and care. Processing is displayed through patience and persistence where the slow build becomes the rhythm and the joy found in that processing. Through the compulsive repetition of mark-making, stitching, layering, and arranging, each work becomes a record of time spent—hours, days, weeks distilled into surface and form. Like a bird gathering one twig at a time to build a nest, these works demonstrate that through sustained, deliberate efforts, a little becomes a lot. And in the layers, we find space to excavate, reflect, to feel, and to look again.

The Origin Stories Project

Saffron Communities

The Glove Project

From The Ground Up

The Watershed Building Petaluma, CA 
April 26 - September 25, 2024

ABOUT THE EXHIBIT

The show you see here is part of a larger, ongoing series conceived by Cat Alden, a sculptor  who works in a variety of materials including paper, steel, organza, and found objects. 

In the 1990’s, while living in the industrial neighborhood of West Berkeley, Alden began collecting work gloves, picking them up off the street, often rain-soaked and frayed.  As her collection grew, she used them in assemblages or modified them with various media to create new forms. Sometimes, she simply presented them on their own, focusing on the unique qualities of these orphaned objects. 

In 2023, Alden teamed up with photographer Michael Woolsey to present a number of these remarkable gloves as individual photographic portraits, honoring the men and women whose labors produced them. Woolsey’s camera has captured in stunning detail the worn fingertips, tattered stitching and duct-taped repairs that give them meaning and emotional presence far beyond that of everyday apparel.

This exhibit also includes photographs and wall sculptures of more recently acquired gloves,  passed on to Alden by contemporary stone masons, gardeners, foundry workers, and mechanics--letting us appreciate them in a new way.

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Tools as art

Petaluma Arts Center

Curated by Cat Alden

May 9 - June 22, 2024

“It’s not what you look at that matters, it’s what you see.” - Henry Thoreau

Tools. We take them for granted. The machine-shop smell of the hardware store with its rows of odd-shaped hammers and axe heads as elegant as Cycladic sculptures. Or the raw energy of the construction site, massive excavators chewing up the earth like prehistoric creatures, carpenters throwing up walls, electricians unspooling wire. 

We may use our minds to translate and understand the world at large. But it is through our hands we experience its physicality and through our tools we often make sense of it. This exhibition explores the beauty and power and, yes, even the whimsy of everyday tools by using them in assemblages or modified them with various media. By placing them center stage, the artists presented here have given them meaning and emotional presence far beyond their everyday appeal.

Participating artists: Bob Brady, Noa Charuvi, Kate Dodd, David Duskin, Gwyneth Leech, James Morris, Charles Stinson, and Bill Westheimer with a special thanks to Greg Leshé for his help putting this exhibition together.

MOUNDS, PILES AND MASSINGS

Walsh Gallery - Seton Hall University, NJ

Curated by Greg Leshe

September 9 - October 19, 2019

“Everything Heavy Becomes Light”

Artists: Cat Alden, Noa Charuvi, Kate Dodd, Deborah Jack, Vandana Jain, Darin Kendell, Robert Lach, Ann Lepore, Darren Lee, John Pfahl, Elizabeth Riley, Kathryn Vajda

Installations


Haiku-November

Private home, Berkeley

Willow branches 

2023

Chamesh

Private home, Petaluma

Hand-sewn buttons, organza, embroidery floss

2023

Autumn Night

Emanate Salon, Petaluma, CA - Reception room

Woven magazine pages

2023

Sky Bound

Berkeley, CA

Cast bronze branch sculpture

Allegro V

Inverness, CA

Japanese maple branches

2022

Wisdom

Petaluma, CA

Curly willow branches

2022

Flow

Pop up installation

Hand-sewn buttons, organza, embroidery floss

2023