Mother

Adele Gilani

Adele Gilani is a painter and writer whose work centers on nature as a symbol of hope and renewal. She studied at Humboldt State University among the redwoods and earned her BFA in art and printmaking at the University of Kentucky, where she grew up in the land of Bluegrass tobacco and bourbon. Her bold landscapes and glitter-infused scenes reflect her love of the great outdoors.

Statement: In the two paintings i submitted to the Mother show, I was inspired by the concept of mother earth greeting us as her children. I selected some of the most beautiful ways to say hello overlaid with a few of nature’s, most beautiful locations.

Annie Duncan @annieduncan_

Born in San Francisco, Duncan earned an MFA from California College of the Arts in 2023 and a BA from Vassar College in 2019. She has participated in several residencies, including Lighthouse Works (Fishers Island, NY) and Anderson Ranch (Snowmass, CO). Her work has been exhibited in the Bay Area, Los Angeles, New York, Miami, London, and Seoul, and has been featured in publications including Art News, Colossal, Variable West, and Artsy.

Statement: Annie Duncan is a ceramic sculptor and painter whose larger-than-life work explores femininity, material symbolism, and art historical references. In her work, oversized flowers, beauty products, and personal objects are juxtaposed to create narratives that are both poignant and playful, mirroring the conflicting emotions found in everyday life. Her colorful ceramics draw from the illusionism of trompe-l’oeil painting, the visual language of cartoons, and the aesthetics of digital consumer culture.

Aurelie van der Cruisse @aurelie.vdc

Aurélie van der Cruisse de Waziers is a French/Dutch multidisciplinary artist. She lives in San Francisco, CA with her family. She has volunteered at schools, taught elementary school art and made drag costumes, learned ceramics and woodworking. She has a boundless interest in all things craft. She is inspired by the importance of words.

Statement: I am most at ease when I'm alone. Becoming and being a mother has made me more soft, flexible, uncomfortable and hard working than I would have thought possible. It has made me love more fiercely. It has made me want to be louder. It has made me want to be braver. It has made me want to be a voice that frees.

Bronwen O'Wril

Bronwen earned her Bachelor's of Fine Arts in Woodwork and Furniture Design from Maine College of Art and Design over the course of sixteen years, while also working as a nurse practitioner. Bronwen is a member of LifeForms (lifeformsart.org), an experiment in artistic community-building, and a fellow with the 2025-26 North Street Project cohort (thisisnorthstreet.org). She enjoys walking in the woods with Lefty the dog.

Statement: That we experience anything at all is marvelous. That we find ways to manage life’s complexity is essential. Sharing the load seems to help, so we try to commune with others through such error-ridden means as symbols, sounds, and gestures. Bronwen’s sculpture deals with our endearing efforts to connect in the face of certain loss. She works with experiences like mothering, daughtering, and facing mortality with equal parts tenderness and humor. Her projects are enlivened by the companionship of humans, whose reflections offer glimpses of other inner lives.

Ingrid Behrsin

Energy democracy advocate by day, family caretaker in the between hours, Ingrid Behrsin’s creative pursuits include fiber arts (crochet, paper arts, and garment making), urban exploration through industrial design, and converting her rental’s backyard into a pleasure garden for birds, bees, and neighborhood babies. The Vienna Opera House Quilt project and her Wiener Wasser series are two explorations of Vienna's industrial design as it engages social relations. You can see more of her reflections on this theme at Play In The City (https://playinthecity.wordpress.com/).

Jamie Smith @jamiesmithart

Jamie is an artist, wife, and mother in her 30’s living in San Francisco. Born and raised in Idaho, she studied French language and literature at the University of Idaho. Art has long been a hobby and an outlet of hers, but during the isolation of 2020’s quarantine (combined with being a new mom), it became more of a lifeline. Through this rediscovered passion, Jamie has been using her art to work through and share some of the new life changes she is experiencing and processing older emotions. The intention behind her body of work is that the delicate nature of the florals, and of the watercolor to depict them, are highlighted by the stark nature of the acrylic backgrounds. She hopes that in sharing this work, she can connect with other people who may be experiencing the same things and celebrate their strength.

Statement: This project was born from books. I began with “Delicate Condition” by Danielle Valentine, a novel a slightly exaggerated body horror depicting a woman’s journey through pregnancy. It occurred to me how many people (me included) have such intensely graphic stories from their pregnancy experiences. Going into motherhood is usually a continuation of these- “My periods are heavier” “My hair fell out” “My abs never fully reconnected” Becoming a mother leaves more physical, emotional, and mental scars than anything else I’ve ever experienced and yet it is something that happens literally every single day. Every day someone is becoming an entirely new person, their world completely shifting on it’s axis.. It is gross and beautiful and earth shattering and commonplace. What other experience can hold that many truths? These paintings explore the physical transformation into motherhood, the different parts of the body that are forever changed. Each flower was picked specifically for it’s meaning, and it’s relationship to that part of the body. I hope these resonate with your mothering experience and help you to see the beauty in the scars it leaves behind.

Jessica Lehr-Surf Joose @surf.Joose

I’m Jessica “Juice” Lehr, a California-born artist whose work is born of saltwater, sunlight, and soul. My art isn’t just inspired by the ocean - it’s made from it. Every wave I create carries the spirit of the Pacific, from the sand beneath its surface to the shimmer of its tides. Art has always been my love language - but the ocean gave it deep meaning. My pieces are love letters to the sea: hand-poured layers of eco-friendly resin on reclaimed wood, pigments that mimic the curve of a wave, and textures that feel alive with motion. I strive to capture the moment where nature meets imagination - that breath between crash and calm - the essence of what it means to flow. Before founding Surf Joose, I spent years as a Head Brewer in San Francisco, mastering another kind of craft - blending science, patience, and creativity to create sensory experiences. That same philosophy now pours into my art: intentional, immersive, and built to make people feel. Each piece I create - from my Ocean Hearts and California cutouts to my Giving Clutch purses and Roses of the Deep - is designed to remind people of their connection to the ocean and to themselves. My materials are carefully chosen for sustainability, using low-VOC, eco-conscious resin and natural wood bases. Every pour, pigment, and ripple is guided by intuition — no molds, no mass production, just pure flow. But Surf Joose isn’t only about art - it’s a movement of Art with Purpose. I believe creativity can be a tide of change. That’s why 10% of every sale goes directly to ocean conservation through the Surfrider Foundation, supporting clean beaches, healthy coastlines, and thriving marine life. My hope is that every piece not only brings peace and beauty to your space but also contributes to protecting the waters that inspire it. My work has been featured in local galleries, San Francisco pop-ups, and public art installations like the San Francisco General Hospital Art Heart Project, where I created a piece infused with real sand from Ocean Beach - connecting the city’s heartbeat to the shore it overlooks. To me, art is energy in motion - a current that carries emotion, story, and purpose. Through Surf Joose, I invite you to dive deeper - to feel, to remember, to reconnect - and to join me in creating waves and energy that last far beyond the shore. Catch you in the waves!

Joyce Lin-Conrad

Joyce Lin-Conrad is an East Bay native and the founder of the food education nonprofit The Breakfast Project. She enjoys telling and learning stories through cooking and eating, parenting two teens, singing with the San Francisco Symphony Chorus, attending youth baseball games, nurturing decades-long friendships, exploring local public libraries, and connecting with her parents' cultural roots in Taiwan.

Judy Halebsky

Judy Halebsky is the author of three poetry collections, including Sky=Empty which won the New Issues Prize. Originally from Halifax, Nova Scotia, she moved to California to study poetry at Mills College. On fellowships from the Japanese Ministry of Culture, she spent five years living in Japan, where she trained in Butoh dance and Noh theatre. At Dominican University of California, she teaches poetry writing and live storytelling. She lives in Berkeley with her nature guide and their young daughter.

Statement: Izumi Shikibu had an affair that soured her reputation. Then she wrote a diary about the romance which everyone read for the sultry details and the love poems. But she also wrote it to obfuscate the gossip, to put her story her way. This was in Kyoto, then called Heian, in the 10th century. Because Shikibu wrote it as a diary, everyone read it as true. It's a mix of poetry and prose, or what is sometimes called an uta nikki or poetry journal. I've been writing a journal of poems while out walking mostly in Berkeley and Oakland, anytime that I'm out in the world. There's entries from Mount Tamalpais and Kichijoji. For the journal, I speak into the notes app on my phone which makes a voice to text transcription. This was a breakthrough for me in trying to write as a new parent. The way I used to write when I had both time and space, required time and space. Now, I write out in the world while doing all of my other things. Sometimes transportation, sometime chores but most often night walks. The transcriptions are full of mistakes and mishearing which could be fodder for poems but what's been the most energetic so far is the layering of place and story that the memos record. They start and end mid-thought and mid-walk. Most of the memos vanish into a constantly growing digital heap that will last as long as I keep paying storage fees. But I've revised a few of them into poems. With Izumi Shikibu in mind, they mix the real and imagined in a record that tells not my life but my story.

Miranda Robbins

Miranda Robbins is an interdisciplinary artist, mother, and educator with a background in geology whose work investigates the relationship between body and spirit, where they intertwine and diverge. Her practice is rooted in the act of visual listening. Using collected sound as a skeleton upon which materials such as liquid latex, seawater, and crushed minerals are hung, battered, folded, or bounced, the resultant videos, photographs and sculptural paintings transpose the senses, disrupt perception, and push the viewer into the space between belief and knowing. Her practice also includes drawing, specifically making drawings of shadows, which are reminders of the seen and unseen, traces of where the light cannot reach. Miranda received an MFA from Mills College, and lives and works in Oakland.

Natasha Hoehn

Natasha is a writer, artist, and creative strategist who believes in the power of reinvention. She founded The North Street Project to create a space where artists and writers—especially those in mid-to-late career—can find new momentum, connect deeply, and make new work. Her career has woven through philanthropy, education, and the arts, always centered on the question: How do we create spaces where people can thrive creatively? She began as a classroom teacher, later working in nonprofit leadership and philanthropy, always pushing for new ways to support the creative process. A lifelong lover of words and images, Natasha’s artistic practice is rooted in storytelling, nature, and regenerative creativity. She draws inspiration from landscapes, history, and material intelligence, seeking to reimagine the narratives we inherit and the ones we choose to write. Her work explores the intersection of language, memory, and environment, often incorporating found materials, layering text with image, and weaving together personal and collective histories. She holds degrees from Yale University and has worked with leading philanthropic institutions, but her true education has come from time spent among redwood forests, artists’ studios, and the creative communities that shape the world. When not writing or making art, you’ll find her hiking in Northern California, reading, planning the next adventure with her daughters, or discovering a new way to bring creative people together.

Nina Behrsin

Nina Behrsin is a conceptually-based, interdisciplinary artist based in Berkeley, California. Her work spans mediums- photography, mixed media, sculpture, drawing and video. Nina Behrsin began her art practice while working with artist and UC Berkeley professor Anne Healey, and at the Oxbow School under the mentorship of printmaker Stephen Thomas (of Crown Point Press). Behrsin has her BA in Art from the UCLA School of Art and Architecture. She has shown her work at the San Francisco Public Library, the Corcoran Gallery (Washington DC), the Los Angeles Municipal Art Gallery, Infusion Gallery (Los Angeles, CA), and the North Street Collective (Willits, CA). She has been recognized with awards from the Scholastic Art and Writing Awards, the National Endowment for the Arts, the Arts Recognition and Talent Search, the Rhode Island School of Design and the Hammer Museum (Los Angeles). Nina Behrsin has also been teaching for twenty years as a multiple-subject arts-integration educator and curriculum developer. She received her M.A. in Education from UC Berkeley and a certification in Arts Integration (based on Harvard’s Project Zero research-supported pedagogical practices), and served as an Arts Integration Team member (coach) for Alameda County’s Arts Is Education pilot elementary school (Peralta Elementary).

Statement: Nina Behrsin's process is guided by reflections stemming from the subconscious and the natural world, personal narrative, histories and texts; she pursues the personal questions: How can I explore connection of 'self' to place and memory? What threads emerge in this exploration? Physical surfaces in Behrsin’s work are cut apart and rearranged, layered, reinterpreted, rebuilt. The resulting body of work are artifacts of this inquiry process.

Natasha Hoehn

Natasha is a writer, artist, and creative strategist who believes in the power of reinvention. She founded The North Street Project to create a space where artists and writers—especially those in mid-to-late career—can find new momentum, connect deeply, and make new work. Her career has woven through philanthropy, education, and the arts, always centered on the question: How do we create spaces where people can thrive creatively? She began as a classroom teacher, later working in nonprofit leadership and philanthropy, always pushing for new ways to support the creative process. A lifelong lover of words and images, Natasha’s artistic practice is rooted in storytelling, nature, and regenerative creativity. She draws inspiration from landscapes, history, and material intelligence, seeking to reimagine the narratives we inherit and the ones we choose to write. Her work explores the intersection of language, memory, and environment, often incorporating found materials, layering text with image, and weaving together personal and collective histories. She holds degrees from Yale University and has worked with leading philanthropic institutions, but her true education has come from time spent among redwood forests, artists’ studios, and the creative communities that shape the world. When not writing or making art, you’ll find her hiking in Northern California, reading, planning the next adventure with her daughters, or discovering a new way to bring creative people together.