Family Patterns Comes to Life

In San Francsico until August 21, 2014

Tying a prayer to a ribbon.

Photo by Vincent Carrella

Breathing into Sadness, Pauletta Chanco

SFMOMA Artist's Gallery

How the Light Gets In: Bay Area Photo, A group show featuring 7  Photographers

Pauletta Chanco: Living on Shifting Sands

Hours:  Tuesday - Saturday 10:30 a.m. - 5:00 p.m.
Fort Mason, San Francisco, CA

About Family Patterns

Family Patterns is an integration of the art from Patterns of Growth and a meditation on family, origin, and transformation.

I was adopted at 9 months of age and found my birth mother at age 18. In 2003 I created a series entitled Hold Me, that centered around my adoption and the feelings of displacement surrounding it.

Family Patterns shows people from my birth and adoptive families, and photos of me and my son. There is an intersection that holds me at the center; the past and future generation behind and in front of me. I am suspended in the present and time converges in me. I see how far I have come in accepting and integrating the seen and unseen patterns of lineage on me as an individual and now, as a mother.

I decided to transform the images into prayer flags because I wanted to make tangible the benefits of reflection and growth, and to offer the love I received back to the universe and to others.

Upstairs in the Gallery

Pauletta Chanco: Living on Shifting Sands

Living on Shifting Sands showcases painter Pauletta Chanco's recent abstract work. The artist talks about this series as a response to living with a terminal diagnosis. Both the practice of her art and the visual results acknowledge that all any of us can do is to live in the moment, appreciating each one as it arises. Chanco chooses to spend moments creating beauty and breathing life into what was never there before. The poignancy of these creative moments is for her the most amazing gift of all.