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OPENING THIS WEEK

The 10th annual Gallery Staff Show and Silent Auction is set to begin today (Nov. 4).

The show features jewelry, glass work, textiles, ceramics, metalwork, woodwork, photography, painting, drawing, screen printing and mixed media, all handcrafted by Craft Center staff members. Proceeds from the sale benefit Craft Center programs.

Written bids can be placed at any time during the center's open hours: 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. Monday through Thursday, 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. Friday, and 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Saturday and Sunday. The center and gallery are in the .

The silent-bidding phase is set to close at 6 p.m. Friday, Dec. 2, amid a reception from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. Live auctions will commence for any items for which interested bidders are in attendance.

For more information, call Jan Garrison, Craft Center coordinator, (530) 752-3096.

ONGOING EXHIBITIONS

• Birds: A Kinetic Installation — Does the term "kinetic sculpture" fill your mind with images of clanking metal gears or corny water-driven fountain elements? Chico MacMurtrie has made his share of drum-pounding giant robots over the years. But, with Birds, he offers a different vision: a lyrical, even meditative exploration of the flapping of wings — a dozen pairs of them. Driven by compressed air, the fabric wings slowly inflate, flap and deflate over a period of minutes, in eerie grace and silence. Through Dec. 11, , . Regular hours: 11 a.m.-5 p.m. Monday-Thursday and Saturday-Sunday, and Fridays by appointment.

• Double Vision: New Works by Hulleah J. Tsinhnahjinnie — A collaboration of the , the Great Plains Art Museum and Hulleah J. Tsinhnahjinnie, this exhibition poses an intervention with the photographic archive. Based on historical images from the late 1800s by Laton Alton Huffman and William Henry Jackson, held in the collections of the Great Plains Art Museum at the University of Nebraska, Lincoln, Tsinhnahjinnie creates works that serve as a remembrance of the bison, a visual confrontation and an appropriation into a Native American context. Through Dec. 2, , 1316 . Hours: noon-5 p.m. Monday-Friday, and 2-5 p.m. Sunday. Artist and curator lecture, 4 p.m. Tuesday, Nov. 29, with a reception to follow.

• Gyre: Regarding a Tragedy of the Commons — This exhibition by Robert Gaylor addresses the accumulation of plastic waste known as the "Great Pacific Garbage Patch" in the North Pacific Gyre (a giant, circular current on the ocean surface). The exhibition comprises two parts: photographs and an arrangement of flotsam objects gathered from the North Pacific Gyre, and a video installation titled Kamilo Twisted Waters, a moving mandala that reflects the fouling of the oceans. Through Dec. 2, , . Hours: noon-4 p.m. Monday-Friday, and 2-4 p.m. Sunday.

• Paper Takes: The Power of Uncivil Words — Built on the university's collection of radical pamphlets, as part of the Civility Project. Through Nov. 30, . Hours: 8 a.m.-5 p.m. Monday-Friday, and 10 a.m.-2 p.m. Saturday.

AT SHIELDS LIBRARY

• — The General Library Committee on Diversity assembled this exhibition in connection with , Sherman Alexie's The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, an award-winning young adult novel and one of the most challenged books of 2010.

The exhibition comprises classic and contemporary works of fiction that share with Alexie’s novel the distinction of being either challenged or banned in the United States.

Says the committee: "The best literature provokes discussion and challenges us to open our minds to the diversity of this common and uncommon thing we call life.' Our individual experiences are both unique and universal. Author Sherman Alexie’s semiautobiographical novel brilliantly captures this paradox."

• Jonathan Franzen — Highlighting the author's work, including The Corrections, Freedom and other novels. This exhibition aligns with in the Mondavi Center's Distinguished Speakers series. His talk, On Autobiography and Fiction Writing, is scheduled for Saturday, Oct. 8.

• — Manuscript archivist Liz Phillips prepared this exhibition on the papers of engineering geologist Nikola P. Prokopovich (1918-99)., who worked as a geologist with the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation's Mid-Pacific Region.

He worked out of the bureau's Sacramento office from 1958 to 1986, investigating the geology and geochemistry of statewide water projects, including the Central Valley Project and the Solano Project. He was an avid field geologist and spent as much time as possible on site, collecting his own data. Prokopovich was particularly interested in the engineering geology of the Central Valley Project's canals and dam sites, and in the effects of state water projects and field irrigation on the surrounding landscape.

The collection includes draft reports, memoranda and published writings, as well as nearly 25,000 slides and photographs documenting his work and the land around his work sites. 

• — In conjunction with at the Mondavi Center for the Performing Arts. The exhibition, prepared by Michael Colby, features items from library collections representing scholarship on the history, music, architecture, culture, practices and, most important, the people of New Orleans.

The Franzen exhibition runs through Oct. 10; the Campus Community Book Project and The Spirit of New Orleans exhibitions are designated for fall quarter, and The Ground Beneath Our Feet for fall and winter quarters. All exhibitions are in the lobby. Regular hours: 7:30 a.m.-midnight Monday-Thursday, 7:30 a.m.-6 p.m. Friday, noon-6 p.m. Saturday and noon-midnight Sunday.

OFF-CAMPUS

• Premeditation: Meditations on Capital Punishment — California State University, Sacramento, draws from its University Archives and Special Collections for this exhibition of works by the artist Malaquais Montoya, professor emeritus in UC Davis' Department of Chicana/o Studies. Through Nov. 19, Gallery Annex, University Library, Sacramento State, 6000 J St. Hours: 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday. 

The Premeditation: Meditations on Capital Punishment exhibition sponsors include the and , or TANA, the department-run community art center in Woodland.

The exhibition is a companion piece to a presentation by Montoya biographer Terezita Romo, former curator of the Mexican Museum in San Francisco. Romo's presentation is scheduled for 3 p.m. Thursday (Nov. 3) at the library.

• Wayne Thiebaud, professor emeritus of art — Five of his paintings are on display at the in Sacramento, in conjunction with his induction Dec. 14 into the California Hall of Fame. See separate stories on Thiebaud, and his into the California Hall of Fame. The museum has gathered personal items from all of the 2010 inductees, for an exhibition that is scheduled to run through Oct. 31. Thiebaud's picks: Bikini Figure (1966), Waterland (1996), Two Tulip Sundaes (2009), and Intersection Building and Cliff Ridge (both from 2010), all oils, on canvas or wood.

The museum is in the California State Archives building at 1020 O St., at the corner of 10th Street, one block south of Capitol Park. Hours: 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Monday-Saturday and noon-5 p.m. Sunday. (No one admitted after 4:30 p.m.) Closed all major holidays and furlough Fridays.