Fran Valesco
Lexington #1
1989
screen print
edition: 10, 3 AP, 1HC
image size: 30"h X 22"w
7 colors on Rives BFK
Frances Valesco made four variations of this print. The elements are shaped as organic gestures of drawing or painting, or linear geometry. All combine veils of transparent color that overlap and form new shades. Computer-generated drawings using early versions of Apple IIe programs were part of the imagery. The work emerged from the visual and tactile impressions of being at the Avocet Residency.
Frances is a master screen printer, having taught at Haystack Mountain School, Deer Isle, ME, KALA Institute, Berkeley, CA, and the San Francisco Art Institute. She provided technical guidance to artists in residence for two summer residencies in Lexington.
The following summer, Frances returned to make Lexington Maples #1 and Schoharie Creek #1.
Frances Valesco (born 1941) is an artist, printmaker, muralist, and educator living in Alameda, California. Frances earned her bachelor's from the University of California, Los Angeles, in 1963 and her MA from California State University in 1972. She is currently working on an EdD at Capella University's School of Public Service and Education, focusing on Curriculum and Instruction.
Frances has been described as a pollinator of cultural expression and a community builder, representing a variety of voices. She has exhibited her prints and artworks internationally in Linz, Austria; Guanlan, China; and Aguascalientes, Mexico. Her work is in collections at the Library of Congress, New York Public Library, the Museum of Modern Art in New York, and the Fine Arts Museums in San Francisco.
One of the first muralists to benefit from the Comprehensive Employment and Training Act (CETA) arts program, she built cooperative and integrative projects with mural making and printmaking.
Among her thirty murals are the Desert Mural, Kool Blue, and El Torneo entre el Sol y el Viento in Balmy Alley, San Francisco, designated as part of the Calle 24 Latino Cultural District. One of her most enduring and long-standing projects is the Disability Mural at the Ed Roberts Campus in Berkeley, CA, for which she served as a founder and coordinator.
Frances focuses on visual metaphors, and the connection between nature and activism. She travels to artist residencies in many parts of the world and finds herself moved by and influenced by the landscape. Her works evolve from places where nature triggers an emotional response. She is inspired by John Muir, whose activism saved Yosemite Valley in California. "I only went out for a walk and finally concluded to stay out till sundown, for going out, I found, was really going in."