Monthly Conversations

Interviews with Social Artists, Uncommon Heroes

Sep 5, 2025

From the Editor

Richard Whittaker

Here’s our Conversations newsletter #55. Let me warn you that our four interviews - in this case, all women - is old-fashioned. These are long reads. Veteran subscribers wouldn’t expect anything less. On the other hand, if you’re a newcomer - as stalwarts avow over and over - the time invested in our interviews is well worth it.

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Dancing Warrior - Liz Pimentel-Gopal

One morning, Liz recalled reading about the "Hardwood Classics" a group of dancers who perform at the Golden State Warriors games. You had to be 55. Liz had just turned 56. Had loved dancing her whole life. A wild idea popped up. And she showed up among 300 others trying out. 29 made it. Guess what? Read all about it...

Full Circle - Mary Curtis Ratcliff

Mary Curtis is a Bay Area artist. We'd met, but I didn't know much about her - like she'd been a founder of Videofreex in 1969. It's a wild story in itself. Or that she'd spent two surreal years at a Swiss boarding school without knowing French or German. She learned a lot besides the curriculum. Next up, RISD. Got through that, too. And that's just the beginning...

Bound, Unbound - Elizabeth Sher

As an art grad at UCB in 1965, Sher says, "I didn't know one person who smoked marijuana." But a year later, as she says, "the world had changed." Indeed. Sher talks about her rich, 60+ years of painting, filmmaking and teaching in this overflowing conversation...

The Traffic Between Heaven and Earth - Eva Bovenzi

Bovenzi's exhibit title is mesmerizing in itself. Added to that, Pastine Projects in SF is the kind of hidden, magical gallery one imagines in a perfect bohemian world. And it was wall to wall for our conversation. There must have been at least 40 in the seats. So intimate, and everyone paying rapt attention...