Pat Guthrie, Jill McLennan, Sara Lisch – Body, Quilt, Animal
February 13, 2026 – March 21, 2026
Opening Reception:Saturday, February 21, 3 – 5 pm
Oakland Art Murmur / First Friday: March 6, 5 – 9 pm
This body of work brings together a human figure, an abstract quilt, and a series of animal forms. The figure is constructed from layered hand-cut paper, the quilt from fabric and dye, and the animals through collage, drawing, and painting. Each piece is arranged through an intuitive search for balance and rhythm, allowing form and pattern to emerge through the process of making rather than through planning or narrative. Across the works as a whole, pattern, repetition, and process play a central role, shaping how the images are built and experienced. Collage, mixed media, and fabric function as constructive tools, with materials layered, pieced, and assembled over time. Rather than describing specific scenes or narratives, the works emphasize accumulation, surface, and structure as the means through which the images take form.
Patricia Guthrie
After retiring from work as a professor and department chair of Human Development and Women’s Studies at Cal State East Bay in Hayward, Patricia Guthrie decided to actively engage in some form of visual arts. She began taking community-based art classes – drawing, photography, quilt making, and designing and printing fabric. Quilt making and all its aspects has since become her passion. Guthrie hopes her quilts encourage viewers to move beyond art that is merely pleasing to the eye to seek a deeper meaning.
Her work has been shown nationally and internationally including Schweinfurth Memorial Art Center, Auburn, New York; International Quilt Museum, Lincoln, Nebraska; Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; and Tuch + Technik Museum, Neumunster, Germany.
Jill McLennan
is a painter, printmaker and teaching artist who has been living in Oakland, CA for 23 years. She is an active member of her neighborhood Jingletown, creating and organizing public art and beautification projects, and has her studio at Jingletown Art Studios. In 2023, she completed a large-scale public art project with the city of Emeryville, a steel fence depicting local views and shorebirds. Currently, she is focused on printmaking and is exploring several techniques and subjects. This fall, she is an artist in residence at Kala Art Institute in Berkeley. As both an artist and a teacher, she is deeply invested in learning new things, exploring her environment, inspiring youth, and spreading hope and joy into the world.
Sara Lisch
Sara Lisch is a San Francisco Bay Area multimedia artist who graduated from Evergreen State College in Olympia, Washington. Her work has been exhibited at the Fuller Craft Museum in Massachusetts, the Flint Institute of Arts in Michigan, Santa Fe Clay, Virginia Brier Gallery in San Francisco, and other national and local venues. She also curates an outdoor art gallery in Berkeley, CA, and has been a member of Mercury 20 since 2017.