Bedford Gallery in Walnut Creek, San Francisco Bay, United States | Arts Center

Welcome to Bedford Gallery in Walnut Creek, California, United States. Bedford Gallery exhibits the work of historic, modern, and contemporary artists. The Gallery is dedicated to providing the public with opportunities to learn about visual arts through public programs that are varied, accessible, challenging, and educational. Its mission is to provide exhibitions and other programs that both reflect and engage the diverse audiences of the entire Contra Costa region.
Bedford Gallery organizes and presents five to six exhibitions each year. In addition, we offer lectures, workshops, panel discussions, and many other kinds of public programs. Gallery docents give tours that include hands-on art projects to over 3,000 school children each year, in addition to tours for seniors and adult groups. The approximately sixty volunteer members of the Bedford Gallery Docent Council receive professional training in both art history and teaching techniques. The Bedford Gallery Guild, a volunteer group of 55 members, staffs the reception desk every day, hosts receptions and other special events, and produces annual fundraising events.
With 3,500 square feet of exhibition space, Bedford Gallery in Walnut Creek, California, is the largest community-based visual arts facility between the Bay Area and Sacramento. This contemporary art space is housed in the City of Walnut Creek's Dean Lesher Center for the Arts, which also contains three theaters. The Gallery was originally founded in 1968 as the Civic Arts Gallery and was renamed for Peter and Kirsten Bedford, who donated generously to the Center's campaign.
Cultures and religions worldwide hold celebrations of light during winter?s short dark days. The Bedford Gallery will join in the tradition with an innovative exhibition of luminous work guest curated by The Crucible?s Christian Schiess. Schiess is an award winning artist, author of ?The Light Artist Anthology,? and Chair of the Light Art Department at the Bay Area?s only nonprofit sculpture studio and educational foundry.
The genesis of light as a medium is age old, with its origins stemming back to radiant light?sunlight through a stain glass window. Neon is a relatively new light source. Since its discovery in the 1890s by Sir William Ramsey, neon has been used primarily for commercial uses. But beginning in the 1950s in Italy and then in New York, artists such as Bruce Nauman and John David Mooney have been experimenting with light as an art medium, harnessing each new light technology for creative applications. The result has been an art form that reflects our modern world and the sometimes-conflicting, sometimes-supportive relationship between nature and technology.