Hello Friends of Mark Bava, an unconditionally loving man, talented artist, musician and weaver of communities and heartfelt events.

By now the news of the passing of Mark, along with his dear brother Chris and wife Cat has probably reached you. We can hardly believe we will no longer be waiting for that slow Bava drawl, or see that handsome chiseled face break into contagious laughter or into the tenderness and understanding that was a mark of Bav's huge generosity to us all.

We want to invite you to join us this Friday, November 2nd - as part of San Francisco's Day of the Dead celebration, we will be honoring the memory of these three good souls.

On Friday, we will share an experience that weave together the threads of the individual lives that we love into a fabric of the family we have all become. It is a night to pay our sincere respects to Mark Bava, and his brother Chris Bava and Chris’s wife Cat Asche. We feel sorry for the loss of this talented trio, and for the swiftness of their departure to that mysterious place beyond. We know they are experiencing a new adventure, and that they wish for us happiness during this unknown evolution of souls.

This has brought up so many thoughts in our understanding of life as we live it on this miraculous planet within this infinite universe: ideas of love and appreciation, of sorrow and surrender and of loyal friendship and expanded family.

So together, we will skate on the veil between life and death known as Día de los Muertos (Day of the Dead.) Please join us to walk in union with Mark, Chris and Cat, and with all who have left their bodies to fly on the wings of angels.

Please keep reading to get the full story.

••• SPECIAL BAVA MEMORIAL PAGES..

(For those on you who still might not have heard.. Saturday, October 20th at 12:30 am, our beloved Mark Bava, his brother Chris and his sister-in-law Cat Asche were killed in a car accident as they drove home from a Bob Dylan concert in San Jose. Surviving Mark is his beloved partner, Lynne Cook, and the almost "twin" brothers’ mother, Lilliana Braico.)


Mark & Chris

••• DIA DE LOS MUERTOS

• We invite you to join us this Friday November 2nd. at 6pm for a procession “in memorium” as part of San Francisco Day of the Dead Parade.

• We shall meet at ASIENTO LOUNGE @ 2730 21st and Bryant Streets. We will unify as ONE, then join the parade at 22nd & Bryant and walk in pride of the blessing it has been to know these "artists of life." • We will parade under a 16-foot replica of a turquoise Fender Stratocaster guitar (If you get lost look for THAT!). The guitar is a reproduction of Bav's own ax, and will be covered with photographs of his life. • After the parade we will walk a few blocks to the new INNER MISSION THEATER @ 2050 Bryant (the old Cellspace) where our friends from the Vau de Vire Society have graciously donated their space for us to gather in and to celebrate from 9 pm until about 1 am. There will be time for soft music and spoken words as well as a few surprises – just as "Bav" would have had it. Bring it on!

If you know the Day of the Dead celebration, then you know how to dress; if not please do a little research, or check out this sweet video from a few years back, as you are sure to recognize some friends.

FYI.. The Parade STARTS at 22nd and Bryant at exactly 7 pm, & moves along Bryant to 24th St.
CONTINUES along 24th St. to the corner of 24th St. & Mission
CONTINUES along Mission St. to 22nd St and turns on 22nd St.
CONTINUES along 22nd St. to Bryant St.
CONCLUDES at the corner of 22nd & Bryant St.

We ask that you bring the following please...

• Candles in a glass that will not blow out. We will have extras on hand. It is important to carry the light of the dead into the afterlife... • If you have drums to march with, or percussion instruments, shakers, etc.. or something better than that, bring them along too.. there a very slow marchy feel to things.. • Photographs or anything that reminds us of the passing of these souls – to be used on the altar at the memorial "after-party" • Food & Drink to share in celebration of these bright and shining lives. • A donation towards family expenses and the Bava Love Fund (see below) Send your photos for printing to Joegh Bullock - joegh@anonsalon.com • ph-415-265-1162

(It would be a good idea to park near 19th and Bryant, and leave items in the car, which you can then collect for the celebration afterwards!)

••• CHRIS and CAT

Chris Bava and Cat Asche, we did not know you that well, but we knew that Chris and Cat were both extremely gifted people and Mark spoke often of the deep connection and respect in which he held Chris and Cat. There is a deep penetrating and documentary interview on Chris Bava filmed as part of the Exile Nation project. It can be found on Vimeo. Click here to see that.

••• BAVA LOVE FUND AND MORE!

In the months ahead, there are many more ideas already in the works...

• The Bava Love Fund has been set up to create a “pondering bench” in Bava’s name over looking Riberia Beach in Carmel - a place he loved to walk and to gaze at the Pacific Ocean and a source of some of his vision no doubt. Proceeds will also go towards the family and in support of Mark and Chris’s mother Lilliana Braico. Please help if you can... http://bavalovefund.com

OTHER BAVA EVENTS:

• A more private Carmel gathering for friends and family in his most recent hometown.

• An LA-based memorial at the Blue Bongo Café that Mark and brother Chris co-created... Details TBA

• An "Anon Salon Reunion" party to enjoy the company of each other again in Mark's name.

• This year's Sea of Dreams NYE (http://seaofdreamsnye.com/> "LunaSea" will be dedicated to Mark, as one of the original founders of the event along with an installation "Altar of Dreams."

• His name will be placed in the Heart of the Burning Man this year as one of the highest honors our tribe holds sacred.

• There will be an altar created by the reunion of WOW camp (or as Bav renamed it one hung-over morning... "OW" camp!)

• There will be a ceremonial burning by the League of Arts and LA Burners of  the sculpture "Seraphim - the Spirit of Unification" dedicated to the lasting legacy of Mark Bava. We all know how Mark unified friends, people that would not otherwise be doing what they do today, if it were not for him!

• LA Decom will also be dedicated to both Mark and Chris Bava who created the first Burning Man tradition now in its 10th year!

••• LYNNE COOK

Mark & Lynne Cook

Our hearts also reach out and our love is strong for Lynne Cook, who was Bava's best friend and partner and knew him better than any of us might ever. We love you Lynne and Lilliana and will do all we can for you both in this time of challenge and grieving.

••• GLIDE CHURCH

This past Sunday, October 28th, about 50 of Bav's friends met at Glide Memorial Church for a very special service of gospel music and  real life sermons. It was awesome place to rejoice and share company with a Sunday brunch after.

It started with everyone singing " this little light of mine" and then went into some church announcements, After which a woman mentioned that we come to church for many reasons, to get recharged in faith, to celebrate life, to pray and some of to grieve a loved one. Then she pointed to all of us, kleenex in hands, and began a beautiful story of the Bava brothers lives as artists and how they each contributed so much. All this with a gospel song of love sung by an amazing solo singer, over a video montage of all three, while flocks of shadowed birds flew outside and around the stained glass windows. It was a very happy/sad moment for us all, happy to have know them, sad to have not seen them again.

Following that, a young man, who had been baptized on that very stage stood up and talked of unconditional love and invited his girlfriend up and proposed to her... tears of joy for a future unfolding. Then a brother and sister stood up and spoke of forgiveness for the man that had murdered their own mother two years ago; more tears of wonder. This was "church as life," mixed races and accepting of all. Glide is the place to be! Thank you Bav for the introduction to and the power of gospel music. Life is a challenge, we all have each other to hold and love and nothing can stand in the way of that. A passing  of a life has a strange way of giving new life to the rest of us.

••• The Memories Begin to Gather...

“Mark was a humble visionary and artist, who rarely took or fully received credit for the wonderful things that flowed so easily and naturally from his unique heart and soul.  Known best for his work as a sculptor and event producer, “Bava” had a keen eye for the human heart.  His art was once described by a critic as “capturing the texture and body language of humanity.”  At once disarming, compassionate and hysterically funny, Mark had a knack for seeing through to the soul with a rare compassion and wisdom that left those lucky enough to meet him feeling as if they had known him all their life.  It was with this ability to truly see through the veneer of humanity that Mark dreamed up and co-produced large scale events like Sea of Dreams and the now thriving LA Burning Man Decompression—events that would move its goers through time and space using music, theater and dreamlike environments.  Mark’s open heart and loving, sweet nature was felt in the community that he both created and surrounded himself with, including hundreds across the Bay Area, LA and his last home in Carmel, CA.” - Cari Jacobs

There will be more..

••• Mark Bava – Fine Art Bronze Sculptor

Among his many talents, our friend Bava was also an extremely gifted sculptor and artist. Have you ever seen his work or read of his vision statement? If not, it is included here..



Mark Bava: Biography
Mark Bava typifies human character and behavior in his figurative sculpture and gives us that character isolated and exemplified. He was born in 1954 and raised in a small agricultural town in the Central Valley of California among Italian peach farmers that had immigrated there from Italy as did his father and grandparents. However, he was also raised with an artistic background as his mother was an impressionist painter. From the beginning he took a strong interest in art and as a child could cite the work and theories of the various Impressionists. He painted his first painting- an impressionistic still life when he was just nine years old. By high school the family had temporarily moved to Carmel, California where many of the Carmel artists and painters came to visit. His mother remarried another Italian painter and moved to Capri in the late 1960's where Bava visited as a teenager and traveled through Italy and Greece seeing the art, antiquities and ancient ruins at Pompeii, Rome and Athens.



In the mid-70s he attended art school at CSU Stanislaus whose instructors were largely from New York and at the time boasted a contemporary curriculum and art dept to rival the SF Art Institute. Through the school's art programs, some winter semesters were spent in New York under sculptor Ralf Parton which he cites as a major pivot point; “My knowledge of art at that time was pretty much only through the Impressionists that I was raised with however contemporary art history along with studying in New York opened my eyes to post-war abstract expressionism as well as all the 50's and 60's movements in pop, op, minimalism, installation art, art happenings and all that. It was still a pretty vibrant time in the arts in New York. Not only was the Soho and uptown gallery scene still intact, but also in theater and music; the whole CBGBs and Studio 54 thing was still going on, Saturday Night Live had just debuted, the off-Broadway Theater Row playhouses were just starting up. I was glad to catch some of that.

Despite my mother being a painter and my interest in painting as a child, while there I somehow turned to sculpture rather than painting. I started working in plaster emphasizing surface textures and body language doing Giocometti/Neri-ish pieces but with my subject matter being statements on society. I did plaster studies of down and out street characters that I was seeing hanging out down on the Lower East Side and in the Bowery... however I was also always a history buff and loved Greek mythology and Biblical stories growing up...the archetypes weren't so far apart. I also loved the ruins and the fragmented sculpture and bits that I had seen in Italy and Greece when I had visited my family on Capri, like those ashen and lava covered figures at Pompeii...

So there's a combination of both modern and ancient societies and myths and statements on human character through body language... I try to freeze some kind of static "modern relic".

Mr. Bava also has considerable foundry and mold making experience working at Monterey Sculpture Foundries for 8 years. He is noted for his surface textures complete with chips, hacks, tool marks and casting flaws. He sites his influences as Giacometti, Lynn Chadwick, Manuel Neri and Kenneth Armitage as a few examples. His work is sold in galleries in San Francisco, Carmel, Atlanta and New York. In addition, he is a musician as a hobbyist and is also well known for his productions of large multi- media events in San Francisco and Los Angeles.
 
Statement:
My work is more conceptual in that I focus on texture and body language over form and design to create a character commentary. I save my mistakes and sometimes utilize casting flaws. I try to give the figures an "iconic" quality or the look of primitive relics. I'm a history and sociology buff. I love old ruins and broken statuary. I get a lot of my ideas just looking at those forms and surfaces.

Galleries:
Gruen Gallery-Chicago, Ill
Renaissance Fine Arts, Baltimore, Bethesda, Md. and Haverford, Pa.
Sculpture Site/New Leaf Gallery, Sonoma, Ca
Christopher Hill Gallery, St Helena, Ca.
Gallery 21, Carmel, Ca.
Del Jou Art Group, Atlanta, Ga


"And in the end
the love you take
is equal to the love you make..."
- John Lennon

- Cari, Joegh, Kamilla, Athena, Shiho, Lynne, Kitty, Samo, Steve, Patrick, Spoon & Andy
with Love