Blue Dot Cafe & Coffee BarBlue Dot Cafe & Coffee Bar | Blue Dot Cafe & Coffee Bar

Come in!

Megan — Thu, 28 Jul 2011 11:22:00 +0000

Blue dot cafe and coffee bar was founded by James and Megan Hume to bring high quality food and beverages to the neighborhood.

We are committed to great service. We want everyone, of all ages, to feel comfortable at our place. We want blue dot to be your gathering place.

Meet friends for coffee, breakfast or lunch, pop in for a quick latte to go, bring the little ones for a chocolate bubble bar or enjoy a solitary moment with a housemade scone. Come and unwind, think, chat or just hang out in our comfortable space.

You see? A gathering place for everyone, every mood, every craving, every moment.
Come on over and experience top quality espresso beverages and coffee, housemade pastry and treats, hot breakfast and lunch, sandwiches, salads and a great menu for kids.

We are committed to and will serve you the freshest products available. If it does not meet our standards, we will not serve it. We will serve organic at all times possible. Our coffees are fair trade and organic. We will serve hormone-free dairy only and none of our housemade items will have trans fats, ever. Our to go containers, bags and cups are bio-degradable.

Hours:
• Monday to Friday: 7:30am – 5pm
• Saturday: 8am – 4pm
• Sunday: 8am – 2pm

Our Story

Megan — Wed, 27 Jul 2011 18:15:48 +0000

James and Megan Hume met in San Francisco in the summer of 1994. Where else would a guy from Adelaide, Australia, and a girl from Wichita, Kansas, meet and begin a life, family and now a business together? After many years of working in the coffee and food industry, we believe we have found the perfect place in Alameda to share our passion for coffee and food with the community.

We love good food. We love good coffee. We love experiencing them in welcoming, comfortable spaces. We hope you’ll love what we’ve created to bring you these three things together.

Our Name

Megan — Wed, 27 Jul 2011 16:50:34 +0000

In 1990, as the Voyager I sailed away from Earth, it snapped a photograph of our planet from more than 4 billion miles away. That photograph revealed our planet as a speck in our solar system and was referred to as the pale blue dot.
In a commencement speech astronomer Carl Sagan gave for the public release of this photograph, he said:

“If you look at it you see a dot…That’s here. That’s home. That’s us. On it, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever lived, lived out their lives…it is our responsibility to deal more kindly and compassionately with one another and to preserve and cherish that pale blue dot, the only home we’ve ever known.”

The owners of blue dot cafe and coffee bar take this notion to heart. We’re all one people on one planet. We’re all interconnected and have an equal stake in the future.

In coming up with the name for our café we felt this sentiment embodied the environment we want to create. As members of this wonderful community on this wonderful planet, we want everyone to feel welcome and connected. Blue dot is a gathering place. Gathering places are essential to the well-being of neighborhoods and communities…and, by extension…the entire pale blue dot.

Yummy Mr Espresso

Megan — Wed, 27 Jul 2011 11:47:33 +0000

We proudly serve Oakland based Mr Espresso coffee.

Mr Espresso has grown into a Bay Area institution – as a quality roaster and an established provider of espresso equipment, service, and training to a sizable share of coffeehouses and restaurants in the San Francisco Bay Area and beyond.

Mr. Espresso continues to be family-owned and operated with two generations of Di Ruoccos working together in the Oakland showroom and roasting facility to ensure that what we began over 30 years ago will endure.

Ralph Granich Photography

Megan — Thu, 23 Jun 2011 12:17:17 +0000

Ralph Granich provides lasting memories through photographic services to the San Francisco Bay Area and has extensive experience shooting schools, weddings, family portraits, artist portraits, individual portraits, business professionals and still life.

Throughout his career as a photographer, Ralph Granich has had just one specialty—-people. “There’s always a story in a face, and every face is different,” he says. “Every subject presents a new challenge, a new story to tell. My work is never tiring and never boring.”

A protégé of Guggenheim Fellow and National Endowment of the Arts recipient Bill Dane, Granich’s photos are both imaginative and innovative in conception.

“For me, photography is a visual conversation between the subject, the viewer, and the camera.” The resulting photos are rich in color and finely focused.

For the client, quality is offered through this sophisticated website, which makes it easy to view the products of a Ralph Granich shoot. Ordering online is easy, and quick delivery is guaranteed.

Caroline Arnold – Animals

Megan — Fri, 10 Jun 2011 12:16:37 +0000

Caroline Arnold’s Animals
Jan 14 – Feb 29, 2012. Brightly colored giclee prints of cut-paper illustrations in author/illustrator Caroline Arnold’s children’s books depict pandas, penguins, koalas, platypuses and more. In each print, the shadows and layers of the paper are visible, revealing the tactile character of the art. These limited edition prints are ideal for a child’s room or for anyone who loves animals.

Fine Oil Paintings by Paul R. Glaviano

Megan — Fri, 10 Jun 2011 11:25:57 +0000

These oil paintings are direct, organically-conceived, synaesthetic experiences. They reflect my unique vision of the world, bearing witness to a rich inner life lived amidst recurring alarms from the mass media. These paintings mirror and mediate my struggle toward higher levels of cognition, communication, and humanitarianism.
This series of images describes particular geographical catastrophes, both “acts of God” and acts of men who boast that they are servants of God. It links the fates of Sri Lankan tsunami victims and Gulf Coast flood residents with those of Iraqi and other war torn civilians in acknowledging humankind’s shared vulnerability. These works investigate the global consequences of our failings, the byproducts of our troubled evolution. They blend landscape, figuration, and abstraction to produce signposts for a millennium that has seen much of its optimism vanish. They represent the “state of the Union” without shallow soundbites or appeals for sycophantic applause. They are my way of deciphering and confronting the challenges that face our species.

Gary Comoglio – Knowledge and Destiny

Megan — Fri, 10 Jun 2011 11:23:22 +0000

Gary Comoglio was born in 1968 in Arcadia, CA., grew up in Huntington Beach, CA. and graduated from the San Francisco Art Institute in 1990 with a BFA in Painting. He currently resides in Alameda, California with his wife, Kavita and a beagle, Gilly.
He works at the Academy of Art University in the Fine Art Printmaking Department. His creative mediums are Acrylic Painting and Relief Printmaking. Since 2007, has served on the Board of Directors of the California Society of Printmakers as the Exhibition Director. While serving in this role, he has produced 12 printmaking exhibitions in the bay area, and published an interview with local artist, William T. Wiley.

Relief Printmaking is my primary working medium. My printmaking focuses on fine craftsmanship of unique & self-developed techniques while taking inspiration from Japan, German, and American printmakers. Stylistically, my artwork has gone through several changes over the past 25 years, but currently I am focusing on a variety of single images, segmented by light patterns, naturally abstracted by the tools & materials, and by maximizing the tonal range of colors through a minimal use of printmaking plates/matrix.

My Paintings often replicate the images of my relief prints. I normally hand print 5-10 unique copies of each image in several different color schemes, and use these as the basis for medium and large scale paintings. Often, the paintings will have heavy textures and many layers of paint.

When I am not painting, carving or printing, I have several other passions which include; playing golf, cooking, spending time with family and friends, motorcycling along the magnificent Bay Area’s roads, drinking Sonoma County zinfandels and pinot noirs, eating fine cheeses and chocolates.

For Additional information:
William T Wiley interview: Published by the California Society of Printmakers, Spring 2009 NewsBrief . www.caprintmakers.org

Blog: “The Creative Process of Woodcut Printmaking.” Blog focuses on the challenges in technical and creative aspects of relief printmaking. www.garycomoglio.blogspot.com

Additional Artwork: www.garycomoglio.com

Danielle Giudici Wallis

Megan — Fri, 10 Jun 2011 11:20:06 +0000

Bio 2011
Danielle Giudici Wallis has lived and worked in the East Bay for the past 20 years. She received her MFA from Stanford University where she was the recipient of the Murphy Cadogan Grant, the James Borelli Fellowship in Art, the Anita Squires Memorial Fund in Photography and a fellowship from the Cantor Center for the Visual Arts. Her work has been exhibited widely in the Bay area and beyond including shows at Catharine Clark Gallery, SFMOMA Artists Gallery, The Bedford Gallery, Mark Wolfe Contemporary, Raid Projects in Los Angeles, and The California Palace of the Legion of Honor which holds one of her artist’s books in their Achenbach collection. She has also been nominated twice for SFMOMA’s SECA Award. She will soon be relocating to Southern California and wanted to take this chance to show some of the work she’s done here in Alameda while adjusting to parenthood. Alameda is an inspiring community!