... ''Half-breed: In Search of a Whole Identity,'' a mixed-media art exhibit inspired by her own biracial heritage. In the exhibit, which fills Belmont's Manor House Gallery, one wall holds a grid of nine boxlike reliefs made of encaustic, a mix of wax and oil pigments. Each box features some element from nature (a nautilus shell, a maple seed, the outline of a shore), and below each box, on black-and-white placards, hangs a racial or ethnic label. The boxes represent those found on employment applications and other standardized forms. But here the ''labels'' rest on hooks; viewers can move them from box to box as they please. ''The words don't have anything to do with the boxes,'' Kay says. more...

MAKING A WISH ARTISTICALLY
SCULPTOR CREATES AN IMAGE OF NOSTALGIA WITH SIMPLE WISHBONE
NORA VILLAGRAN, Mercury News Staff Writer

... the award-winning artist spoke recently about her work, her life and the sculpture she spent a year making.''The wishbone is nostalgic of my childhood. I have fond memories of breaking wishbones in my family. It's a symbol of Americana to me. It's also about the duality of life: Sometimes our wishes come true. Sometimes they don't.''To become an artist and to be able to make a living as an artist is a wish that has come true for Kay, through her own perseverance and talent.''My parents, who were warm and loving people, taught me to march to the beat of my own drummer,'' more...

IN THE DOGHOUSE? CRITICISM DOGS FIREHOUSE SCULPTURE
ROBIN WORTHINGTON, Mercury News Staff Writer

Sculptor Lori Kay affectionately calls her cast bronze dog Fido. Critics of the piece call it road kill. The jagged-edge sculpture of a dog with a front paw on a fire ladder has set off a small blaze of controversy since it was installed a few weeks ago on the front lawn at Fremont Fire Station No. 5 in Warm Springs. more...