Open Studios 2010, Hunters Point

Brief report on Open Studios at Hunters Point.

Open Studios 2010, 1st Weekend

Cross Posted from Working Artists' Journal
Hugh Buck's iPad drawings (at Developing Environments)

It's getting to the point where I can barely keep up with seeing the the studios of my friends & acquaintances, nevermind seeing someone new. But still, we try.

Last weekend was for artists in the Mission and I visited studios all day Saturday & Sunday. This week (SOMA & Dogpatch) I'm going to try to limit it to the Friday night receptions. I couldn't possibly write about everything I saw, but I'll give you the highlights.

Project Artaud hallway - Dale Erickson's paintings.

My overall impression was that the studios were set up beautifully and the art was better than ever. It looked to me like there were plenty of visitors everywhere I went - I even witnessed two sales. But most of the artists I talked to said it was slower than usual and sales were poor. No surprise, I guess, in this economy - still, artists are enthusiastically making plenty of art.


Bernie Rauch is working on a new banner for political actions. He's also finished some new paintings in his multilayered style, including one of Glenn Beck covered in dog (Fox?) shit.

Detail of the acrylic raised surface on Bernie's paintings:


Dale Erickson made a sale while I was there. His paintings filled the studio and spilled out into the halls. In his newest work, he's adding deeper, richer colors and playing with edges.

Robert Burg had quite a few new paper constructions, plus a series of drip paintings.


Nartan modeled one of her fashion creations.

Anna Efanova was also making a sale. Her studio was filled with eclectic sculptures, prints, and paintings of mostly surrealistic creatures.

Heather Robinson has a big new body of work, using stitchery in her mixed media panels, with a recurring theme of openings, peepholes, or directed views. The space she shares with a handful of other artists, a little storefront called Secession, was the best looking space I saw this weekend.
It's very attractive, very inviting, filled with interesting things to look at and buy. Everyone was so hospitable, I hated to leave. I've noticed more and more of this kind of art sales space - geared more toward the retail model and less toward the white walls (museum) model. Seems to be working.


I stopped by the Southern Exposure Gallery for the "Art Publishing Now" fair. Thirty-four publishers, from zines and web-only outfits to established companies like Re/Search and McSweeny's were set up at tables with samples and were willing to talk to artists about ideas, plans and projects. It was pretty exciting - i came away with a ton of samples and even more ideas.


Jennifer Ewing had a brand new installation for her Spirit Boats - she told me this was a kind of trial run for an installation she'll be doing at the de Young in January. She also has a new web site, with a great page about a very special spirit boat and its launching.

Shawn Ray Harris has expanded his series of 3D anaglyphs (photo-based line images, red/cyan) to include graphic novel styled layouts and narrative. They're really cool looking, and original. I told him they would make a great iPad app, and told him where he could get it made. Then he told me about another artist in his building, Hugh Buck, who has started painting on his iPad and making the printouts at Costco.

Shawn took me upstairs to see Hugh's work and I was blown away! This guy should be doing covers for the New Yorker. Seriously - wish I had better photos - he doesn't have a web site I can direct you to, either. See if you can pick out the Gavin Newsom caricature.


Now it's time to go visit a whole new bunch of art studios . . . .

Nancy Ewart at Open Studios: October 15, 16, 17

I didn't want to post examples of my work on "the other blog" - right on top of a post about one the gorgeous screens from the upcoming show at the Asian - talk about unfair competition. But since I'm tooting my own horn, here are some more pieces from the inventory. The piece above is titled "Big Dipper." It's about 24 x 36, mixed media on paper and I don't remember the date but it is older.  (Bad Nancy). The image doesn't do justice to the texture or the colors; when I work with acrylics, I seem to feel freer to incorporate raised areas, gold leaf and lots and lots of paint.

Bimini, 24 x 30. Oil on Canvas, 2009/2010

Memory of Water. 12 x 12. 2009. Part of a four part series

Low Tide, Full Moon. 28 x 36. Oil on Canvas, 2010

Sandy Yagi at Open Studios

I met Sandy though Anna and have become intrigued by her Gothic visions, part medieval, part post-apocalypse, but always uniquely hers. She brings an impressive level of skill to her work - a rare facility with oil and imagery, a sense of humor and an imaginative vision of unknown worlds that almost, but not quite, seem like ours. It's as if we are a parallel time line to the worlds that Sandy imagines, a different evolutionary track but one which seems quite plausible until you look more closely. With Sandy's work, it's always important to look more closely.

Friday Evening Reception
October 15th   -  6:00PM - 9:00PM
with live music, snacks and refreshments

Open Studio - Saturday and Sunday -
October 16th - 17th  -  11 AM to 6 PM

South Beach Artists Studios
340 Bryant Street - Suite 320, Studio #13
San Francisco, CA 94107
http://sandrayagi.artspan.com/

Nancy Ewart at Open Studios: October 15, 16, 17

 
Nancy Ewart. Dangerous Waters. Oil on canvas, 22 x 20. 2010

Open Studios coming up: Opening Reception October 15 from 6-9

Open to the public on Saturday and Sunday, October 16 & 17 from 11 to 6

689 Bryant St, SF, Studio 27

Accessible via public transportation - some parking in the neighborhood

Open Studios 2010

I will be showing the second weekend (Nancy Ewart, SOMA Arts, 689 Bryant St, 5th & Bryant, #27) and I hope that the rest of the contributors to this blog will add their information.

2010 SF Open Studios

Gala Weekend

ArtLaunch 2010: 7-10 p.m. Sat. More than 400 works for sale, open bar and hors d'oeuvres. $35 advance, $40 at the door.

Exhibition opening reception 4-7 p.m. Sun. Admission free; cash bar. Both events take place at SOMArts Main Gallery, 934 Brannan St., S.F.

Weekend 1: Oct. 9-10: Bernal Heights, Castro, Duboce, Eureka Valley, Glen Park, Mission, Noe Valley, Portola

Weekend 2: Oct. 16-17: Bayview, Excelsior, Financial District, North Beach, Potrero Hill, Russian Hill, SoMa, Tenderloin

Weekend 3: Oct. 23-24: Buena Vista, Diamond Heights, Fort Mason, Haight, Hayes Valley, Marina, Mount Davidson, Ocean Beach, Pacific Heights, Richmond, Sunset, Twin Peaks, West Portal

Weekend 4: Oct. 30-31: Hunters Point Shipyard and Islais Creek Studios

Studios are open 11 a.m.-6 p.m. For more information, go to www.artspan.org.

Van Gogh, Gauguin, Cézanne and Beyond: Post-Impressionist Masterpieces from the Musée d’Orsay

Gauguin, The Yellow Christ

http://www.examiner.com/museum-in-san-francisco/de-young-museum-van-gogh-gauguin-c-zanne-and-beyond

Independent Publishing: Where's It At?

FREE arts workshops tonight, tomorrow night, and next Saturday (9/25) in SF: (via Ramona Soto)


Independent Publishing: Where's It At?
Monday, September 20, 6-8PM
Viracocha SF, 998 Valencia St. @ 21st. St., SF

What will rule publishing? Print vs. Internet? ... or are people even reading? How do you start and run your own small press? What literary events are happening? What spaces are available? How do you promote your lit'ry endeavor? Who's writing, who's reading, what's happening around the Bay Area?

•Mike Skott (Ink. Publishing http://www.inkonbooks.com/)
•Ramsey Kanaan (PM Press, http://www.pmpress.org/)
•Tony DuShane (Cherry Bleeds, http://www.cherrybleeds.com/)
•Deborah Grabien (Plus One Press, http://www.plusonepress.com/)
•J. Brandon Loberg (Performance poets, publisher of "The 16th & Mission Review")
•Ginger Murray (Whore Magazine - http://whoremagazine.net/)


Promoting Your Underground Art
Tuesday, September 21
Mission Comics & Art, 3520 20th St. x Mission St., 6-8PM
How to promote your event on a limited budget, and on the edge of propriety.

•Evan Karp (QUIET LIGHTNING Reading Series, http://qlightning.wordpress.com/)
•Bix Warden (Bookings/Outreach, Mission Control, http://missioncontrolsf.org/)
•Doctor Popular
•Caroline Thompson (promotions for Broadway musicals "Wicked," "Peter Pan," etc.)

Also: PLEASE DO COME TO SF next Saturday: Wonderful Expo for Independent Arts with workshops galore!! PLEASE SHARE!

Writing for marketing, PR, grant proposals, storytelling and more
10:30-11:30 (CELLspace, 2050 Bryant St. SF)
Dalya Massachi, author, Writing to Make a Difference
Josh Wilson, co-founder, Independent Arts & Media

Social networking
11:45-12:45 (CELLspace, 2050 Bryant St. SF)
Emily Goligoski, arts and culture writer
Therese Davis, Songbird Festival founder
Kwan Booth, writer, editor, cultural curator
Johnny Funcheap, founder, FunCheapSF
Gregory Stock, arts promoter

Community collaboration and project documentation
2:30-3:30 pm (Sports Basement, 1590 Bryant St, San Francisco, CA)
Wendy Testu, Project Director, Welcome to the NeighborHOOD
La Constance Shahid, Project Coordinator, Welcome to the NeighborHOOD
Lise Swenson, filmmaker
Gregory Stock, arts promoter

Online fundraising
3:45-4:45 pm (Sports Basement, 1590 Bryant St, San Francisco, CA)
David Hunt, co-founder, Circus Bella
Michael Stoll, SF Public Press
Lisa Lee, Hyphen
Irene Kao, Hyphen

* * * *
Concurrently:
1:00-4:00 pm (CELLspace, 2050 Bryant St. SF)
SFAC’s Face Time

"Getting Back to the Phantom Skill"

This promises to be a very interesting series of columns in the NY Times: "Line by Line" will be a 12 week series by James McMullan which readers are encouraged to follow with pencil and paper in hand.

Viva Mexico - Celebrate Mexico's Bicentennial on Friday at the De Young (And it's Free!)

September 16th marks marks the day in 1810 when Mexico began its war of independence against Spain, an event that triggered similar uprisings across the Western Hemisphere.

In September 1810, rebels in the central state of Guanajuato were secretly planning an uprising against the Spanish when their plot was discovered. As Spanish troops moved to arrest conspirators, one of the them, priest Miguel Hidalgo, realized the moment for revolution was upon them.

Before dawn on Sept. 16, 1810, Hidalgo rang the church bell to gather residents in the town of Dolores, and then delivered a famous call to arms known as the grito, or shout.

The war lasted 11 years before Spain finally gave Mexico and Central America its independence. The territory included what is now California, Arizona, Nevada, Utah, New Mexico, Texas, and parts of Wyoming and Colorado.

Tonight at 11, Calderón will ring a bell in the Zócalo Plaza and recite the names of Hidalgo and other independence heroes. After each name, the crowd shouts Viva!— long may he live.

The event, which is repeated by mayors and governors across Mexico, has become an annual sign of hope, said Oriel Gómez Mendoza, a historian at Michoacan University.

Read more at
http://www.examiner.com/museum-in-san-francisco/nancy-ewart

Fecal Face - 10th Anniversary Show

If you like a certain type of SF 20-something hipster-yipster-trend (probably with trust fund) kind of art, Fecal Face is throwing a party to celebrate their 10th anniversary.

From SF Fist:
Fecal Face Dot Com, the premier and inexhaustible arts and culture site, are having their mammoth 10 Year Anniversary Show tonight. The exhibit at the Luggage Store Gallery features some of SF's favorite artists, and the after-party at Mezzanine will include performances by Kelly Stoltz, Sonny Smith, and Ty Segall, and DJ Ted Shred.
6 to 8 p.m. // Luggage Store Gallery (1007 Market St) // free
9 p.m. to 2 a.m. // Mezzanine (444 Jessie St) // $8, suggested donation
http://www.fecalface.com/SF/index.php/good-stuff/2080-fecal-face-dot-com-10-year-anniversary-show

SF Chronicle review: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/09/08/NSPA1F6K57.DTL&type=art

Cézanne: part of the Post Expressionist exhibit opening later this month at the De Young.

 
A year after he died,  a major exhibition of Cezanne's works opened at the Salon d'Autumne in Paris. Picasso, Braque and Matisse were among those crowding into the show--and stealing his secrets. But they would never steal his grandeur. Rilke, too, was there. "Not since Moses," he wrote to his wife, "has anyone seen a mountain so greatly."

Full piece up at: 
http://www.examiner.com/museum-in-san-francisco/c-zanne-coming-to-the-de-young-september

Up and Coming for the fall

There's a comprehensive list of all the fall shows up at the Examiner.com website, along with a lot of other notices and reviews about art and daily posts - well, almost daily up at Chez Namaste Nancy (see sidebar for link).

http://www.examiner.com/museum-in-san-francisco/nancy-ewart

Ars Longa, Vita Brevis! 

Cantor Arts Center: “Mami Wata: Arts for Water Spirits in Africa

Cantor Arts Center at Stanford University presents “Mami Wata: Arts for Water Spirits in Africa and Its Diasporas,” August 4, 2010 through January 2, 2011. This exhibition explores 500 years of visual cultures and histories of the water... Read more »
http://www.examiner.com/museum-in-san-francisco/nancy-ewart

Anselm Kiefer at SFMOMA

New piece up at: http://www.examiner.com/x-13996-SF-Museum-Examiner

Maira KalmanVarious Illuminationsof a Crazy World

I first heard of illustrator, author and designer Maira Kalman when a friend forwarded her New York Times blog, about a trip to City Hall and a sewage treatment plant. Her funny, interesting and educational story was intermingled (intertwingled?) with paintings and photographs of what she saw along the way and at the plant.

The Contemporary Jewish Museum in San Francisco has an exhibit of Kalman's work, now through October 26. Like a good San Franciscan, I tried to take the Muni railway to the museum. But then there was a switching problem, followed by a few and far between bus and trolley problem, and then a full to the brim bus, trolley and cab problem. Finally made it to the museum about an hour and a half after I left.

As there is a lot of detail in Kalman's work, as well as plenty of reading of the several books accessible in the exhibit, I recommend going to the exhibit when one is fresh. Choose your mode of transportation accordingly.

The Kalman exhibit includes drawings, books, children's books, designs on clothing, objects that appear in her work, and short films. Photographs are also on display, including a series on free sofas on the sidewalk. Coincidentally, I had taken a similar photo below, just before boarding the train to nowhere. Somehow, Kalman's free sofa photos are so much more revealing.


My favorite of her books was "FIREBOAT, The Heroic Adventures of the John J. Harvey."

It is a wonderful combination of fun and history, powerful and inspiring.

by Phil Gravitt

Upcoming: Klee, Keefer, Hauntings in Berkeley and water Goddesses at Stanford

Art viewing, research and writing in progress:

A new show at the Cantor Art Center in Stanford, featuring Africa art that honors the Goddess of Water.

A reprise of an  early Klee show at SFMOMA (opens August 8th)

Part three of my long essay on Anselm Kiefer at SFMOMA (part of the Fisher Collection)

French philosopher Jacques Derrida meets Berkeley: Hauntology at the Berkeley Art Museum

SoMa Artists Studios voted the best artists collective

BEST ART COLLECTIVE:  SoMa Artists Studios 689 Bryant, SF

http://somaartiststudios.com/

A Whole Lot of New Stuff up

I've got several new posts up at Chez Namaste Nancy and the SF Examiner.com and it's not always the SAME stuff so take a few minutes and read what you may not have read already. I will be contributing on an infrequent basis to Venetian Red and will cross-post those essays to my own blog and the Examiner.

I'd like to remind the spanners who continually try to slip something in the comments section that comments are moderated and links in unknown languages or to porn/self-advertising sites will always be rejected.

http://cheznamastenancy.blogspot.com/

Views of Paris

If you cannot make it to the Legion or the De Young, try a free quick trip through the "Views of Paris" exhibition in the Concourse Gallery, 555 California Street, San Francisco. Paintings are from Le Trianon Fine Art, currated by Casey & Associates.

Toy Theater at MPD

"Toy Theaters, Worlds in Miniature"
Twenty-one rare toy theaters from around the world
at the Museum of Performance and Design
Veterans Building / 401 Van Ness Avenue / 4th floor
Open Wed - Sat, 12 - 5pm

I was lucky enough to get a private tour of this show with the curator, Bill Eddelman. His knowledge and enthusiasm for toy theater is infectious and I soon found myself imagining my own handmade dioramas. The assembled theaters, full of 2D actors and stage sets, tiny lights, toy furniture and paper moons, were mostly in glass cases - good thing because I had an irresistible urge to put my hands in them and start moving things around. Took me right back to childhood.

The theaters are from all over the world and the show is organized by country of origin. Mostly classical fairy tales and opera are represented, and they're mostly Victorian Era theaters (ranging from the 18th century to present.) Besides the constructed theaters, the walls are full of flat printed sheets of more paper-doll-like actors, backdrops and props.

For those of us who like to know what goes on behind the curtain, the construction and workings of the theaters can be seen from the sides. I was reminded of contemporary artists who have recently exhibited work with toy theaters - Sandow Birk and William Kentridge. And I couldn't help thinking that this is a art form that would appeal to the SteamPunk and Make crowds.

Actually, it appeals to me.

More photos at MPD's Flickr site.