Year of the Snake 🐍

 
To celebrate the Year of the Snake my latest series of mail art used hand-carved, rubber stamps.  Of course, it’s the endangered and beautiful San Francisco Garter Snake (Thamnophis sirtalis tetrataenia).  Let’s hope the snake can bring us peace and harmony and rid us of all those unwanted pests. Happy New Year!  

A new view of a Kelp Forest

 Kelp Forest, mixed media, ink on paper, 9"x12"

Making your own Souvenirs

 A new hand carved rubber stamp for some San Francisco, Victorian postcards.

Zabriskie Point

I have been visiting Death Valley for decades, and always finding it inspiring.  Typically, I paint it in a more presentational manner.  But this latest version of Zabriskie Point is more focused on that unique palette.  

Inspiring Invasive Species

The very wet winter and spring has everything blooming and the Echium candicans, (The Pride of Madeira) are no exception.   An invasive species in California, but they sure are beautiful.   The color palette has inspired my latest work of art.

Lichen Lines

 A color palette inspired by the lichen covered trees in Golden Gate Park.

Celebrate the Rain

My holiday-themed card/mail art is usually unconventional, and this year is no exception.   But what better thing to celebrate in California than with a good wet winter.  So far, we are well on track.  I spent a rainy weekend indoors carving rubber stamps and printing these handmade postcards.   Happy Holidays!

Dahlia Time

In a world gone mad, one of the ways I cope is nice long walks to Golden Gate Park.  This time of the year the dahlias are in bloom. Beautiful and inspirational.  This weekend was spent carving rubber stamps for a series of dahlia-themed postcards.

Oak Woodlands

The story of Golden Gate Park is of a windswept landscape of dunes that 150 years ago were transformed into 1,107 acres a public park.   As beautiful as the park is, it is essentially artificial.  The waterfalls, the gardens, the redwoods, the meadows — none of it was there before.  Thanks to irrigation, horse manure and gardening, the natural landscape was transformed.   And while I appreciate coastal dunes, it’s hard to argue with Golden Gate Park — it is the escape from urban life we all need at times.

But the story has a twist.  This week I visited unspoiled nature with a lovely walk through some typical California oak woodlands.   Hiding in the northeast corner of Golden Gate Park, generally overlooked by most visitors, is a magical place.  A pocket of the original landscape that was never altered. 

It is difficult to capture the woodlands in photos or a painting, but it was worth a try.

Pandemic Park

This weekend I stayed at home and painted.  This was my view one afternoon last week while I read a book in shady spot in Alamo Square.

Because I can enjoy our parks on weekday afternoons.  I tend to avoid the crowds on weekends.   This was true even before the pandemic.   I’ve noticed that most people seem to be practicing social distancing and, until they safely settle into a spot, usually wear a mask. That said we have a certain amount of careless and self-centered fools right here in San Francisco — for example, in 2016 9% of San Francisco voters chose the racist, Russian stooge who will remain nameless.  

Hayes Valley Secrets

In 1990, Hayes Valley was a scrappy neighborhood, with affordable (!) rents.  All bisected by the behemoth of the Central Freeway.  A noisy, dirty, elevated structure that nearly collapsed in the Loma Prieta Earthquake.  Gradually, over many years and political maneuvering, the freeway was torn down.   If you never saw the freeway, it is hard to imagine it was ever there.  

Commercial rents were low back then and retail pioneers started to take a chance on Hayes Valley.  In those days they were local, homegrown businesses.  Many of those shops were too high end for the times.  Quite a few lasted about a year.  There were even rumors of money-laundering fronts.  That said, some succeeded for a long time and a handful of the original stores are still in the neighborhood.   Today, Hayes Valley has become one of the most expensive retail strips in one of the most expensive cities in the world.  No one will be opening up a shop or restaurant without deep pockets and wealthy investors.

In the 1990s one of my favorite hang outs was a small café called Momi Toby’s.  I had spent countless hours there by the time I discovered the hidden world beneath the café and sidewalk prisms just out front.  One day, I was in the neighborhood with an open studios map and one of the locations was Momi Toby’s.  

At first, I assumed I would see an art show in the café.  I stepped inside, what I thought was a wooden panel had been opened.  It revealed a hidden doorway and a narrow, windy staircase.  It was like a secret passage.  The stairs took me below the café to a large, high-ceilinged, room that expanded below the sidewalk.  Natural light filled the space.   It was so unexpected — it was magical. The room was tiled with built in ovens along one wall.  I discovered the building had once been home to a bakery and below Momi Toby’s was now Tinhorn Press.  

Tinhorn Press is gone.  Momi Toby’s eventually changed hands, the prices climbed. Now it is replaced by a smart bar.  Still, when I walk down Laguna Street, I often think about the secret world under my feet.   A world far cooler and more interesting than a neighborhood with shops that sell $500 shoes and thimbles of ice cream for $7.

Victorian Perpectives

My view, while waiting for a take away lunch the other day on Fillmore Street in the Lower Haight.   

Germania Street

San Francisco is one of the world’s most photographed and filmed cities.  Because of movies, television or advertising, many people all over the world feel they know what San Francisco looks like — in the same way many people “know” New York, London or Paris.  I myself live two blocks from the “must see” vista of Victorian houses in Alamo Square.  

It is hard for me to avoid the most ubiquitous San Francisco imagery. But how do we locals really see our city?  How should local artists portray San Francisco? You could not fault any artist for wanting to paint the Golden Gate Bridge or other iconic images, but some of us have a different lens.

Here we are still sheltering in place but may still take, safe, socially distanced walks.  I have been sticking close to home.  For example, walking down quiet streets like Germania in the Lower Haight.  The other day the garbage truck had already been through when I snapped a photo of the scattered empty plastic bins — black for trash, blue for recycling and green for compost.  No, not a postcard, but an image that any local would recognize as San Francisco.

Grove Street Steps

Artist tip: Choose to paint crumbling Victorian, concrete stairs and don’t worry about perfect, even lines. 😉

Alamo Square Poppies

Even sheltering in place in San Francisco, we are allowed to go out, get some fresh air and exercise — as long as we practice social distancing.  Some days I just climb up to the top of Alamo Square.  I live close to the famous park.  In 2016 the park was closed for a year allowing for a much-needed overhaul.  Three years later, the replanted gardens have come into their own.  The flower beds have been explosions of color this Spring.   

The painting is the view looking west from Pierce and Hayes Street.  Not the popular postcard view, but one of my personal favorites.

Happy Earth Day

Got a little fresh air today on a beautiful spring day and took a thirty-minute walk around the Lower Haight.  In San Francisco we are required to masks now when we are in any store, on transit, in line or anywhere maintaining social distancing is difficult.  Even just walking it seemed nearly everyone was wearing a mask.

I got to see this cool mural by Cleng Sumagaysay and Maria Carmela brightening up an otherwise boarded up storefront.  And, in honor of Earth Day, the sky was an amazing, car exhaust-free blue over Duboce Park.

Stay Home, Make Art, and go to the park (virtually) – Day 20

It's a rainy day in San Francisco but a good day for a virtual visit to Golden Gate Park.  The park's Anniversary Website is full of great content.

Stay Home, Make Art – Day 7

Today’s palette inspired by Polish Folk Costumes.  

A Trip to Stockton

I am a big advocate of visiting museums when I travel, and I always seek out lesser known museums in smaller cities.  Sometimes I have to remind myself there are smaller cities right near San Francisco.  Stockton is a little more than hour’s drive.  Yesterday was my first visit to the Haggin Museum.  

It’s a hidden gem and right in a lovely park in the center of town.   The Haggin is both a history and art museum.   Much of the collection was saved by happenstance when the family moved from their Nob Hill mansion prior to San Francisco’s 1906 earthquake and fire.  And now it is safely in Stockton for everyone to enjoy.  Most of the collection reflects the taste of wealthy, late 19^th Century Americans scouring Europe to fill their mansions.   From across a gallery I immediately spotted that blue.  I strode across the room to confirm it was, yes, a Jean-Léon Gérôme. 

The Haggin Museum’s collection of J.C. Leyendecker’s work is what puts them on the map.  It was the first time I had ever seen his paintings in person.  They were reproduced millions of times in advertising, magazine covers and prints.  As is so often the case with most painters, no print or online image can quite do Leyendecker’s work justice.  His paintings glow and the thick brush strokes want to pop off the canvases.  It is also easy to speculate that Leyendecker’s work influenced Wayne Thiebaud.

Now, I have to wonder, what is hiding out in Modesto?

Mail Art at the Getty

They currently are having a mail art exhibit at the Getty in Los Angeles.  You will not find a mail art show on their website.  The curators are not describing the work as mail art but it is there as part of the show Manet and Modern Beauty.  

The exhibit begins with a gallery full of Manet’s dough-faced portraits.  The highlight in the gallery is not a portrait but a painting of a plate of oysters.  Are we allowed to make fun of any Manet portrait?  I clearly was in the minority – the gallery was packed with visitors stepping over themselves to gawk and photograph.  

In the next gallery the crowds thin and you find delicate watercolors along with Manet’s illustrated letters sent from Bellevue.  Manet the impressionist, and Manet the Mail Artist.  The exhibit continues with a gallery filled with flawless still lives of fruit and flowers.  With exception of Georgia O’Keeffe, I don’t usually get excited about paintings of flowers.  The trick with Manet is look at vases. Manet’s crystal vases are magic, pure magic.