Farm Life in Photos

I really can’t claim any rural heritage. It’s been many generations since any of my family was back on the farm.  I’ve lived in cities most of my life. Yet, I have always had this fascination with farming.  Even as a kid, I always loved those times when we visited farms or went to a rural country fair.  Nowadays, I make my annual pilgrimage to Sacramento for the State Fair.  I think I am one of only a handful of San Franciscans that go.  For most urban and suburban dwellers, there is often a real disconnect with rural life, particular agricultural life.  More and more of my neighbors are shopping at farmer’s markets – and yet many of them to have little sense of the world their oranges and lettuce come from.  By no means, do I even come close to understanding what it’s like to live on a farm, but at least I have an inkling that they are out there.

The current exhibit at the California Historical Society is titled I See Beauty in this Life.  It features about 150 photographs of rural California life.  It includes 100 years old images pulled from the archives, photos of California Native Americans reprinted from early 20^th Century negatives, snapshots from different eras and contemporary work form photographer/curator Lisa Hamilton.  It’s, as it should be, history meets art.   The above image from the CHS website just gives you a sneak peak.  But take a little trip downtown and go “to the country.”  You enter the building on Mission Street and leave a busy neighborhood of office buildings and luxury hotels and enter a world of that “other” California.  Reminding us that we live in the biggest agricultural state in the country.  The show runs through March 24, 2013.

The Single Best Piece of Public Art in the World

For a city of its size and stature, San Francisco has very little public art.  Part of the problem is, as the expression goes, we just can’t have nice things.  When Zhang Huan’s amazing Three Heads Six Arms was installed in Civic Center in 2010, it was repeatedly vandalized.  The Keith Haring sculpture at Moscone Center was just removed for a refurbishing that sadly has to include graffiti removal.  After a sunny weekend, parks like Dolores Park and Fort Mason are literally trashed.  I love my City, but at times, San Francisco is the City of Bad Roommates. 

The other challenge public art faces in San Francisco is public backlash.  We are the city where NIMBYism can be everyone’s favorite hobby.  Sometimes it’s for good.  My very own block was among those to be torn down in the 1960’s, all to make way for a never-built freeway that was supposed to cut through Golden Gate Park.  To see the other side of public opposition, one can just visit the Sculpture Meadow at the di Rosa Preserve in Napa.  Many of the pieces were intended for public art in San Francisco and other Bay Area cities.  They were stopped due to public outcry.  A small group of self-appointed “art critics” often manages to prevent plenty of good public art form being installed in San Francisco.

Perhaps we can manage without more public art because we have, what could be called. the single best piece of public art in the world.  Of course I am speaking of the Golden Gate Bridge.  I never take it for granted.  It still impresses me every time I see it.  This year our bridge is celebrating its 75^th Anniversary.

Yesterday I visited the California Historical Society and saw the exhibit A Wild Flight of Imagination – The Story of the Golden Gate Bridge.  I thought I knew a lot about the bridge and had seen most of the photos.  It’s a fantastic show filled with photos, architectural drawings and art that is not published in most of the books about the Golden Gate Bridge.  The exhibit also explores the opposition to building a bridge across the Golden Gate (public opposition is nothing new).  80 years ago many people could not imagine a bridge spoiling the Golden Gate.  I can see their point, but it’s hard to imagine San Francisco without its bridge.