Landmarks as Locals See Them

Pacific Heights Hilltop

mixed media photo collage on board, 14”x11”

Imagery of San Francisco is ubiquitous almost everywhere on the planet.  It reaches around the world in TV, movies and advertising.  Of course San Francisco is a tourist magnet and one of the most photographed cities in the world.  The camera fell in love with our City almost as soon as it was invented.  Even in the 19th Century, San Francisco was photographed more than most cities. 

I live two blocks from Alamo Square and its iconic row of Victorian houses.  It might seem like an obvious choice for my series of Time Travel Photos.  I enjoy hanging out in the park, but I have not chosen it as a location for this series.  Locals anywhere will see their home differently than tourists — San Francisco is no exception.  For a Pacific Heights piece I choose one of the 1920s apartment buildings that appear on hilltops and prominent corners all over San Francisco.  When I see these buidlings, I think home, I think San Francisco. 

The new series of Time Travel Photos will be presented in a new show at San Francisco’s Glama-Rama Salon and Gallery.  The show runs from October 11 to November 27, 2016.  Mark your calendar for the opening reception on the evening of Saturday, October 15 at 7:30 pm.

Looking Forward at the SFMOMA

The long wait is over and the new, expanded San Francisco Museum of Modern Art is back.  And, in keeping with the word of 2016, the museum is HUGE!  With the addition added to the existing building, the museum is about three times as big as it was before – making it one of the largest art museums in the country.  Yesterday I was able to get a preview visit before the grand opening on May 14^th.

First, let’s talk architecture – last week the Guardian ran a hit piece that was hilarious and whiny in that way only the English can complain.  As amusing as it was, I suspect the reviewer might have only looked at the architectural renderings.  The new building is great – sure one could go through and nitpick with any new building, but overall it is really good.  The museum is spacious, natural light is allowed in and there are additional and welcome terraces where visitors can get some fresh air when they need to take a break.  Fortunately, the Tuesday afternoon preview was not crowded, but even on busy days, the space seems well prepared for crowds to flow through.

It’s the spaciousness that is the key.  A major shortcoming with the old museum was its lack of what I call “vista walls.”  Large, modern pieces need those rooms and galleries where visitors have a nice long approach to the big work.  The new museum has no shortage of clean, open rooms.  And, with plenty of space, many artists are given their own gallery.  There are few modern art museums that can dedicate so many rooms to individual artists. 

The SFMOMA retains its “top-down” plan where the logical approach is to ride the elevator to the top floor (7) and work one’s way down via the stairs.   The museum is so large now, that it has reached the size of “too big to see in one visit.”  Again, the terraces to pause for a rest are welcome along with the extra café areas.  I never see the need for multiple museum gift shops, but I do enjoy having a break and a coffee in the middle of a museum trip.

As you work your down the stairs you find a remodeled third floor focusing on photography.  It’s always been a strong point of the SFMOMA’s collection and the third floor could be a museum in itself.  The second floor becomes familiar as the galleries retain the feel of the older building and include the original collection.  And for all the new, the second speaks mostly to my personal taste — I like the second floor best of all.

As the museum has grown with the addition of the Fisher Collection and plenty of other newly acquired works, what is missing in the massive institution becomes painfully obvious.  There is that persistent, disappointing under-representation of California artists.   Sadly, the SFMOMA remains reluctant to showcase what all Californians should be proud of – our art.   This is why I steer out-of-town visitors towards the Oakland Museum or on to the Crocker in Sacramento and the di Rosa Preserve up in Napa.  While the collection of German modern art is excellent at the SFMOMA, if you have come all the way from Hamburg or Berlin, is that the art you want to see in California?

And of course, unsurprisingly, works by women and artists of color still can be a challenge to find.  One could make a sad scavenger hunt seeking out diversity.  This is a job for the Guerilla Girls! 

The new SFMOMA is a forward-looking building and a great start, but it now needs to grow into the 21^st Century and represent a broader cross-section of modern art and artists.

City Hall

City Hall, 36”x12”, mixed media collagescape on board

Sometimes a collagescape is a landscape and sometimes it is a cityscape.  My latest collagescape is inspired by San Francisco’s City Hall.  This year, as I celebrated my 25th year living in San Francisco, our City Hall celebrated its 100th anniversary.  I had a view of the dome from my first apartment, back in 1990.  In those days the cupric dome was the patinated green color that can now only be seen in old movies.  After a lengthy restoration in the 1990s, the dome’s blackened copper was treated with a finish that gave it a luster that has now faded to a dark gray.  For this piece I attempted to capture the many shades gray of the granite that dominates the building.  There are small hints of the colors from the interior marble and statues as well as the colors of the flags that fly on the building.  And of course gold for the trim that decorates the Beaux Arts Monument.  

Reds, Browns and Pinks

When I travel the desert southwest, my road trips always combine three of my favorites interests: nature, art and history.  I just completed a two-week trip to New Mexico and back, 3665 miles and plenty of stops along the way. 

My last stop, before arriving in New Mexico, was in Arizona’s Petrified Forest National Park.  It was the middle of a hot desert day that discouraged any sort of hiking.  But I kept jumping out of the car and took a lot of pictures.  I love the colors of the place and realized I still need to do a Collagescape to capture that petrified wood palette of reds and browns. 

As you wind through the park and head back to the Interstate, one of the last stops is the historic Painted Desert Inn.  Now I always appreciate a good national park lodge, and this one, well it’s a real gem.  The Painted Desert Inn is small and modest.  It is not one of the bigger lodges that get all the attention like Yosemite’s Ahwahnee Hotel or the Timberline Lodge up on Mount Hood.  As beautiful as those grand lodges are, this might be one of the best.

The Painted Desert Inn is too small by today’s standards to operate as a national park lodge.  And this is what makes it special.  It functions now as an extra visitor center, but more importantly as a thoughtfully restored and well-maintained example of unspoiled, 1930’s Pueblo Revival Architecture.  It also stands as a fine monument to the good work done by the CCC (Civilian Conservation Corps) during the Depression. 

The inn is situated on a bed of clay that has resulted in an unstable foundation requiring a constant series of maintenance to the building.  The last time I visited, the inn was more of a construction site.  Currently it’s there, as close as possible to it’s 1930‘s condition, for visitors to enjoy just a quick stop off of I-40.  Keep an eye on those colors, they might be appearing in some of my art in the near future.

Rousseau Collagescape

Homage to Rousseau, 12”x12” mixed media on board

This piece is an Homage to Rousseau (not the philosopher nor the painter, but the San Francisco architect.)  Oliver Rousseau designed understated, beautiful and livable homes starting in the 1920’s.   They could be described as the descendants of Arts & Crafts and Mission Revival styles of architecture.  Not every Rousseau in San Francisco is an actual Rousseau – he influenced many architects and developers in San Francisco and throughout California.  Some of the copies are quite good.  A closer look and you’ll notice the attention to detail in a genuine Rousseau.  If you step inside you’ll find more to appreciate from the hand painted beams on coffered ceilings to the small interior courtyards.

When one thinks architecture and San Francisco, the Victorian is what immediately comes to mind.  It’s understandable, as Victorians are the colorful, picturesque, tarted-up houses on every postcard.  But even in my neighborhood, where tourists flock to Alamo Square, there is another type of ubiquitous San Francisco home – the Rousseau.  They are everywhere in San Francisco, but they are more common in the “newer” San Francisco neighborhoods from the Marina to Glen Park, but particularly in the Sunset.  Tourists haven’t learn to appreciate our Rousseaus, but a trip to West Portal and a stroll along 17th Avenue is a good introduction to some of the most pleasant architecture San Francisco has to offer.

Homage to Rousseau  will be shown in my Collagescape exhibit opening on July 29.

A print and other merchandise is based on a detailed section of this work and available form Society 6.

Welcome to Ikeaville?

To make it clear, I am not one of these San Franciscans opposed to all growth and change. Right now we are in the midst of building boom.  I prefer urban in-fill instead of suburban sprawl eating up more orchards, farms and open space.  The thing that is disheartening about our current building boom, is the generic quality of everything being built.  Everything has the same Pottery Barn Modern look.  It could be Santa Monica, Amsterdam or Brooklyn.  It’s all the same.  As the new street level real estate will have the same chain stores and chain coffee shops, this might actually be appropriate.  

I remember all the excitement when Ikea came to the Bay Area years ago (and yes I went and shopped too).  It took less than a year for discarded Ikea furniture to find its way to San Francisco curbs joining old computer monitors and printers. Now, a decade later the influence of Ikea seems to be playing a new role on San Francisco’s streetscape. 

A walk down Market Street from the Castro to Civic Center reveals construction in every block.  These aren’t the faux industrial lofts of 2000. The new decade has brought us kitchens for giants, or to be precise, every new building seems to look like a stack of Ikea cabinets with a few subzero refrigerators thrown in.  Perhaps developers might consider naming their projects after Ikea furniture, can you say Akurum Towers or Abstrakt Place?

No, I don’t think we need to build fake Victorians to keep the City’s character intact, but how about a little imagination and yes, some buildings that blend in and reflect the City better than a stack of appliances.  Think Broderick Place built in 2007 and not the current behemoth that is NEMA.  That one’s almost making Fox Plaza look charming.