Wandering Artist's Journal

Sunrise at Mt Shasta by meusheow on Flickr Fantastic pink & purple clouds over the mountain ( Mt. Shasta ) as I begin to write this. First thought was, "Get the camera!" Second thought, "Oh yeah, it's broken." Well, for the rest of this week, I'll have to exercise those old visual memory muscles. Look at stuff carefully enough and long enough to own the picture. Make it mine. I've been up here for a week now, visiting my brother Vern, who really lives in Santa Cruz, but is staying in Weed while he works on a construction job in the area. He's living in his "mobile office" - a 35ft fifth-wheel, installed at the Friendly RV park, right next to the truck stop, just off I-5 in South Weed. Yesterday morning it was 18 degrees and the pipes were frozen when we woke up. Not too bad, though - Vern got the water flowing a little while after he'd started heating up the RV. Wind is blowing again now and my bicycle, leaning against the picnic...

"Persia", a ticket taker at SFMOMA, wearing a dress made of SFMOMA admission tickets, sparkly shoes, and other classy custom accessories. Beautiful! Photo by local artist, Sandra Yagi (thanks, Sandy!)

Ian Padgham's Pumpkin Praxinoscope: On Friday, before I started my weekly sketching in the galleries, I got a chance to see the SFMOMA employees pumpkin carving contest. They were all imaginative and well done, but Ian Padgham's was just stunning. He painted four small pumpkins with Eadweard Muybridge style action stills (one image on each lobe of the pumpkin.) Then he set up a simple kitchen turntable, with the slit viewer of a Praxinoscope. Very, very simple materials (cardboard, flashlight, pumpkins, turntable.) When the viewer looks through the slit while the turntable is spinning, it's a very realistic motion picture! videos here (three views): video 1 , video 2 , video 3

Friday afternoons are becoming a not-so-secret time for artists to hang out at the cafe on the SFMOMA rooftop. This week was no exception and after the museum closed, we moved on to Bill's Kitchen and then to South Beach Artist Studios for the opening party of their SF Open Studios weekend. Earlier this week , I mentioned that Sandra Yagi had moved to that building and was participating in SF Open Studios this year. The whole building was busy and Sandra's studio was no exception. I was glad to get a look at the five small rock-star skeleton paintings that she'd just finished this week - they're still wet (oil paint) and they really look great - I'll be surprised if they aren't all sold by the end of the weekend. She's still open tomorrow, if you want see them yourself: 11am - 6pm - 340 Bryant St. Photos and video by David W. Sumner , ©2009, All Rights Reserved

I recently made a studio visit to Sandra Yagi , in her South Beach studio. Sounds almost tropical, doesn't it? It's an old CalTrans building nestled up against the Bay Bridge on-ramp. The last time I visited this building it was to see Tina Vietmeier . Sandy just moved to this studio from her old place on Belcher Street. ( I interviewed her there five years ago .) The same rolling cart and easels were here in "South Beach" (Rincon Hill), but this studio seemed a lot brighter, with huge windows along one wall. Sandy said it could get a little too bright, and she just got some curtains to cut down the mid-morning glare. If you're not familiar with her work, Sandra paints with classic old-world methods, using familiar symbols and iconography to convey timeless and contemporary concerns. Lots of skeletons, animals, imagined landscapes, and darkly funny situations. Sandra works out her ideas in sketchbooks before going to paint. She often uses 3D models to work out ...

5:04pm, October 17th, 1989 Loma Prieta Quake In 1989 I was working as a Registered Nurse for a temp agency that sent us all over town to fill vacancies at various hospitals. My specialty was Critical Care. On the day of the quake, I was working in the Cardiac Catheterization Lab at the VA hospital (Ft. Miley, on outer Clement Avenue.) Luckily we had just finished the last case and returned the patient to his room. I hate to think what would have happened if we'd had a wire in his heart when the quake hit. Anyway, I was standing at the sink, washing instruments, when the rumble started. Things started falling off shelves and furniture started falling over. I turned and looked across the room at Abby, who was standing in the closet doorway. We both said, "This is a big one." A third woman, a researcher whose name I don't remember, was just screaming non-stop. It seemed to go on a long time. I knew I should get to a doorway, like Abby, but I couldn't walk - thing...

Duane Hanson's "Slab Man" and (live) gallery visitor at the Cantor museum October is always crazy-busy here in SF and that includes the art scene and that includes me personally. I'm posting mini reviews (and previews) of artist open studios on BAArtQuake . I'm also working day & night to get some small paintings finished for the "Tiny" show at Studio Gallery . (Small Pieces under $400, Nov 4th - Dec 23rd, Reception: Sunday Nov 8th 2-6pm.) . . . while trying not to drop the ball on my current "big" series of paintings . And still doing the weekly SFMOMA sketch Fridays (just show up in the afternoon, sketch a bit in the galleries, then go up to the rooftop cafe to meet the other sketch artists.) And of course, trying to keep up with the rest of you blogging, tweeting fools. Check out this recent blog post from David Apatoff, where he does an art school analysis of cartoonist Jeff Macnelly's work: HERE

For 20 years I've been walking by this store, thinking it just sold bookcases. From the window display, they looked like good bookcases, but almost every linear inch of my walls is already covered with bookcases (and above the bookcases are paintings.) So I never had a reason to go in. Until last night, when I went to hear Tinker Greene read some of his poetry. As usual, I got there too early, so I had plenty of time to study the place. What a treasure! I'm so sorry I didn't discover it years ago. Beyond the crowded bookshelves by the entrance is a big high-ceiling room, full of empty bookshelves and other wooden furniture. The back of the main room, plus an additional back room, is lined with stuffed bookshelves holding new and used books, including more chapbooks than I've seen anywhere else. In fact, this place has the best poetry section I've seen in San Francisco. But that's not all - above the bookshelves is a very juicy melange of paintings and prints....

Cross-posted from Bay Area Art Quake : Enrique Chagoya's "Illegal Alien's Guide to Greater America", at the Cantor Arts Center Thirteen of Stanford University's art faculty are showing work from their own studios at the Cantor Arts Center in Palo Alto. I'm a fan of Enrique Chagoya 's work, but I wasn't familiar with the other artists. Each artist was represented by a small selection of works, a photo of their studio and a short bio. I'm embarrassed to say this was my introduction to the work of Matt Kahn . When I saw his pieces in this show it was obvious that the artist had spent a lot of time doing a lot of thinking and plenty of practice. The skill level and originality are off the charts. He's been an influential player in Bay Area art & design for 60 years (where have I been?) Kahn's paintings in this show were on canvas that was inconceivably stretched over curving forms and painted with immaculate precision. And the colors -...

It's Friday, it's been a busy week, and I felt like goofing off. So I spent a couple of hours in Second Life. Toured a few museums and went to the Science Friday broadcast. On Odyssey Island, at the Art & Performance space, I met MGandhi Chakrabarti ( Joseph DeLappe ), who was sitting in a "jail" installed outside the main art complex. He said he was reenacting Ghandi's Salt March . The Salt March was a protest against the repressive rule of England over India, specifically focused on the British monopolly over the production and sale of salt. Last year Chakrabarti walked 240 miles on a specially converted treadmill , which controlled the steps of his avatar. Then I revisited Gottfried Helnwein 's museum in Apfelland . It's much bigger than the old one on the (now vanished) Slang Island . And he has more of his newer work on display - most of the pieces that were recently at the Legion of Honor are here. Then on over to Science Friday , with Joe ...

Last night UC Berkeley philosopher Judith Butler read three short lectures/essays on speech, sexuality, love, and politics. She was participating in a collaborative performance/installation work at SFMOMA , by Mika Tajima , Charles Atlas and others, of New Humans . I had no idea what to expect, going in. I was invited to accompany a friend and was under the vague (wrong) impression that it was some kind of visual art opening. SFMOMA was closed and dark, but a secret handshake got us in the the door (just kidding.) That room just off the lobby where they usually have bands & food during member openings? (The Schwab Room.) It was buzzing - literally. It was loaded with electronics and there was a pervasive droning sound, alternating with static. I think it was coming from speakers in the ceiling, but I'm not sure. The room was crammed with people but they were as quiet and respectful as students at a zen center. The audience stood (and eventually sat on the floor) around the...

(Just for fun) Since I got my iPod touch a few months ago, I've been fooling around with the simple drawing program, " Finger Paint ." I started sketching my fellow MUNI passengers. It's handy in places where a sketch pad would draw undue attention, but no one gives a second glance to a woman tapping on her iPod. But those are quick gesture sketches. I tried using myself as a (more reliable) model, to see if I could develop a more detailed drawing, but it was tough. My finger (which is the stylus) is larger than the smaller brushes. Which means my view of the canvas is obstructed by my finger, when trying to do detailed work. Which means, it's fine for landscapes, but too sloppy for portraits. Then I saw this story about David Hockney and his iPod art . Hey, those look great! If he's actually doing those on the iPhone, then he must have better software than I'm using. So I went back to the App store . . . downloaded " Paint Pro " and " P...

Saw some art this week. Like most weeks. Can't stop, really. But talking about it? The thrill is gone. Seems like I've heard everything and surely you must have too. This week I was downtown, in and out of a few galleries . Afterwards, I was talking to my friend Sherry, " the oldest woman on the web ." We met on Women's Wire (the pre-web version) a long time ago. We've both got legacy websites ( Sherryart and Bigcrow) gathering virtual dust on a server somewhere, but interactive platforms are what's happening now. We talked about killing the old sites vs archiving . . . no decisions reached yet. Yesterday one of those old arguments reignited (What is the role of an art critic, and why should I care?) on Facebook. I threw my 2 cents in, but didn't have the juice for the long haul. The conversation continues, as I write this, on Jerry Saltz's Facebook page. I will most likely take down my old static web site very soon. Should I kill this one, ...

040409-13SFS Originally uploaded by jwallphoto Yesterday I participated in the California Watercolor Association 's Paintout at the Presidio. Although I've sketched and painted from life as a regular practice, I'd never done a competitive art event and wanted to see what it was like. We showed up at 9am to have our papers registered (date stamped) then set out to find a spot to paint. We had 4 hours to fill the paper. Four hours is plenty of time and on one of my usual jaunts I would have completed two or three pieces in that amount of time. But I discovered that I am not impervious to the pressure of competition. I spent the first hour starting and restarting, in anxious judgment and dithering over how to proceed. Didn't really get into the zone until well into the second hour, but it didn't last long. I overworked the background and only had 20 minutes to complete the foreground. Then we returned to the Officer's Club, to display our work for two hours,...

When we, as individuals, as a culture, as a country, are making decisions like what to eat, whether to go to war, how to educate our children, where to put our resources, how to govern . . . we need to be able to imagine the possible outcomes from our decisions. Not exploring those possible outcomes, leaves us at the mercy of outside forces that lead us to and fro, like a bunch of school children on a field trip to the zoo. It ends with the gorilla in his cage, watching as half the children shout, "I like zebras!" and the other half shout, "Elephants rule!" Fully exploring those options requires intellect, knowledge, and imagination. Or, experience with logic, memory and creativity. Music, literature, and visual art were developed over thousands of years as ways of transmitting vital knowledge (stories of what-if) and exploring new ways of thinking. But now the arts have come to be seen as peripheral, inconsequential, entertainment. It's no wonder they are prim...

not my best art experience that day Just had a mind-blowing art walkabout yesterday that started with the TV themed art at Creativity Explored and and ended with William Kentridge's muti-layered retro-techno films at SFMOMA . In between, I saw Edward Hopper, Walker Evans, Diane Arbus and other classic American image makers at the Fraenkel . Plus, some terrific paintings at ArtZone 461 and White Walls . As well as SECA winner Trevor Paglen 's geographic art photography. Went to quite a few more places but those are the ones I'll write about, over on BAArtQuake , over the next few days.

I've been thinking about communication strategies. Email is serviceable but almost as musty as snail mail (with more junk.) Static HTML web pages get as much action as those colorprint flyers stacked in plastic holders in the windows of local cafes. These days your message has to be short and to the point and you better be ready for feedback. A shifting, amorphous, multi-layered conversation is taking place and you can join in or you can put up a few post(er)s and hope the participants glance your way. So. My old web site is coming down in a few weeks. My images will live on Flickr , Blogger , Facebook , and TwitPic . My thoughts will roam from Blogger and Flickr , to Facebook , to Twitter , depending on length and content. The computer is moved out of the studio, so I can focus on just painting when I'm there. Plus, I log most of my "computer" time on a mobile device now. I'm finally getting out to see more shows again and I'll be experimenting with w...

Trying out the blog from iPhone function.