Wandering Artist's Journal

  Weiwei-isms by Ai Weiwei, edited by Larry Warsh; published 2013 by Princeton University Press; ISBN 987-0-691-15766-5   -   Weiwei-isms could be described as meditations on Art, Life, Freedom and Power. Collected by Larry Warsh and organized into six topical chapters, the words of the artist cut to the essence of his experiences over a lifetime of speaking Truth to Power. A Printmaker's Document by Jim Dine; published 2013 by Steidl; ISBN 9783869306445 -  Jim Dine is an American artist known for his experimental, Pop and Neo-Dada works, including painting, sculpture, and prints. This volume is a retrospective of his printmaking and his life as an artist. Beautifully designed, this book is a sumptuous read. 

I finally got a chance to visit the newest gallery district in San Francisco, "Potrero Flats," after hearing about it from Nancy Ewart , JD Beltran , Terri Cohn and Kenneth Baker . It does indeed look very promising - great weather & parking, good transportation, plenty of nearby coffee houses, and fantastic spaces! The Hosfelt Gallery (top) opened there first, at 260 Utah (near 16th) and the space is jaw-dropping: huge rooms, tall ceilings, lots of light, and it looks like it has entrances on both Potrero & Utah. They're showing Anoka Faruqee moire paintings, which actually look a little lost in that space. I can't wait to see William T. Wiley's work there - he has just joined Hosfelt and will have a solo show there in the spring. Brian Gross Gallery (right) is in the same block at 248 Utah and has a similar space. The big Ed Moses craquelure paintings look great there. The artist control of the crackles is amazing - I've never seen anythi...

I just spend three hours yesterday and nearly two hours today, signing up for health insurance via California's Health Insurance Exchange . It wasn't easy, or painless, but from what I've heard on Twitter and elsewhere around the web , I had it easy. It was a lot like doing your own taxes. Online. Lots of dead links. Verrrrrrrry long waits. Lots of WTF? questions. Lots of repeated entries of long numbers and the same old info every government program asks you over and over and over. (With all this loss of privacy, increased government surveillance, and secret buildings full of digital archives, wouldn't ya think they'd know all this about me by now?) But hey - it's done. Now I can go back to painting. I'm working on a shipspotting series these days. The one above is "Smokin," acrylic on canvas, ©2013.