Wandering Artist's Journal

The Pear Tree opening weekend was a success - we have a great-looking, comfortable space, with a really top-notch collection of fine arts and crafts. At excellent prices. I like hanging out there, and I'll bet you would too. Seriously - it's the most relaxed show I've ever participated in. We spent a lot the time this weekend checking out each other's work, trading work, and just getting to know each other a little better. I was fascinated to watch Vivian felting her little plants. Adele brought some more of her redwood iPad stands including some custom-made for the wider covers like I had. I picked one out while she was still unpacking. Everybody who walked by was attracted to her hats, and she was knitting more of them throughout the day. Anna Efanova's "Magic Drawing" table was the most popular place in the studio on Sunday. Pam had an avid audience for her embossing demo. I was pleasantly surprised that so many people wanted to buy my sketchbook pages...

Last night, while the rain, hail, thunder, and lightening crashed outside, I joined several other artists in a studio over on Bryant Street. We started pulling the studio space together, bringing in our art, hanging the wall pieces, arranging tables and shelves for sculptures and demos. It's a lot of work and will probably take the rest of the week to complete. The opening is this Friday evening (the day after Thanksgiving.) I'm going to be doing something a little different this time. I won't be showing any of my bigger paintings on canvas. Instead, I plundered my stack of sketchbooks from the last few years. I have a lot sketchbooks, and I selected 100 pages, mounted them on Bristol board, and slipped them into clear, acid-free envelopes. That way I can sell them very affordably ($20 to $80.) The images are in pencil, ink, watercolor and gouache - mostly San Francisco scenes, with a few still life and abstract pieces. I have a few surprises for this show and I'll be w...

This afternoon we met at the Museum of Performance and Design for sketching in the "Angels In America" exhibit. They had costumes, stage props, photos playbills, posters and WINGS from some of the major productions of this show. I sketched the wings from the 1991 (San Francisco) Eureka Theater production. Curator Brad Rosenstein gave us a personal tour and told us a bit about the history of the piece and how it came to be written. Then he let us loose to wander the exhibits. There were several original Milton Glaser drawings, used for publicity for some of the productions. There was a musical soundtrack loop from the HBO production playing on the gallery sound system. Brad said that the museum was working on putting together a video compilation of cuts from various productions and interviews with some of the actors and other people involved in the production. The show is going to be up through March, so some of us are planning on coming back to see it again. After leaving th...

I just posted a review over on BAArtQuake of the Porchlight event for Creativity Explored . HERE's the LINK. If you've never been to one of the Creativity Explored openings, and you have any interest in the creative process, you owe it to yourself to go. And then ask yourself if you're doing all you can to pursue your art.

Yesterday I got another email request from a student, asking for permission to use one of my images in a "critique of an art form for Professional Growth Class." I get these requests two or three times a year, and it's always the same image: I painted that image in 1996, shortly after leaving a career in Critical Care Nursing, to pursue Art full-time. Sixteen years after making that decision, I still know it was the right choice. I am happier with myself and my place in the world than at anytime before that watershed moment. But it wasn't an easy decision and the transition had some scary moments. The biggest stumbling block in making that decision was fear of not having a regular, adequate income. And it was a weakened (unused) imagination that kept me from seeing the ways around that block. The pain and unhappiness of living an inauthentic life finally drove me to plunge down that path anyway. I did stumble, but I kept going, figuring it out along the way. The best ...

Friday, Nov. 12th, 2010 We started in Union Square, where the Safeway ice rink has just reopened for the season and the usual jazz & Sinatra tunes from Rulli's Cafe was replaced with thumping disco tunes from the rink. There were a surprising number of talented skaters gliding between the wobblers. Santa Claus was sitting at a cafe table with a coffee while workers finished his shelter next to the ice rink. The Macy's tree was being installed and sculpted by "Cowboy" and a crew of tree wranglers from Mt. Shasta. Cowboy was a charming and loquacious dude who answered every question with a smile and inserted the phrase, "this is Macy's gift to the city," whenever the conversation flagged. He said this tree never hit the ground - it was held aloft with a crane while the base was cut free and then it was gently laid in a custom made truck bed with adjustable cradles to hold it in place. Why is it going up so early? He has about 20 more of these to ins...

The SF Opera performance of Janachek's "Makropolos Case" had the look and feel of an early 20th century graphic novel - the woodcut novels by Frans Masereel or Lynd Ward. All of the color was in the acting and the orchestration. There was almost no chroma. It's one of the most interesting operas I've ever seen, there was much I liked about it, but ultimately I'd have to say that opera was an awkward choice for this story. It's heavily dialog-driven, with significant details being delivered in such rapid succession (in Czech) that keeping up with the supertitles was nerve-wracking. The music was great - very film noir, and absolutely essential to the tension and release in the plot. Karita Mattila was stunningly beautiful, dramatic, and convincing as the 337 year old femme fatale who had lost interest in the petty details of life and love. But as one of my companions (an opera virgin) said as we were leaving, "Why did they have to sing their lines?...