Filoli Gardens

My FIPS friends took me to Filoli Gardens for my birthday. Overcast and cool, it was the perfect day for photographing the late spring blooms. One of the pleasures of the day was the fragrance of flowers, the special, rich scent of roses and peonies to the subtle, secret aroma of wisteria. The day ended at the cafe, which served up a fantasy slice of lemon cake. A perfect getaway day from the drudgery of pecking on a slowly dying computer.

Highway One

Tree cutters, Point Reyes Station

I dropped off my work for Season of Water at Gallery One. Outside, tree cutters glided like circus acrobats among the bare branches of an enormous tree.

LIVE SPACE: WOMEN ART & ACTIVISM

CM Judge put together a fabulous panel of media artist Carolee Schneemann, Paula Rendino Zaentz and Elizabeth Streb.


Carol Schneemann




Paula Rendino Zaentz




Elizabeth Streb's STREB lab for action mechanics

WCA LIVE SPACE DAY ONE

Feminist Tea Party preparation



Partaking of tea!



Jaimianne sends greetings




Penny for your thoughts performance by Young WCA




Knitting and discussing




Collectives: For the Birds, Project Space, brainstormers



New York chapter forming

WCA DAY ONE

Walking unnoticed on Times Square, enjoying the jewel tones of neon and taxi.


Taking a picture of someone taking a picture.

Playing with Kaleidoscopes

A new app lets me transform any photo into a gorgeous kaleidoscopic image. This one reminds me of a Nordic fairytale or an extraordinarily painful migraine aura.

Bad Habits

1. Channel surfing.

2. Acting out in public.

3. Saying, "Let's get together soon" and mean "Let's not get together soon."

4. Unctuousness.

5. Stepping on the heels of my shoes.

6. Smacking me on the head when I snore.

7. Not bathing at least once a day.

8. Talking for the sake of talking.

9. Using chopsticks as hair ornaments or for eating western food.

10. Leaving a half-finished bottle of water in the car, then drinking from it the next day.

If Only....

If only we had the time to appreciate it: ocean, baseball, city, hills, baseball, diversity of cultures and languages, fog, quality of light, coolness, baseball, the nonchalance of the strange. Oh. That's San Francisco. Not all of California.

Favorite Exercise

Walking continues to be. My feet have taken me to many places, some which I probably shouldn't have gone to. With no arches, my feet have ached from walking on pavement, but they haven't given out and are still capable of taking me on memorable adventures. When younger, I had walking companions who traveled with me to new countries. Now many have knee, hip, ankle, nerve, feet, arch, and circulation problems and walking is limited. Many breaks are needed and my feet feel restless. My mother, at age 82, can still walk our hill in Kobe - a tortuous, twisted & steep road. And I can hardly keep up with her downhill - she scuttles ahead like a beetle. A number of years ago, she developed arthritis in her knees and gave up walking the hill. Then she took a vacation with me in NYC and somewhere along Avenue of the Americas I noticed that she was walking normally. "You're healed!" I said, and she was. When I am bored with the treadmill, I think of her walking energetically in Japan, and continue walking.

Know About Me

I lived to adulthood bearing a name and surname that officially does not exist.

Amusement

Spinning swings always got me going.

Parasol. For obvious reasons.

An Endless Supply of Food

Japanese food. Mom feared that I wouldn't survive the United States without it. Both parents sent boxes of non-perishable food all the way through graduate school. Polished white rice. Ramen. Soba. Bottled nametake. Dried shiitake. Nori. Kombu. Rice crackers. Instant miso soup. Soup base. I survived the 1970's by going to Koto Restaurant in downtown Oakland. My roommate and I always shared the sukiyaki with an extra order of rice. In New York City, I found a small Japanese restaurant near Columbia that served a number of authentic side dishes such as kimpira gobo, takuan, negi su-miso and hijiki. I had one or two of these side dishes with rice and miso soup. Then, several authentic sushi restaurants opened, and other Japanese restaurants started up too. By the time I returned to San Francisco in 1979, Japanese restaurants and food stores were common. Thank Heavens!

Lost Skills

1. Playing the piano.

2. Ballet.

3. Translating the original Tale of Genji text.

4. Tailoring a coat.

5. Hand-binding a book.

6. French.

7. Quilling.

8. Squeezing a sea cucumber's guts out.

Merry Christmas!!

If Not San Francisco, Then???

I would not like to live anywhere other than San Francisco. Much as I love traveling and adventure, living somewhere connotes rootedness. If I had not come here, I would be living in Japan, and mostly likely I would be living in Kobe, where my family is from. Or perhaps Tokyo, to get away from family. Certain cities are enticing...Paris, Venice, New York, Kyoto, Tokyo, Munich, Jakarta, Guatemala City. But to live in a place connotes fitting in with those around me, having the connections and knowledge to navigate myself within the rules, regulations, practices, and customs of a place. Just as Westerners living in Japan for generations are still regarded as "foreign," I think I would always feel the visible and invisible walls of another city.

Speed Dating Fortune Cookies

At Mike's office holiday party someone felt the need for an ice-breaker. They decided we should play the game of speed-dating. With connotations of lost inhibitions, torrid office romance and convivial hanky panky, it seemed an odd choice for a conservative investment company. Strips of speed-dating-appropriate questions were placed in fish bowls in front us. People laughed nervously, didn't touch them. I saw all those strips of unused paper and contemplated the time it took someone to come up with questions, type them up, print them out, cut them out, bring unwrinkled to the party, place in the bowl. I took a fistful of questions and decided to respond to each one in the course of the year.

Randomly selected, my first question was about earliest memory:

The bright lights of the hospital. Someone saying, "Look her eyes are already open." The feeling of being bathed.

Blue Studios

Partner Matthew Frederick's open studio at Blue Studios in the Mission.

Weekend One: Mission

It's the first weekend of SF Open studios and I visited Art Explosion and 1890 Bryant. I has great time visiting with Georgiana Fastaia, Cynthia Tom, Paul Morin, Martha Rodriguez, Melisa Phillips, Emily Citraro, Kevin Pincus, Kirsten Tradowsky, Lucky Rapp and others. Now that my open studio is on another weekend I can visit Mission artists.






De-threaded, gessoed and distressed cloth works by Rachel Meginnes at AE.






Cynthia Tom's surrealist work at 1890 Bryant







Detail of knitting on paper by Sonya Philip at 1890 Bryant






Mixed media by Vera Costa at 1890 Bryant

Resolutions and Dissolutions

South Bay WCA exhibit at the MLK Library in San Jose



Red, White and Too Much Blue by Hedda Hope



The Face Behind the Mask by Susan Kraft

Art Launch

Launching 2010 Open Studios at Somarts. Body painting and interactive art and lots of viewers.