CNY - Chinatown Flower Market

It's one of those perfect San Francisco days: overcast skies, bright colors on the street, the hustle and bustle of getting ready for the new year. People were buying flowers, it didn't seem to matter if they were real or artificial. In the paper stores, there were good luck calligraphy on shiny red paper, ang pow envelopes with cartoon and traditional images, glittery decorations for the walls and paper clothes with dragons painted on. I bought a bag full of red paper and came home to make CNY cards for friends.

A Visit to Vered's Studio

I was invited to visit Vered's studio in Palo Alto on Thursday. Her studio is in the garage of her home and she has filled it with her drawings and bright images of the Star of David, the cross and the crescent moon. She has been working with these images for several years, letting her unconscious lead her in her quest for meaning and resolution.

Inaugural Ball

Festive hipsters attend the Obama Inaugural Ball at Electric Works.

LA Views

Fabric & Paper Compositions

Red Lanterns
Gold Rush

Centipede

I've been experimenting with fabric and paper. These pieces incorporate muslin, xeroxed images, ink, paint, hairnet and glitter. For technique see http://littlemailbox.blogspot.com/.

C-Town and J-Town LA

Chinatown
Japantown

I visited Los Angeles Chinatown for the first time this trip and was startled to see buildings that seem to be preserved from a 1940's Hollywood's image of Chinatown. The buildings looked like stage sets and one wonders if anyone actually lives in them. Or perhaps actors are hired to act like they work and live there. Japantown seemed a bit weedy too when I walked throught it one morning. What's with the pseudo-Oriental typography used in both of these neighborhoods? I thought they went out of style decades ago.

Disney Center/ MOCA

Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA) Los Angeles

Disney Music Performance Center

Saturday, as soon as we had lunch we drove over to MOCA to see the Louise Bourgeois show. We ended up parking below the street in an empty building lot. I didn't realize that we had parked in the Disney Music Performance Center until I crossed the street and saw the breathtaking Frank Gehry building. It gave off quite a lovely shimmer with the afternoon light reflecting on the metal surfaces. The MOCA itself was lovely, nestled between glass towers. The Bourgeois show was worth coming to, especially her early sculptures and her recent works. I have never felt jazzed about her penis and breast sculptures.

Car of the Future?

Went to a car show in San Jose to see what was on tap for 2009. The show was surprisingly sparse with hardly any carmaker showing innovation. Chrysler, so close to crashing, came up with this concept "green" car. It looked a bit like those Chevron cartoon cars - stubby with a big grin on its face. I've enjoyed my PT Cruiser since 2001 but am leery of replacing it with another at the moment. Let's hope Chrysler gets back on track and actually produces a line of green cars. The car I wanted to see, the Cube, by Nissan, wasn't on view, alas.

Legend: Myth and Memory

Went to a wonderful opening at Creativity Explored on Thursday evening. The works incorporate words and image in interesting ways. One wall was filled with sweet images of cupcakes and cakes but the words were about the struggles of being mentally challenged. Beautiful, moving pieces all.

Classic Movie Theater

The Rafael has a classic movie theater facade. The inside is pretty modern and stripped art deco. We saw Slumdog Millionaire here today. A harrowing but exceedingly well-done flick.

Happy New Year 2009!

Happy Year of the Ox! Spent two days cooking traditional New Year food including this nimono which consists of slimey taro potato, grey potato jelly, carrots, kelp, shitake and age in a broth of water, mirin, soy and kombu dashi.

Christmas Evening

Merry Christmas!

A Walk the Day Before Christmas

Card Holder

I made this cardholder last year out of frustration from all the cards scattered around the house. I found the pattern on the internet - http://www.freecraftunlimited.com/christmas-card-holder.html. I used an empty cardboard whiskey container, one of those cylindrical ones. The trick was to wrap the yarn tightly around. You can get a lot of cards onto this thing and the colors of the cards are quite pretty. Best of all, the cards stay tidy in one place.

Two Days to Christmas

Winter morning in San Francisco, red birds among the branches

Silver-tipped fir tree decked with ornaments

Copenhagen Bakery in Burlingame

The day started watery and pale with the sound of birds shifting in the bare branches. I finally photographed our Christmas tree, which has dried out quite a bit despite the watering. This year's tree is tall and spare, which allows the ornaments to stand out. It is my favorite kind of tree, although I love the smell of Douglas fir the best. Later in the morning I went to the Copenhagen bakery to get a Christmas eve dessert. They had many lovely desserts to choose from: yule logs, marzipan cakes, German chocolate, mocha cake....I ended up with 2 large snow ball cakes. I don't know what they taste like but they looked pretty. To this purchase, I added a loaf of wheat bread and small packets of pfeffernusse, ginger snaps and chocolate-covered ginger cookies. What a treat!

Rock n Roll at Atchinson Village Community Hall

I went to a wild rock n roll party at the Atchinson Village Community Hall in Richmond last night. The room was filled with friends of Gretchen B, who was celebrating her 70th birthday. What a great celebration!

Feather Tree/Crab Dinner

It's Dungeness crab season and so we had guests over for dinner last night for crab cooked 3-ways. We started with an orange and crab salad, then crab cocktail and finally crabcakes. The crab dishes were accompanied by white wine and afterwards we enjoyed cookies and burnt caramel ice cream from Bi-rite. With the two feather trees decked with ornaments, it was quite a festive scene.

Sonoma Wreath-Making Day

Holiday Scenes

The assorted nutcrackers are from Germany and China. The large mercury glass candleholder and silver candle is from this year's Target holiday collection.

I have a collection of nutcrackers, smokers and wooden figures that I bring out at this time of year. Last year I got a wooden Advent calendar from Target and earlier this year I filled the compartments with old ornaments and toys. I've enjoyed opening the doors each day and remembering where the little figurines came from. A few years ago my friend in Germany sent a ceramic gingerbread house which has a space in back for putting in a votive candle. Stained glass candle holders are my favorite and the one on the right is from a store in Noe Valley. I love this time of year when the darkness comes early and the candles burn longer.

Christmas Tree

We got our tree today at a nearby lot. The place was hopping with tree-seekers today. Lots of small trees were being sold although they had a lot of gigantic ones available. We got a 9 foot silver tip fir tree - fragrant and lots of spaces between branches to hang our many ornaments.

ActivSpace Holiday Sale

Went last night to the holiday art sale at the Coffee Bar, connected to 1890 Bryant. Several artists from ActivSpace were displaying their work and selling small items for the holidays. The place was pretty full and had a jazz band downstairs. Lots of artists are participating in holiday sales - hoping to make some money during this economic downturn. I went to the Celebration of Craftswomen at Ft Mason today to see their display today. I ended up getting a few nice things at very reasonable prices.

Nite Out

Beautiful window of a Hayes Valley candy shop

Shops on Hayes Street were open late tonite

Hunters Point Artists' Sale at the Hayes Valley Market

Mayor Newsom explaining his views to artist fans at the Hayes Valley Market

Full house at the Hayes Valley Market

Vibrant show and Holiday sale at Creativity Explored

Post-Postcard Show & Sale at the Lab

A busy night going to several art-related holiday sales. The Lab had their Post-Postcard show & sale - business was brisk with shoppers picking up inexpensive works of art from shoe-box sized bins. Creativity Explored up a few blocks was also filled to capacity with people interested in buying beautiful, inexpensive art. Hunters Point artist were also having their sale on Hayes Street. That neighborhood was really crowded because all the shops were open late tonight. We got there just before closing, at 9 but there were so many people doors were left open longer. Our handsome mayor popped into Hayes Market with his new wife, Jennifer Seibel to check out the art.