Aubrey Rhodes Opening - February 20

After the Russian festival we went to an opening at the Space Gallery on Polk Street. I had never seen Aubrey Rhodes' works before; her boyfriend works at UBS. Lots of paintings in different styles. I liked her circus series best.

Russian Festival - Feb. 20, 2009

I look forward to the Russian Festival at the Russian Center every year. It's a wonderful event that includes an art exhibition, Russian food prepared by volunteers and a 3-day variety show. I love the balalaika, the dancers, the singers and clowns. This year we could only stay for a little while but we got to see Olga Prokoshina dance.

Rex Ray at Gallery 16

Rex Ray demonstrated his collage techniques at Gallery 16 tonight. First he applied a watered-down Elmer's glue with a brush onto a large canvas. Then he adhered hand-painted paper on top. He used a brayer and sponge to flatten the paper onto the canvas. I noticed there was quite a bit of water used. Then with an X-acto knife, he defly cut shapes on the paper, then removed the cutouts. It was interesting to see that instead of cutting shapes and messing with glueing them on the canvas, he applied sheets of paper and cut them out from the canvas. As long as the glue stayed wet, the paper came off easily. I wondered how he would adhere the next layer of paper without accidentally cutting the paper beneath. We didn't stay long enough to find out.

San Mateo Japanese Tea Garden

weeping ume in bloom

We had a break in the weather today to enjoy a walk around the Japanese tea garden in San Mateo. It was more understated than the one in San Francisco and felt more authentic. After a leisurely turn around the garden, we went for dim sum at nearby Joy Luck Place.

Last Friday Evening

De Young A Place of Her Own Reception
Fog Outside the De Young
Tower Lights Glazed with Fog

Went to the closing reception of AAWAA's "Place of Her Own" exhibition. The gallery was buzzing and most of the artists were on hand to talk to the visitors. Afterwards, the evening was shrouded in a thick fog, which put a lovely glaze on street lights.

To Serve and Protect

I'm working on image transfer techniques. Here's what I did for this piece:

• Used matte gel to coat a square of wet muslin and black and white inkjet image
• Placed the image face-down on the muslin and rubbed the paper until a faint outline of the image appeared.
• Let the muslin dry, then sprayed the adhered paper with water and rubbed it off using a sponge. The transferred image is completely married to the muslin at this stage.
• Turned the muslin over (image face-down) and applied fabric ink. The ink bled through faintly to the image.
• Let the muslin dry, then applied a light wash of fabric paint on the front of the image and let that dry.
• Applied matte medium to seal the paint.
• Tore the edges of the muslin to create a slight fringed effect.
• Applied muslin image to an old money bag with double-sided interfacing.

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!