7th Annual Altered Barbie Show

Tanya revealing her Barbie side


Crowds celebrate opening of Altered Barbie show at Shotwell 50 Studios


Jillee mc-ing the event

This is the first year I didn't participate in this annual show due to travels. Did manage to attend the opening reception last night at Shotwell 50 Studios. It's a great space for this show - lots of wallspace to show off all the dolls and photos. There were surprisingly a lot of photos at this year's event. Hope to be part of this event next year!

Images of Mexico: Dance

Dancing figures at the Anthropological Museum


Aztec Dancers


Shaman dancers in the Zocalo

Because our hotel was near the Catedral and zocalo in the Historic Center of Mexico City, we enjoyed the drumming, herb-burning and the energetic circle of dancers nearly every day. Helen noticed that the dancers' movements brought to life the gestures of ancient pottery figurines we saw at the Museum of Anthropology. Indeed I felt that we were witnessing something ancient, elemental and life-affirming in the zocalo dancers. My favorite shots were of the dancers' feet, which captured the energy of their movements.

Chochin-Making

Took a class on illuminated paper at the SF Center for Books.It was taught by Oregon papermaker, Helen Hiebert. For the round chochin, we cut molds out of foam core, then wrapped individual rings of reed around it, fastened by paper. Paper shapes were then glued to the reed skeleton. When the paper dried, the mold was disassembled. The magic happened when the chochins were lit.

Friday Art Happenings

Adobo Hobo at Fabric 8: marrying art with food cart culture


Octo-arm enjoys wine and art at Cityart Opening


Looking at art along Victorian corridor at 3352 24th St

Sugar installation at 951 Shotwell

Home is Something I Carry With Me is a 3-house non-trad venue exhibition. Love the idea of turning one's home into a gallery, love the idea of a unifying theme that carries across multiple venues. I hope more of these spring up in the City. Fabric8 had an interesting idea of combining the burgeoning food carts in the City with art. The venue was filled to capacity with people enjoying adobo, creme brulee, cookies and soup while viewing the artwork and teeshirts for sale. Cityart also had their monthly group show opening - their venue was filled as well.

Thursday's Art

Frey Norris Gallery: Laurel Roth


Hang Art: Heather Patterson


Cafe Royale: Megan Wolfe



Fifty24SF Gallery: The Date Farmers

Detail of a piece by Date Farmers

A full evening of art openings in San Francisco. We started at the Frey Norris and ended up at the Fifty24SF Gallery. I was very taken by the Date Farmers, Mexican American artists whose vibrant pieces were a visual feast. Their imagination and ability to create beauty from discarded materials resonated. Visit http://thedatefarmers.com/ for more information about them.

Final: Salute to the Muse

The blue piece now completed. It is titled "He'd Never Seen Her Out of Uniform." It's a tribute to my muse, Heather Fong, and will be part of the AAWAA exhibit this month.

Working with Blue

Started a couple of blue paintings today. For one, I embedded undergarments under cheese cloth, then painted over with Prussian blue. I had an idea for this painting, with the undergarments covered over with layers of materials and paint. At the moment I love the effect these layers have created, the leaching out of paint around the fabric, giving the painting a cyanotype feel. Will have to wait for a couple of days of drying to see what the final color will be and what I will do next. I am making a piece on Heather Fong for the AAWAA Salute to the Muses exhibit in Sept. I've laid down blue paint on cheesecloth for my second painting and am vaguely considering a paperdoll of HF.

Tour des Artists - Round #2

Zannah Noe, the raven painter, in her studio at Hunter's Point


Tanya Wilkinson, mixed media artist, in her studio at the Noonan Building


Blowing glass in David Patchen's studio at Public Glass

Rebecca Fox in her metal works studio at Islais Creek

Dimitri Kourouniotis in his painting studio at Hunter's Point

This time the Tour visited five artists near Third Street and Hunter's Point. As in the first Tour, the group got to meet a variety of artists in their studios in a work-setting (well, sort of). The artist has to clean up their space a bit so that people won't trip or be frightened off by the dust, trash and unwashed coffee cups that usually litter the scene. The first time, six artists were visited, some in studios that were too small to fit the nearly 20 people on the tour. Five artists in larger studios was just about perfect. A limo bus shuttled us from studio to studio so no one had to do the driving. For me, it was a nice, relaxing break from the everyday work in my studio and an opportunity to see other's works. David Patchen put on quite a show, creating a Venetian-style vase during his 45 minutes with us.

J-Pop in J-town

TsuShiMaMiRe - an all-girls punk band rocks out. The song is silly - about stinky American microphones. Lead singer went all-out to get the snuffling noises down just right.


Women dressed up in Lolita and Goth fashions at the J-Pop summit in Japantown this weekend. Actually this event seems like a hyped out opening for a new Japanese mall called New People where the old bowling alley used to be. A long line of people waited to get into this mall and it was a definite "no" for me. I'll visit later, when the excitement dies down. Cannot imagine a lot of people buying into the Lolita look here. For one, hard to fit into those clothes. Cleaning bills would be prohibitive. And it would rate a real laugh at the office. I may, however, buy a sun umbrella with lace trimmings.

What About Tomorrow?

Piece #1: Love Me Tomorrow


Piece #2: Thinking About Tomorrow Clears Away the Cobwebs


What About Tomorrow? is our new roundrobin theme. I had to think about it for a while - a rather nebulous theme that sounds lighthearted, hopeful and yet foreboding. For my first piece I decided to make another altered book. My imagery came from a skanky women's magazine from Japan. Many women alter their looks via makeup, hair color and surgery, with the belief that their idealized anime character looks make them desirable. I wonder what they will look like in old age - will their fans love them as before? The song "Will You Love Me Tomorrow" came to mind while making this book. I looked it up on Youtube and found a great rendition by Amy Winehouse http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ludxpkyrab0. My instruction to Gwynn was to have her listen to this song while going through my book.

I received a framed humming bird print & collage from Patricia. It was a beautiful piece of work, with colors I love - turquoise, gold, oranges and reds. But how to relate it to the theme and my next work? In the end I took the frame idea and moved it forward in piece #2. I found this image in an old book I picked up from a thrift shop. How sad and tired these girls look with their younger siblings strapped to their backs! They are not far in age from the girls in my first piece. Life was difficult for girls back then for quite different reasons. I lifted the image with packing tape and adhered it to two postcards. I got the idea of the two postcards from some works I saw recently. They are adhered to glossy black paper that looks like dried seaweed. I found a kitschy bamboo frame at the thrift shop and repainted it. Now I'll need to put the picture together. I'm going to send Gwynn a Youtube link to Broadway musical Annie's song "Tomorrow" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nnjkb4q6FKU. Pairing art with music is something new I've discovered in this round of collaborations.

Control Reception

Guerrilla Girl hands out pamphlet


The pamphlet!



Opening Reception of Control

By Jessica and Beatrice at the Muriel Right Residential Center

Over 500 people attended the opening of Control at the SOMArts Gallery on August 6, 2009. Lots of great works by women, the Guerrilla Girls showed up with pamphlets in hand, and everyone agreed it was the best show they've attended in quite some time. Now there is talk about traveling the show. Also wonderful: works by girls at the Muriel Right Residential Center and Peninsula WCA Youth Project were also exhibited.

Painting on Vintage Cards

Went to an opening of works by Marin artist Mike Shine called Flotsam's Wonder Tonic. The location was The Soap Gallery, an alternative space at 3180 Mission St, SF. Shine paints on all kinds of unusual surfaces - just not on canvas. His graphic paintings were devilish and pretty cool. I especially liked a series of painted cards, which seemed too small to be postcards. He found these greeting cards at a flea, the front are family portraits. He liked the aged paper of the reverse side and the deckle-cut edges. He used housepaint and guache and put them inside vintage tramp art frames that he scored on EBay. Very cool!

Visiting Crab Orchard Cemetary

Yesterday I went to the opening reception of Crab Orchard Cemetary Revisited at the Peninsula Art Museum. This exhibition of the late Jo Hanson's installation was curated by NCWCA artist Eleanor Dickinson, a good friend of Jo's. As soon as one enters the gallery, one steps into a different world. Recorded birdsong and other ambient sounds plus the black and white photographs of cemetary vegetation printed on clear plastic sheets form the backdrop for these tombstones carved out of styrofoam. Jo returned to the actual cemetary in Illinois several times to capture the feeling of this solitary and creepy place.

Sweet July 4

Each year our neighborhood has a July 4 celebration. There's a small parade, the declaration of independence is read, then all make a mad dash for free hotdogs, chips, cupcakes and lemonade.

Some New England Vignettes

Selecting tomatoes at Boston's Copley Square farmer's market


Portuguese parade in Provincetown

Children's games at Hartwell Tavern

Men line up and wait for George Washington at Hartwell Tavern

The desk where Louisa May Alcott wrote Little Women

Shalinee Kumari: Mithila Painter

Shalinee Kumari is having her first solo show in the US at the Frey Norris Gallery. She is from Bihar, India and paints in the Mithila style. Her interpretations of Krishna and world events are fresh and beautifully conceived.

Sketch Tuesday at 111 Minna

Looked in on Sketch Tuesday at 111 Minna last night. Featured artists were elbow to elbow at the center table. Their works were up for sale later. Loitering on the side tables and sofas were lots of young artists sketching too. Next time I'm going to bring my baseball photos to sketch. Fun!

Audrey's 60th Birthday Bash

We celebrated Audrey's 60th birthday by dancing the salsa at the Cheryl Burke dance studio. It was a lot of fun learning the salsa and marenge. Afterwards we feted at the Axis cafe.

Polyglot: Expressive Media in Bookarts

I went to the Polyglot reception last night at the Gualala Arts Center. The Arts Center was in a wonderful setting, nestle among redwoods. Lots of beautiful and unusual books in this show, made with all kinds of materials. I'll add a slideshow a little later.

Shadowplay #3

I've been participating in a round-robin art project with members of NCWCA with the theme, "Shadowplay." This is my third piece, inspired by Judy Shintani's second piece and South African artist, William Kentridge. It's an altered book incorporating dictionary pages, old postcards from the Uffizi and a Rolling Stones song. What a pleasure to make this piece and to play back all those sexy Stones songs.