Adventurers of Land and Sea

My friend, Petra, and I decided to take a much-needed day off to go explore Muir Woods up in Marin and have a picnic at nearby Stinson Beach. As we made our pact a few days earlier, I said, "No flaking!", which was ironic when it turned out to be a chilly, foggy day. No matter, we packed a picnic anyway and set off to get in tune with nature and away from life's demands.

Cute little growth!
We didn't make it far down the miles of trails in our city slicker shoes.




It warmed up just enough to enjoy the afternoon in shorts, but really, how can you not enjoy the beach anyway?

James Gobel Opening

I recently checked out James Gobel's exhibition at Marx & Zavattero Gallery at 77 Geary in San Francisco. It was great to see James, one of my favorite professors at CCA, and to check out what kind of work he's been making when he's not cracking a smart, insightful art whip on us grad students: "I Get What I Want and I Always Get it Again!"

One of many paintings of beautiful, rotund men.

That's James in the black and white stripes. There were lots of real life rotund men, too. More that I have ever seen in one hot, sweaty gallery room before!

The scene, with a new venture for James- flannel covered sculptures!

It's difficult to get an idea of the craftsmanship of James's work in photos. They are not really paintings but pieces of felt closely laid together in exquisite detail, like stained glass. Yarn serves as the lines, and spray paint does the shading. I loved the new details of metallic chain strands and rhinestones!

If you would like to see the show, it will be up until July 17. It's so worth the trip!

A Neighborhood Stroll

I really love it when I have an afternoon off to take a walk around my cute neighborhood and up to Piedmont Ave. It feels like I live in a nice, small community full of cool shops and good restaurants nestled in the larger area of Oakland and can be comforting within the hard edges of the city.

Of course, one of my favorites is Issues Magazine Shop, which I have written about before. Somehow it doesn't matter how my day is going. When I walk in, I feel welcome to spend as long as I like perusing the great selection of magazines for my art projects, like my collages. This week I found both owners, Joe and Noella, in their usual good spirits rocking some sweet, mellow reggae. There is also always some good old-fashioned people-watching. I have often wondered who buys weird magazines like the high fashion French children's magazine, Milk, (in which I have scored some great Dior, etc ads), and I had the chance to see a woman with a stroller and husband in tow inquire about one. I ended up with a 70s library book on Oceania masks, a new Dutch fashion mag with great bloody hunting photos called Blend, the awesome English all-around pop culture fest, Wonderland, and Vice, an ever amusing free read.

Next I picked up my so-necessary coffee beans from Peets and enjoyed a free cup while perusing the Piedmont Library's regular outdoor book sale. All books are 50 cents! I found a classic that I've never had the chance to read, Hemmingway's The Old Man and the Sea.

On the way home I looked at the lovely gardens of all the cute houses nearby and scoped some free plant samples. I took a cutting of both morning glory and passion flower vines which I will put in jars of water in my window. I also made a mental note of the gorgeous garden on a corner which will be ripe with seeds for the taking in a month or two. Peach colored hollyhocks, fuschia cosmos... I am so looking forward to making my garden at school more beautiful!

OMG: The Lab's Fifth Annual Striptease Fashion Show

I was invited by my friend, Mary Anne Kluth, The Lab's Gallery and Events Manager, to show my work in their annual fundraiser, "Threadbare". What I didn't know was that the fundraiser is actually an annual fashion romp where the models take off their auctioned clothes right in front of the audience. This year's theme was "Boylesque", and there were plenty of them.

Just the beginning.
The audience
Wait for it...
Hello Castro!
There were girls
And crocheted bikinis
I kinda wanted this necklace
Red leather anyone?
The show draws to a close
Mark and Michelle, soon to be married, had a perfect bachelor/bachelorette party without even trying!
And she got this sweet vintage hat for the big day. All in all, a success! Never mind that painting.

"breathe.": Art Show with Welly Fletcher

In true CCA style, a bunch of us affiliated with the school in one way or another went to Project One Gallery to celebrate Llewelynn (Welly) Fletcher's opening exhibition. Curated by Jessica Silverman of Silverman Galllery, along with Brooke Waterhouse, the show was anticipated to be extra cool. The idea behind the theme of "breathe." was different and I appreciated its poetic tone:

"Any moment of our life has the potential to become a meditative space, an inhabited site for pure experience. However, in our society of inter connectivity and multitasking, most of these spaces are never unlocked for their full, singular capacity. “breathe.” invites you to pause and remember that our lives are made up of a series of single breathes thus connecting ourselves more closely to one another and to our shared culture."

I spent most of my time examining Welly's awesome sculptures, which I agreed to help her move into the space, but hadn't had a breath in one, if you will. Her sculptures are meant to be experienced, with space for you to interact and even get inside them, where sounds play lightly as if they are coming from you.

If you'd like to experience the show it is up until July 10 at 251 Rhode Island Street, San Francisco.

Chrissie Bradley goes for the full corpse-pose experience in this beehive-shaped Welly sculpture.
The soft-sculpture shark can be your own private Idaho in the chaos of an opening.
Mark Benson looks like he was really freaking out poor Chrissie inside the shark.
Welly Fletcher
These people were confused; not every sculpture is a Welly to get in!
The other room, a lounge, provided the perfect opportunity for Mark to be alone in the dark with a disco ball.
We found a Sean Leake, too!

Special congratulations to Welly for her new teaching opportunity in Sculpture the fall at CCA!

VLADA the Creepy Chameleon and Richard Prince

Richard Prince, (above) "Untitled (four single men with interchangeable backgrounds looking to the right)," 1977. Mixed media on paper. Courtesy The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

A little while ago I realized how weird it was to compare photos of the same model, ala Richard Prince's early collages of male models. It's uncanny enough to see how we change in photos throughout time, but a model must be able to morph constantly to be employable in a single season. I started collecting these images from style.com, (where you can search for a certain person), of one of my favorite models, Vlada. I love her because she often has this vampiresque dark circles under her eye thing, which along with her name, makes her kinda creepy; a more inhuman sort of model than the others. I really don't know what to do with my collection of Vladas. I might do some paintings, but I'm just going to hang on to them for now.

Inspiration Point

I made some great scores in the free pile left from the class ahead of us when they moved out of the studios, including a bookshelf and a nice futon. All of a sudden, it's so cozy! Now I'm ready to get 'er done every day.

I also made myself an inspirational banner ala Miranda July's "Learning to Love You More" project. It says NO ONE IS GOING TO DO IT FOR YOU. It works! (That's a creepy kid's mannequin Maysha gave to me in the corner).
New bookshelf means no more piles of books on the floor.
Some images I've been looking at recently. I'm getting way into an obsession with headdresses.