I have written before about the wonderfulness of Alula Editions, the new art subscription service from Helena Keeffe and Amber Cady that publishes patterned textiles meant to be used and loved. To my great delight their second installment arrived on my doorstep just before Christmas, and inside a box stamped "Fragile" I found a beautiful drawing kit made of fabric printed with original drawings made by visitors to the Headlands Center for the Arts while Alula Editions was in residency out there last fall. I was one of those visitors, and as I unfolded the kit and found a whittled stick "pen" tied to the back next to a bottle of walnut ink and paper neatly tucked into pockets I remembered the joy of composing my own drawings with similar tools out in the open air on a sunny Sunday hike. The kit also comes with an empty bottle and a recipes for both the ink and a yarrow tincture, extending an invitation to return to the flora depicted on the soft cloth. The Headlands is such a special place to me, and this edition captures several aspects of its magic (i.e., its gorgeous natural environs, its commitment to experimentation) just perfect.
Notes: Yes something good actually came out of Oxnard, namely the young Nick Hessler (aka Catwalk) who started out as a one-man band but now has added a couple of friends to the mix. Embodying the sunnier, reverb-laden side of '80s alternapop, Catwalk only has a handful of singles out right now but is currently working on a full-length and touring with The Pains of Being Pure of Heart this spring. Definitely worth checking out.
Collecting runs in the Fisher blood. While Doris and Donald got plenty of press in the Bay Area when they chose SFMOMA to house their massive art collection, their son Bob and his wife Randi seem to be the photography buffs in the family. Some weeks back I made an appointment to be granted access to Pier 24's secure, climate-controlled galleries and spend a couple quiet hours looking at the pictures the couple have acquired over the years, a genuinely impressive array by greats like Diane Arbus, Walker Evans, William Eggleston, Robert Frank, Lee Friedlander, Andres Gursky, Helen Levitt, John Gutman, Richard Misrach, and many many more. If those names look familiar it's because almost all of them have had major retrospectives in Bay Area museums and galleries over the last decade and a half, and if I have any complaint about the collection is that it houses few surprises for anyone who pays attention to photography at all. That said, the Fishers collect in-depth so you are pretty much guaranteed to see pictures that feel like old friends: Bernd and Hilla Becher's industrial architecture, vintage American signage by Evans, Eggleston's giant tricycle. Being the contrarian I am I started at the very back of the space, in the gallery pictured above, where I found one absolutely perfect and unexpected juxtaposition, Gutman's depiction of a boy caught mid-stride in his leap off a diving board directly across from a whole series from Aaron Siskind's Pleasures and Terrors of Levitation. And I do like Pier 24 itself, the Pilara Foundation's gift to San Francisco photography-lovers. Admission is always free, the appointment system guarantees there's never more than a dozen other people in there with you, and no one bats an eyelash if you spend ten solid minutes staring at Allan Arbus's extraordinary portrait of his wife. The Foundation is clearly committed to photography, and I just hope they are not afraid to allow some adventurous curation too.
Barn Owl & The Infinite Strings Ensemble - The Headlands: This is the record that I had on constant repeat at home last week, its intense droning atmospherics a perfect match both for my mood and for the winter storms raging outside my windows. Barn Owl (aka Evan Caminiti and Jon Porras) of course is already one of my favorite local bands with last year's album Ancestral Star firmly charting in my own Best of 2010, and as awesome as their recordings are they are but a shade of the psychedelic, meditative experience of seeing the duo live. So I like to picture in my head how this album was recorded in the Gym at the Headlands, with Ellen Fullman walking the length of her extraordinary long string instrument stretched from one end of that cavernous space to the other and Theresa Wong on her cello adding layer upon layer of texture to Evan and Jon's extended tonal landscapes. Eerie, transcendent, heart-breakingly beautiful music. PS That cover art is by Jefre Cantu-Ledesma, who is an insanely talented musician in his own right. Swoon.
Last Bay Area appearance: Great American Music Hall on Tuesday, May 25, 2010
Next gig: End of the Road Festival in the Larmer Tree Gardens, North Dorset, UK, from Friday, September 2 to Sunday, September 4, 2011
RIYL: Psychic Ills, Spacemen 3, Dead Meadow
Notes: Last week I wrote about Erik Johnson and Sanae Yamada's Moon Duo, but this is Johnson's "original" project with Dusty Jermier, Omar Ahsanuddin, and Nash Whalen. They've been churning out the addictively minimal, droning, garagey psychedelia since 2003, and they're currently in the studio with local producer extraordinaire Phil Manley working on a new album for release this summer. Expect more total awesomeness.