Engineer's Daughter

notes from the weekend

• My weekend started a little early thanks to my friend Jill Miller and her badass Ariel Stinks project, which was a featured installation Thursday night at Art Market SF. I spun records while attendees brought in Ariel Pink album covers to swap with Jill's own creations, and then there was a very cathartic moment where everyone gathered around and she shredded the originals. Don't steal other people's art, yo.
• The Museum of Craft and Design is one of the Bay Area's real gems, and their new exhibition Fight and Flight: Crafting a Bay Area Life is incredible. Featuring the work of two dozen local artists and their individual stories, the show is less about what defines a Bay Area artist than about highlighting how our vibrant community shaped the practice of these particular artists, even if they had to leave. As a related sidenote: Let's put "Crafts" back into CCA's name please.
• I was also impressed with the strength of the work at the new juried show at Bedford Gallery About Face. Themed around interpretations of contemporary portraiture, I was most interested in the pieces that played with the boundaries of the form or utilized unusual materials. It's always smart to include a few of Warhol's mesmerizing screen tests too.

notes from the weekend

• The Chron didn't like it but I thought Josh Costello's adaptation of Edmond Rostand's Cyrano at Aurora was a wonderful, with particularly affecting performances from local faves William Thomas Hodgson as Cyrano and Leontyne Mbele-Mbong as Roxane. Costume designer Maggie Whitaker outdid herself too, cleverly integrating African fabrics and period frippery into her designs.
• ICA San José is just bursting with awesome exhibitions right now, beautifully curated to lead a visitor from Masako Miki's neon outside the gallery, to Susan Blaustein's sensuous paintings in the room just inside the front doors, to Bridget-Riley-themed work in the main galleries by Sarah Hotchkiss, Lordy Rodriguez, and Susie Taylor, to Rudy Lemcke's installation about the transit of Venus in the projection room, to Rhonda Holberton's melding of the digital and the physical in the back room.
• And while I was in town I ambled on down to the San José Museum of Art because Sadie Barnette has a new exhibition there and I always love to see her glitter-spackled meditations on family and community. I was also excited to see the Kelly Akashi show again, which is so deliciously uncomfortable, and to marvel again at her use of materials.
• I leapt at the opportunity to see NEA Jazz Master saxophonist David Liebman live at the California Jazz Conservatory Saturday night, accompanied by Liberty Ellman on guitar, Jeff Denson on bass, and Gerald Cleaver on drums. He started with Cole Porter and ended with John Coltrane, and Mike Zilber jumped on stage to help out on his own sax for a couple numbers too.
• Two period plays in one weekend! Under Patrick Dooley's direction at Shotgun, Pierre de Marivaux's The Triumph of Love crackles with wit and humor, even if the audience is not quite sure how to feel about the duplicity of the main character at the end. She wins at the game of love, but at what cost to those around her? Very real.
• Last but definitely not least, Mick LaSalle wrote a tribute to my friend Steve Salmons that had me wiping away fresh tears. I've been trying to get my own words together about how much Steve meant to me but I'm not quite there yet, and I really appreciate what Mick was able to capture about what an amazing individual he was.

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in a sentimental mood

One of the more memorable online culture experiences I had during pandemic was the virtual program Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater prepared for Cal Performances, especially because dance often translates really well to film. Still it was wonderful to be back at Zellerbach to see them live last night, with the audience reacting to the emotions the company evokes so beautifully. I had chosen this particular program because it featured mostly new work, including an opening piece by Jamar Roberts that blended vintage Ellington and modern Rafiq Bhatia to devastating effect. A clever contemporary Paul Taylor pas de deux followed, and then a re-staging of Ailey's classic Survivors, dedicated to Nelson and Winnie Mandela and first performed in 1986. Last but definitely not least we had the Bay Area premiere of Kyle Abraham's Are You in Your Feelings?, which was set to The Flamingos, Drake, Shirley Brown, Erykah Badu, and much more, and quoted from queer ballroom, ballet, break-dancing, and much more. It brought the evening to an epic close.

Masking? Still required at Cal Performances, which means about 90% of people were masked. Honestly what goes through an unmasked person's head in that situation?

notes from the weekend

• Friday I had the day off work for Good Friday (?) so swung over to Slide Space 123 on the Mills campus to see Ebti's Time Folding show and unfortunately found the gallery locked up tight but what I peered at through the window looked beautiful. Also just happy that space is still active as it makes a nice juxtaposition to the nearby museum.
• My other stop that day was the Marin County Civic Center to visit the Friendly Tides group exhibition, mostly to see wonderful work by my friend Daniel Melo Morales but also to enjoy what the other local artists had to offer. I spent a not-insignificant amount of time just wandering around the Center with my jaw hanging open too marveling at all the Frank Lloyd Wright details.
• There are many excellent shows at Minnesota Street right now but Saturday I chose to focus on the woman-themed XX exhibition at Anglim/Trimble which featured many treasures including an exquisite Joan Brown drawing, one of Kara Maria's exuberant endangered critter paintings, and much much more.
• Before I left the city I also stopped at Pastine Projects to see Sheila Ghidini's show What is not and that which is featuring her fascinating de/reconstructed sculptures and drawings. I was really taken with how she used thread and shadow for her installations in the intimate space.
• Then it was back to the East Bay to visit the always-amazing Round Weather Gallery for the show The Other Side of Time featuring work from Iranian-American artists. I was also there to watch a performance by Sholeh Asgary (pictured above), and I sat rapt as she called down the spirits during her sound improvisation.

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