Engineer's Daughter

out of site

Through August 14 - Brett Goodroad at Cushion Works

It was pure delight to visit the gallery that Jordan Stein oversees at Cushion Works for the first time yesterday, and yes it is directly above the city's best cushion company, and yes I really have to get my couch cushions restuffed after a year+ of pandemic. I first saw Brett Goodroad's work when he was the Tournesol recipient at Headlands and was happy to see his paintings are as dreamy as they ever were, loosely abstract with suggestions of figuration and landscape that shift with the viewer's proximity. Some of his canvases are quite large now too, and one of my favorite pieces was a deconstructed still life that took up almost an entire wall. Goodroad utilizes impressive technique, building up the paint here and allowing the canvas show through there, and though his work is reminiscent of Romantic era paintings it is at the same time completely contemporary. And spending some time with a gallery full of his work almost feels like a meditation.

Other things I liked this week:

• The Hearing Trumpet by Leonora Carrington. While I was familiar with excerpts from this marvelously surreal novel thanks to the interpretations Anne Walsh and Moira Roth (RIP) performed several years back, I'd never sat down and read the whole thing and I am so glad I did and in fact I am now planning to reread it at least once a decade as I continue to age into my own eccentric womanhood.
• Freak Orlando by Ulrike Ottinger. An assault on the senses in the best possible way, Ottinger's take on the Virginia Woolf classic has almost no correlation to the later Sally Potter version but instead you get Magdalena Montezuma and Delphine Seyrig cavorting through a succession of bizarre scenarios both historical and mythological. My jaw was hanging open the entire length of the film and I loved it.
• I spent a lovely Independence Day roaming the newly reopened galleries and the newly relandscaped gardens of the Oakland Museum, and almost the most exciting part was my "NorCal NOLA" picnic box from Tanya Holland's new museum café Town Fare.
• Lake Merritt's Rotary Nature Center has been doing wonderful virtual "lakeside chats" throughout the pandemic about the lake's flora and fauna, viewable on their website here.
• Outdoor walking plays are one of my favorite things right now while I work up to being ready to sit in a theater regularly again, and Eye Zen's Out of Site: Haight-Ashbury is particularly special. Actor Tina D'Elia fully embodies two SF icons, entrepreneur Peggy Caserta and Hibiscus of the Cockettes, in and around their old haunts in the Haight, and the show/tour includes a heap of other queer history besides.

flashes of lightning

tour de san francisco

Whenever I do one of my long weekends in another city I always come back to the Bay Area with a renewed energy for all the amazing art and culture going on right here in my own backyard, and the way I'm feeling post-Chicago is no exception.  This weekend I took advantage of the gorgeous weather and hoofed it from one end of the city to the other, taking in street fairs and art installations alike.  Because I'm feeling lazy (and a little woozy from all that sunshine) here on a Sunday night I'm distilling the highlights down to bullet points instead of doing full write-ups for each one.  You will quickly notice that food and drink constitute a strong theme:

• Summerland in Mint Plaza - A grilled shrimp skewer over an artichoke heart and frisee salad from Chez Papa Resto, then a red velvet and an horchata cupcake from Mission Minis.
• Tour de Fat in Golden Gate Park - One New Belgium Hoptober golden ale.  To benefit the SF Bike Coalition and the Bay Area Ridge Trail, naturally.
• Expo for Independent Arts in Golden Gate Park - A chatty stop by the KALX table, and a free scoop of chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream from Ben & Jerry's thanks to a random benefactor.
• Altered Barbie at Shotwell 50 Studios - Always a fun show, but Alis Cumming's creepy-cool voyeuristic photos of dolls in compromising positions (one of which is pictured above) genuinely knocked my socks off.
• Folsom Street Fair - Plantains with beans and cheese on corn cakes from Pica Pica.  Strawberry salad from the Spencer on the Go truck.  Oh yeah and the kink.com booth.

to form a more perfect union

I'm DJing tomorrow:
9am - noon PST, Sunday, June 28
KALX Berkeley 90.7fm

And since that means I'll be missing the parade tomorrow I headed out to the Civic Center earlier this afternoon to get a little bit of Pride on.  For me SF street festivals are really just an excuse to eat, so I grabbed some delicious corn cakes topped with plantains, black beans, and cheese from Pica Pica and wandered around taking in the politicized vibe this year.  Anti-8 clipboarders were literally everywhere, as well as those unfortunate American Apparel "Legalize Gay" t-shirts.  There were plenty of smiles and good cheer as well, however, no doubt in large part because of the glorious sunshine, and I collapsed on the grass in it myself for a while equipped with a frozen strawberry margarita.  As more states across the country move to grant same-sex couples marriage rights, I have to have faith that by this time next year we'll be able to call ourselves "Equalifornia" once again, and for good.

draw

Last night after the Cherry Blossom Festival I walked from Japantown down to the Shooting Gallery to check out the opening of their massive Draw group show.  Without even borrowing space from White Walls next door the gallery is hung floor-to-ceiling with over 350 works of art in every imaginable style, most of them created with nothing more than pen or pencil.  None who know this blog will be surprised to hear that the standout piece for me was Barry McGee's heart-stopping rendering of Hemingway, which was wisely screwed directly to the wall right next to the gallery attendant's desk.  But I also adored a deceptively simple piece by Yuri Masnyj called Day and Night that used the repetition of a single shape as well as negative space to create abstract patterns in gradations of non-color that ran from gray to black.  Amy Franceschini contributed two lovely drawings that referred to her commitment to radical gardening and alternate energy, and Tae Lee's portrait of a selkie also caught my eye.  I really did take my time looking but with that much input my overloaded brain literally blew a fuse.  Like I completely missed the submission by Richard Serra, much to my chagrin.

And then this afternoon I made my way out to the Potrero for one of my favorite San Francisco Easter traditions: the Bring Your Own Big Wheel race.  Last time I attended two years ago the event was still being held on Lombard, but resident complaints have driven the intrepid participants to the twisty stretch of Vermont at 20th Street, which I think actually has more intense switchbacks than Lombard anyway.  I only stand on the sidelines, but it's impossible not to get caught up in the spirit as dozens of costumed riders at a time go careening down the street and a roar goes up from the crowd every time someone spectacularly wipes out into a wall.  Even though I do value my unabraded skin I think next year might be the year I finally bring some plastic wheels of my own.  I promise I'll wear a helmet, Mom and Dad.