Highlights of the start of 2025:
Going to the Heron Arts exhibit Forgotten Places of Being and Things by Hari and Deepti. This amazing exhibit of paper cut scenes in light boxes just blew me away. The layers are incredibly detailed and magical. They were utterly fascinating and I lost myself in all of the details of their beautiful work. If I had a few spare thousand dollars this is the sort of artwork that I would buy. It inspired me to try my hand at paper cutting, though I am not a detail oriented person, but it’s giving me ideas of how I might be able to create some 3D collages.
One evening after work, I met my sister at SFMOMA to see the Amy Sheridan exhibit. I already knew what a talented artist she was, but to get to see so many of her works gathered together and in person instead of just photos was amazing. While the Michelle Obama portrait was a feature of the exhibit, it was actually not one of my favorites, maybe because I’ve seen it so many times before, I’m not sure, but I didn’t find it as compelling as many of the other paintings. I was very drawn to her painting of Breonna Taylor – I had forgotten that she had even done that portrait for the cover of Vanity Fair magazine. I learned about the specific details in the painting and why Amy Sheridan included them. Part of the exhibit included a video of Amy talking about her journey and process for creating art – it was riveting. Usually I can’t sit through these kinds of videos, but this one left me wishing she had made a longer one. She is such a thoughtful, committed, passionate person. The other thing I loved about the exhibit was watching all the people – I wished that I had spent more time just sitting and observing everyone as they walked around. It was a much more diverse group than I have usually seen at art exhibits, which is not surprising, given her subject matter and the fact that she specifically recreates iconic American paintings through a an African-American lens.
Earlier, I spent a little time looking at the sports exhibit, which was interesting, though it was very crowded and noisy. And then I also checked out The Visitors, an exhibit that I had seen, five or six years ago, whenever it was last at MOMA. I loved it even more this time. It’s a room with about a dozen video screens on the walls. The room is dark and the audience sits in the middle of the room. The screens each show a different room in an old house and there are musicians in every room and they play music together. It is just wonderful. It’s sad and joyous and again, like the Amy Sheridan exhibit, I enjoyed just watching the people and seeing the interactions as people turned around where they were sitting or laying to see different screens, depending on what action was happening. I actually got there just as the loop was ending and a person was going around turning off all the cameras and then after a minute, the video started again and all the cameras we’re turned on again. It was the monthly free day at the museum so there was a microcosm of the Bay Area – so many different people, different cultures, and races and ages.
I took a mom to visit her best friend Ann at the care home she’s at now. It amazes me that she seems to have shrunk more every time we see her, but she’s still alert and chatting and it was so good for mom to spend time with her. Mom had been looking through photos earlier in the week, ones that I’d never seen before and found one from a costume party when they lived in the city, they were probably in their late 20s at that point. It was awesome to see that different version of them.
I’ve started a short online collage class which has been fun and doing more writing for my gap year book. I’ve been meditating a couple of times every day, just for 10-15 mins, which has felt really good. It’s been nice to not have to rush around.
I stopped in at a place called the Fairfax Ranch, which a group of artists have created from an old homestead in Fairfax. I saw a beautiful art, cool sculptures, some amazing African baskets that were used as lamp shades, which I would love to do. Unfortunately, those were not for sale and not that many of the things seemed like they were in my price range, at least what I would want to spend. There was a woman who makes her own paint using things from nature, like charcoal and sandstone and sourced locally (Bolinas!). I spoke to a couple of the artisans, one who has a surf art shop that sells art and t-shirts and things related to surfing. He told me about his lost photo collection. At a flea market he found thousands of negatives from Surfer magazine of photos that were never published. He then spent three years going around the country meeting as many of the people as he could from those photos and learning about their lives and created a book out of it. Just amazing. It was really, really cool talking to him. We both reminisced about the old Marin City flea market from decades ago.
I got my new laptop set up and did both paid and volunteer work, played some more Qwirkle with mom. Spent some time cleaning up my files and trying to organize my art materials which had gotten kind of messy lately. Feels good to clean things out. I was happy to find my old ski jacket and it still fits. Yay!
We got the Save the Date card for my son’s wedding in October. It’s becoming more and more real, which is awesome!
As I’m writing this a fire truck went by and all of these dogs start baying. So funny.