This week I checked out the Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive. I went specifically to see the Making Their Mark exhibit of contemporary women artists. It was impressive, I loved that much of the art pieces were huge in scale. I feel like that isn’t often the kind of art from women artists you see in museums. There were all kinds of art – painting, sculpture, textile (always my favorite). I often go to art museums and skip reading the museum labels, but I was so intrigued by the materials that the artists used and how the pieces were created that I read most of them and even took pictures of quite a few as inspiration for trying different things in my own art. The shadows cast by some of the pieces were also appealing to me.
On my walk one morning I saw a boy, probably about three, staring in rapt fascination at a worker who was pulling a huge debris bin onto the back of his flatbed truck. At that age Kieran would have flopped down on the driveway to sit and watch. Later, I saw a mom walking with her daughter who was wearing a pink flouncy dress and that reminded me of Annemarie. I didn’t see any kids who reminded me of Emmy when she was little, but I did see a guy walking a Frenchie who looked like a much smaller version of her dog Winston.
Friday was a work and catch up day but I also got out for a hike in the open space above Camino Alto. I don’t think I’ve ever hiked around that area, it was fantastic – great views, pretty quiet, lots of sweet dogs, lovely, cool forest. I can’t wait to go back and explore more.
Saturday was a family day, I went over to Concord to see Emmy and Winston then to Marysville to hang out with Kieran and Kourtney. On my drive there I heard a couple of Simply Red songs (Holding Back the Years, If You Don’t Know Me By Now) and Billy Joel’s Just The Way You Are on the radio. They brought back so many memories – I saw Simply Red in concert in Wellington in the early 90s. That was a big deal then as not many bands came all the way to New Zealand. Just The Way You Are was my wedding song. I still love Billy Joel, he is one of the few artists I would pay big money to see in concert. At Kieran’s I played catch with Bentley, he is so obsessed with balls he drops a few in his food bowl. It does make him slow down a bit when he eats! I got to hear about more of their wedding planning – 6 months to go! Kieran smoked BBQ baby back ribs for dinner, they were so delicious, just falling off the bone. They gave me some to take some home along with cornbread muffins. A great day overall.
I headed back to the Allen Trail on Sunday, this time going with Julie. We tacked on a loop around Phoenix Lake as well. It was great to be able to share the hike with her, I had sent her pictures of Phoenix Lake in the past, but she had never had a chance to hike it. Afterwards, we went to downtown Larkspur and had a delicious meal of smoked eggplant paninis at Farmhouse Local, a welcoming and busy spot. It was such a lovely warm afternoon, so we took a little stroll around town and were drawn into a shop that had a sticker vending machine out in the front. The shop itself was barely the width of the door and the walls were lined with wonderfully whimsical pencil drawings. We marveled over the designs and both ended up getting a few cards and stickers. The artist himself was the one who runs the shop – it’s only open Friday, Saturdays and Sundays. It was so cool to be able to meet him. He gave us each a quarter for his pencil vending machine and there was even an old school hand-crank pencil sharpener to sharpen it with. I love that he is inspiring others to try their hand at drawing. Such a wonderful find.
