By Noma Faingold

Having direct access to 500-plus Bay Area artists during the 50th annual San Francisco Open Studios (SFOS), Sept. 19-Oct. 13, presented by ArtSpan, may be the ideal (and least elitist) way to visit with creators, discover new work in diverse mediums and buy original art.

“The best way to support artists is to buy their work. Period,” Catherine C. Sherman said. She will be exhibiting her quilts at the Hunt and Gather gallery in the Inner Sunset, during the westside weekend (which includes the Richmond, Sunset, Parkside, Twin Peaks and West Portal neighborhoods), Oct. 12-13.

“It’s thrilling to fall in love with a piece, give yourself permission to buy it and bring it home. I put art in my budget, so there’s pure joy and no guilt,” Sherman said. “Artists are world builders. We are connectors and collectors reaching for meaning in a beautiful and broken world.”

Here are four mini profiles of artists participating in this year’s SFOS:

RICHMOND DISTRICT ARTISTS

Jasper Wilde

Art may have saved the life of Jasper Wilde, 35, who grew up in a repressive Evangelical Christian family. Wilde identifies as trans non-binary and found satisfying creative expression through therapy, learning boundaries and rediscovering what they call their “exuberant” self.

“I was a rebellious child and life in my family never really worked for me,” Wilde said.

The self-taught abstract and landscape artist, who will be showing their work in their Inner Richmond apartment, was home schooled in San Jose and later in Meridian, Idaho.

“California was too liberal for them,” Wilde said.

The voracious reader was given “a very narrow list of things I could read,” Wilde said. “White supremacist and colonialist in nature.”

Earning good test scores, Wilde, whose current day job is as the SFOS Program Assistant at ArtSpan, graduated early, leaving home at 17, to avoid being sent to a Christian college.

Ten years ago, they moved to San Franciso. At the height of the pandemic, Wilde started painting vibrant abstract paintings.

“It was a very dark time. I’m an extrovert. My relationship went away, social interactions went away and I lost my job. The political climate was incredibly bleak,” they said. “I was so depressed. The only thing to distract me was to paint.”

Lately, Wilde has been painting symbolic desertscapes.

“The desert cactus represents my avoidant attachment style. I learned to be self-sufficient. It comes from a place of trauma,” they said. “It’s sad but beautiful. I can survive anything.”

Wilde finds abstract painting most fulfilling. “There are no rules. It’s the opposite of my upbringing,” they said. “It feels like when it’s really hot out and I jump in a cool river. I move and it feels free. Then I eat fresh strawberries and never want it to end.”

Jasper Wilde will be exhibiting at 508 Cabrillo St., #2.

Website: jasperwilde.com/

Instagram: @paintwilde

Facebook: Jasper Wilde

TikTok: @paintwilde

Sabin Filip

Romanian-born contemporary abstract artist Sabin Filip, 48, came to the Bay Area in 2007, a few years after graduating from Art University, Bucharest, with a bachelor’s degree in Art Conservation and Preservation. In spite of having a family and a demanding job as the manager of the Restoration Hardware Outlet in Pleasanton, Filip shows his work quite regularly at local galleries and participates in art events, such as SFOS, where he is part of a group showcase at The Drawing Room on Clement Street.

It’s the third year Filip is exhibiting at SFOS.

“It’s the best way to interact with other artists and exchange ideas,” he said. “I also like connecting with art lovers. They open the conversation if they like a piece. I try to help them understand the symbolism and why I use a certain color, shape or stroke.”

Bold, large-scale oil paintings, inspired by nature, have become a signature. Recent work derives from Filip’s exploration of the Northern California coastline. There are elements of landscape imagery within the abstractions.

When in his garage studio late at night or on his days off, he lets emotions lead him in composition, color choices and the intensity of brush strokes.

“A calmer painting might have a sense of stability, while certain colors can represent movement, like wind and fog. It’s how I see it in the moment,” Filip said.

Influenced by Jackson Pollock, Vincent van Gogh and George Condo, Filip likes to get lost in his studio.

“I put on classical music and work a painting layer by layer, without direction. That’s when my imagination takes control,” he said. “It’s a lot of energy. I sweat. I get in a zone and I love the results.”

Sabin Filip will be exhibiting at The Drawing Room, 210 Clement St.

Website: https://sabinfilip.com/

Instagram: @sabin_filip

SFOS online guide: sfosguide.com/os/4.

Additional SFOS information: artspan.org/sfos.

SUNSET DISTRICT ARTISTS

Catherine C. Sherman

The quilts of Sherman, 56, are much more than craft. A pastor’s wife and stay-at-home mom of four adult sons, who was born in Oklahoma and grew up in the small town of George West, Texas, would seem an unlikely San Francisco activist. She does of a lot of her talking through her art and community outreach. 

“I grew up with a lot of artistic expression,” she said. “My parents wanted me to have a college education but my role models were stay-at-home moms.”

While Sherman’s mother taught her how to sew, she would consider herself a late bloomer as a quilt maker, which she considers a form of storytelling. She started taking it seriously in 2006, after moving to San Francisco and joining the S.F. Quilters Guild. Art was always in her life, however. When she, her husband and children lived to New York for 10 years, she was a member of the Museum of Modern Art, where she made frequent visits.  

At Hunt and Gather, Sherman will exhibit five flag quilts, in a theme titled, “Beyond Red White and Blue,” which she has revisited since the 2016 presidential election. 

“I started tearing fabric to grieve our divided country,” she said. “Those torn strips became stripes and soon I was building an American flag with new colors, patterns and textures. Putting the quilt together allowed me to grieve and transform at the same time.”

The projects and workshops Sherman leads promote peace and collaboration. 

“I like the community events so we can share ideas,” she said. “How do we communicate across culture? It’s about connecting and mending, which is comforting and powerful. I can tear fabric. I can stitch and can do it while I’m laughing or crying. I can do it alone or with people.”

Catherine C. Sherman will be exhibiting at Hunt and Gather, 1108 Irving St.

Website: https://piecemovement.com/

Instagram: @the_official_piecemovement

Facebook: catherine.sherman

Andy Forrest

The watercolorist and retired civil engineer, 77, wants to make sure everybody knows that in his private consulting business he had 2,000 construction projects and was never sued. 

“That’s my claim to fame,” Forrest said.

Originally from Brooklyn, New York, Forrest went from attending the Woodstock music festival in 1969 to hitchhiking across country with his roommate and landing in San Francisco. The mostly self-taught watercolorist started painting in the early 1970s. His apartment at the time overlooked Dolores Park and he noticed “this guy giving workshops,” he said. “All these ladies were out there painting. I wondered what that was about.”

Forrest walked over and discovered prolific, Oakland-born watercolorist George Post (1906-1997) was conducting one of the many workshops that he led around the world. Post, at the center of a watercolor painting movement in California many decades ago, proved to be a big influence on Forrest’s “transparent watercolor” style. He particularly likes to paint plein air, capturing landscapes, cityscapes and graceful San Francisco moments in Golden Gate Park, at the Ferry Building and even seemingly mundane spots, like the bustling 22^nd and Irving Market. “Transparent watercolor has a lightness and a simplified viewing of a scene that gathers the emotion in the composition and exudes a sense of placeness,” he said. “You actually feel like you’re there.”

What stuck with Forrest about the way Post worked was to “get the essence on paper and be quick,” Forrest said, who finishes most of his paintings in an hour to 90 minutes. 

Forrest’s approach to painting seems to work for him. “There are so many rules in painting but I can break every one of them,” he said.

The Forest Hills resident, who has been married for 40 years and has raised three children, all in their 30s, saunters into his Seismic Watercolors storefront studio around noon most days. The space, at the corner of Irving Street and 16^th Avenue, features a couple of dozen framed paintings covering the walls and even more affordable prints to explore. 

He has the luxury of not having to make a living with his art. 

“Some artists get up and they gotta paint. It’s like breathing,” Forrest said. “That’s not me. Life is too complex. I gotta go to Costco or I might need a nap.”

Andy Forrest will be exhibiting at his studio, Seismic Watercolors, 1501 Irving St.

Website: https://seismicwatercolors.com/

Instagram: @seismicwatercolors

Facebook:  Andy Forrest