Ben Frombgen, the owner of Birdhouse Gallery at 31st Avenue and Judah Street, is the kind of yes-man who inspires emergent magic and collaborative creation rather than maintaining the status quo.
France’s Claude Monet (1840-1926), the founder of Impressionism and the movement’s most prolific painter, reluctantly visited Venice, Italy, in October of 1908. At the time, he had grown disenchanted with the way his “Water Lilies” paintings were progressing. His dealer, Paul Durand-Ruel, rejected the work, leading Monet to cancel the show at the Paris gallery and to destroy many of the paintings in the series.
On weekday afternoons in the Outer Sunset District, the rooms in Sunset Media Wave feel unusually calm. Students drift in and out, clicking away at monitors flashing with film or reviewing large paintings for modifications. Smiles are exchanged and creative conversations flow easily. The environment is intentional.
More than 100 of Northern California’s top floral designers are donating their talents, time and materials to the 42nd annual Bouquets to Art (BTA) exhibition at the de Young and the Legion of Honor museums. Approximately 50,000 people will visit the museums to tour the enhanced galleries during the exhibition fundraiser from March 3 to 8.
Dark clouds looming over the City threatened to dampen the spirits of eager participants and spectators hoping to gather at Ocean Beach to create sand art on New Year’s Day.
Mark Simmons stands on a lawn at Mountain Lake Park, pen in hand, eyes fixed on a towering eucalyptus tree. Within minutes, the 55-year-old artist has captured not just the tree’s shape but its character – the way its crown spreads to claim sunlight, the texture of its bark, the shadows it casts. This is how Simmons, a Richmond District resident of 25 years, sees the world.
Larry Letofsky has been making pottery in his Outer Sunset garage for 30 years. At first, his house, where he has lived since 1974, appears to be like any other. A closer look, however, reveals an artist’s sanctuary, accompanied by a mural painted on the front porch of a pair of hands shaping a piece of clay.
Westside artist Marc Hayashi has been a storyteller all his life. He was a founding member of the Asian American Theater Company, a pioneering local theater performance company. He went on to star in the cult classic film “Chan is Missing” (1982) set in San Francisco’s Chinatown, and he had roles in various other Hollywood films including “The Karate Kid Part II” (1986).
Manga has a rich past, an impactful present and a transformative future. The Fine Arts Museums of San Franciso recognize the current zeitgeist by presenting the “Art of Manga,” the largest manga exhibition ever staged in North America.
Manga has a rich past, a phenomenal present and perhaps, a transformative future. The Fine Arts Museums of San Franciso recognize the current zeitgeist by presenting the “Art of Manga,” the largest manga exhibition ever staged in North America.
Artist Rose B. Simpson is more than a little preoccupied with vessels. She views pottery, cars, her figurative sculptures, the womb and clay – a material she most often uses in her creations – as vessels.
“I think in clay. Clay was the earth that grew our food, was the house we lived in, was the pottery we ate out of and prayed with,” Simpson told a de Young Museum audience at a very personal lecture she delivered earlier this year. “My relationship to clay is ancestral and it has a deep genetic memory. It’s like a family member for us.”
As a child growing up in the Richmond District, Walden Wong spent his days biking around the neighborhood and meeting kids at the Cabrillo Playground on 38th Avenue for baseball and football games.
If you spend time around Golden Gate Park’s Conservatory of Flowers on sunny weekends, there is a good chance you might have met Sunset resident Sage Kitamorn. If his name does not ring a bell, you might identify him as the man in a crocheted bear hat handing out his puzzle sheets and “Cozy Cubs Puzzle Club” branded pens.
Poet and visual artist Andrew Hoyem is no stranger to artistic communities in San Francisco.
Richmond Review/Sunset Beacon 