Reclaiming My Gallery-Going Mojo

 

 

Yes, the new blog is here!  My guru, Allison, came over yesterday and put the finishing touches on it.  I'm still working on what you find when you click the tabs, but mostly it's done.  Thanks, Allison, for your patience, humor, and resourcefulness dealing with this techno-peasant old bag!

 

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Catalog

I'd lost my mojo for gallery-going.

I used to keep up with shows all over the Bay Area, consulting the Gallery Guide, plotting where to go when, getting to know gallery back rooms and even some of the artists.  I was something of a resource for art-crazed pals.

And then I lost interest.

Maybe it was too many First Thursdays in San Francisco, pushing through the hordes of art students in the stairwells at 49 and 77 Geary, where there were floors of galleries and gallons of cheap white wine.  Or because most of what I saw seemed derivative, silly, and puzzling (Anne Lamott: "A confused reader is a hostile reader;" substitute "viewer").

I reached the point where I'd stand in the doorway of many galleries, glance at the stuff on the walls, and back out.  I said to hell with it. Museums were a better bet.

But Friday, I went to a gallery in Mill Valley, partly because I knew the work of three artists in a group show and partly because, really, I've been spending too much time in the house, checking e-mail, reading blogs, and monitoring a missing plane and whatever Putin's doing in Crimea.  Time to get see more of the world than what I could catch on a computer screen.

So, my friend Rebecca and I drove over to the Seager Gray Gallery to see the show "Women's Work," the day before it closed.

Hey, I liked it!  If I'd had a big stack of cash, I might have bought something.  Here are my faves:



Cowboy #8, Joe, Lisa Kokin, 2013, vintage textiles, thread

 



 

Detail of  Cowboy # 8, Joe
 

Cowboy #7, La Vie en Rose, Lisa Kokin, 2013, vintage textiles, thread

 

 

Detail of Cowboy #7, La Vie en Rose

 

 

Cirrosa 2, Jessica Drenk, books, wax, glue.  (Yes, those are sliced book pages.)

 

 

Detail of Cirrosa 2

 

 

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Tactical Encounter, Devorah Jacoby, 2010



 

Captain Marvel and Harlow, Inez Storer, 2013, oil, mixed media on panel

 

 

Detail of Captain Marvel and Harlow

 

 

 

Doll Face Pillow, Lia Cook, 2013, woven cotton, rayon

 

Here's a painting by Inez Storer that hangs in our dining room:



The Composer, Inez Storer, 1989, mixed media, including Japanese textiles



 

After the gallery, we discovered a nearby fabric store, with vintage patterns, sewing classes, this and that (Sewn, 31 Sunnyside, Mill Valley).  Lunch and then a fabric and yarn store in Oakland, A Verb for Keeping Warm, where there's a patio/garden behind the shop,  where they dye yarn. (And raise rabbits--Rebecca, an ardent knitter, speculated that they spin the wool.)  The shop's just over the Berkeley border at 6323 San Pablo, Oakland.

Interior of A Verb for Keeping Warm, Oakland

Dye Garden at A Verb for Keeping Warm

 

More of the Verb Dye Garden (what you can't see: the rabbit cage and big steel vats)