A Soul-Rejuvenating Art Weekend in the Big City (With Bonus Food and Shopping!)

Got back a few hours ago from spending a truly stimulating, inspiring and just plain fun "art weekend" in the city with my mom. We try to do this at least once a year…we've been to Los Angeles, Seattle/Tacoma, Santa Fe, Carmel and San Francisco. We get to visit museums and galleries, eat fabulous food, do a little shopping, and best of all, talk talk talk about art, people, life, and ourselves. This particular weekend went something like this (unfortunately I'm way too tired to give full reviews, so links and a few descriptive adjectives and superlatives will have to suffice--if you're really curious you can view some pictures here).

As we burst out of the rainbow tunnel on our way into the city yesterday, the view was so breathtaking (dramatic clouds and bright sun lighting up the Golden Gate Bridge and the whole bay) that we decided to stop off at the Marin Headlands for a longer look (and a few pictures).

Then, after getting our fill of landscape art, we headed to Sutter Street and to the Museum of Craft + Design, where we saw a truly outstanding one-woman show by Joyce Scott, including many of her signature beaded sculptures. She is truly someone who has done fresh and amazing "fine art" things with a "crafty" medium (yes, these terms are problematic but I'm not about to get into an art vs. craft debate here), and I really admire her. Her subject matter is really interesting too--a lot of pieces that comment in one way or another on race and gender stereotypes. I'm so glad we stumbled upon that show and I *strongly* encourage anyone and everyone to go check it out while it's here.

After spending some quality time there, we went to Hang Art gallery right next door where there were quite a few fabulous things to see, including some really cool resin and canvas paintings by Philippe Gestin (someday, if I ever get some decent photographs of my paintings and get off my lazy artist butt, I'm going to submit them to Hang--I LOVE that gallery). We also went to Katie Koos, which was sort of a cross between a gallery and my mom's store, and did some quick opportunistic shoe and jewelry shopping. After all that fun on Sutter Street we headed to our "special treat" hotel: the W San Francisco. We dumped our luggage and spent some time resting our feet and oohing and ahhing over the spectacular view from our 18th floor room, and then headed out to a fabulous foodie dinner at Hawthorne Lane, just a block away from our hotel. We stumbled back to the hotel, stuffed and happy, some time around 11pm, and spent another hour hanging out, listening to music, talking and reading, and then finally called it a night.

This morning after a leisurely hour or so hanging out in the window seat overlooking our view and talking, we went and had a late and decadent breakfast at the hotel's XYZ restaurant, then went next door to SF MOMA and saw the Anselm Kiefer exhibit. I was really wowed by this exhibit as well--the sheer size and texture of most of his paintings were just incredible. I could have stared at them for hours. Then we reclaimed our car and luggage and drove over to the new De Young Museum, where we had lunch, dallied in the sculpture garden, went up to the top of the tower to drink in the mind-bogglingly gorgeous 360 degree view, and saw the "Quilts of Gee's Bend" exhibit. The quilts were just outstanding--again, I can't even begin to do them justice with a review here, but I will say that I was not only impressed by their actual beauty but by the spirit and the creativity of the women who made them. Again, I strongly recommend checking them out--it's like nothing else you'll ever see.

Then it was home again, home again, jiggedy jig, full of good art, good food, good conversation and a burning desire to get moving on a collaborative art project (which will, unfortunately, have to wait until after the holidays. But at least we're inspired!). I just wish there was more time in my life for all the art I want to make, let alone look at…but you take what you can get and (to paraphrase Gandalf) you do what you can with the time that's been given you.