Pier 24, S.F. Great Photo Exhibition! 09/21/2011
Pier 24 Photo Museum is superb! par excellence for photographers and collectors of fine art photography! Thank you for making this place free, accessible, and caring so much about the photographic medium. Pier 24 gives photography a home for people to visit. Andy Pillara did a huge thing for SF and its international visitors. Brava! This place is huge, you need to make an appointment and take two hours to see it...at least if you can! I brought my photos students there and they really enjoyed themselves and I hope are using this as a inspirational lift to their own photographic endeavors. The photos at Pier 24 are supreme! Ruth Berhard, Richard Misrach, Edward Weston, stand out in my mind's eye. Black n white, beautiful prints, tonal ranges, large format prints and enlarged contact sheets! Pretty cool stuff... Now aesthetically speaking....top shelf all the way...lots of discussions going on with my students....they can learn a lot from this....lighting and form of shooting nudes, the perspective of architectural photography, the photo essays of Berkeley in the 70's (Misrach), traditional photography of the California earthquakes....the devastation of the Oakland Fire Fire in large scale photography....very impressive.....can really "feel" the emotions in some of these photos... Add Comment California Coastal Clean up day, YEAH! 09/19/2011
 Coastal Cleanup at the Sat. Sept.17,2011 I was so glad to see lots of people, big and small turn up this morning to clean Alameda beach. From the girl scouts,Rotary club, Christian churches, and Buddhist monks to every day beachcombers and residents of Alameda, people scoured the beach for debris. This of course made me very happy since this is a huge pet peeve of mine, so I rejoiced in the sight of the "coastal clean up troops". This is the garbage that I found in a very short time: 3 empty plastic crack bags, straws, tee shirt, Mc Donald's cups, Starbucks cups, diaper, and a load of horse dung, no shit, there it was as biodegradable as it is, hay and all, it looked nasty! So I had a picker and removed it. It could have been a police or park ranger's horse and I want to get my ticket book out and cite them for littering. Big horse turds should be worth at least $100.00 for the crap! Ok since the regional park rangers are cool people I will let them get a free gallop this time on the beach.....but next time, pooper scooper please! Along with plastic bags gloves, and pickers the East Bay Regional Park gave out free embroidered patches, little cardboard license plates,granola bars, and beverages. I like that it said"Coastal Cleanup I helped"... I clean this beach on my own....and today, I had the community. It is great to have the kids there so they see the litter on the beach and learn and understand good stewardship of the coast and the land. With Gospel music vibrating through my bones, I joined other artists and festival goers in the East Bay community to paint a mural designed by Jamie Treacy from Pro Arts. Sunny skies and the wind factor made painting the mural a challenge. As music more than filled the air from the Gospel stage at the 11th Annual Art & Soul Festival, I was able to mix a pretty melon color pigment to outline the red circles in the mural. This brings back memories of my first job as a mural photographer for Cityarts workshop on the Lower East Side in New York City. I travelled all around Manhattan, shooting both muralists and finished murals in the mid 1970's. Murals made it big in New York, like Mexico, Italy, Spain, Paris and London. It has always been a good way for an artist(s) to convey a large scale message to the mass public. This mural will be on display at the Fox Theater in Oakland when it gets finished. Guiding small kids and teens to paint in the designated areas on the mural (a never ending challenge of paint and mess control) was fun and of course, very very colorful! A splash of green, a dab of yellow, and lots of purple. I taught a child how to mix crimson blue and sky white to make a soft blue background. She was growing impatient because she hand a big paint brush in hand, eager to make contact with the surface. She kept mixing the paint and sighing, her anticipation reaching a peak. When her now light blue paint brush made contact, I saw the satisfaction in her face. "Im doing good, right", she beamed. We told her "yes, beautiful bold textures,great job"! She filled the oval space with her paint with a sense of prideful accomplishment. As her mother strolled by, she excitedly pointed out her finished painted piece. Her mother smiled back at her and she left to enjoy the rest of the festival. She sang along to a song that the gospel choir sang, she knew all the words because she told me she sang at her church. Keeping the paints wet, the brushes in water, the paint on the wall was of course all part of the process of working together as a creative community, this is what Pro Arts is all about and they do a great service to the arts community in Oakland. They are located right there at 150 Frank Ogawa Plaza, and exhibit art work at their gallery. You can also become a member, volunteer, or particpate in the annual open studios. check it out for more info : www.proartsgallery.org As the hours passed, I can see progress, the cactus leaves I painted took on more form, they looked like avocados to me though, maybe I was getting hungry! Standing in one place grew too so very painful, so I had to stop, sit down and look at the progress of the mural from a distance. It is a good practice to do this anyway, because its hard to gauge when you are painting so detailed and close-up. It felt good that I can join with others to paint on a cool Saturday afternoon. Post Title. 08/22/2011
This is your new blog post. Click here and start typing, or drag in elements from the top bar.   a rose is a rose is a rose Gertrude Stein Ms. Stein was an eccentric, butch- lesbian writer, poet, bohemian, cutting edge French art collector at the turn of the century. Her life is celebrated at the Contemporary Jewish Museum in SF with an extensive collection of photographs, art work, books, clothes, and plays written by Stein. Also part of the collection are some of Gertude's vests and family shots of her and her life time partner, Alice B. Toklas. I laughed out loud at the photo of her and Alice with flowery hats standing in Piazza San Marco in Venice. The piazza is a centuries old tourist attraction that I visited in the 1970's. The funny part of this is that there are so many pigeons and birds in this piazza that I thought a bird may land on Gertie's colorful hat of flowers! I am so glad that these women were having a good time touring around Italy and France. Gertrude was a native San Franciscan and lived in France and had art salons at her house where she befriended some of the greatest painters of her time. Her and her brothers began to collect their art. This very large collection of some of the masters of art is concurrently showing at the SF MOMA . The curators of both museums planned it that way. What a good idea! Ms. Stein was also a "model" of sorts, minus the stereotypical "feminine beauty" of the Victorian era. She was also intent on self promotion, getting herself very well known. She posed for many of the great artists of her day including Picasso, Matisse, and Man Ray. They too enjoyed her as a lively subject for their art. I found her facial expressions while posing for these portrait sittings, strongly masculine often redundantly stoic throughout the pictures exhibited. She liked to think of herself as having the features of a Roman Emperor on a Italian coin with her large nose. She was a short obese woman with shortly cropped hair, a style that women didn't wear in her era! Although she liked to think of herself as cool in her male garb, I found her outfits unflattering and dowdy, not at all the suave dandy she may have felt like sometimes. Who knows really what went inside of this woman's mind. One would think that with all of her famous male artist friends in Paris that she would have utilized their fashion sense better! Oy vey! Besides her interesting portrayal of herself, this woman had CHUTZPAH! She was bold and that is BEAUTIFUL and HANDSOME! There were a few of the portraits of her relaxing with Alice that I felt really captured her "essence". I felt the love between these two great lesbian pioneers! I enjoyed the exhibit very much because it was more than a glimpse of this powerful woman's life and times. Later on she became a very famous lesbian heroine and lesbian herstory wouldn't be the same without Ms. Stein. She was way ahead of her time and had the vision to be open to groups and cultures that were not accepted like Afrfican Americans. She casted an all-black ensemble for one of her plays. That was so brave to do this in her time. So Gertie Stein, you were really the first famous lesbian who lived with a great deal of style and panache....Maybe Sappho came first tho, right? Oddly, there was a episode of blatant discrimination and homophobia that happened at this exhibit a few weeks ago. A security guard told two lesbian women to STOP HOLDING HANDS at the EXHIBIT! This caused a community outrage in a very GAY & TOLERANT San Francisco, the LGBT mecca of the world! The women complained to the Museum Director, the guard got immediately reprimanded and his contract terminated and a letter of apology was sent out by the museum that says it has an inclusive policy of acceptance of ALL people! Of course, the following week, a KISS -IN was staged in protest of this act of discrimination at the museum. Nothing like a little bit of love spread around to dissolve fear and hatred! It seemed ironic that lesbians would be harassed at the Jewish museum that was celebrating the life of a famous Jewish LESBIAN! Go figure! Anyway, kudos to the CJM for promoting their culture and a powerful lesbian and handling the intolerant homophobe guard. The address and website for the Contemproary Jewish Museum is: 736 Mission Street, San Francisco, CA (415) 655-7800 www. thecjm.org sunday aug. 7, 2011 Every serious photographer needs to look at as much art as possible! That is why when I went to art school in NYC early in my career we had to study ART! I did pick up a paint brush too but my skills aren't that great even though I LOVE WATERCOLORS! Blending colors, watching them"melt" into each other is a TRIP! It is also good therapy for any of your woes. So try it, you will like it! Sooo.....I volunteered this week at Frank Bette Art Center in Alameda. This is a gem of a Victorian building that is a hub of activity in this small town. Workshops, classes, and very high quality art and photography for show and for sale adorn the blue and yellow high walls. So check it out! Now the process of preparing a show from start to finish is NOT easy. How to jury work? What pieces go with each other? And how can someone ever pick best of the show and grant awards when there is so many really good pieces of art??? Difficult decisions to say the least! The volunteer staff at FBC have it down to a science and yet the little time I spent helping out was a good peek at seeing how they plan, measure the sizes of pieces on paper and then hang up salon style in rows to fill what seems like every bit of wall space! Geeze, now that is an art! Someone even invented a clever wooden peg hole device to hang the paintings (fishing line wrapped around a pencil!). How ingenious! Hours and hours later, it was hung with the help of a score of volunteers. Now that is not it, there is getting the food for the reception, the postcards, the flowers, and the judge has to spend hours picking his choices of winners (he also chose the work...thanks Seamus Berkeley). Gallery volunteer Genie seems to have a buzz on everything in the gallery, knows her stuff and has the answers or at least knows where to find the answers. Genie is invaluable to this volunteer center for the arts. I came to help out the day of the reception. I arranged the flowers and set out the food which was donated. Good food too, thanks! About the art.... GREAT! It is very good and inspirational to me as a photographer and teacher. I always take my photo students on a field trip to a gallery or to a museum. Believe it or not, some people haven't been to an exhibit ever and it is literally an eye opener and cause for discussion, critique, and inspiration. I tell my students to look, study, flip through magazines and figure out how the photo was taken, its composition and perspective, color, light, and angle. Art is about seeing and observing, interpreting translating, and conveying......just a few things of many things. Good painters know this, most painters make excellent photographers because of their studies and execution of the painting process. Here are a few pictures I shot while I was in the "process" of the art hanging experience. Great job, Frank Bette Art Center and all of those wonderful painters and volunteers! Please do come and join me at my future class at FBC and please stop on by and purchase some art work. See link below! http://www.frankbettecenter.org/ En Plein Air: Alameda and Beyond Aug 5 - Oct 1 Gala Opening: Friday, Aug 5, 7 - 9 pm 1601 Paru (Lincoln) Alameda, CA PLEASE SIGN UP FOR MY CLASS(tba below) http://www.frankbettecenter.org/Ancestral_Roots_Workshop.html S.F. MOMA & YERBA BUENA FOR THE ARTS 08/04/2011
Aug 4, 2011 S.F. Museum of Modern Art Yerba Buena Center for Arts First Tuesday of the Month Free Admission Day The crowds were thick at SF Moma. Lots of Euro tourists, and young 20 something hip kids, and "patrons of the arts". This experience is only for the more versatile museum & gallery hopper since its an visual /auditory experience on several levels... noisy people, rude kids, rich foreigners who probably have our American jobs & dollars, a few annoying haughty employees, artists, and others who want to save a buck ....$18.00 to get into museum.... plus $7.00 for the special exhibit= $25.00 = visual art. Now I suppose we pay a lot more for concerts, so in that way its a real bargain for some often good visual art. Knowing that many artists don't get paid for a lot of their time and art work, its a good deal....but then do these works sell at the museums? Probably not because they are from private and museum collections and not necessarily from the artists themselves. The problem with SF MoMa is that it is a hit or miss situation with the quality of art that fit my taste, so its always questionable whether it's really worth the price when there are many excellent SF Galleries for free: (Scott Nichols, Frankel, Modernbooks and Pier 24 to name just a few). Lucky us, today there was a really good photo show called "MODERNITY " Five photographers and one of my favorites, Richard Misrach! Yeah! Misrach always has a similiar take on life like I do, he photographs different scenes and questions them. This time it was the wreckage that Hurricane Katrina left behind in New Orleans. Misrach shot abandoned houses with messages on them. I like messages written on things...better than a billboard since ordinary people are expressing themselves. I also loved Jim Goldberg's work and Swartz's photos of Afghanistan and the Congo.... I love photojournalism and documentary photography. Especially in far off lands that I want to visit. It always gives me a peek into the people and customs of their land. A one legged man pushing a cart of hats along the street, a shot of ancient ruins, a family in a hut lit like a Irvin Penn studio shot....I loved that! I also loved the sculpture on the roof top of MoMa and of course, the design and light of SF MoMs is spectacular. You can get a mild case of vertigo if you look down on the steel walkway with light and shadow filtering through....and speaking of light, how cool was it to design this wire sculpture in strands and then light it so it takes on some dimension... very cool! Yerba Buena for the Arts is worth a visit just for the design of the building....like a Escher drawing with those staircases. I also like the Three Balloons on the floor! I love those geometric forms. Thanks for the freebie! My "ART CRAVING" was satisfied! July 29, 2011 Native American Indian 10th Annual Gathering of the Lodges Recovery &, Sobriety Oakland, CA Addiction and alcoholism is a huge problem in America especially for the Native American Indian community. This community suffered unnecessary racism, theivery of their land, suppression of their religion, and mass murder and rape of their people and land. Alcohol was introduced to them as the Spaniards, English, French, Dutch, Italian & Portugese explorers claimed Indian land as their own, trading trinkets and measly sums of money for invaluable land and abundant resources. Colonists also brought along diseases that killed many Indian tribes. The list of war atrocities is too long to recount here. RECOVERY from this pain and suffering by quitting drugs and alcohol has been along and hard struggle. Yet, the US government continues to cut much needed social service programs to this culture at a time when it is so necessary for survival and good health. The beauty of these people is amazing in spite of all these many challenges. Participating in this gathering with a focus on recovery was a great experience for me. Having the countdown of sobriety of people who are now clean and sober is inspiring for others who struggle with this. People received gold chips that had a Indian prayer inscribed which I like. This is what is inscribed: "Great Spirit whose voice I har in the wind, whose breath gives life to the world hear me I come to you as one of your many children. I am small and weak I need your strength and wisdom. May I walk in beauty." Simple yet a powerful invocation. Besides crafts booth of Native jewelry, there was also giveaways such as sage & cedar, painted rocks with the Indian flag,beautiful art work on posters by the keynote speaker artist Sam English, free lunch and goodie bags. Various organizations who serve the community such as the Native American Health Center in Fruitvale, Oakland,Richmond, and S.F. were represented and did great job organizing this big and successful yearly event. People came from as far as New Mexico and Sacramento for this gathering.There was also some fun entertainment provided by an Elvis impersonator, Rick Torres, who danced and sang for an appreciative audience. Here is the link for my photos https://picasaweb.google.com/lh/emailAlbum?uname=108393733416926585171&aid=5635974699650023457 A few brave teenagers from Castro Valley High School put together a fantastic LGBT Pride day outside of their high school on Redwood Rd. Frankie started a page on facebook and spread the word just a few weeks ago! They had some help from Oakland Pride and other seasoned organizers of LGBT Pride events. Unlike the massive crowds that throng SF LGBT events, this one was tiny but potent and effective with great visibility on the road. Signs and plenty of rainbow balloons made the atmosphere festive, very gay, and a positve energy and hope surrounded the front of the CV High. Congratulations for such a successful event. I showed up in support of them, LGBT Marriage Rights, and Human Rights in general. Per usual there was some Christian right wingers with their signs and Scripture rambles on the sidewalk outside of the march. Two lesbian ministers talked with them as these hecklers were familiar to the organizers of CV Pride. Not to be outdone, LGBT folks placed their signs in front of theirs.The teens who really wanted to have a march and parade (denied permits due to time constraints) were exuberant with their signs and placards, not be outdone. Here are my photos of the event.  Sunday, July 10, 2011 Many friends of the alameda animal shelter (FAAS) and other animal lovers worked long hard hours to get the shelter an extension in time so they don't close the doors, put animals down, or farm them out to Fremont Animal shelter. We had community meetings, organized, and bombarded City Hall with petitions. We then staged a very successful rally in a short amount of time in June and later showed up at the Alameda City Council Meeting that ran much too long that night. We did hear some compelling pleas from animal lovers on behalf of the voiceless animals. Check out my photos of the S. O. S rally on this site under the page PORTRAITS AT EVENTS . I was at the Alameda Animal Shelter on Sat. July 9th after I came back from a windy afternoon at the dog park with my little pooch Callie. I rescued Callie from the Berkeley Animal Shelter last year around this time through "Maddie's Fund". A free adoption for me and the shelter got $500.00 for me adopting Callie. A good deal for everyone I thought! THANKS MADDIE! I got lucky because Callie turned out to be a smart and affectionate dog, very athletic and very sociable and playful with other dogs. Like other rescues, she needs work with separation anxiety and destructive behavior. But I have no regrets about my choice to create a home for a dog from a shelter. She is a assistance dog, and she has the gentle loving personality for it because she is very affectionate, sweet, and mild mannered when she is not rough housing it at the park! I am so lucky because great animals come my way! So I walked the corridors of the shelter amidst the barking dogs and whining pups making their needs be known! "Get me out of here, adopt me, pet me, walk me, but most of all LOVE ME AND TAKE ME HOME! My heart always aches when I visit the shelters in the area because I wish I could break them all out of there and put them on acres of land so they can have a great life again! So I found the usual array of shelter dogs, pit bulls of every size, color, and age, and the little guardian Chihuanas and a few others. How anyone could put a mature dog up for adoption is beyond me. They have the least likely of chances to be adopted. But I guess maybe because of people losing their homes, jobs, and maybe due to death and illness they can no longer care for their beloved pets. That is so unfortunate! I caused a uproar as I walked past the cages and pet dogs and sweet talked them. I wanted to walk them but I had my own dog in my car and it was too hot to let her sit there. This wasn't that kind of visit anyway. I wanted to drop off extra toys and brushes for them that my dog didn't want. The shelter has a donated toy box for free and pet owners can bring and exchange items. This is a great service. Thank you for that! I saw some people from Friends of the Animal Shelter(FAAS) in the play area doing socilalization with a pup. They need this so they don't become depressed and lose their will to live. Lets face it, it is not easy being in a cage day in day out, so many of them are there for months. I've heard many a sad tale at the dog parks about rescued animals. But it is better to be in a cage then running. Just the other day when I was getting a tire on International Blvd in east oakland, I saw two dogs running frantically down the main street. I was having my tire replaced or otherwise I would have tried to catch them like I've done in the past. But without a pole, net, etc and tons of traffic, it would have been unproductive and dangerous. I could only say a little prayer for these dogs. My heart ached and I had to turn my face. Poor dogs may be running through traffic and won't be fed and probably abused in the streets. One time when I didnt have a car and riding the notorious buses in east oakland, I was walking down a side street to get to San Leandro Blvd. There were heaps of garbage curbside and amidst that I saw a skelton of a charred dog! I looked in horror and couldn't believe my eyes! Who would do such a horrific thing to an animal??? Man, was I full of hatred for humankind at this point! Animals, children, and women suffer the most by cruel people, mostly heartless men who abuse their power on this earth. I've seen men walk with big boat chains around the necks of pitbulls, brandishing the dogs like lethal weapons. Drug dealers scouting around the neighbors trying to find bait dogs for their pitts! My own rescue was a shepherd pitt bull bait dog. She was so confused and scared when I got her. I figured out in time her history on the streets of Oakland. She hated pitbulls and fought back every time they started shit with her. I feel sorry for pitt bulls really. They have been so abused and confused and suffered the consequences from some of their inhumane owners. That's why there is BAD RAP organization. I hope some nice people come and help them out and the other pooches. This is your new blog post. Click here and start typing, or drag in elements from the top bar. | AuthorFRANCESCA ROCCAFORTE ArchivesSeptember 2011 Categories |
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