SF Chinatown on The Bold Italic

The Bold Italic understands and knows my people.
I love the way they have been capturing San Francisco's Chinatown. From Chinatown Sartorialist exploring senior styles to a tour of the Golden Gate Fortune Cookie Factory – these articles bring back so many memories of my youth growing up in the Bay Area and being in San Francisco with my family every weekend.

This was my Ning-Ning's (grandmother on father's side) uniform: some sort of quilted floral patchwork silk jacket or wool cardigan paired with a baseball cap / hat... usually from Snap-On because my uncle is a mechanic. My Paw-Paw (grandmother on mother's side) who is still living at 95 likes to say the more colorful the better because she wants to feel vibrant and happy... and what good is it if I can't see her. ha! I love them so.

I used to visit my Boc-Paw (great grandmother) at a senior's living center and the Lee Family Association in Chinatown. Always hanging clothes drying in an assortment of colors & prints and always a hot pot on an electric stove in her little room with piles of Chinatown papers and calendars. Chinese people love their calendars.... I don't know why.

When I was 4 or 5 years old, we went to visit Golden Gate Fortune Cookies because my Paw Paw recommended my mom take her kids to see how the magic happens. It was along an alley and rinky-dinky. I don't recall much lighting, just natural light radiating from the open doors. The ladies were so nice. They showed us their process: how the cookies came out warm and flat (! -a life-changing revelation for a preschool aged Chinese-American) and how with their swift hand movements around a metal thingie (technical term), they formed the iconic shape. What a rad thing it was to carry off a baggie filled with warm, sweet smelling FLAT fortune cookies.

Thank you. Too many memories to recount.

p.s. Special shout-out to Accidental Chinese Hipster

All images via Bold Italic.

Michelle Blade at CULT

There are so many reasons why I wish I was in San Francisco longer this Spring! Including Michelle Blade's first solo show, 'Gathering Into Being' at CULT | Aimee Friberg Exhibitions in the Mission District, featuring new large and medium scale works on both canvas and paper.

Now let the water represent the world of sensible facts, and let the air above it represent the world of abstract ideas. Both worlds are real, of course, and interact; but they interact only at their boundary, and the locus of everything that lives, and happens to us, so far as full experience goes, is the water. We are like fishes swimming in the sea of sense, bounded above by the superior element, but unable to breathe it pure or penetrate it. We get our oxygen from it, however, we touch it incessantly, now in this part, now in that, and every time we touch it, we turn back into the water with our course re-determined and re-energized. -William James

So ethereal and other-worldly! I would absolutely love to see this in person. 

Random additional info: the gallery is in the space of the now-closed Queen's Nails Gallery which was co-run by Bob Linder & Julio César Morales.



Gathering Into Being by Michelle Blade
on view through June 7th, 2014
CULT | Aimee Friberg Exhibitions | 3191 Mission Street, San Francisco, CA 94110

all images via Michelle Blade & Cult Exhibitions

Cry Me A Rainbow : April Rose, Rainbow Kimono

Cry Me A Rainbow is a collection of purging prisms by artist April Rose opening tomorrow at Bell Jar in San Francisco. This compilation of work is "a full expression of joy through ceramics and fiber made up of April's blood sweat and rainbow tears. Each unique piece is an outpouring of happiness."

April's work is magical on a high vibrational level with so much kinetic energy radiating from each piece. I particularly love the images she captures of her process and progress for this exhibit which will feature her newest textile, ceramic & collage wearables and wall hangings. This show represents a culmination of April's influences – where pop art, folk art and the surreal intersect.

And I can't get enough of this video!

April Rose is an illustrator, textile, ceramic and collage artist who likes to create and discover tiny galaxies. She is based out of Oakland, CA.

BellJar is a clothing, jewelry and apothecary boutique in the Mission District, SF that has been hosting and supporting local artists for over 7 years. There will be live music and cocktails at the reception.

So excited for this show, I wish I could be there. It looks amazing. Congratulations April!


Cry Me A Rainbow by April Rose
opening reception Friday, May 2nd 6 - 9pm
on exhibit through early June
Bell Jar  |  3187 - 16th Street, San Francisco, CA 94103


all images courtesy of April Rose

Studio Visit: Jen Garrido / Jenny Pennywood

Last month while in San Francisco, I visited Jen Garrido's studio. Jen is an amazing and talented painter who works in oil, acrylic, watercolor and gouache on wood panels and paper. Her color, process and results are stunning. Under the moniker, Jenny Pennywood, she creates napkins, tea towels and textiles which can be found at www.shopjennypennywood.bigcartel.com and select shops throughout the U.S.

Jen has custom work at Anthropologie and as Jenny Pennywood creates custom designs for events and weddings – including stationery, paper goods and textiles for the occasion. Having both Jen Garrido and Jenny Pennywood as outlets, she's able to balance both by having it all in the same studio – enabling her to paint and work digitally seamlessly. She also juggles life as an artist, designer, wife and mother (!) to Jemma who is 3. 

Currently inspired by the color blue, Jen also admires the work of fellow painters Amy Sillman, Philip Guston, Vera Neumann and more recently Keltie Ferris.

Up and coming are many exciting projects: a collaboration in the works, a new pattern for her textile collection and a new body of paintings. Can't wait!

Thank you so much Jen for opening your studio up! To quote her, it's a total "color bomb!" I loved just soaking it all in and had fun photographing the brightly lit studio filled with endless inspiration: textiles, paints, paints, even more paints, Jenny Pennywood designs, books and bins of goodies. We followed it up with a relaxing lunch at Serpentine. Just another reason to love San Francisco and all the rad people in the Bay Area.

Cosmos and Connectivity

These are articles and links that resonated with me following a late night post Daylight Savings. All these relate to each other in that they all in some way reflect our need as human beings to be connected ... to ourselves, to each other, to the earth, to the universe.

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This article by Andrew Solomon on the New Yorker  – about Adam Lanza's father reckoning with his son's actions and what led up to the Sandy Hook tragedy.

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via Upworthy: Neil deGrasse Tyson's answer to what is the most astounding fact about the universe.

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This video: First Kiss by Tatia Pilevia for WREN
later notation: As this video went viral, many felt duped that it was a piece showcasing Wren's collection and that the people were actors and models. However, the first visual is "Wren presents" - although obviously most folks aren't aware that it's a clothing line. Also, one of them is referred to as having experience with this as an actor and I feel that it's obvious that this is staged... It still doesn't take away the initial impact it had on the public. Beautiful people swooning over intimate human contact.

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This weekend's Sweet Paul Makerie in New York via Design Sponge with such creative folks as Paul Lowe of Sweet Paul magazine, Lotta Jansdotter, Erin Considine and Tamar Mogendorff.

I love this video by Creative Bug with Ali deJohn, creator of Makerie and her explanation of the intent behind Makerie and the Chautauqua Movement.

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This podcast on KQED's Forum about the high cost of living in San Francisco and how the local artists and galleries are being affected. Having had grown up and lived in the area for over half my life it's something dear to me that art stays vibrant there. 

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Lena earthing

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Lastly, these photographs via Fast Co. showing the latest work of Kim Keever, a NASA engineer turned artist.