Art! Mary Finlayson, Wayne Thiebaud, Arion Press

the start-of-the-month post

I saw art at a gallery, a museum, and a fine press this month. Running around, having tiny adventures in this town, and looking at stuff with my eyeballs is one of the great joys of my life. Thank you for letting me share it with you.

Mary Finlayson

This Must Be the Place, Mary Finlayson’s show of paintings and mosaics at Eleanor Harwood Gallery at Minnesota Street project is a delight. It features gorgeous colors, books, and, flowers so of course it’s up my alley — even more so when you read that the works are “explorations and musings on the objects and ephemera that shape our homes and places.” I mean, just, come on! Not to mention, one of the pieces actually includes a book I myself edited (Everything She Touched: The Life of Ruth Asawa) which is the sort of thing that makes me feel so honored I hardly know what to do with myself. The show is up until April 18 so you sill have some time to get in there if you’re around here.

Wayne Thiebaud

The Wayne Thiebaud show up all this Spring and Summer (until August 17th) at the Legion of Honor is really lovely. It has a rather elaborate conceit having to do with Thiebaud’s relationship with art—the first room features works from his own art collection, many of them very cool, hung gallery style, along with early works in which he copied old master and other works of art in the traditional student manner. Then, wall text and little thumbnail images throughout the show point out technical and composition parallels between his works and works from other artists. Now, none of this is being imposed on him. As quotations on the walls make clear he himself spoke or wrote frequently about his influences and his belief that “art comes from art” (which is the title of the show). However, all of it did strike me as just the tiniest bit superfluous. Like when you cook up an excuse to have a party, when all you really want to do is gather together a lot of people you really like. The thing being gathered together in this case being his paintings. It’s great excuse to bring together a bunch of his work, surprisingly little of it cakes. I think there are 4 dessert pictures in the whole very large show. Though there is a lot of other food, most of which I’d never seen before and nearly all of which I loved. Also lots of portraits. And many other things, but it was mostly portraits, food, and some objects that drew my attention. Theibaud is an artist where I know the pictures I love and gravitate to (and the ones I don’t) immediately. Here are my favorites:

Arion Press

My friend Caitlin recently started a new job at the Arion Press, where, among other duties she’s going to be handling their public tours. So I had the good fortune of getting to be a guinea pig for her to practice her tour spiel on while she’s learning it. Arion’s deal is that they brings in artists to illustrate fine-press editions of classic literature. It’s the only place in the US where there’s a type foundry, letterpress, and book bindery all under one roof. And they also house a historic type collection. So, needless to say, it was a great and interesting tour. And just one small but very pleasing element of it was the art we got to see in the shop / gallery / front room of the press which is open to the public. The press recently moved to Fort Mason from their previous location in the Presidio and their new space — both public-facing and behind-the-scenes is gorgeous in that light-filled, white-washed-industrial, sun-on-water Fort Mason-y way. But I digress. Here is the art (plus a couple other photos). It was really nice:

Clare Rojas

Patti Smith

Kara Walker

Books on display (don’t know who the art up top is by, wish I did, it’s cool)

Historical type cases (again, don’t know about the art, alas)

xo

b