News from the Heart & Soul of San Francisco
FILLMORE JAZZ FESTIVAL | July 3 & 4 A decade ago, the artist Ken Auster became enamored of some artistic cowboy boot sculptures. He didn’t buy them, but they stayed on his mind — ones that got away. Then about a year ago, Auster was stunned to see what he thought were the same boot…
Almost overnight, a sleek and simple new art space has arrived at 1906 Fillmore. It is the San Francisco home of glass artist Cassandria Blackmore, who is based in Seattle. The grand opening is still a few weeks away, but her work is already on display. Blackmore creates reverse paintings on glass, then shatters and…
Among the work now under way at the Sherith Israel temple at California and Webster is the restoration of the stained glass windows. In the grand western window, “Moses Presenting the Ten Commandments to the Children of Israel,” Moses is depicted on the granite rocks at the gateway to Yosemite, with Half Dome and El Capitan…
Longtime Fillmore resident and noted artist Bill Shields died Wednesday, April 14, just a week shy of his 85th birthday. Shields and his wife Denise in recent years have owned and operated the Artists Inn at 2231 Pine Street. The inn is housed in his former studio, which faces a sunny patio behind their home.…
F loral designer Kaori Imaizumi is preparing for a museum exhibition this month, as she has every spring since she opened her flower shop in the neighborhood in 2006. She’s participating once again in “Bouquets to Art,” the annual extravaganza in which floral arrangements interpret and comment upon works of art in the DeYoung Museum in…
KQED reports on a new dance theater production about San Francisco’s Fillmore District being created by choreographer Jacinta Vlach and saxophonist Howard Wiley.
A local gallery is presenting “Theophilus Brown: Nudes,” spotlighting one of the pioneers of the Bay Area Figurative Movement, which helped change the course of art history in the 1950s. Brown, now 90, moved to the neighborhood in 2001. He still works daily in his nearby studio and recently joined a new drawing group. “I…
PHOTOGRAPHY | THOMAS REYNOLDS When Gerald Ratto was a student at the California School of Fine Arts in the 1950s, he would hang out in the Fillmore with his camera and a bottle of brandy, which sometimes made it easier to make friends. “I wasn’t documenting anything,” he says. “I was just photographing the people…
In the late 1980s, while driving down Geary Street in San Francisco, designer Tony Duquette discovered an abandoned and vandalized synagogue. He immediately purchased the building. After thoroughly remodeling and updating the structure [located on Geary near Fillmore where the post office now stands], Tony began creating a new exhibition named the Canticle of the…
Noted French artist Daniel Levigoureux made a visit to the neighborhood last month and quickly found his way to Alta Plaza Park, where he was captivated by these Scott Street Victorians.