A designer finds her niche

Posted on January 30, 2016 by editors
Photograph of Isabelle McGee at Regard Interiors by Daniel Bahmani

Isabelle McGee, owner of Regard Interiors: “I work to simplify lives and add a little zest.”

SHE’D WORKED FOR THE RITZ in Paris and other international corporations, mostly designing hotels, but French designer Isabelle McGee wanted something different — something more intimate — when she set out to establish her interior design atelier in San Francisco.

One day she was walking on Sutter Street, just a block from Fillmore, when she struck up a conversation with Joan O’Connor, longtime proprietor of Timeless Treasures at 2176 Sutter and a notorious neighborhood networker.

“I need a space like this,” McGee told her. So O’Connor promptly called upstairs and introduced her to the landlord of a nearby vacant storefront.

She had found her home. In late 2013 McGee opened her consultancy and showroom called Regard at 2182 Sutter.

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An icon gets more authentic

Posted on January 30, 2016 by editors
Photograph of the Haas-Lilienthal House by Jim Simmons Photography

Photograph of the Haas-Lilienthal House by Jim Simmons Photography

THE HAAS-LILIENTHAL HOUSE at 2005 Franklin Street has a new paint job that returns the historic Victorian to its original, more subdued color palette.

To restore the historic integrity of the house, which now serves as its headquarters, San Francisco Heritage commissioned architectural conservator Molly Lambert to conduct a paint study to determine the original colors, patterns and sheens of the house. Lambert took 40 paint samples for microscopic testing, which can differentiate layers of primer, glaze, dirt and paint to identify the original colors.

“We don’t choose colors,” said Lambert. “They are there for us to discover.”

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A grand tour of St. Dominic’s

Posted on August 14, 2015 by editors
Photograph of St. Dominic's Church by Alex Mizuno

Photograph of St. Dominic’s Church by Alex Mizuno

THE DOCENT PROGRAM at St. Dominic’s Church at Steiner and Bush is sponsoring “The Grand Tour: An Overview of Church Art & Architecture” on Saturday, August 22, from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. Docents will lead visitors on a tour of treasures in wood, stone and stained glass inside and outside the church. The event — a “drop in and stay for as little or as much as you like” tour — is free and open to the public. For more information, call 415-517-5572, or email ourlabs@mac.com.

VIDEO: “Restoring St. Dominic’s”

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The bail bondsman is an artist

Posted on July 24, 2015 by editors

 

ART & FILM | PAMELA FEINSILBER

Toward the end of Plastic Man: The Artful Life of Jerry Ross Barrish, we see Barrish, San Francisco’s most famous bail bondsman, at his 50th high school reunion. He is shocked to find most of his Lincoln High classmates retired — “playing golf or something” — while he is still in mid-career.

Even Angels Get the Blues | Jerry Ross Barrish

That’s a phrase you hear more often in an art museum, when an artist is given a “mid-career retrospective” of his work. And, in fact, Barrish is an artist himself. Now in his 70s, he has shut down his bail bond office across from the Hall of Justice. But he is only a little past mid-career in creating his detritus-based sculpture — what the Fresno Art Museum called “Art Drecko” in its exhibition of his found-art assemblages in 2008-2009.

Barrish creates figures of people and animals from castoff plastic and other junk he scavenges, and all of a sudden it seems he’s the man of the moment.

Two dozen of his plastic sculptures are on view in a new exhibition, Sculptures from the Plastic Man, at Studio Gallery on Pacific. And William Farley’s 75-minute Plastic Man documentary is part of this year’s San Francisco Jewish Film Festival, with screenings in San Francisco, Palo Alto and Berkeley.

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Out of Africa

Posted on June 3, 2015 by editors
Solange Mallett owns African Plural Art at 1305 Fillmore.

Solange Mallett owns African Plural Art at 1305 Fillmore.

ART | JUDY GODDESS

Solange Mallett, the owner of African Plural Art, is passionate — about African art; her newly opened gallery at 1305 Fillmore; the neighborhood; the visitors who come to look, learn and sometimes purchase; and the tribes supported by the purchases.

“You have to be passionate about what you’re doing and passionate about sharing it with other people,” she says. “This is what I want to do. I’m from French Africa and I want to share with people here.”

Mallett was born in the Ivory Coast and grew up in Paris. Her husband’s work for the World Bank necessitated frequent moves: to Madagascar, Chad, Tanzania. In Paris, where they lived before moving to the Bay Area, Mallett ran an online African art business.

“That business taught me that I wanted a shop where people could come in and I could share what I’m learning with them,” she says.

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Focusing on ballerina moms

Posted on May 1, 2015 by editors

BalancingActs_cover

PHOTOGRAPHY | LUCY GRAY

When I was 10, my parents divorced — and I watched with fear and admiration as my mother got her first job so she could support five children. That made me sensitive to the subject of working mothers. It wasn’t surprising that later, as a photographer with children, I would try and get at that subject. I asked friends who were working mothers to pose for me.

One was an executive who pumped milk in her car as she drove to work each morning. But I couldn’t get the dare in what she did in my pictures. You couldn’t see the baby crying at home, or her anxiety about expressing enough milk, or her cool in doing it right before a meeting with business executives.

I knew almost nothing about ballet or dancers but when I met Katita Waldo, a prima ballerina at the San Francisco Ballet, holding her 3-day-old son James at CalMart, I wanted to photograph her. Her work was visual and, when she brought her son to the studio or the stage, what I would capture would inherently show the two worlds.

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Small work, modest prices

Posted on December 31, 2014 by editors
Studio Gallery’s “Tiny” show includes more than 300 works, most no larger than 7x7 inches.

Studio Gallery’s “Tiny” show includes more than 300 works, most no larger than 7×7 inches.

ART | JEROME TARSHIS

It begins like many a story of San Francisco’s superheated real estate market: A small business, serving its neighborhood for years, is pushed out in favor of a clothing shop that could afford the higher rent.

Studio Gallery — sporting the slogan “local color by local artists” and originally housed on Polk Street — reflected the real lives of the couple who created it.

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Images that tell a story

Posted on September 4, 2014 by editors

David Johnson and his iconic 1946 photograph in the 1300 on Fillmore lounge.
Photograph by Rory Earnshaw

A CONVERSATION with photographer David Johnson and his old friend and new wife, author Jacqueline Sue, as a new exhibition of his photographs of the Fillmore during the “Harlem of the West” era opens.

Jackie: In November we will have known each other for 58 years. Just a few weeks ago we celebrated your 88th birthday and our fifth wedding anniversary. Do you remember how we met?

David: Well, my wife Lucy and I and our two children were attending the Westside Christian Church at Bush and Divisadero. The mostly white congregation was interested in bringing more African-Americans to their church. A black pharmacist named Wayman Fuller who was a member invited my family, and we met you there.

Jackie: New in town, age 21, no friends, I was there because it was my family denomination in Kentucky and that was the only Christian Church in San Francisco.

David: You and Lucy bonded quickly and became friends because you were both among the first African-American long distance operators in the 1950s.

Jackie: When your son Michael was born in 1957 and I became his godmother, you were already an established photographer, but I didn’t realize it.

David: Yes, by then, I had photographed many of the historical photographs that are now being exhibited. My studio was on Divisadero Street not far from our church.

DAVID JOHNSON RETROSPECTIVE
David Johnson’s photographs are on view at the Harvey Milk Photo Center at 50 Scott Street from September 6 to October 19.

You see, as a youth growing up in Jacksonville, Florida, I found that I was curious about the neighborhood and environment where I lived. We were poor and living on the edge. However, my foster mother provided a good place for me to grow up.

After my discharge from the Navy following World War II, I decided to come to San Francisco and study photography with Ansel Adams at the California School of Fine Arts (now the San Francisco Art Institute). While Ansel and other students photographed Yosemite and nature, it was a natural fit for me to photograph people and the Fillmore community I lived in.

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The art of the Arctic

Posted on September 3, 2014 by editors
Soapstone sculpture by the renowned Inuit artist Jonas Faber is featured at Images of the North.

Soapstone sculpture by Inuit artist Jonas Faber is featured at Images of the North.

By Judy Goddess

IMAGES OF THE NORTH gallery at 2036 Union Street may be small in size, but its collection is rich in artistry and giant in vision.

“Inuit art is magical,” says owner Lesley Leonhardt of the art she presents capturing the Arctic landscape and culture. Her Union Street gallery houses one of the country’s most extensive collections of Inuit art by established and emerging artists from all over the Arctic. Sculpture fills the floor; smaller pieces are stored in narrow cabinets along the walls; jewelry and prints are hung on the walls and displayed in cabinets and racks in the back of the gallery.

From September 13 to October 9, the gallery will showcase soapstone sculpture by Jonas Faber, its third exhibition of the internationally heralded artist known for his bold, personal style and his creative treatment of Inuit cultural themes and myths.

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At the top of his game

Posted on July 2, 2014 by editors

FJF14

POSTER ARTIST | MICHAEL SCHWAB

You’ve seen them all across San Francisco in recent weeks — striking posters featuring a wavy-haired female vocalist silhouetted against a fiery orange background. The image for this year’s Fillmore Jazz Festival poster and street banners was created by Marin artist Michael Schwab, one of the country’s leading graphic artists. His dynamic posters and logos for the Golden Gate National Parks, Major League Baseball, America’s Cup, Amtrak, Robert Mondavi, Peet’s Coffee, the San Francisco Opera and Nike, among many others, are icons of our time. Schwab talked about creating his third Fillmore jazz poster with ARThound editor Geneva Anderson.

What makes a really effective poster? And why are so many posters today so bad?

Simplicity. There’s way too much visual noise out there. Graphic messages are conveyed much more effectively when the design is simple, bold and efficient.

You’ve had a long involvement with the Fillmore Jazz Festival. What is it about jazz that lends itself to visual expression?

I love all kinds of music, but jazz in particular inspires me. I love this project because I’ve had complete freedom to do whatever I want. The bass player I created eight years ago was my first Fillmore jazz poster and I envisioned him as a Ray Brown-like bass player. If you’re driving down the street, you’ve only got a second or two to get the message, so I wanted to evoke the romance and history of jazz in the Fillmore. Four years later they called me again. At the time I was really into Miles Davis and was playing Ascenseur pour l’échafaud, his soundtrack for the Louis Malle film, a lot. I made a Miles Davis-esque horn player. I wanted a really cool color so I went with a deep blue that evokes that late evening jazz atmosphere that’s so special on Fillmore. Now, four years later, I realize I’ve been slowly creating my own jazz band. It was time for a singer — and a woman.

(more…)

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