Shine On: May 2011

myTod had an event to attend at the Academy of Art in San Francisco on Wednesday so I tagged along and we made an overnighter out of it. Such sunshine in my soul. Note: all pics taken and edited on my phone. Don't expect photographical greatness.

Getting our snuggles on pre-boarding

The art academy puts on a show each spring to show off their graduates. They bring in industry hot shots in the hopes that their graduates will get hired. While Tod was at the show I wandered around SF. I'm fairly familiar with the city, but thought I'd explore some places I don't know very well. First stop...Coit Tower. You can't see it very well, but out there on the horizon is my lovely orange bridge.

Coit Tower sits atop the highest point in the city, Telegraph Hill. Tod and I have a running joke about this area because one night I was choosing a movie to stream on Netflix. I chose the documentary, "Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill." You need to know that Tod never EVER criticizes or contradicts anything I say or do, but about 10 minutes into this show he grabbed the remote from me and told me I was fired from ever choosing a show again.

Did you know there are hundreds of wild parrots in the city? They are probably escaped pets that bred and are now a thriving flock. I really wanted to see them and get some pics, but I never found one.

One thing I do when driving around any cool neighborhoods, and ALWAYS in SF, is house shop. I'm always trying to decide which house I'm going to buy. I was already convinced that I would someday live in one of the cute row houses along The Embarcadero, but I have changed my mind. The Embarcadero has been ousted by Telegraph Hill. It's a very steep hill that has gnarly stairs traversing it and AMAZING foliage, like unto a jungle paradise. I was like a hog in fresh poop up there. Chekkit.

And I found a couple homes. It's going to be hard to choose between them. I love this yellow one. It's at the top of the hill and has multiple outdoor balconies.

But I also love this salmon colored one.

Either way these are your views...

Bay Bridge


TransAmerica Building

In all seriousness, though, I'd be happy to just be able to live there, regardless of where. I'd even take this trailer house I found in Sausalito...

I also explored the grounds at the Exploratorium, which I've only seen from a distance before. Pretty cool.

At this point Tod was done at his show, but found a way to get me in to see the art. Can I just interject a big fat HOLLA here that my husband is every bit, if not more, excited about art than I am? It's so fun to have someone to share my enthusiasm with. We were ridiculously giddy in there exploring the wonderful art.

Someone who runs the school collects cars and some were on display on campus. So great.

1965 Ferrari

I loved the fine art section in particular. This was my favorite piece. I love his use of texture. And keep in mind these are only about 1/3 as cool in a photo as they were in person.

Same artist

The following 3 are self-portraits by the same dude.

Close up of the above piece

Tod was recruiting from among the illustrators. This was a favorite illustration.

This was Tod's favorite fine art piece. It's very John Singer Sargent-esque and JSS is Tod's fave artist. He is very economical with his brush strokes, sometimes contemplating one stroke for ten minutes or more. I want to kick myself for not getting a straight on shot.

Close up of above. See that mass of bedding? When you look close you can't even tell what the heck it is, but from a distance it's clear and lovely.

Favorite sculpture.

Tod's 2nd favorite fine art piece.

While the esthetics don't knock me over, I really love the use of white in this and how the artist gives us very little data, but we can easily determine what it is. It also reminds me of the walls in the bathroom when I was a little girl. Do you remember when it was en vogue to use very rough and thick texture on walls? Or was it just my parents that thought so?

There are probably 80 trillion restaurants in SF, so it's silly we returned to the Burmese joint we ate at last month, but I've been salivating ever since we left Burma Superstar for that crazy Tea Leaf Salad, so we returned. A couple interesting things happened. One is we chatted a little with some other people as we waited for a table. Turns out they were from NYC and had also been at the art show. One of them judged it. He told us he is an art rep. Me: "Oh great because we are looking for an art rep." Turns out we had emailed this very dude's art agency the week previous to see if we could get someone to get Tod some good high paying freelance jobs (you have no idea how many people have been asking him to illustrate their book covers for $400. They go for about $2-4,000 in the real world). We got no response from the agency, but this man (the owner) and Tod exchanged cards. I don't know what will come of it, but it seemed highly serendipitous to me that we ran into the very man we had just been trying to reach in a city neither of us live in. Hmmm. Keep your fingers crossed.

The other thing that happened: BIGGEST TASTE BUD FIESTA!! They have a dish called Platha. It's like a potato-ish flat bread that comes with a chicken coconut curry dipping sauce. I'm a sucker for good curry, but this one was epic.

OH MY PLATHA

I hate that I live too far away from it to get it on a weekly basis. I honestly wanted to cry it was so good.

It's been a long time since I traversed the Bay Bridge, so we decided to drive across it. We had no desire to go to Oakland, just to experience the thrill of crossing the bay.

We didn't have much time the next day before our flight, but I took Tod to see Telegraph Hill. He concurs that it's rad and he now shares with me the dream about living there someday. Then we went to the nearby cathedral.

Todd either didn't see the "Please do not enter the alter area" sign or he ignored it...

My old love for mosaics was restored when looking at the wonderful mosaics there.

In our few remaining minutes we cruised over to Grace Cathedral. I've always loved the Keith Haring influence there. Check out this KH alter piece.

Grace Cathedral is an Episcopalian church. They pride themselves on welcoming everyone and judging no one. I love it. I think this is the very hallmark of a person who purports to follow Christ.