Earthfix, a public media project of the Oregon Public Broadcasting and other public radio stations did a series asking the question:
Should coal from Wyoming and Montana be transported through the Pacific Northwest and shipped to Asia?
One of the people interviewed about this was artist / activist Bonnie Meltzer. I know about her work because she was one of the mixed media artists I profiled for my crochet blog. Here were her thoughts on the issue.
See more opinions on Voices of Coal.
I was walking down an alley in San Francisco recently when I saw a set of collage art pieces in a window.
I paused to find out what I was looking at and discovered it was a window display by SFMoMA’s artist gallery. I am obviously familiar with SFMoMA but didn’t know about the artist’s gallery so I looked it up. It is apparently a non-profit art gallery showcasing the work of diverse artists in different stages of their art careers. The actual gallery is located at Fort Mason but this display was in SoMA near the main museum.
I went on to learn from a previous event mention on the Fort Mason blog that:
“SFMOMA Artists Gallery organizes the Windows Program using the SFMOMA garage’s street-level windows located at 150 Natoma and 147 Minna Street (Between Third and New Montgomery streets) to showcase artwork. The program invites some of the area’s most ambitious artists to transform these everyday spaces into compelling exhibitions that passersby can view round the clock.”
It was definitely cool work. It’s hard to tell but it had different layers and dimensions and mediums incorporated into it. I’m sure there must’ve been a sign somewhere that said who the artist was but I didn’t see it and haven’t been able to find out online. I’ll try to remember to check it out again the next time I’m over there and see if I can find out who it is to give proper credit!
Summer in San Francisco is often so cold because of the chilly wind in the air!
This is the warmest jacket I own. And that’s a hot coffee. Before the end of the evening I was also wearing a scarf and gloves. And I was still cold.
I love San Francisco. I love almost everything about this city and have even come to mostly love the weather. I certainly don’t miss Arizona summer afternoons. But sometimes I do miss Arizona evenings. I miss being able to wear a tank top and not take a jacket and get to enjoy that lovely warmth on the skin with the occasional cool desert breeze. I’ll definitely have to soak that up next time I’m there!
Bay Area Dance Week was a few weeks ago and I’m just now getting the photos up on the blog. This is mostly because I didn’t get very many good photos, but I did want to share the best event that I went to of the season which was a two-hour long free fire dancing show in Union Square.
It was put on by Temple of Poi and featured nearly 100 performers in more than three dozen acts. There were some things I had seen before and some things I hadn’t and it was just terrific fun. How can watching people dance with fire not be fun really? My favorites were the truly passionate ones that had great striking music but of course I loved the big fire tricks and I liked some of the more humorous acts as well. There was a nice range of different dance schools showcased including hip hop, belly dance, capoeira, latin dance, Irish dancing and more.
Temple of Poi was the world’s first poi fire dancing school. It was started by Glitter Girl who performed in the final act of the night.
Although I’ve taken a hula hoop dance class in the past I’ve never tried poi. Maybe I should?
Yesterday I shared a few photos from the Terracotta Warriors exhibit at the Asian Art Museum. I did check out other stuff while I was there, though. A few of those things:
I enjoyed the textile exhibit that showed batiks from the women of Java. This was a temporary exhibit that is actually over now so I’m glad I got a chance to see it.
It was Craft Wars night when I went, which meant that there were opportunities to use materials on hand to engage in crafting with others. I didn’t feel in the crafty mood that day but loved observing the armor, jewelry, flowers and other items people crafted.
From around the museum …
The Asian Art Museum isn’t one of the San Francisco museums that I visit most often but I’ve been there a couple of times and there are definitely some amazing historical pieces to see here.
There are just about two weeks left to see China’s Terracotta Warriors on display at the Asian Art Museum in San Francisco. Luckily, I’ve already gone and seen them.
About the warriors, from the website:
“First unearthed in 1974, the underground burial complex of the First Emperor is a revelation for the ages, an astonishing discovery on par with Egypt’s mummies and elaborate tombs. Contemporary observers continue to be enthralled by his legacy, and it is through this ongoing interest that the First Emperor did indeed achieve immortality. This exhibition includes ten figures—a representative sample of the actual army, which is estimated to include more than 7,000 life-sized figures and over 10,000 weapons.”
Impressive!
I do have to say that I went on a really busy evening and it was kind of disorienting to try to see such large-scale majestic art when there was such chaos and such a party atmosphere around it but they were still really amazing pieces to see in person.
A couple of weeks ago I shared my photos from How Weirde Street Fair. But there was one photo I forgot to share:
The guy who had this dog was making a fortune getting donations from people who wanted to take the dog’s picture. Perhaps I should get a dog and make the festival rounds for extra cash! 
When I took this photo it was just intended to be a picture of two pairs of feet. When I was looking through my pictures later as thumbnails I couldn’t tell what it was because I was seeking the space between the feet as a person and was thinking it was some art shot I’d taken at some point. Do you see the body (head that the top between the first set of legs, arms between the two sets of legs, body between the second set of boots)?
This is what my beautiful city looks like when you look at it from the top of Twin Peaks, which is right outside of San Francisco’s historic Castro district. I do love my city for so many reasons!
I mentioned this already on my crochet blog but in case you don’t follow that one I thought I’d share my excitement that I got into the grad school program I applied for and will be starting my three year Masters Degree in the fall.
I am going to be attending a small Masters Program in counseling that is truly unique. It integrates a variety of different approaches including a blend of Eastern spirituality with Western medicine to help students learn a holistic approach to counseling. The core belief of the program is essentially that you need to completely understand yourself in order to be able to help others, something that I wholeheartedly agree with. This basically means that I’ll get to spend the next three years immersed in self-development, experiential learning and mental health knowledge exploration. I am so excited!!!
I could have gone with a traditional program that had regular classes with a variety of students throughout the years. However, I chose to attend an intensive weekend version of the program which means that there are twenty of us who will be working together over the course of the three years. We will attend intensive week-long retreats each summer and long weekends together once per month. We will all be together for every class for the duration of the program. I think this is an excellent way to really challenge myself and I look forward to seeing what good and bad things it brings up for me. I also think the combination of intensive weekends with less frequency in the classroom is perfect for my style of self-directed learning.
The truth is that I’m not 100% certain that I want to be a counselor. Pscyhology is something that I’ve always been interested in and I can see a lifestyle where becoming a private practice counselor part-time could be satisfying to me and helpful to others. But I’m not placing any expectations on the career path that will come out of this program. What I’m really interested in is deeply immersing myself in the experience. I believe in the value of self-exploration and I think that this amazing program is going to offer me a unique opportunity to use different approaches within a supportive network to learn more and more about myself. I hope that it will make me a more compassionate, more helpful, more well-rounded person also but I’m truly open to seeing what it does for me without placing a lot of judgments on what I think it should do for me. This is the first time I’ve really, truly approached a college degree this way even though it’s something I wish I’d done sooner so it’s something I’m excited about as well and something that I think reflects both my own growth over the years and the fact that this is likely the right program for me right now.