San Francisco Photography Book Now Available!

I'm proud to post that the exhibition catalog for our San Francisco photography show is now available on Blurb as an e-book or print on demand. Tom Griscom and Wendy Crittenden's photos look beautiful.

The show is opening Thursday 4/2 5-7pm at the Special Collections Gallery on the 4th floor of the library at San Francisco State University. Tom & Wendy are scheduled to talk about their work at 6pm.

Check out the demo below:

Dual Views: Labor Landmarks of San Francisco by Kim A. Munson | Make Your Own Book

Giacomo Patri - White Collar: A Novel in Linocuts

The Labor Archive and Research Center at the SFSU J. Paul Leonard Library has a display of the long out of print 1940 book White Collar: A Novel in Linocuts by Giacomo Patri (1898–1978), which is illustrated with linocut prints in two colors. The first edition of this wordless volume was hand printed by Patri and bound with his wife's assistance, two other editions were commercially printed.

Patri was born in Italy. Frustrated with a series of unfulfilling jobs, he went to night school to learn to be an artist. He worked in different capacities for 3 bay area newspapers, The San Francisco Examiner, The Call-Bulletin, and The San Francisco Chronicle.  In the WWII era, he began teaching at the California Labor School and became the head of the Art Dept, while also doing freelance work for unions. After the Labor School was closed during the Red Scare in 1957, he had his own art school and kept freelancing until he retired in 1966.

The story follows the life of a mid-level advertising executive who suffers joblessness and tragedy after the 1929 stock market crash. Patri saw that white collar workers considered themselves professionals who saw no benefit from the union protections earned by blue collar workers, so they frequently shunned organizing campaigns and union activity. In the book Patri contrasts the isolation of the white collar worker trying to solve his own problems in isolation with the activity of the collective, eventually resulting in the white collar worker joining in united action.  Here is a blog post with very clear scans.

The photos below are cell snaps of the exhibit in 4 cases on the 4th floor of the library.

Karrie Hovey & The Other New York 2012

Karrie Hovey, an SFSU MFA alumni who just finished a residency here in SF at Recology (previous post here), has just installed her work at the Everson Museum of Art (Syracuse and Onondaga, NY September 22, 2012 - January 6, 2013), for their multi-venue biennial The Other New York: 2012. Shown in at 14 participating venues (museums, outdoors, & other public spaces) the project is intended to showcase artists in Upstate & Central New York, and encourage interaction between the artwork and the public.

Karrie's work builds on some of the past projects I've loved, such as Mum, a piece she began while doing her residency at Recology, utilizing the endless supply of discarded books they received.

Karrie Hovey, Utica, NY (b. St. Johnsbury, VT, 1971).
Mum (detail), 2012. Site-specific installation, salvaged books, variable.

About Mum Karrie says: "In many parts of the world the chrysanthemum (a mum) is seen as a flower of mourning and grief, while in other cultures it is a joyous flower of rejuvenation. I have constructed a field of chrysanthemum inspired forms from discarded books. Playing off an alternate definition of “mum” as a command to not speak, the repeated pattern mourns the loss of physical books and laments the silencing of their content. On the other hand, given the current efforts made to digitize all printed volumes, many written works that historically have had limited availability are giving a new life. I see books as a symbol of potential and knowledge, a resource for personal and societal growth. I reference a circular trunk-like form to suggest the forests of trees destroyed in the creation of the books".

Karrie Hovey. ...the Garden Grows : Cultivate Garden 1

In addition, she installed ...the Garden Grows : Cultivate Garden 1, a work that reuses cast-off materials from retail stores (such as wrapping paper and shopping bags) to construct a fantasy garden.  Encypher is a map project based on the museum's floor plan, area freeways, and other local topography, with materials supplied by Golden Artist Colors and The Sam and Adele Golden Foundation. She explains her process in the video below:

if this video isn't working right, click here to see it on YouTube.

Karrie Hovey. Encypher.

See more of Karrie's work on her web site.

Karrie Hovey - Recology Artist in Residence

This past Friday, I had a fun experience exploring Recology's Artist in Residence program at the San Francisco Dump, a program that was/is the first of its kind in the US. In an effort to make the public more aware of recycling and reuse, Recology sponsors 8 artists a year, provides a stipend and work space, and all the found materials anyone could ever want (EVER!).

Karrie Hovey (right) discusses her artwork Crevasse

On this occasion, the tour was loosely related to SFSU Art Department Alumni due to the participation of Karrie Hovey, who is one of the two current artists in residence and had her work, Groundcover, on display in Recology's studio at 503 Tunnel Avenue. The tour was fascinating, as the overwhelming volume of stuff that flows into the SF dump every day makes it difficult to fathom all the related problems and opportunities. I am happy to include some photos of the sculpture garden and works by Karrie and her fellow AIR colleague Beau Buck, but there were many interesting things I was unable to photograph. I was fascinated with the hillside of found statuary, and the bridge overlooking "the pit" where everything going to landfill ends up. As much as San Francisco is diligent about recycling, we were told that a large percentage of of the stuff headed for the landfill in Livermore could actually be recycled, but they have no way to sort it all.

Indigo and Maya, a Saker Falcon

Since I live close to the beach in Pacifica, and spend a lot of time thinking about birds, I was particularly interested in Recology's ongoing effort to deal with the seagulls that flock to the dump (located near the SF bay, close to Candlestick Park) to feed everyday. Seagulls eat plastic, and deposit interesting (to them) but inedible plastic trash back at the beach and in all the neighboring yards. There are actually so many of them that they become a traffic hazard. Recology makes an effort to deal with this problem in a "green" way by employing Armand "Indigo" Redondo of Falcon Air. Indigo comes to the dump every morning when the seagulls are settling in to feed. His border collie and truck encourage the gulls to leave the ground. Then he has 4 falcons that circle and chase the gulls until they decide that they would be more comfortable back at the beach. He feeds the falcons first so that they will not actually be attacking and feeding on the gulls, but it is their natural instinct to circle and dive at them. On the day of the tour, Indigo introduced us to Maya, a young Saker Falcon that he was training. (Article in Marin IJ)

Beau Buck with his bunnies. The
ears of the one he is holding are made
from the feathers of Rosemarie, another of
Indigo's falcons.

Back at the artist's studio, we looked work by Karrie and Beau. Beau's pieces included several bunnies made of found materials (part of an ongoing series), a greenhouse complete with a bench and climbing vines, a teepee, and a series of prints. Karrie is very interested in the environment and her personal relationship with it, and her pieces included Crevasse, a large floor mounted work  made of glass tiles, window panes and vintage maps, Mum made of the pages of books and magazines, and Build, constructed of thin wood strips along the back wall of her gallery. Another work, Tumbleweeds, commented on her personal experience with the wind blowing through the workspace, a sensation that should be familiar to anyone who has ever attended an event at Candlestick Park. Artists are encouraged to apply to the program for the next series.

Since I was out, I zipped over to see Karrie's work at Intersection for the Art's M5 gallery in the old Chronicle building on Mission Street. Broadside Attractions: Vanished Terrains (photos at the link) ended this weekend, but I was glad to see the gorgeous piece that Karrie co-produced Elise Ficarra, commenting on the plight of the endangered Marin White Deer.

 I felt things going full circle while I was at SFMOMA looking at their exhibition The Utopian Impluse: Buckminster Fuller in the Bay Area. His principle of "ephemeralization", which meant in essence "doing more with less," seemed to speak both to Fuller's realization of the limitations of the Earth's resources and to Recology's goal of recycling and reusing every possible resource. On display were many of his drawings, and projects inspired by his ideas.(SFMOMA | SFGate | NYT)

If you can't see the slideshow above, click here to see it on Flickr

Graduate Fellows Show at Marin Headlands

2009/2010 Graduate Fellows Exhibition, Headlands Center for the Arts, Building 944, May 9 - June 6, 2010

Congrats to SFSU Alum Tyson Washburn on his great work in the Graduate Fellows show at the Headlands Center (this is his Headlands Activation, Ink Jet, 2010 on the left). His detailed and lovely black and white landscape photos evocatively capture the feeling of the ruins of this long abandoned military installation returning to nature.

Also in the show are fellow SFSU Alum Michael Namkung, Andrew Witrak, representing Mills Collage, who created what looked like a mattress out of hundreds of paper cocktail umbrellas (loved it!), Michael Arcega (Stanford), Patrick Gillespie (California College of the Arts), Vera Kachouh (San Francisco Art Institute), Aaron Maietta (UC Berkeley) and Joshua Short (UC Davis).

... the Garden Grows at Dominican University

Went to the opening reception for Karrie Hovey's show ... the Garden Grows at Dominican University (San Rafael, CA) last night. It was absolutely gorgeous: gardens, bamboo forests and other "natural" environments created from an astonishing array of recycled materials. According to Hovey she used primarily "plastics, paper, cardboard and display materials that have been cast aside by retailers ... upon closer examination the construction materials emerge to reveal their origins in the brand name goods we recognize and covet."

Included in the show was a wall of "violets" Hovey created while doing an artist residency in Spain. "I was surprised they had such pretty lavender and purple trash bags over there," she said with a smile, "all we get here is black and white." We were happy to see a good turn out for this lovely show in spite of the horrible traffic caused by the temporary closure of the Bay Bridge (grr... arg... thanks for driving, Denise).

There's an artist talk, Wednesday, November 4, 2:30 - 4:00 p.m. The show is installed at the San Marco Gallery, Alemany Library at Dominican. Hours: Monday - Thursday: 8:00 a.m. - 10:30 p.m.Friday and Saturday: 9:00 a.m. - 5:00 p.m. Sunday: 2:00 - 10:30 p.m through December 23. Directions: www.dominican.edu/directions info: 415-485-3251 event page with installation photos on facebook.

Eilish Talks Art.Tech on NBC

The Art.Tech is at The Lab in San Francisco, 2948 16th Street (near Mission). Appropriately enough, since I'm posting this on Labor Day, the Lab is in the Redstone Building that used to be the Labor Temple (built in 1914). Congrats to Eilish on being named Exec. Director!

MFA's Get Noticed...

A quick note to point out some recent reviews in the blogosphere:

The graduating SFSU MFA's are discussed on SFGate in the article New Art From Fresh Minds, featuring Wendy Crittenden's photo big boy (see my April 2 posting below). A second review in the SF Bay Guardian's Best of the Bay featured one of Tom Griscom's photos from his SF Labor Landmarks series, which I've previously featured on this blog. Tom has a great portfolio of this work on his site.

Tom's recent work has also been selected for Jen Beckman's 20 x200/Hotshot blog. He is now officially in the finalist category for their emerging photographer show in NY. Tom's photo Cecil Hotel, Los Angeles is on the left.

Congrats to all...

Tribute to Archie Green

A Celebration of the life and work of Labor Folklorist Archie Green will be held at San Francisco State University's McKenna Theatre on June 21st for 1-4 pm.

Archie, who passed on last month at the age of 91 (see my blog entry for 3/29/09), took special joy in collecting the songs of the labor movement, so it's totally appropriate that the event will include musical performances by Hazel Dickens, Mike Seeger and Elaine Purkey. Please RSVP to Archie's son, Derek Green at derekgreen (at) att.net.

Please check the SFSU site for directions, parking information, etc.

Kim Speaking at Laborfest

Evolution of an Emblem: The Arm & Hammer at LARC, Sunday, 7/19/09 at 1:00.

How did the arm & hammer end up on all those baking soda boxes? Art Historian Kim Munson shares her investigation of the origins of the arm & hammer from Greco-Roman myth and its role as an early union label to its current usage as the Socialist Labor Party emblem and as the baking soda trademark. Hosted by the Labor Archives and Research Center, SFSU, 480 Winston Drive, San Francisco, CA 94132. Contact: larc@sfsu.edu Phone: 415-564-4010.

BTW, A while ago I designed an on-line exhibit of union labels for LARC. Some of the graphics in the "promoting the label" section, especially the posters, are really interesting.

MFA's Show Off at SFSU

2009 Master of Fine Arts Thesis Exhibition at the Fine Arts Gallery, San Francisco State University (April 18 - May 15)

The 2009 MFA show features 8 artists completing a three-year master of fine arts degree program. They are: Wendy Crittenden (to the left is Wendy's big boy, 2009, film-based image printed as wallpaper), Eilish Cullen, Tom Griscom, Michael Namkung, Rosie Sesler, Clare Szydlowski, Allison Tungeth and Tyson Washburn. Opening reception: Saturday April 18th from 1-3pm.

SPE & FAMSF Exhibition News

Two friends have exhibitions that recently opened in San Francisco! Tom Griscom has three photos featured in the Society for Photographic Education (SPE) West Region’s Inspiration show at the Academy of Art University's Sutter Street Gallery in downtown San Francisco. The three photos picked for this show are from Tom’s labor landmarks series, based on maps and locations found the Labor Landmarks of San Francisco book by the Labor Archives and Research Center at SFSU. Tom’s work should be on display through the conference dates in mid-November.


Mark Johnson’s labor of love, Asian/American/Modern Art: Shifting Currents, 1900–1970 is finally open at the de Young though January 18, 2009. According to the Fine Arts Museum’s web site, “Asian American Modern Art: Shifting Currents, 1900–1970 presents the work of artists of Asian ancestry who lived and worked in the United States. This exhibition represents the first comprehensive survey of these artists, and seeks to advance awareness of this under-represented group in American art history. Their art reflects the currents of identity and style that shift between aesthetics of diverse international geographies. This exhibition is rich in variety and demonstrates the wealth of Asian American art using masterpieces spanning seventy years. Nearly 100 works by 60 artists, many of whom had their work exhibited at the de Young or Legion of Honor in earlier decades, are included.” Our friend Renee, who organizes the weekly Friday night extravaganzas, has all sorts of great music, food and other activities planned in support of the show, check the museum's events calendar to see the latest. All Friday night events are free. Best of luck to Tom and MJ on their shows, I hope to see them soon!