A Burrito, A Bicycle, and an Art Show

At the Friday Salon in the Howard Street burrito parlor hosted by the brilliant political polemicist h brown (not pictured, but click here to get to his latest column)...



...a lively crowd had gathered...



...that included young City Hall workers such as Adriel...



...and Julian.



The brilliant publisher of SFist (click here for a link), Jackson West, had rolled out of bed for the Salon before visiting a friend in the hospital.



Krissy Keefer, a famous Modern Dance figure (as a choreographer and a dancer, click here for more info) from the Mission District, was berating h brown at one point, "Why don't YOU do something brilliant?" which made me laugh through my carnitas burrito and Bohemia.



In a further touch of celebrity, h brown's friend Angela Alioto was in attendance. For those not from San Francisco, Angela is the daughter of the late-1960s / early-1970s mayor, Joe Alioto, and has been a city supervisor, along with running for mayor herself a number of times.



In the evening, I went to my friend Clark Buckner's "Blue Studio" gallery at Mission and 17th.



It was a conceptual art piece by a couple who called themselves "leonardogillesfleur."



The only problem was that the female half of the couple had just gotten a job in New York and they had exited San Francisco before their fabulous opening, which meant that Clark had to do the installation at the last minute himself. He was not amused, though he "totally understood" the quick departure.



Down the hall, at the Michelle O'Connor Gallery, a group of five young artists calling themselves "100 Ft. Whale" was opening an art show.



The group (Sarah Applebaum, Alex Clausen, Sherry Koyama, Julia Petho and Allen Stickel) had a Mission Statement that went something like this:

"What the white whale was to Ahab, has been hinted; what, at times, he was to me, as yet remains unsaid." -- Moby Dick

Through painting, drawing, photography and scuplture, the artists in 100 Ft. Whale examine the elusive relationship between nuance and numbers, qualified and quantified, and desire and digits in search of the 100 foot whale and all that as yet remains unsaid.

One of the more striking pieces was this huge tapestry.



Being a very sloppy journalist, I forgot to take down the name of the artist. If anybody can fill me in, it would be appreciated



On the opposite wall, there were three large drawings by Allen Stickel.



Two of them depicted very alienated young people in a suburban setting, which was probably Colorado according to the artist.



Having grown up in a similar suburbia in Southern California...



...I could relate.



In the middle of the room, another one of the artists had built a circular playhouse with ladders and a roof.



Sherry Koyama had done a couple of pretty installation things.



The entire show felt "juvenile" in a good way. (In this context, "juvenile" has to be [mis]pronounced with a French accent, "joo-vah-neel" to fully convey the concept.)



I said goodbye to Clark and promised to see him at his next glamorous art opening (and they are glamorous, in their own way). Click here for a link to his Mission 17 website.