San Francisco sights
Yep, just come back from a trip to the amazing San Francisco. Sooo, I thought I had to share some of the inspiring places I went to. Its such a beautiful, happening place, not too dissimilar from Melbourne! The thing I most loved was all the bay-view fronted, rainbow palette’d houses all squeezed next to one another ascending up the extremely steep hills. Unfortunately I didn’t take the time to shoot enough photos of this, but it is firmly etched in my mind. Can’t wait to create some new work with all these inspirational images!
I mean how kooky is the colour palate of this house, but it didn’t stand out as being unusual there.
This was the view from our appartment
The view from our friends place in Potrero.
A couple of the many murals painted around the city
James Tucker (printer, his wood block shown above) was kind enough to show me the ropes of Hello Lucky (a letterpress printing business). There was such a nice vibe in this place and all of the staff were very friendly. They were using some very nice letterpress printing equipment (yep a little jealous of the machinery!) and creating some great stationary. Definitely worth checking out to anyone interested in printing and or stationary and happens to be in San Francisco.
The American Bookbinders Museum
The American Bookbinders Museum was a fantastic place to visit. Tim James the founder is incredibly passionate about restoring the appreciation of this nearly lost craft and link to history. As a bookbinder myself I found it really rewarding to see that there are people building these kind of places for public knowledge and to maintain an archive that would otherwise be lost. Whilst most of the equipment and process I was already familiar with, Tim is more interested in the bookbinders rather than the craft on its own and that was where I found myself learning that if this history is lost the future of bookbinders will fade. There are many bookbinders coming of this new age where the appreciation of the tradition is not acknowledged or even understood which is a great shame. There needs to be more places like this around!
Crown Point Press is the most beautiful, dream printmaking space! The high ceilinged building, huge windowed areas with natural light flowing in, separate aquatint room, etching room, printing areas, paper editioning areas, gallery space and bookshop area. They are also a fine art publisher, you may know some of their books; Magical Secrets about Line Etching and Engraving by Catherine Brooks
William Morris, Artefact Pannel, 2000, glass.
This artwork consists of 399 unique hand blown glass objects.
The work spanned over a few floors and was visible from each, so visually stunning.
I came across this great little shop through uppercase magazine. It was filled with amazing locally crafted objects, jewellery, cards, prints and gifts. These hand turned wooden vases were some little gems from there.
