San Francisco Gallery

Mike and I just returned from a four day get-away to San Francisco. The primary purpose was to transport 5 paintings to a San Francisco gallery where my art will hang for 3 months. The secondary purpose of our trip was to have a couple of fun days in a city.

We left home on Wednesday, driving well past dark to Vacaville, CA where we found dinner and a room. I'd arranged to meet at the S.F. gallery on Friday when they opened, and we had only a 1 1/2 hour drive to make from Vacaville.

Being on Blue River time, we arrived early at the gallery and waited a few minutes for someone to arrive. (It's crazy to us that stores don't open before 10 or 11 o'clock.) The gallery,The Artist's Alley (http://www.galiara.com/), is on Mission Street, between 4th and 5th. Luckily it was very easy to find as it is just off the Bay Bridge in downtown S.F.,  across the street from Bloomingdales.

We were soon meeting with Rachel, the young woman I'd been talking to for a couple of months. She opened the gallery and showed me the space where my work would hang.

After dropping off the paintings we went to our hotel, checked in and decided to look at some other galleries in the city. We found one building full of small galleries, each showing just one artist's work. What was amazing to me, was that the norm in these galleries was to be totally ignored by the staff. Each gallery seemed to have one or two people sitting behind a computer, never looking up. We finally found one gallery with a very friendly person who was informed about the artist's work and was open to sharing that information. The more he spoke about the artists, the more interested I became in the art. Now that's the kind of gallery to be in!

We also enjoyed some street performances,

riding cable cars, and going to the California Academy of Sciences. Another thing we really enjoyed in S.F. was some amazing food!

On Friday, my art was up on the walls, and we attended an event being held at Artist's Alley, celebrating Filipino Recognition Month.

We left San Francisco on Saturday morning and visited my niece and her husband in Davis. We had a great day there looking at bees (Kim's work) and visiting a walnut orchard (Carolyn's work). I now know a lot more about both subjects. Since they were harvesting the nuts, we were able to see big equipment and giant sorting machines.

Here we are having lunch in Winters where the temperature was around 78 degrees.

Kim and Carolyn

Mike and me

We left Davis yesterday morning. The sky was clear, the sun was shining, and the air was warm. We drove about 9 hours to get home to Blue River where it was already dark, raining, and building a fire in the house was the first order of business.