Noe Valley becomes a neighborhood of sculpture, photography,
and painting galleries open to the public Oct. 1 and 2, the
first weekend of San Francisco’s month-long, self-guided Open
Studios art festival.
Organized by the nonprofit
ArtSpan for the past 36 years, Open Studios provides an
opportunity to both emerging artists and established
professionals to display their talents. Studios are open from
11 a.m. to 6 p.m.
The event is great for art
lovers and artists alike, says Kit Cameron, whose paintings
and drawings will fill her 200-square-foot studio (419 28th
St.).
Gail Siegel: Necklace,
Multichain Leaf
“In Open Studios, artists have
an opportunity to start a relationship with people,” says
Cameron, a Noe Valley resident since 1977. “It’s a more
intimate encounter.”
The upside of Open Studios is
more than finding a good bargain, although that is part of it
too, she says. Seeing an artist’s work in the artist’s
workplace tells the buyer more about the artist than would a
piece in a gallery show.
“You can define the exhibit as
you wish,” Cameron says.
Gail Siegel (1275 Noe St.)
creates metal, wire, and mixed-media wall sculpture, baskets,
and jewelry—a wide range of art.
“It’s a very good venue to show
my stuff because I have a chance to put almost everything out,
whereas when I show in galleries and stores, it’s a very
limited range,” says Siegel, who has lived in Noe Valley for
30 years.
She has cultivated relationships
with a few collectors, thanks in part to Open Studios, she
says. Still, she has noticed fewer visitors as the economy
slowed down. She moved from a group studio show in the Mission
to her studio in Noe four years ago, and had 30 or 40 visitors
the first year. Last year, only a dozen people came.
Photographer Ari Salomon says
traffic to his living-room studio (16 Abbey St.) is often less
than when he’s exhibited with groups of artists. However, a
chunk of those who do come are collectors who’ve already
singled out artists they like from the catalog or at the Open
Studios Exhibition, which runs the month of October at SOMArts
Gallery, 934 Brannon St.
“Though there are fewer people,
they’re already interested in my art,” says Salomon, whose
panoramic pictures from cities around the world pull the
viewer around corners and up staircases.
The diversity of neighborhood
artists reflects that of the city. There are the David
Hockney-like saturated landscapes of David Barnett (1370 Noe
St., #3), mixed-media collages by Jacob Fisher (3924 19th
St.), the antiquities-like sculptures of Javier Perez (67
Landers St.), and the pulp fiction prints of Katie Gilmartin
(4037 24th St.).
About two dozen studios in Noe
Valley were listed in the Open Studios guide at press time,
and more will likely follow, says Lindsay Barrick of ArtSpan.
“We usually have about 800
artists citywide that open their studios each weekend in
October,” she says.
Each
zip code is assigned a specific weekend, and Noe’s weekend
also includes Bernal Heights, the Castro, the Excelsior, and
the Mission. In mid-September, ArtSpan will publish a free
guide that provides a list of all artists and studio
locations. You can pick one up at Phoenix Books, 3957 24th St.
For more information, visit www.artspan.org.
