Kindred Cartoon Spirit (Sometimes) --- Day 7/7

Walk: No, Cleaning Up the Office
Distance: Major PT/Yoga/Pedal

The New Yorker has a way of saying it best.

Good Gole-y --- Day 7/6

Walk: Union Square, Legion of Honor
Distance: A few blocks, drove new car which Ciwt is beginning to really like (including automatic transmission even😊)



Say what you will about traditional art and furniture making, every time Ciwt encounters this huge cabinet at the Legion of Honor she is awed.  It was made in Paris @1650 by Pierre Gole the premiere
cabinet maker in all of France and Cabinet Maker to Louis IV.  It would have been impossible to be more highly regarded than that.

The massiveness gives the cabinet grand presence, but what is truly remarkable is that it is elaborately carved from ebony.  That is like carving in exquisite detail from diamond - and with hand held and relatively primitive tools.  Unfortunately for security reasons the cabinet doors cannot be opened in the museum.  If they were open viewers would see more than thirty drawers and, incredibly, a theatrical tableau with gilt-bronze characters enacting the Judgement of Solomon, before a green gemstone background.

Fort Enrichment --- Day 7/5

Walk: Monday Home Stuff and Research for Tour 
Distance: A few Up/Down, PT, Pedaling, Yoga

Barracks Room, Fort Winfield Scott (est. 1912, San Francisco Presidio)  (Ciwt photo)

Pretty gloomy, yes?  This room would have had bunks or cots for at least 12 men, and the sturdy trees out their window probably would have been a few feet high if they had been planted at all.

Still is gloomy.  When the Army's Artillary Coast Division - which was headquarted in Fort Scott - was terminated in 1950, the men just clicked their heels together, marched out and left all 22 buildings as is.  

Architecturally this was bad news, but the wildlife around Fort Scott's virtually unattended parade grounds were delighted.  Gophers dig holes galore which unearth rodents and other prey for a variety of owls who are stalked by eager cayotes and maybe a few foxes.  Meanwhile the birds chirp.  Apparently it is quite a hunting party at daybreak.  And the Presidio Trust wants to keep it that way: wild and natural.

They also want a tenant who will rent the entire 30 acre fort.

This month the Presidio Trust began seeking proposals for "..a once in a generation opportunity to make a place for change in the world" from "organizations interested in and capable of revitalizing the site as a campus addressing contemporary environment and/or social challenges."

Last weekend Ciwt toured the gorgeous site, and realized the extent to which "capable of" is key to the operation. Any number of organizations and causes would be interested in an iconic, historical campus contiguous to the Golden Gate Bridge, but which ones can take on such a project? Whoever it is will be responsible for tackling virtually everything:  electricity, plumbing, handicap accessability, architectural retrofitting and restoration, environmentally friendly parking just for openers,.And through it all they will be required to work within the Presidio's strict historical structure guidelines and likely City, County and State permits as well.  

Ciwt thinks this is exciting.  Often she laments the enormous new wealth around San Franciso for its impact on traffic, congestion, construction, cost of housing and general quality of life in San Francisco.  But, this undertaking seems different, and the Fort Winfield Scott project is definitely going to take an organization with that kind of wealth.  (Preliminary estimates are $200 million just for infrastructure).  She's optimistic the right new tenant will show up and sincerely hopes whoever it is has Vision even more vast, promising and good for the world than their wealth 

'The Workshop' is Work --- Day 7/4

Walk: Cinema Club (L'Atelier or The Workshop), Japantown
Distance: 2.3 miles, Yoga

Somehow Ciwt never quite appreciates the Frenchiness of many French movies. Today's Cinema Club selection, The Workshop, was no exception.  It's a disjointed political commentary/ thriller/etc about today's disaffected (and more) French youth. It has good acting and many excellent scenes and  (spoiler alert) even a happyish ending, but there were too many blanks for Ciwt.  Probably they needed to be filled in with Frenchy/Camus/Existential sensibilities, but instead Ciwt looked at her watch or gave up striving for a connection and waited for the next scene. But the plot tension, cinematography and acting kept her in her seat, so she thinks 'Give it a try.' N'est Pas?

Street Art in the 'Hood --- Day 7/3

Walk: Fort Scott Presidio
Distance: 1.2 miles

Not just a Hopscotch grid.  Ciwt thinks kids are pretty talented these days.

Overlooked No More --- Day 7/3

Walk: Fillmore Hood
Distance: 2.3 miles, PT

 

What a once in a lifetime treat it was to see a show of over 60 earlyWayne Thiebaud paintings gathered and exhibited on the UC Davis* campus where he was a founding faculty member and professor from 1960 to 1991.

Once upon a time nobody had seen Wayne Thiebaud's now iconic gleamingly frosted cakes, luscious ice cream perfectly perched on cones, colorful gumballs without a single one missing from the globe,
candied apples, decorative suckers, unsliced bread loaves all ready to be taken out of their cases.  That is, they had seen the objects all over - at bakeries, truck stops, delis from coast to USA coast.  But they hadn't seen them painted in their pure, alluring, neon and pastel colored glory.

And once upon a time nobody, most of all denizens of the art establishment, had a clue what to make of Wayne Thiebaud and his paintings of American delights.  Some tried to call him a Pop Artist, some dealers went with Realist or tried other categories.  But he didn't fit; his iconography was new.

Others tried to write about him but kept being confounded.  Then in 1962 before an early individual show he himself made a still definitive statement about his art.  In part he said Each era produces its own stilllife...I try to find things to paint I feel have been overlooked...My interest in painting is tradional and modest: I hope that it may allow ourselves to see ourselves looking at ourselves.  At the end of his statement he concluded: Of course, I hope the paintings speak better for themselves than I do.

Ciwt (among many others) feels that artist's early hope has certainly been realized.  Wayne Thiebaud is now in his late 90's, still traditional and modest, never self-promoting or signing on with an aggressive dealer who (if they could have made him) would have had him cranking out work after work after work.  He's also one of the country's most learned scholars and admirers of art history.  That history is embedded in his art and Ciwt (among many others) is sure critics and the public will come  to value more completely the deep intelligence, technical proficiency and bedrock love of art and life behind those dazzling but confounding images.

*Manetti Shrem Museum, Wayne Thiebaud | 1958–1968 

Which Pie for You? --- Day 7/2

Walk: Marin Driving Day
Distance: 6 blocks, PT, Yoga

At the Manetti Shrem Museum's Deeelicious Wayne Thiebaud show yesterday, Ciwt's friends began asking which of these two 'Pie' paintings from the early 1960's each one of us preferred.

 How about you? 

The arrangement of pies is nearly identical but the background colors were slightly changed by Thiebaud. And by doing that, he changed the mood of each painting. For what it was worth, it turned out all the women chose the one with the lighter background (top) and the men all chose the darker background (bottom). 

And we were all hungry for dessert on the drive back from Davis to San Francisco.

A New CIWT Year Begins --- Day 7/1

Walk: Manetti Shrem Museum (Thiebaud Show)
Distance: 1.5 miles, some Yoga and PT