Pop Up Flower Shop

If you've been following my blog since 2008, you might remember Monica, the Italian florist in whose shop I passed many hours during my time in Torino. I saw her make so many people smile with her flowers, and have since held a dream of one day having my own flower shop...

Carpe diem! I've begun to live that dream!

With the help of one local cafe owner and one Oakland-based flower farmer, I have a weekly presence on the busy street corner of San Pablo and Alcatraz. On Saturday evenings I pick up my Bluma Farm flower order and bring them home to make bouquets for the Sunday morning brunch crowd. This bouquet making often comes after a long day of dance rehearsal, so a green tea and/or upbeat playlist helps get me through it. 

Week One was too windy to work in the backyard, so I set up shop indoors. (Many thanks to my ever tolerant and supportive husband for letting me make my messes.)

Making marigold and gimp herbs bouquets in the kitchen, see the oven in background? 

This bunch features a big purple chard leaf snuggled next to Queen Anne's lace.

My niece paid for her bouquet with her very own money from her very own wallet. She carefully counted out ten ones, chose her "Sunday Bunch" from the assortment, and immediately pulled out one stem to be her magic wand. "This one looks like a berry!," she giggled.

The weekend of the second pop-up was less windy, so I could set up my work table outside. Flowers at midnight? Yes, please!

This is the image I sent each friend who came out to buy a bunch. Soon I'll be able to accept creit cards, and I even have a date with a welder to craft my own flower cart! Wheeee!

Happy Autumn, everyone. 

❤️

The Brokechella Project

What a thrill it was to be asked to contribute original artwork to Brokechella 2015! In addition to the four pieces I made last year for Elizabeth Birnbaum's exhibit on corn, I created four new original pieces centered on the theme of water. The drought in California, to be more specific: a San Francisco fountain, an Oakland waste bin, a pitcher of water on a restaurant table, and rows of dry farmed crops in San Juan Bautista. Each of these images illuminates one facet of the complex and devastating shortage of water facing this state and country. I am very pleased with how they've turned out, and look forward to listing them for sale on Etsy in the near future. In the meantime, enjoy these process photos!

The beginning stages = lots of measuring

test-driving the placement of hillside and crop

This design ended up being discarded in favor of another.

I place some elements while I figure out the rest...

This one is my favorite! from the Conservatory of Flowers, SF

The red backgrounds match the "severe" color on California's drought monitor map

See that blue spray bottle? Eyeglass cleaner helps me keep everything lint-free!

Have to be careful not to use too much glue

The finished "San Francisco" piece

"San Juan Bautista" in its final format

"Berkeley" features a table from downtown favorite La Note restaurant

The street structures of "Oakland"

Oakland Layers: Process

After a lifetime in the Bay Area a dear high school friend of mine relocated to New York to pursue his calling at the New School's Graduate School of Journalism. His gentle charisma and inquiring mind leave the world changed in his wake, in both large and subtle ways, and I am proud to know him and support him as he moves toward making even bigger waves. He commissioned me to make an Oakland-centered art piece to take with him to his new (hopefully temporary) home.

Here are some of the process photos... Stay tuned for final product photos.

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Preliminary design sketches

More preliminary design sketches

Cutting a window for color wash

Hmm.... how does the Fox theatre look against red?

How about green?

And the winner is BLUE!

Then I added the Oakland tree, as requested.

All internal elements together

"Dress rehearsal" of internal elements before final touches, glass cleaning, and frame closure.

Fox Theatre

Housewarming

New Bialetti! New (old) espresso cups from my BFF's grandmother's set!

Decaf espresso straight from Northampton... and Dutch dark chocolate

Ready for drinking. But how will the new co-habitators  like it?

Pinkies up...

... He likes it!

My turn.

Giving it a sip...

That's some bitter espresso - er, just the way I like it, I swear!

Thanks, Best Friend, for bringing the goods from the East Coast to our home in Oakland!

Oakland trash

This favored illustration of mine, now several years old, has found yet another manifestation: a letterpressed postcard. This sweet little card, along with three other designs, will be for sale at all three Pegasus Books locations in Berkeley and Oakland. Exciting!

More visions of the East Bay

At times I draw to avoid, or to recover from, tough conversations.