Art Show & Street Fair at the Women's Building

On 16 May, 2004, the Women's Building of SF held a celebration, on the 10th anniversary of the Maestrapeace murals covering their building at 18th and LaPidge in the Mission. I was proud to be able to take part in the art show that was organized as part of this celebration of women's art and resiliance - and here are some snapshots and notable memories of the day.

Setup - drive on? oh, booth assignment first come first serve, come around 10 am... this could have been frighteningly chaotic, but the mood of the day was easy and flexible with good humor, and it was an easy chaos: we drove wrong-way down the one-way narrow street (it's really more of an alley) and set up in the first next nook between a tree and a driveway, and Lise was even able to squidge by and drive out again after we'd offloaded everything, and I was just about all set up by the time she returned from parking the car nearby.

The music all day long (from about 11 am onward, it felt like, but maybe that did just start at noon) was fabulous, powerful, and I want to know who all was playing, now! The sound system was run by a genius who Understands the delicacies of volume: my ears were not hurt by volume once all day, praise and thanks be... and even when the wind picked up (mightily!) after 3:30, the sound tech work was brilliant and helped each band to shine. One of the bands I recall hearing had been at the celebration 10 years ago to open the murals, and at least one of the original seven muralists was on hand, spoke, and had prints of her details of the building for sale.

Here are some crowd shots. I think the guy in the cool hat who got into pix that both Lise and I took at different times must have been a volunteer in the area.

A poster mural painted by many, during the day.

Mujer, Paz, Libertad ... sand? dyed sawdust? painting done early in the afternoon. Lise took 1 pic, and later on I took a couple more - this was fun to watch being done: a plastic tarp taped down, grid lined out with marker using a 1-by as a rule, and bags of slightly damp I'm still not sure what it was but it seemed like a slightly damp sawdust sort of material, and was maybe an inch deep in places when they were done. Very cool: I want to do something like this some time...

More crowd shots - I wanted to give a feel for the flavor of the event; a nice flow of a few folks all day long.

Some pix of the booth, and us in it:

Here's a fun silly pic of me in front of the booth; where it's a little difficult to see much o' the booth.

Here are shots of a sweet knitter and some of our wares...

Scarf knitter to the Very Tall? These young stiltwalkers had a great time trying on the knit scarves, and many choices of colors matched their garb, as you can tell!

Note to self: buy the half-gallons or gallons of water for the wind that comes up at 3;00 before 3:30. The lovely drying rack-cum-display got blown over a Few Times, even after I tied it down to the stool. You may imagine the distress of others with even more blustery items; the wind picked up around 3 through teardown time at 5 pm... I'm so glad I tied my wall piece into the table. What was wonderful to discover was the proprietor of the corner store at 19th and Valencia was around and remembered warmly the dedication of the murals 10 years ago. What was somewhat difficult was how the wind walked the wall-and-table over by about 18 inches till the table was no longer on nearly-level ground: my booth as a sail!

Some wonderful connections:
meeting Latisha across the street who recommends more good venues; we traded books and helped each other deal with the wind...
meeting Jean Sirius, who is one of the rare authors who read her own work for the Womyn's Braille Press years and years ago. How lovely to get to meet this poet, and swap smiles. I bought a copy of her mini photobook "Signs of Peace in Europe"...

Good booth neighbor next to me, Rosario who works in silver and does lovely beadwork; we chatted about different local shows, and what they're like to do.

Meeting Jeanne, another knitter who also had marbled cards and bookmarks out for sale, who lives nearby over in Cole Valley, and is very interested in art gathers, and may bring along another friend, who walked around the fair wearing/showing her knits, and later in the day some silks for me (I told her I'd give her a percent if she sold them; and gave her a little notepad for sharing the delight anyhow.)

When it got to loading-out time, we discovered how stilt-walkers get down: they sit on something tall to untie themselves, like, say the top of a car of some friendly artists!

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