Category: Art

Exploring the Manet & Morisot Exhibit: A Rainy-Day Adventure

What do you do on a rainy afternoon when your house is not inhabitable? While remodeling is going on in our house, we have moved out, renting a house in Mount Hermon. When in town we stay in our camper although hanging out in the camper in our driveway in pouring rain isn’t inviting. So, what do we do? We head to the museum.

Today it’s the Manet & Morisot exhibit at the Legion of Honor. We paid for the audio tour which was well worth the price. I must say that I was not familiar with Morisot, so this was a real opportunity to learn about two of the most influential artists of the age of Impressionism.

The New York Times has this to say:

They were close friends who corresponded often and went to the same soirées, passionate advocates for each other’s art, and eventually siblings-in-law (when Morisot, then in her 30s and facing financial precarity after her father’s death, married Manet’s brother Eugène in an arrangement supported by both families).

As we toured the exhibit, I found myself just as interested in watching people as the artwork. I recall a time when cameras were forbidden in such exhibits, and here people are using their phones to document the work. It’s almost as if the camera-phone has become an essential tool for appreciating art. I became fascinated with the idea of trying to capture the feeling for the experience; people looking at art. Somehow just snapping photos of people looking at art seemed static, so I challenged myself to try to capture images that had a bit of an emotional impact, introducing a sense of motion.

By the end of the exhibit, I had gained respect for Morisot’s work and her view of the world, contrasted with Manet’s.

The exhibit is up through March 1, 2026. It’s well worth seeing if you have the opportunity.

f.64 at SFMOMA

We arrived at SFMOMA (San Francisco Museum of Modern Art) about noon, having ridden BART. Public transit is a great option since driving into the city and parking can be a challenge. We were hungry when we arrived so the first order of business to head up to Cafe 5 where we split a salad.

Then it was off to see the exhibition Around Group f.64: Legacies and Counterhistories in Bay Area Photography. This turned out to be quite an extensive exhibit with work from 31 artists on display, including images from Ansel Adams, Edward Weston and many other photographers. The f.64 group set a new trend in photography creating images of startling clarity and beauty that rivaled art made in other mediums.

The exhibit leads you through the early pictorial style of some of the f.64 members before the group was established. It then moves to many of the images that represented the emerging style of sharpness and clarity. I decided to put my own spin on the exhibit by experimenting with a long exposure app on my iPhone called Slow Shutter with the hope of creating some intentional camera movement. I find these images more provocative than just straight photos that document the exhibit.

The exhibit goes way beyond the work of the original f.64 group. I was particularly intrigued by the work of Tarrah Krajnak. Her work Master Rituals I: Ansel Adams | 2018 to Present was quite provocative.

One of the photos in the show featured an image of a building with the Flag Makers sign on it. When we walked out of the museum, we discovered that the building next to the museum had this signage. I was compelled to see what I could do with my iPhone camera.

The show is up through July 13. If you have an interest in photography, it’s well worth seeing.

Irving Penn: A Journey Through Seven Decades

I’m trying to keep my posts in chronological order, and while we visited this exhibit in June at the de Young Museum, it’s now mid-September. It’s been a busy summer and while this exhibit closed on July 24, it’s still worth noting.

Irving Penn’s work spanned seven decades, and this exhibit includes about 175 pieces that cover his entire career. It includes early documentary scenes, portraits of cultural figures, travel work, fashion studies, still life photography, and personal projects. It also includes photographs made during Penn’s 1967 trip to San Francisco.

To quote Nadja Sayej There is no photographer in history quite like Irving Penn. He built a bridge between commercial photography and fine art photography. He helped define the Vogue aesthetic and overwrote popular ideas about beauty with his trailblazing fashion photography. And he shot everything, from celebrities to still lifes, with the same thoughtful intensity. He’s arguably one of the top artists of the 20th Century, and his work is as relevant as ever.

From still lifes to hippies, to Hells Angels to Celebrities and even the natives of New Guinea, Penn’s ability to connect with his subjects and to create compelling images is extraordinary.

Our visit to the museum started with lunch in the cafeteria before moving on to the exhibit.

While Penn’s photos are well represented in various media, I decided to try to capture the feeling of the exhibit with some intentional camera movement (ICM).

Cactus and Red Rock

We recently returned from a 19-day road trip that took us to the heart of the Sonoran Desert near Ajo Arizona, and then north into the red rocks of the Vermillion Cliffs. We covered 1778 miles leaving on February 8 and returning on February 26. The focus of our trip was to travel a bit off the beaten track, to see some natural wonders and to visit places that were dog friendly. Dog friendly meaning, when we park the rig for the night, we can let Carson run free, off-leash. Here’s a glimpse of some of the highlights of our trip. I’ll be posting more about specific portions of the trip so stay tuned.

The Saguaro cactus is the keystone species in the Sonoran Desert, it’s just amazing to see these huge plants growing like they do, up to 50 feet tall.

One of our camping locations near Ajo was on the Barry M Goldwater Range. The range consists of 1.9 million acres of relatively undisturbed Sonoran Desert. While this is a military range, there are some areas that are open to the public. We found this site through iOverlander, one of the resources we use for locating camping.

Camping here requires a permit which is easy to obtain online. Once you have successfully obtained the permit you are given a gate code to unlock a gate. We accessed this location through Gate 15, area B. We boondocked here for two nights. A beautiful spot, although the silence was occasionally punctuated by the sound of fighter jets.

After a few days in the Ajo area we drove north to the Vermillion Cliffs National Monument. There are no paved roads in the Monument, and we put our four-wheel drive to good use driving through deep sand and rough roads. We drove into the Monument to explore the White Pocket, and amazing geologic formation of twisted colorful sandstone. We also explored the Maze Rock Art Site, with several large panels of rock art.

From the Vermillion Hills we made a quick foray into the Escalante Grand Staircase National Monument to explore the old Paria Townsite.

Over the course of the trip, we managed to vary our accommodations a bit. We spent four nights with family and friends, one night in a motel, four nights in paid camp sites, although one of those was essentially dry camping on private property, with a location we found on Hipcamp and we spent 11 nights boondocking. It was refreshing to visit places of natural wonder away from the crowds of so many of the popular locations. While most of the driving was on paved roads we did put our four-wheel drive to good use in several locations. Temperatures ranged from a low of 28 degrees near Joshua Tree to 79 degrees at the visitor center in Death Valley National Park.

2023 In Print!

Here it is! All the blog entries from 2023 in a book. This marks the ninth year for my blog and the eighth book. In 2023 I posted 35 times.

Where’s Treve 2023

Travels included Baja California to Lopez Island in the Pacific Northwest. We also make a trip to England. We made good use of our Four Wheel Camper, carrying our kayaks to Baja and Lopez Island.

It’s such a great feeling to pick up the book off the coffee table and browse through last year’s adventures, remembering travels and details that have already grown faint.

The book is 85 pages long. There’s no point in showing much of the book since you can simply view all the original posts on this website. We’ve been using the service Intorealpages.com which makes turning a blog into a book a breeze.

Adventure is worthwhile – Aesop

Botticelli

Our adventures today take us to the Botticelli exhibit at the Legion of Honor in San Francisco. It’s 45 minute drive from our house across two bridges, The Richmond-San Rafael and the Golden Gate. We had the windshield wipers going most of the way with wet drizzly weather. The towers of the Golden Gate Bridge were lost in fog. I was thinking it would make a wonderful moody photo, but something for the mind’s eye, since I was driving.

Botticelli was an Italian painter of the Early Renaissance (1445 – 1510). Born as Alessandro di Mariano di Vanni Filipepi he was better known as Sandro Botticelli.

The exhibit is all about drawings. I was surprised to learn that these drawings were studies in preparation for creating larger finished pieces. Needless to say, the drawings are exquisite, using a variety of media on specially prepared paper, not simply sketches that a modern-day artist might make. Some of the drawings were created by other artists working in Botticelli’s workshop, or other artists of the time such as Fra Filippo Lippi.

We picked up our reserved headsets when we entered the museum, and the guided tour was quite educational. Many of the drawings were created using tempera, a medium that consists of egg yolk mixed with pigment. This is a very fast drying media which requires application with many thin layers. We spent an hour and a half in the exhibit taking our time. After viewing the exhibit, we headed to the museum cafe, where we shared the Classic Onion Soup Gratince and the Roasted Beet Salad. Quite delicious and pricey, although we were not surprised with the price given the location.

Upon exiting the museum we were met with rays of sun and blue sky. We stopped to admire Auguste Rodin’s sculpture The Thinker and then took a walk around Lands End to get a view of the Golden Gate Bridge. More photos are available in an online gallery.

de Young Open 2023

Today we made a visit to the de Young museum to see the Open 2023 exhibit. This exhibit celebrates the vision of Bay Area artists. There are 883 works on view created by artists who live in the nine counties surrounding San Francisco Bay. I was one of the 7,766 artists that submitted artwork, although my work was not selected. The piece I entered, Boulders, Alabama Hills, is available in my art store. I was curious to see what works had been selected. With an online web gallery, we were able use our phones to read about a few select pieces.

The first piece that caught my attention was piece #9, entitled Hollow by James Shefik, a piece based on a thumb push puppet. Here’s an excerpt from the artist’s statement:

My original intent was for the puppet to represent America’s continued slide into authoritarianism. The sculpture’s puppet character was made apparent by George Floyd’s murder and subsequent Black Lives Matter protests that spread worldwide. The Robert E. Lee puppet, when collapsed, reflected the fate of many of the monuments that had been raised in America in the past 120 years.

Of course, visiting an art exhibit is also about watching people, so I took a few images to document the event including some long exposures to introduce some intentional camera motion. I was clearly being watched while taking this photo. I’m calling the photo the watcher.

Here’s Joann photographing piece #694 entitled Name that Tune: H___ on the R____ by Ellen Reintjes. Ellen says:

Singing this traditional western song while viewing the painting will hopefully bring a smile to your face as the puns come alive.

We arrived at the museum about 11 a.m., spent an hour or so exploring the exhibit, took a break for lunch and returned to continue. It would be overwhelming to try and read about every piece but taking a few small bites about selected pieces made the experience quite enjoyable. The exhibit goes through January 7, so if you are interested in viewing this exhibit, time is of the essence.

Solano Avenue Stroll 2023

Today I had my artwork on display at the Solano Avenue Stroll. The Stroll is the East Bay’s largest street festival. It features over 400 vendors including 50 entertainers, 25 food booths, 100 government and non-profit agencies, 100 artisans, jewelers, makers, and much more! I’ve participated in the Stroll in the past, the last time being 2015. Since then, I was so busy with my commercial photography it didn’t make much sense to participate. Now it’s time to get my artwork in front of more people so here we are. The stroll draws some 100,000 people. This year it seemed be well-attended.

We were on the street setting up at 7:15 in the morning. The event opened to the public at 10:00 and ran until 5:00 p.m. It was quite well attended with a constant flow of people walking up and down the mile of vendors. Over the course of the day, we connected with friends we hadn’t seen in years, and we made many new acquaintances. I had a number of panoramic images on display.

To attract interest, I offered to give away a framed print, Wreck of the Reyes. I had quite a few people sign up to win, and after the event I spun the Wheel of Names to select a winner.

Congratulations to Thomas! Thanks to everybody who stopped by to visit. It was a fun event. And if you’d like to follow me and my fine art photography, visit store.treve.com and sign up for my newsletter. We run a number of giveaways and sales over the course of the year.

Ansel Adams at the de Young Museum

In the summer of 1980, I had to opportunity to participate in the last photography workshop Ansel Adams taught in Yosemite. Needless to say that was a key steppingstone in the path that led to where I am today. So, when I saw the announcement that the show Ansel Adams in Our Time was up at the de Young Museum in San Francisco through July 23, I put a date on my calendar.

This turned out to be quite an extensive exhibit with over 100 of Adam’s prints. It also included the work of other 19th-century landscape photographers, such as Carleton Watkins and Eadweard Muybridge, and contemporary artists like Trevor Paglen, Will Wilson, and Catherine Opie. It is interesting to see how contemporary artists treat some of the grand landscapes of Yosemite. We spent a good 2-1/2 hours in the exhibit, and that didn’t even seem like enough. Well worth the visit.

SFMOMA: Diego Rivera

November 22 was a day to play tourist in our own back yard. We had reservations to see the Diego Rivera exhibit at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. We also included a visit to Salesforce Park, an amazing park situated 70 feet in the air and spanning four blocks.

Our outing started with a short drive to the El Cerrito Plaza BART Station. We were concerned about parking, but when we got to the station at 11 a.m., there was an abundance of empty parking slots. We rode the train into the city and got off at Montgomery Station. It was noon when we exited the BART station. Downtown San Francisco was like a ghost town. There were very few people and many of the restaurants were closed. We walked the short distance to SFMOMA and headed to Café 5 on the fifth floor.

We both ordered the Chicken and Cilantro soup and then found a table outside in the Jean and James Douglas Family Sculpture Garden. One of the gingko trees was in full fall display and the “Love” sculpture seemed to be calling me. I’m hearing “can’t buy me love,” by the Beatles.

The soup was delicious, although it was a bit tepid by the time it reached us. Our tickets for the Diego Rivera exhibit were for 2 p.m. so we had some time to explore the museum. The Oculus Tunnel by Olafur Eliasson was fun.

Then it was time to explore the Diego Rivera exhibit. I was able to pull up the audio tour on my iPhone and listen to the discussion about Rivera’s work. My hearing aids act as wireless earbud, which makes for easy listening. While I was aware of some of Rivera’s work, I had forgotten about his involvement with communism and the influence he had on the art world. It is quite an extensive display and well worth a visit.

One of the pieces on display is the Pan American Unity mural which is huge. I thought it would be interesting to see if I could photograph it in sections and stitch the sections together. My effort worked better than I had imagined, although I ended up losing some of the top and bottom of the work.

From SFMOMA we walked to the Salesforce Transit Center where we found our way up to the park, home to 600 trees and 16,000 plants arranged in 13 different ecological zones. I was intrigued with the “Bus Fountain” that dances to the movement of the busses on the lower level.

Playing tourist in our own back yard was fun. Sometimes we forget how much there is to see and enjoy here. We’re making a list of more things to do locally so stay tuned. In the meantime, feel free to view more photos online.