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We're thrilled to have recently acquired this new We're thrilled to have recently acquired this new work by wood sculptor and arborist Ido Yoshimoto. The piece, "Uncle Burt’s Tree," 2022, Eastern Black Walnut, Vacaville, Latitude 38.359075 / Longitude -122.001571, is described by the artist as "a collaboration with nature to celebrate both the rich beauty of walnut wood and the time and place in the life story of this particular tree."
 
Yoshimoto writes, "The wood comes from a historic Eastern Black Walnut tree that stood more than 80 feet tall and was famous in Vacaville, California. It was thought to have been planted on the Wycoff Ranch when Burt Wykoff was born in 1886. Its nuts were used to start over 100 walnut groves in California, and in 2002 it was honored with a historical plaque. During its more than 100 years of life, the mighty tree went from shading horse-drawn wagons on ranchland to being engulfed by a city and finally standing alone, surrounded by pavement. Weakened and attacked by insects in  2012, it was considered a safety hazard and cut down. The rings of the tree, the textures, and signs of growth – as well as rot, insects, damage, or weathering – are all important elements of the life of any tree, to be acknowledged and honored."
 
"Ido Yoshimoto: Place and Time" is currently on view in our Coastal Marin Artists Gallery. Museum hours are Friday 1 - 5 pm and Saturday - Sunday, 12 - 5 pm. Admission is free!

#bolinasmuseum #coastalmarin #westmarin #bayareaartists #trees #woodworker #sculpture #history #arborday
Our planet is the most precious resource, and this Our planet is the most precious resource, and this Earth Day, we encourage you to honor and celebrate it in meaningful ways. If you are local, please consider joining in a beach cleanup at Stinson on Saturday, April 23 from 10 am - 12 pm, that is sponsored by the Earth Day at Stinson Beach event organizers, in partnership with the National Park Service, Surfrider Foundation's Marin Chapter, and Marin County Parks. Registration required for the beach cleanup, link in bio. 

This artwork of the Bolinas-Stinson channel is by Bolinas artist July Guzman. One of his works will be available during our Annual Art Benefit Auction this August. 
 
#earthday #loveearth #earthday🌎 #climatechange #climateaction #bethechangeyouwishtosee #nature #environmentalactivism #planetearth
Our current exhibition in the Main Gallery, "FOCUS Our current exhibition in the Main Gallery, "FOCUS / Fariba Bogzaran: Art and the Lucid Mind," is an ethereal multimedia show of mesmerizing beauty. Inverness-based artist, scientist, curator, and writer Fariba Bogzaran, Ph.D., coined the term “Lucid Art” based on her scientific research into the parallel between transpersonal experiences in lucid dreaming and creative expression. Her multi-layered artworks address the philosophical, spiritual, ecological, and scientific milieu of life, and her paintings–as if visual music–revel in light, transformative energy, mysticism, and motion. Her work invites you to explore consciousness, dreams, and creativity. 

Bogzaran is an internationally recognized expert in lucid dreaming. She founded and directed the first graduate-level dream studies program at JFK University in Berkeley, California, where she taught for two decades in the Department of Consciousness Studies and Arts and Consciousness. She is the founding director of the Lucid Art Foundation, which she envisioned with the surrealist painter Gordon Onslow Ford, to nurture other artistic visionaries.

Click the link in the bio to learn more about Fariba Bogzaran and upcoming related events at Bolinas Museum. ⬆️

Image: FARIBA BOGZARAN, "A New Beginning" (detail), 2014, acrylic on mulberry paper on canvas, courtesy of the artist. 

#bolinasmuseum #coastalmarin #westmarin #supportthearts #bayareaartists #luciddreaming #lucidity 

@faribabogzaran @lucidartfoundation
New Exhibitions Open Saturday, April 9 2 PM Artist New Exhibitions Open Saturday, April 9
2 PM Artist Talks · 3 - 5 PM Reception
Free and Open to All

FOCUS / FARIBA BOGZARAN: THE ART OF THE LUCID MIND
Curated by Elia Haworth
Artist Fariba Bogzaran, Ph.D., coined the term “Lucid Art” based on lucid dreaming and creative expression research. This exhibition explores consciousness and inspirations drawn from hypnagogia–the state between waking and dreaming. (Main Gallery)

IDO YOSHIMOTO: PLACE AND TIME
Curated by Elia Haworth
Wood sculptor and arborist Ido Yoshimoto says of his work, “Wood holds the memory of specific places and time … [in honoring] their lives, my creations are abstract epitaphs in a language constructed equally by me and the wood.” This exhibition features new work by Yoshimoto. (Coastal Marin Artists Gallery)

STEVEN BROCK: FACES OF MYANMAR 
Curated by Elia Haworth
The resiliency of the human spirit shines through in photographer Steven Brock’s colorful images that capture moments in the daily lives of ordinary people of Myanmar, who now face an uncertain future. (Photography Gallery)

There is a small selection of new works of art in the museum’s Permanent Collection Gallery, and “The Intrigue of Maps” exhibit in the history room presents elements of the layered culture of our area, from Native American villages to a contemporary aviation map.

 Learn more at the link in bio. ⬆️

Images:
Portraits of the artists: Fariba Bogzaran photo by Sina Dehghani; Ido Yoshimoto photo by Ekaterina Izmestieva; and Steven Brock (self-portrait).

FARIBA BOGZARAN, "Third Script: Light in Light," 2021, 40 x 30 inches, courtesy of the artist.

IDO YOSHIMOTO, "Uncle Burt’s Tree," 2022, Eastern Black Walnut, Vacaville, Latitude 38.359075 / Longitude -122.001571, 31 x 2.5 inches, courtesy of the artist.

STEVEN BROCK, "Leaving Yangon Station,” 2015, archival inkjet print, 9 x 13 inches, courtesy of the artist.

#bolinasmuseum #coastalmarin #westmarin #supportthearts #bayareaartists
Spring has sprung, and our April email newsletter Spring has sprung, and our April email newsletter is out today. Read all about upcoming exhibitions and in-person events, including our Annual Spring Benefit. Link in bio. ⬆️
 
This is the last weekend to experience our current exhibitions: William T. Wiley, Alan Giovannetti, and Catherine Chalmers. We'd love to see you on one of these lovely spring days.

Museum hours* are Friday 1 - 5 PM, Saturday - Sunday, 12 - 5 PM. Admission is always free.
 
*Note: New exhibitions open on Saturday, April 9, and we are closed to the public on Friday, April 8, for installation.
 
#bolinasmsueum #bayareaart #bolinasmuseumlovesyou
ON VIEW IN PHOTOGRAPHY GALLERY THROUGH APRIL 3 CA ON VIEW IN PHOTOGRAPHY GALLERY THROUGH APRIL 3

CATHERINE CHALMERS: SAFARI
Throughout her artistic career, multimedia artist Catherine Chalmers has focused on one central issue, how to confront and challenge our anthropocentric point of view. Working at
the intersection between art, science, and nature, she conducts extensive research for each project. This exhibition includes three short videos and related photographs from the American Cockroach project, which reexamines our relationship with this hated creature.

Curated by Jennifer Gately

Video link in bio. ⬆️

#bolinasmuseum #safari @cgchalmers 

Image: CATHERINE CHALMERS, "Praying Mantis" (detail), 2007, video still from "Safari,” pigment print, 5 x 7.5 inches. Courtesy of the artist.
Current Exhibitions: William T. Wiley, Alan Giovan Current Exhibitions: William T. Wiley, Alan Giovannetti, Catherine Chalmers, and More

On View Through Sunday, April 3

If you’ve not made it to see our current exhibitions, there are four weekends left to plan your visit. Take a break and find refuge in these wildly diverse shows. Museum hours, Friday 1-5 pm, Saturday-Sunday 12-5 pm.

“William T. Wiley: & So…” 
Curated by Jennifer Gately and Jennifer Wechsler
William T. Wiley (1937 - 2021) created thought-provoking art that defied classification for over 50 years. Rife with pointed societal commentary and witty personal musings, this exhibition shares a varied body of work across mediums. (Main Gallery)

“Alan Giovannetti: Progressions” 
Curated by Elia Haworth
Alan Giovannetti creates lost-wax cast jewelry and small abstract sculptures, primarily silver and bronze, and materials ranging from quartz to taxidermy glass eyes. His award-winning designs live in the collections of rock, jazz, and TV icons. (Coastal Marin Artists Gallery)

“Catherine Chalmers: Safari” 
Curated by Jennifer Gately 
This exhibition includes three short videos and related photographs from the American Cockroach project. Employing humor and surprise, she reexamines our relationship with one of the most hated of all creatures: the urban roach. (Photography Gallery)

“The Intrigue of Maps” exhibit in the history room presents elements of the layered culture of our area, from Native American villages to a contemporary aviation map.

Learn more at bolinasmuseum.org. Link in bio. ⬆️

Image captions:
WILLIAM T. WILEY, “Point Bone Eater,” 2007, watercolor and ink on paper, 20 x 14 inches. Courtesy of Hosfelt Gallery, San Francisco.
 
ALAN GIOVANNETTI, rutilated quartz ring, 2020, sterling silver, 1 ½ x 1 ½ x 1 ½ inches, courtesy of the artist.

CATHERINE CHALMERS, "Drinking," 1998, C-Print, courtesy of the artist.

Road & Trail Map of Mt. Tamalpais And Vicinity, c. 1913. Print on paper. Bolinas Museum Archive.

@hosfeltgallery 

#bolinasmuseum #coastalmarin #westmarin #supportthearts #bayareaartists #williamtwiley #catherinechalmers #alangiovannetti  #americancockroach #jewlery #rockstar
FROM THE ARCHIVES: Circular snapshots of coastal M FROM THE ARCHIVES: Circular snapshots of coastal Marin, circa the 1890s! 

In 1888, George Eastman marketed his Kodak #1 camera, the first widespread consumer point-and-shoot. Within a few years, snapshot mania spread around the United States. Amateur photographers—many of them women—formed clubs and published magazines to support what became known as “kodaking,” “kodakers,” and “kodakery.” As it turns out, some of these “kodakers” lived in Bolinas, and the Bolinas Museum Archives holds many of their snapshots.

The Kodak #1 was sold pre-loaded and ready to take one hundred circular photographs. Once the last photograph on the roll was exposed, the entire camera was returned to the Rochester, New York factory for development and printing. Eastman came up with the perfect slogan: “You press the button, we do the rest.”

The Bolinas Waterhouse Family were frequent “kodakers,” snapping shots of daily life on the coast—from sunny beach days to cozy fires inside their Bolinas home. The first image in this post features the Waterhouse Family at Agate Beach, and the third and fourth images are portraits of Nellie and Frank Waterhouse, respectively. Nellie and Frank were pivotal in the development of Bolinas. In the early 1880s, they turned dairy pasture land into Brighton, Terrace, and Park Avenues—subdividing the land and selling lots, which quickly filled with homes, creating a vibrant downtown community. 

Thanks to Nellie, Frank, and their Kodak #1 camera—we can share this glimpse of a day in the life of the Waterhouse Family.

Images:

1) Three girls and an adult with a dog at Agate Beach, circa the 1890s, gelatin silver print. Bolinas Museum Archive. 

2) Bathers in bathing dresses, bloomers, and hats at Bolinas Beach, circa the 1890s, cyanotype. Bolinas Museum Archives, 2006.1.5.

3) Nellie Waterhouse, circa the 1890s, gelatin silver print. Bolinas Museum Archives, Gus Knowles Collection.

4) Frank Waterhouse, circa the 1890s, gelatin silver print. Bolinas Museum Archives, Gus Knowles Collection.

#fromthearchives #photography #vintage #history #kodaknumber1 #eastmankodak #bolinasmuseum #oldphoto #kodak #snapshot #vintagesnapshot #bolinasmuseum
We are sharing this recent news coverage on KNTV o We are sharing this recent news coverage on KNTV of 95-year-old photographer David Johnson, whose photographs were recently featured in "Harlem of the West: The San Francisco Fillmore Jazz Era," an exhibition in our Photography Gallery curated by Lewis Watts (November 20 - December 31, 2021). Watch the interview and learn more at the link in bio.☝🏽

 #jazz #history #SF #fillmorestreetsf #finditonfillmore #jazzlegends #legendary #fillmore #fillmorejazzfestival #fillmorestreet #goodoldays #art #jazzfestival #blackhistorymonth #blackhistory
Artist Spotlight: Alan Giovannetti With refined Artist Spotlight: Alan Giovannetti 
 
With refined skills and wild imagination, Alan Giovannetti creates impeccably finished, lost-wax cast jewelry, along with small abstract sculptures of cast bronze. His award-winning jewelry, primarily in sterling silver, is often adorned with quartz, diamonds, taxidermy glass eyes, carved skulls, or beach glass and has graced the hands of legendary stars of rock, jazz, and television. A San Francisco native, Giovannetti grew up during an explosion of counterculture creativity of the 1960s and ‘70s. His innovative designs led him to work with Sam Paul Gee in his famous North Beach shop, and later Giovannetti ran his own jewelry gallery in Sausalito. In 2000, Alan Giovannetti moved to Bolinas, living and creating quietly and selling through some galleries and private appointments. "Alan Giovannetti: Progressions" is on view at Bolinas Museum through April 3.
 
Q. When did art come into your life? 
A. By the time I was four, I was dedicated to drawing and making things. I learned the lost wax technique that I still use to make my jewelry and sculptures in high school.
 
Q. Do you have any rituals related to your creative practice?
A. Patience and perfectionism. Each ring or sculpture takes hundreds of hours to make. I start each without a preconceived design and allow it to evolve as I work. I make the original model bit by bit in wax, then take it to the masters of Mussi Artworks Foundry in Berkeley, California. They surround the model in plaster, then heat the resulting mold to drain the wax, leaving a hollow interior that is filled with sterling silver, 18 k gold, or bronze, making a perfect replica of the original wax model. Afterward, I spend many hours in the finishing processes.
 
Q. What has your studio practice taught you about the kind of person you are? 
A. I like solitude.
 
Q. How does coastal Marin or the Bay Area influence you as an artist?
A. The bay area allowed for unconventional creativity, and living in Bolinas gives me quiet, surrounded by nature.
 
Link in bio. Image captions in comments.

#bolinasmuseum #coastalmarin #westmarin #jewlery #rockstar
William Ransom is a sculptor whose works originate William Ransom is a sculptor whose works originate at the intersection of investigations into personal history, collective history, agricultural experience, and material engagement.

As the son of a biracial union, the concept of balance is a running thread in his life and art practice. Ransom's work often reflects the theme of balance by suggesting flux and movement; a state of becoming or diminishing; and a transitory provisional state, rife with inherent unease and uncertainty. The forces brought to bear on the material pull into sharp focus the tensions and underlying instabilities and stresses of our world’s current state and the ever-present potential for flare-up or collapse.

This 2015 piece, "sheaf and bale," was for a show at the Bolinas Museum called "From Here." It’s constructed of redwood 2x6’s salvaged from Ransom’s childhood home on the Big Mesa. The porch was the site of many moments of youthful joy and discovery. Ransom’s material reuse asks us to consider how our experiences and environments interconnect through memory and physical form.

Ransom says of his time in Bolinas as a teenager, “Introductions to eclectic and unorthodox materials, methodologies, and mindsets led me to a fiercely DIY way of being that continues to inform my studio practice.”

William Ransom received an MFA in Sculpture from Claremont Graduate University in 2008 and a BA in Sculpture and Architecture from Bennington College in 2004.

After a decade on the West Coast, he returned to Vermont with his family.

@williamransomart 

#williamransomart #bolinasmuseum #coastalmarin #westmarin #sculpture

Images: WILLIAM RANSOM, "sheaf and bale" (installation and detail) in the 2015 "From Here" show at Bolinas Museum.
Changing Bolinas Landscape    Like much of coast Changing Bolinas Landscape 
 
Like much of coastal Marin, the historic ecosystem of the Bolinas landscape was coastal prairie grassland, with tree growth limited to water-drainage ravines. Today, the broad flatland of Bolinas headlands, known as the Big Mesa,
is filled with dense vegetation—both native and non-native—all the result of recent human intrusion. Cattle grazed Big Mesa since 1834, including generations of dairy farms that were the heart of the local economy into the 1960s. Monterey cypress trees were introduced to Bolinas in the 1880s by Nellie Waterhouse when she and her husband developed Brighton Avenue. In the photo of Bolinas headland around 1900, Bolinas town is tucked between Bolinas Lagoon and rolling grasslands. Some introduced cypress and eucalyptus stand on the Mesa, including on the distant dairy farm near today’s Commonweal.
 
In the late 1920s, a New York couple bought up most of Big Mesa’s grazing land, created roads, and subdivided the land into small lots for their ill-fated housing resort. An aerial photo of Big Mesa taken in the late 1940s shows few buildings but more low scrub on disturbed land. In the 1969 aerial photo taken for a University of California study, there were still only scattered homes and trees. The 1970s brought a building boom that permanently altered the Big Mesa and its ecosystem. Later the Bolinas’ water moratorium helped to limit new construction. 

In recent decades, most homeowners on Big Mesa have built fences around their property, breaking up the wildlife habitat that had developed in the altered landscape. Introduced trees reproduced uncontrolled, blackberries, coastal scrub, native and non-native plants, and invasive grasses created both new habitat and severe fire hazards. Now, many overgrown sites are being cleared for fire-defensible space. Today, the national parkland beyond Poplar Road most closely resembles the historical landscape of our area, including occasional stands of native bunchgrass that once dominated the coastal prairie.
  
Images caption in comments.
 
#bolinashistory #bolinasmuseum
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PO Box 450
Bolinas, California 94924

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