As San Francisco plans to vote on renaming our airport to honor Harvey Milk, I have to wonder, if we will still put SFO on the luggage tags or MILK?

I have to begin with a disclaimer.  Here in the Bay Area, the title of this post might suggest this is yet another tome praising Burning Man.  But no, read on.  It’s easy to make that assumption.  It seems you can’t go to any social gathering without someone trying to convert you to the “experience.”  When I say I love going to the desert, I have lost count of the number of times someone has asked, “Do you go to Burning Man?”  The answer is always no!  I go on to explain that I love the desert for its solitude, it’s quiet, its beauty.  I’m not a big crowd or big party sort of person.  A party in the desert is just not my thing. 

The devotees of Burning Man can rarely just leave it.  The art they tell me, what about the art?  Yes, the “art” (quotes very intentional).  I have seen plenty of photos.  Last month a friend sent me a link with photos of this year’s event.  The nighttime photos were stylistically interesting, but frankly the skilled photographer could have made a strip mall parking lot look just as an intriguing.  The “art” at Burning Man had little to do with the quality of those photos.  I also see Burning Man art installed around San Francisco.  Never has it compelled me to spend the time, money and energy of going to Burning Man.  By contrast, I dream of a trip to Korea just based on a few exhibits at the Asian Art Museum.  Ten years ago, I first heard of Marfa, Texas and got there as quick as I could.  Now, that’s art in the desert. 

Back to Nevada, I just completed what I’ll call a Great Basin Road Trip.  It was a week on the road that started by heading due East with a drive over the Tioga Pass. Nevada presents some challenges for a road trip.  There are vast expanses with few people.  You need to think about where you’ll fill the gas tank and where you’ll even find a motel.  I planned this trip to be one where I was in no particular hurry.  Allowing myself to stop when I found something that caught my interest.  I say “no particular hurry” but cruise control is your best friend.  Let’s just say that without cruise control, hypothetically, you find Perez Prado blasting on the car stereo and you look at the speedometer and you, hypothetically of course, are hitting 100 mph. 

The second day of the trip I woke up in Tonopah, Nevada.  Tonopah is a mining town that survived in a landscape that is dotted with ghost towns.  The mine is long closed, the population has grown smaller, but Tonopah still is a community.   Having frequently visited ghost towns like Bodie and Rhyolite, I find places like Tonopah fascinating.  In Rhyolite you have a few stone façades, in Tonopah many of the old stone buildings are still standing and occupied.  By visiting both the ghost towns and similar towns that are still in existence, you get a different perspective on both places.  It is a different experience from the visiting a restored historic town or district.  Nevada is probably one of the only places where this could happen.

Tonopah offers two museums, neither an art museum per se, but still definitely an art experience.  I began with the Tonopah Historic Mining Park.   Okay, I have a certain affinity for old rusty stuff.  It always makes me whip out my camera.  If an artist had come along and placed all these discarded pieces of machinery, we would call it an installation.  Either way, it still has that effect.  The Hoist House was my favorite spot.  Hoist houses were industrial buildings with an adjacent tower and the machinery needed to hoist the loads of heavy ore out of the ground.  And, if those towers remind you of that much-talked-about “man” in the Nevada Desert, well yes, so much art really is derivative.  The building is well preserved.  There is certain magic about the interior of a large wood frame, tin clad building in the desert.  The intense desert light is always “calmed” inside these structures.  It’s bright yet gentle.  But the real magic is the sound.  As the day heats up there is the pop and crackling of metal and hardware expanding and contracting.  It’s hard to really describe, but once you’ve experienced it, you know.  And if you’re like me, you always like to step inside those buildings.

On the way out of town I stopped by the Central Nevada Museum.   I learned that sun and magnesium turn glass purple and I fell in love with a map of mining claims.  Keep an eye out, this pattern might appear in my work soon.  The road took me onward with a stop at the ever-kitschy Little A’Le’Inn near mythical Area 51.  And before reaching Utah I stopped at Cathedral Gorge State Park.  Nevada has a few lesser-known state parks that are of national park caliber.  As I pretty much had the place to myself, I shouldn’t complain.  Nevada has tough competition in the West.  It’s quite beautiful, but when you’re stuck between California, Utah and Arizona, no one seems to notice Nevada.  If we moved Nevada between say, Kansas and Oklahoma, well, everyone would rave about Nevada. 

After a few days in Utah and it was time to head home.  This time a different route that included Great Basin National Park and an overnight in Ely, Nevada.  Downtown Ely boasts a sculpture park with works by Sarah Sweetwater that incorporate abandoned mining equipment.  The next challenge is Loneliest Road in America.  Route 50 is a segment of the old Lincoln Highway and actually follows the original Pony Express Trail across Nevada.  It’s a long, but rather beautiful drive that ended in Reno. 

In Reno I held to my rule about visiting museums in smaller cities.  The Nevada Museum of Art is always worth a look.  The highlight of this visit was Richard Ross’s photographs of children caught up in America’s juvenile “justice” system.  It’s a disturbing and unpleasant show, but the sort of important subject that museums need to address at times.  I kept thinking, could this show even happen in a San Francisco venue?  It would never be pretty enough for the de Young.  Perhaps the SFMOMA, but frankly Ross will need to be “validated” more by New York to get on their radar.  Even Yerba Buena would be unlikely to show his work.  There are limits to their edginess. 

People ask why I go on desert road trips, well now you might have a better idea.  

Jenn Yoo has written an article for Untapped Cities about my current installation Imagining Val Travel.  You can check it out here.

Starting this month, San Franciscans need to bring their own shopping bags, or pay for one at the check out.  Wouldn’t you like to have a cool one like this?  It’s available from Society 6.

I am so used to seeing my art close up, in the cozy space of my apartment.  It’s such a different experience seeing it from across a big room.  Here’s what it looked like at 9:30 last night.  40+ pieces of art installed and now just waiting for you….

Imagining Val Travel

A site-specific installation of mixed media art made from travel-related ephemera.  The installation infuses the space with the soul of an imaginary, long lost travel agency.

Glama-Rama Salon & Gallery

304 Valencia Street (at 14^th St.)   San Francisco

September 16^th – November 3^rd, 2012

Opening Reception Sunday, September 16^th, 6 pm - 9 pm

Travel was a theme that came up in many pieces for the 2011 Project.  And many of the mixed media pieces used travel-themed ephemera like maps, postcards and ticket stubs.  This Sunday, on September 16^th, my new installation Imagining Val Travel opens and it will include some of the travel themed pieces from the 2011 Project.  

Below is the information and statement for my upcoming installation -

Imagining Val Travel  

Glama-Rama Salon & Gallery 

304 Valencia Street (at 14^th St.) in San Francisco

September 16^th – November 3^rd, 2012 

Opening Reception Sunday, September 16^th, 6 pm - 9 pm

I have always been interested in history, from the big moments to the everyday.  I have a special fascination for San Francisco history.  I even like to look-up the history of spots in my neighborhood.  For a relatively young city, San Francisco has a rich, layered history.  It is also a city full of ghosts.  It made me wonder about the space at 304 Valencia.  What was there long before Glama-Rama?

Now, just imagine what it was like at 304 Valencia Street when they were renovating and moving into the new location for Glama-Rama.  Imagine a trip to a dusty, dark basement and finding a forgotten corner.  They might have discovered a box filled with discarded items from a long gone tenant.  Imagine Val Travel…

Ask yourself, could a former travel agency be haunted?  What sort of ghosts would be there?  I like to think it could be a place of pleasant and happy spirits.  The positive energy left behind would be from the years of customers coming by to plan and anticipate exciting adventures.  A salon and a travel agency have something in common.  They are both places that fulfill dreams and make our lives more glamorous. It’s no accident that Glama-Rama found a new home at 304 Valencia.

With this mind, I wanted to create a new series of travel themed, mixed media pieces using travel-related ephemera.  The installation at Glama-Rama Salon & Gallery is meant to infuse the space with the soul of an imaginary, long lost travel agency.  The work pays homage to all travel agencies because they have all but vanished from our urban landscapes.  

I reuse and repurpose old bits of paper, everything from maps to postcards to stamps to photographs to magazines to various travel ephemera.  Recycling is only part of the agenda.  Even though I may destroy certain items to reuse them, there is a side of historic preservation with my work.  Rather than tucking something in a box or drawer, I prefer to permanently add it to a piece of art.  The work may have aesthetic value, but it also can serve as a time capsule by using items that would otherwise be lost or forgotten.  Many of the items I use are being rendered “obsolete” in our digital society.  Snapshots, postage stamps, tickets stubs are among things that are vanishing from our day-to-day lives.

A forgotten box full of old travel brochures, maps and postcards, etc. + an old photo = more than 30 pieces of new work.

Some of the travel-themed pieces from the 2011 Project

Travel was a recurring theme last year as I did the individual pieces for the 2011 Project.  I certainly enjoy travel, but it also is not surprising considering my collage boxes are full of travel ephemera (yes, I keep boxes of treasure just waiting to be used in art).  In September I am showing over 30 pieces of new work, all of it travel themed.  It is all part of site specific installation called Imagining Val Travel (it opens September 16, click here for details).

Atlantic City Boardwalk, mixed media on canvas, 8”x8”

Atlantic City has been done over a number of times over the years.  Most famously, or notoriously, in the 1970’s when much was torn down to create a bit of Las Vegas on the Atlantic.  It’s a shame that it has always been about renovation instead of restoration.  Imagine if we had waited and now, a century later, Atlantic City’s Boardwalk was meticulously restored to its early 20^th Century splendor.  All we have now is old photos and postcards. The postcards used for this piece were nearly a hundred years old.  Come on down to the Boardwalk, jump in the sea, get some saltwater taffy and imagine the days when Nucky Johnson ruled the town.