Open Studios Oct. 4-5! Plus Ashland, OR paintings and Alcatraz
Join me this month as I invite you to Open Studios, share paintings from my trip to Ashland, show a new painting of Alcatraz, and reflect on SF Zine Fest. Stick around until the end to see a photo of my cat, Ruby.
This year I’ll be participating in San Francisco Open Studios for the first time! My friend and fellow artist Suze Riley invited me to join her in her studio at 1942 Divisadero for the weekend of October 4-5, 11am-5pm. We will also be joined by Lauren Crasco. Suze is known for nostalgic signage rendered in papercut, and sculptural installations. Lauren is known for ethereal collages and figurative drawings and paintings.
I’ll be digging into the archives and bringing out things that have never been exhibited, including entire sketchbooks to flip through. Open Studios is more than a market or an exhibit because it lets you into the artists’ process, offers an opportunity for a fuller understanding of their body of work, and gives you a chance to find things that may never be up in a gallery. We will also be present to discuss our work, art practices, and techniques.
As a bonus, we will have a special preview on the preceding Thursday, October 2, from 7-9pm, with a menu of custom cocktails & mocktails created by my partner, Sean Owens.
I just returned from a trip to the Oregon Shakespeare Festival in Ashland! I’ve been there pre-season for work before, but this was my first opportunity to be a regular audience member and just enjoy it as a vacation. Of course, that didn’t mean I was going to avoid painting! I took advantage of the warm weather on the first night and did a nocturne of the Varsity movie theater in watercolor, trying to get that value contrast with bright, saturated neon colors.
My other two pieces both focused on the hills outside of Ashland, which I think are so beautiful. For the first, I hiked up over Ashland and got the big view, the second is from just outside the theater looking into town. I only got a little bit rained on while finishing these two up.
Before I left San Francisco, My painting friend Mila Kirillova and I recently went painting in Russian hill, along Leavenworth. I looked down the street towards Alcatraz, and Mila looked the other way up the hill past the tall retaining wall. I’ve been working on including more context and foreground in my compositions, and I loved making it all the way down to the sidewalk and the shadow.
We had our biggest year yet at the SF Zine Fest! As always I teamed up with The Spooky Haus to put together a table of dozens of zines, chapbooks, prints, patches, pins, and art books. It was a busy and exhausting day. I did manage to get around and snag zines from a few fellow artists, some of whom traveled from out of state to be there. I got zines and/or prints from GetBlobbed Comics, Eleanor Klock, and Ride Guide SF!
I’ve been expanding the reach of my prints! There are now three brick and mortar shops in San Francisco where my sleeved prints are available: Queer Arts Featured on Castro, Fleetwood on Clement, and (new!) SF Mercantile on Haight. I’ve also expanded the number of paintings that have been reproduced as prints, so there’s a wide selection at each shop! Queer Arts Featured and Fleetwood both have some original paintings as well, and, additionally, you can find framed prints and originals at Chartreuse by Roje at Church and Market. If you find yourself in any of those neighborhoods, I encourage you to stop by.
Come and join us in September as “CROONERS Teaches you a Lesson!”— Lyrical Life Lessons and the Songs That Schooled Us. Join host Chester Vanderbox on the fourth Sunday of each month at 7 and 9pm for an evening of jazz standards and smoky ballads, in the sumptuous atmosphere of the inimitable Blue Room! Queer elegance abounds, with Chester’s cunning co-hosts, drag luminaries EnSeanTé and Polly Amber Ross. Put on your sassiest duds and reserve a table today– seating is extremely limited. Celebrity bartender MK is on hand, pouring out your favorites as we’re pouring out our hearts to you. Reserve your spot here!
I have a reading recommendation for you this month! In keeping with my current string of novels set in the 90’s in San Francisco (Midnight at the Cinema Palace and You Can Say You Knew Me When), I just finished Girls Girls Girls by Shoshana von Blanckensee. It’s a gripping read that turns poignant and cathartic, following the protagonist along her journey of leaving her East Coast hometown to come to San Francisco and find her queer lesbian community.
Thanks for reading my newsletter! As a reward, here is a picture of Ruby, doing her best sit.
While you await the next newsletter, you can check out my website to see my portfolio of plein air paintings, still lifes, block prints, figure drawings, tiny model houses, murals, and you can also find information on commissions! Please feel welcome to email me (just respond here!) and ask about any ideas you have that aren’t covered on my commission page, I’m always willing to discuss.
Stay tuned for next month, and let me know what you’d like to hear about in the newsletter in the future.
-Nathaniel J. Bice
he/him