Presidio and Pulp

Before heading to Tinkering School last June, I was introduced to the artist Andy Goldsworthy.  Since then, I watched a documentary about him.  He has an amazing eye for finding ways to take simple elements and make them into something magical, his work is surprisingly deliberate and delicate when contrast against its outdoor location.

A couple weeks ago, I saw an ad in the SF Weekly about things going on at The Presidio, which included an install of Andy Goldworthy's work.

Andy Goldsworthy's "Spires" installation was in a wooded area with breathtaking vistas of the Bay (the Golden Gate Bridge, Alcatraz).  There is a re-forrestation project in this area, so there were many newly planted trees.

Hiking Path and Spire

Spire and Newly Planted Trees

The Bay and Newly Planted Trees

The Spire

Alcatraz Island

The Presidio is National Park whose history includes housing soldiers from many different countries, and it was a US Army base for many years.  In the park literature, Jerry Garcia's name is dropped as having spent the nine short months of his enlistment there.  Garcia went AWOL eight times in those nine months.

Since this was the first weekend of month, Conery and I decided to take Bank of America up the offer to get in free to select museums.  So after leaving The Presidio, we headed to the Legion of Honor Museum for an exhibit called Pulp Fashion.  Isabelle de Borchgrave makes life size replicas of the clothing worn by historic figures (Medici, Elizabeth I, Marie Antoinette) using only paper.  The paper was dyed or hand painted and ranged from thin, tissue paper to stiffer paper.  All of the jewelry and lace was made of paper as well; that was pretty amazing.

The LoH museum was pretty big.  They have a pretty extensive permanent collection which includes one of the castings of Rodin's The Thinker.  This version's claim to fame is that it is one of the few that was cast during the artist's lifetime.

After the Pulp Fashion exhibit, we called it a day.  We will have to come back another weekend to check out the rest of the collection.