Dan and I take a break from wedding festivities in Piedmont Park, Atlanta.

One thing that came to mind while I was listening was that we might learn the art of answering tough questions. Here in San Francisco I’ve seen more than a few arts administrators (myself included) flail and founder when asked to explain a mistake or a difficult decision, particularly in the first year as an executive director or interim director. Conversely, there are numerous longtime directors I admire for their ability to always speak of their work in a way that is focused enough to seem “real,” but grand enough to be inspiring.

It is hard to see good people get tripped up because of personal style rather than substance. New CEO’s at large corporations have image consultants who help them moderate their vocal inflection, shift negatives to positives, and speak in generalities. New executive directors at nonprofits rarely have access to that kind of resource. But the smaller size of our organizations does not lessen the number of tough questions we receive when we take on a leadership role, or the challenges we face in answering them.

At the end of the interview, Kent was asked if he had to shift his style when he became CEO, and to my surprise he said no, there was no shift in style, but that he had to communicate more carefully. In his words:

“You have to be much more careful about the words you use and how you use them, and when you use them … sometimes the language you use as a CEO whether it’s with a bottler or whether at town hall meetings is something that needs to be in a different context, and that’s something that I learned the hard way.”

My iphone photo taken at Ann Carlson's 70-minute performance hike, "Picture Jasper Ridge."

On Friday I went to see Picture Jasper Ridge Ann Carlson’s 70-minute performance hike through the Jasper Ridge Biological Preserve near Stanford University. You could not have asked for a more beautiful day to see art outdoors. As we passed through the gates of Jasper Ridge we were divided into smaller groups and asked to hold silence. This was my second “no speaking” performance this year, the first was Sleep No More by Punchdrunk Theatricals, where the audience followed—sometimes ran—after the performers, who ate and sang and danced and seduced one another through several floors of the McKittrick Hotel.

In Picture Jasper Ridge, the performers do not move or speak either. Visitors come upon them in tableaux vivants recreating archival images on or near the spot they were taken. Using a printed program, we were able to identify the images, along with some images of nature that indicated the passage of time: a skeleton of a deer who died giving birth, a rare leatherwood flower, a tree that had grown over the “No Swimming” sign affixed to its trunk.

One essay in the program addressed the experience of photographing a living image of an archive and many people brought along cameras. It is rare for an audience to be allowed to photograph work by someone as acclaimed as Ann Carlson. I brought my Nikon SLR but at the last minute decided against it and left it in the car. Even though I love taking photos, the thought of being an audience member with a large camera is intimidating to me even when given permission. So I didn’t bring my camera, but when people began taking photos I couldn’t resist taking several (including the one above) on my iphone instead.

For the first 20 minutes or so, it was impossible to silence the part of my mind that incessantly chatters white-paper jargon about “audience engagement” an “manufacturing meaning” because it was such a unique experience but one that seems tailor-made for community-based, neighborhood-based work. I was not surprised when, following the show, I learned that Picture Jasper Ridge was informed by Carlson’s earlier work Night Light, which was performed at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in 2002.

After the hike the audience and performers gathered around picnic tables to share a meal before taking the shuttle back to Stanford. It was opening night (afternoon?) so everyone was buzzing about the experience. I overheard one of the performers talking about how some of the groups seemed more “generous” than others because they took in the tableaux, while other groups—clearly the lesser groups according to the performer speaking—were busy snapping photos.

As someone who performed as an actor on stage every year for 20 years, I get what he was saying but I had never thought of it that way. It has been eight years since I performed and in that time pro-am photography and smart phones have become part of the live art experience. So, I’ve had the experience of being an audience member with a camera. And I’ve had the experience of being an administrator enforcing camera/no camera rules and conferring with artists about it. But until yesterday I hadn’t put myself in the shoes of a performer in the sense of what it feels like to perform for an audience who is actively engaged—with their cameras, or with some other activity that calls upon the audience as a creative or curatorial participant.

Of course it feels better to see emotion on the face of your audience, to hear them laugh and cry and gasp and clap. When the audience is active the rules change, the usual cues of an audience who is enjoying the performance are gone or different. After this experience I will be more mindful of that in my own work.

For Picture Jasper Ridge, I really enjoyed having permission to participate in a small interpretive way by framing and editing and sharing  the beautiful images created by Carlson and her collaborators. And a “performance hike” was well suited to this type of participation. The performers were still and we were not rushed from place to place. Because the hike was 70 minutes there was a lot of time between the performances to take in the experience with all senses and let one’s mind wander. As we got deeper into the hike I thought about my own history and how it connects with the natural world.

The morning after the performance, I enjoyed looking back at the photographs and recalling the whole experience. Picture Jasper Ridge was an experience that will stay with me for a long time.

A flurry of articles have popped up about the Outer Sunset over the winter, in travel magazines and fashion sites and other unexpected places.

Refinery 29
Surf ‘N Turf: S.F.’s Coolest Artist Couple Shows Off Their Beachside Crib 
Apartment Therapy-esque slideshow that captures some of the neighborhood’s strong visual themes (waterproof boots, weathered wood, succulents, surfboards) in a home setting.

SFGate
Street Date: Judah and La Playa streets, Outer Sunset
Being new to the neighborhood, I didn’t know the story of La Playa Park! Now I do, thanks to this article.

A Culinary Revival in the Outer Sunset’s Mist
Dan and I are pretty excited about this, for obvious reasons.

SF Examiner
N-Judah to be shut down for six consecutive weekends
Less excited about this, but I didn’t know the N-Judah carried more passengers than any other Muni line.

Temperature aside, though, San Francisco is hot right now in the art world. The Walker Art Center is running a film series today highlighting Alternative Film And Video In The San Francisco Bay Area. HowlRound’s new City Series is highlighting the City by the Bay first, kicked off with a beautiful and personal description of the city’s art pulse  by Deborah Cullinan.

February is not exactly a quiet month in the city, but it is definitely a time of year when I see friends a little more. My new year’s resolutions are still fresh and it feels like a good time to take risks and explore. I would love to go to Minneapolis and see how people are responding to Cadillac Ranch/Media Burn and others.

Which makes me wonder … if I could choose three contemporary artworks I saw last year in SF to get national attention, which would I choose, and why?

What would you choose?

1. Bought a home
Home ownership is something I’ve wanted for over 10 years. Then we moved to San Francisco. A lot of friends told me it couldn’t happen here, but we stayed in our tiny studio and started saving and looking at every possible lending and homeownership program. I read every blog by anyone who might have helpful information, and trekked to dozens of open houses in unfamiliar neighborhoods.Working it all out was a minor miracle, but if we can do it then other people can too. Housing affordability across the US is at a record high but San Francisco is #1 (above NYC) least affordable rental and ownership market. I personally feel this is one of the most urgent problems facing our city.

2. Celebrated 1st Wedding Anniversary
Most of 2010 involved planning our wedding. 2011 was the first full year we were married. Love is good.

3. Started Reading Again
Before I moved to San Francisco in 2008, I read a lot. After moving, not so much. But in 2011 I got back to it. I also started using Goodreads again so I can keep track of what I’ve read over the year and get recommendations.

4. Took Guitar Lessons
There is a saying “Never marry your mistress,” and sometimes the stress and complexities of working in the arts can suck the joy out of a creative experience. Being in a class, away from work, was an important touchstone for me in 2011 and something I will continue in 2012.

5. Moved To The Cloud
Yeah, it’s corny and everyone’s doing it. But in 2011 Dan helped me adjust my habits so that most of my the information that used to clog up my Mac is now in the cloud. Dropbox, rdio, Pinboard, Salesforce, Instagram … it is hard to imagine a time when I didn’t use these daily to read, connect, listen and plan.

6. Discovered The Outer Sunset
I’m stealing this one from Dan, but it’s true … the Outer Sunset was a revelation in 2011. Danny Hess said it best: We don’t have much out here. It’s a short list. But what we do have is awesome. Ocean Beach, Golden Gate Park, Trouble Coffee, Outerlands, Other Avenues, Sea Breeze Cafe, Judahlicious. Window displays by artist Jay Nelson and storefront signage by Jeff Canham. Plus, it reminds me of New London.

7. Started Running (again)
I promised myself that when we moved to the Outer Sunset I would take advantage of the flat terrain and gorgeous vistas and start running again. From September through December I averaged 40 miles a month. Not great, but not bad. Dan and I ran the Dolphin South End Running Club 5k on Halloween and I cheered him on at the San Francisco Half-Marathon in July. In December I set a personal best of 7:50 for the mile which isn’t spectacular but is better than I ever thought I’d do.

8. Embraced Fiscal Responsibility
Sometimes when I’m hanging out with my friends and the subject of money comes up I have this sort of out-of-body experience where I step back and wonder what this conversation was like five years ago. Because I am still under the delusion that we are young-ish, but my friends and I … most of us work for nonprofits or are artists or freelancers and we care about things like security and stability. Maybe it’s the recession, I don’t know. But in 2010 Dan and I created a budget that we share and update monthly so that we are on the same page about saving, spending and debt. It keeps us honest, keeps us real, and it’s a good thing.

9. Enjoyed Queer Art
I enjoyed queer art before 2011. But when I think of what made me sit up and pay attention, collectively, in 2011 it was THEOFFCENTER. It was Laura Arrington’s SQUART! (Spontaneous Queer Art!) at SOMArts and Headlands Center for the Arts. It was Taylor Mac’s 4-hour play The Lily’s Revenge at Magic Theatre, it was Chase Joynt, Ben McCoy, Kevin Seaman, Mica Sigourney, Ernesto Sopprani, Anna Martine Whitehead and the entire ensemble in Jesse Hewit’s performance art festival This Is What I Want. It was the poetry of Kirya Traber at Feast of Words and Michelle Tea’s series about getting pregnant at forty. The photography of Sadie Lune, the culinary artistry of Yasmin Golan. There is so much I am leaving out and so many culturally-driven arts experiences to be had in San Francisco … but *wow*. That was amazing.

10. Adopted A Dog
I didn’t see this one coming, but after we moved we adopted a dog from the SPCA. Riggins is a Boston Terrier / Chihuahua mix (we think). He is utterly adorable and  relatively well behaved. We go to the beach and the park a lot more now.

Introducing ... Riggins!

It started with Rupert. Then came Loretta, followed by Momo and General Peaches. Getting a dog was the furthest thing from my mind as recently as six months ago; Dan and I have a wonderful cat named Stella. But it is a testament to the insidious persuasive nature of social networking that after Fibonnaci-rate growth of photos shared by our friends who appeared to live, work,and have a social life with their dogs, I caught puppy fever. Once we moved to Outer Sunset where there was a beach and a park and no landlord it was just a matter of time. In San Francisco, dogs outnumber kids by about 13,000.

We had a technical term for the kind of dog we wanted: Smush-Face Dog. A chug (chihuahua-pug), pug or french bulldog that was low-key, cuddly, quiet and small, who didn’t require a lot of maintenance. Basically: a cat. And yet … a dog!

Never has one of my favorite quotes been more appropriate:

The heart has its reasons, of which reason knows nothing.—Blaise Pascal

What I wanted was completely unrealistic, yet I somehow convinced myself that this could happen. Dan and I could handle the responsibility. Better yet … we could practice some good habits such as obedience training, work/life balance and poop cleanup that would be useful if we eventually became parents.

Dan took some convincing—mainly because he feared that most of the work of another pet would fall on him. But right after Thanksgiving we looked ahead and realized that we would be home for a few months without major travel, and right now was perhaps the best chance we’d ever have to make a dog part of our family.

Let The Right One In: Finding The Dog Of Your Dreams
If we could choose any dog, and we were going to have the dog for a long time, I decided I wanted a french bulldog. Dwell magazine wrote an article highlighting the “bad design” of Frenchies, but they are SO CUTE (see the above quote about heart vs. reason). They are quiet, small, don’t require a lot of exercise, and they meet the smush-face criteria. I scoured the internet for local breeders and researched breed standards and convinced myself that our Frenchie would be perfectly healthy and not at all like those other Frenchies.

However. Reality has a way of creeping in and the truth is that we couldn’t afford a dog from a breeder. Even if we could afford one it is more aligned with our values to give a shelter dog a loving home. Without giving up my dream of a smush-face dog, I asked Dan if we could go check out “adoption hours” at a local rescue organization. There were a couple that looked promising, including Wonder Dog Rescue and the SPCA.

Adoption Hours 101
The most important thing to know about open adoption hours is: do not go ANYWHERE near them if you are not prepared to walk out with a dog. Pat Miller wrote an excellent article about choosing the right dog and I read it but we thought we were still in the “just looking” phase. I was all like “I’m not 5 years old, and we’re not going to pick the first dog we meet.”  But that’s not how it works.

We were running an errand at SOMArts a couple of weeks ago on a Sunday and we passed by a sign that said SPCA adoption hours were open. I’d been looking at some rescue sites online and it seemed like they all required  an extensive application/interview process before they would consider letting you take a dog home. Since we didn’t have any dog supplies or any proof that dogs were allowed where we live, I thought we were safe.

We walked in and a volunteer directed us to the adoption area, which included several “alleys” of rooms with large windows where visitors could look in and see the dogs. As soon as we saw Riggins, we were pretty much done. He wasn’t a pug or a bulldog and he didn’t have a smush-face. He looked too skinny, and really scared. According to the SPCA he was adopted and then returned the day after Thanksgiving because his owner lost a job. We tried visiting with him but he just hid behind the legs of the SPCA worker and wouldn’t look at us.

We decided we’d try visiting with him one more time. The SPCA worker stayed outside the room so that Riggins wouldn’t be distracted. Right away, he liked Dan. He was five months old, still a puppy but already fixed and had all his vaccinations.

Can we keep him?

So now we are dog owners. Stella is adjusting better than expected and we are still hopeful that they’ll be cuddling on the couch by Christmas. We’ve been taking Riggs around the city to discover what a dog’s life is like here. I’ve been reading up on pending legislation … especially new rules that will affect Ocean Beach and Golden Gate Park. Riggins even came running with me, although he was much faster when we were heading in the homeward direction.

Even though having a dog is fun, it is way more work than I even imagined and a little overwhelming. If any of you have tips, send them our way!

This week, however, I am back to writing about art as part of the inaugural Animating Democracy Blog Salon of Americans for the Arts. It’s an impressive cohort and I am learning a lot. A particular favorite is Every Museum Needs A Community Organizer by Damon Rich, an artist who transformed several galleries of the Queens Museum of Art into a place to explore how our society pays for housing, how the system has broken down, and the arguments over fixing it.

Last week I had lunch with a friend who asked me “what type of publicity do you hope for at SOMArts?” and it occurred to me that my answer has changed over the past few years. When I worked for producing and presenting performance organizations a few years ago, it was essential to get featured listings and reviews in prestige publications (such as the biggest local newspaper).

Nowadays it is still important to get listed, but I care much more about the quality of the writing and much less about where it is published. We May Be Hotter Than We Know, Hugo Schwyzer’s thoughtful analysis of the exhibit Man As Object: Reversing the Gaze, was published on a website unfamiliar to me, but as of this morning it had 1,088 shares on Facebook. A listing on Remezcla drove more traffic to our website for Illuminations: Dia de los Muertos than a similar listing on the San Francisco Chronicle’s website.

Something different about publicity now, compared to five years ago, is that you can see the dialogue. In the past if your theater got a review in The New York Times you were sure people were talking about it, but you didn’t know who or where. Now, you can see who is responding and how. For my personal work and practice, that means that paying attention to community-based blogs and publications pays off … in attendance and in mission-friendly dialogue about cultural understanding and appreciation.

Maybe I am stating what’s obvious to everyone else, but my personal experience is that boards and executive directors (and even staff) fall into assumptions about what press “matters” and who is participating online. I’m looking forward to the rest of the Animating Democracy Blog Salon and hope it will illuminate and challenge some of my own assumptions.

About a month ago I promised to write a blog post about making homebuying decisions with a partner.

Several rough drafts later, I am admitting defeat. Dan and I get along ridiculously well and our decision-making process was pretty basic. We were thorough—we made a checklist of things we really wanted, and things that were deal-breakers. There were only 10-20 homes in San Francisco each month that were in our price range and could be financed with our FHA loan, and somewhat matched our checklist. Then we would go visit an open house and discover that “fixer-upper” meant it had no walls … or an unpermited in-law unit, or cracks in the foundation. So that narrowed it down to about three viable homes for sale each month, and most of those were sold above list price.

As this recent New York Times article points out, decision-making is stressful, period. We can only make a certain number of decisions each day with out getting fatigued. Certain kinds of decisions, such as trade-offs and compromises, are more taxing than others. Making decisions—even the “easy” ones—saps your energy and willpower.

We looked at flips. We explored unfamiliar neighborhoods. The hardest part for me was making the decisions without as much information as I would have liked. This happens more than you might imagine in the homebuying process.

Almost a year ago, the New York Times ran a photo essay, “In San Francisco, A Bleak Neighborhood is Revived.” Dan forwarded it to me because the neighborhood—Outer Sunset—reminded him of New London, Connecticut. He was suggesting we visit Trouble Coffee, or maybe get dinner at Outerlands… we hadn’t even started our home search yet. But I was in love with the beach and the fog and even the odd quiet outside-ness of the neighborhood. When a house came along in our price range we were with the crowd lined up outside the first day it was open for viewing. Unfortunately, it needed too much work. We saw it three times and named it “Bleak House” because we couldn’t take on the repairs it would have needed.

A few blocks away from Bleak House there was a condo listing I’d ignored for a few weeks. The photos in the listing were bad, it looked like a white box with no character. But it had two bedrooms and two bathrooms, parking, a gas stove, and a yard. It was one block from Muni. Despite its bland looks, it had nearly everything on our checklist. We made an offer on it that day, and seven weeks later we had the keys. Nine weeks, four gallons of paint and a new carpet later, we moved in. It’s amazing. I’m still in disbelief.

When I think about the most useful advice I can offer, it’s that if you don’t have a lot of money and you want to buy a home in San Francisco and you are doing it with a partner, lack of inventory means you should be prepared to act quickly when you find something you both agree on. My best advice is to decide together when you are going to start making offers, interview some lenders, and get pre-approved. Gathering up documentation for pre-approval will take several hours, and once you have submitted it to a lender it may take a week or more to receive a response.

The other advice is that if you give the home search your best effort, finding something good is possible right now, with interest rates and home prices being what they are. Obviously if you have rent control at a decent rate—save your money! But we needed to move, we weren’t going to be in our studio forever. And we wanted to stay in San Francisco, and when we did the math it actually made sense. Don’t be afraid to try.

Something I promised myself I’d do once we moved was start running again. To stay motivated, I’m using a couch-to-5k program that exports to my google calendar and tells me how far to run and on which days. I’m in week 3 and it’s going pretty well so far, but this morning while cooling down and reading news.me I discovered ZOMBIES, RUN!

I’m fairly obsessed with games that integrate real life activity and people. The Beast was the best ever in my opinion, because at the time it felt like a completely new and exciting way to use the internet. Shadow Cities is interesting to me because you ally with or compete against people who live and work near you, it’s place-based and therefore connects players who don’t already know each other.

So far, the arts apps I’ve tried that used place-based technology are pretty lame. ZOMBIES, RUN! looks intriguing and I can’t wait to try it out.