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.

Care & Feeding
George (very fancy gear for dogs & cats)
Noe Valley Pet (gear. also hosts adoption hours for Muttville)
Petco

Classes & Meetups
SPCA

Dog Activism
DogPACSF
SF Dog
Yelp (I’m in disbelief that you can take your dog all these places, but for those who like to bend the rules …)

Out & About (socialization for you & the dog)
SF Dog Parks
Dog-friendly hotels, parks and cafes

Daycare, Boarding & Sitting
DogPile Dogs
Wag Hotel

*This list is for informational use only and not an endorsement. We just got our puppy 2 weeks ago and haven’t tried all these places … yet!

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!

Permalink

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.

Permalink

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.

Permalink