Shows in Oakland + Barcelona! Plus, a little book

Can you believe it's 2024? It promises to be an...interesting year. What more hopeful way to kick it off than with some art?

First up, I am fortunate once again to be included in Gray Loft Gallery's annual color show. This year, in a hat tip to "Barbie," the hue is PINK. The "Pretty in Pink" show, juried by the amazing Jan Watten and Ann Jastrab, begins with a reception on Saturday, January 20, from 4 to 6:30. The exhibit will be open on weekends through February 24 at 2889 Ford Street in Oakland's fabulous Jingletown.

In case you're wondering, this image is a two-and-a-half minute exposure taken at an abandoned power plant in San Francisco. During the exposure, I flashed a pink light for about five seconds into each of the empty light sockets.

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I'm also going to be exhibiting in Barcelona, Spain! Last July, I received honorable mentions in five categories (for non-professionals) of the 20th Julia Margaret Cameron Awards for Women Photographers. I'm thrilled that the 11 honored images will be shown, along with the winners and other honorable mentions, at FotoNostrum Gallery April 5 to 21. The image here is one of six that will be included from the series Multiverse. I plan to be at the opening reception on April 4. Join me if you can!

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Lastly, I've made a little book! Last fall, while taking a photo class, I stumbled upon the Gold Bar, a distillery and bar on San Francisco's Treasure Island. The bar had recently opened in one of the Art Moderne buildings left over from the 1939 Golden Gate International Exposition, and its noir-ish red drapes and gleaming surfaces drew me in. I spent several weeks photographing there, and as the class ended, decided to put all the images together in a book for the bar's owner and employees. Take a look. It's enough to make you want a whiskey and a cigar!

"Connections: Art & Music" at Belvedere Tiburon Library Art Gallery

Hope you are safe and dry and your trees have remained rooted during our wild and wet start to 2023. Thankfully, the storms should abate by the middle of this week, just in time for the opening of a fun show called Connections: Art & Music at the Belvedere Tiburon Library's Art Gallery. Curators (and artist-musicians) Sandra Wolfson and Richard Rozen have assembled an exhibit of works inspired by or suggestive of music. In fact, each artwork will be accompanied by a piece of music you can listen to on your smart phone. I am delighted that my image "Terracruda"--a percussive assemblage of sliced-and-diced pictures of stainless steel wine vats in Italy--is included, and I'm humbled that it was chosen for the publicity poster, left.

The Thursday, January 19, opening will be held from 6 to 8 pm. The library is located at 1501 Tiburon Boulevard. The show runs to March 10 every day but Sundays.

In other news, my photo "Via San Donato" won an honorable mention in Black and White 2022, an online exhibit by the New York Center for Photographic Art. The juror was Dan Burkholder, a long-time photographer-hero of mine, which makes this honor especially thrilling.

Shades of Gray at Gray Loft Gallery

As the holidays rev up each year, you can count on Oakland's outstanding Gray Loft Gallery to launch a new color-themed show. This year, to celebrate the gallery's 10th anniversary, the theme is, appropriately, Shades of Gray.

Jurors Ann Jastrab, executive director of the Center for Photographic Art, and Jan Wattan, founder of Gray Loft, promise "cool neutrals, sophisticated deep charcoal gray images, glimmers of gray in a color landscape and the beautiful mid-tones of perfect gelatin silver prints." The photo at left, titled "Three Fish," fits somewhere in that spectrum, and I'm honored for it to be included.

The opening reception will be held Saturday, December 10, from 4 to 6:30 pm. A few fans may note that's right after the holiday performance of the Bernal Jazz Quartet, with husband Michael Gold on sax, at the Bernal Heights Library. Why not make it a day of art and music and join us on both sides of the bay?

The show ends with a closing reception on Saturday, January 21, 2023.

Gray Loft, voted "Best Art Gallery" of 2021 by Oakland Magazine readers, is located on the third floor of 2889 Ford Street in the hip Jingletown arts section of Oakland, which is worth a visit as well.

Photo Show Opening at Gray Loft Gallery

As things shift toward some kind of normal (what's that?!), galleries are finally moving from online exhibits to real, live, in-person events. One such happy happening will take place Saturday, November 20, from 4 to 6:30 pm, when Oakland's Gray Loft Gallery opens Yellow!, a group photography show about the color...yellow.

I'm so pleased that my night photo Merge (above) will be included. The juror is the inestimable Ann Jastrab, executive director of the Center for Photographic Arts in Carmel, CA, and the artists include the uber-talented Eben Ostby and Josie Iselin. The show will run from November 20 to December 18; the gallery is open Saturdays from 1 to 5 pm and Fridays by appointment.

Merge, by the way, won an honorable mention in 2019 at the New York Center for Photographic Art.

Gray Loft, run by photographer Jan Watten, is a gem, voted "Best Art Gallery" of 2021 by Oakland Magazine readers. It's located on the third floor of 2889 Ford Street in the hip Jingletown arts section of Oakland, which is worth a visit as well.

I'm planning to stick around for the entire reception on the 20th, and would also be happy to meet you there on another Saturday. Come on by (masks required) and say hi.

Showing at the de Young Museum

I hope you are all remaining safe and well, and have found creative and satisfying ways to cope with our increasingly strange circumstances.

Among the few arts venues that are finally re-opening in San Francisco is the de Young Museum, one of the city's premiere fine arts exhibitors. I am beyond thrilled that my photo, Early Morning, Market, taken last fall in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico, will be on display at the museum from October 10, 2020, to January 3, 2021. "The de Young Open" draws from artists in all nine counties that make up the Bay Area. The jurors--four curators from the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco and three well-known Bay Area artists, Mildred Howard, Hung Liu, and Enrique Chagoya--sifted through more than 11,500 works from 6,100 artists. More than 870 pieces by 762 artists will be hung "salon-style," meaning wall to wall and floor to ceiling.

Let me know if you'd like to meet up at the museum--appropriately masked and distanced, of course. The exhibit will also be available online.

In other news, one of my images from a trip to Iceland's West Fjords in 2018 is part of an online exhibit at Oakland's ever-delightful Gray Loft Gallery. Called "The Meaning of Green," the show also includes stunning work by photo pals Candice Jacobus, Eben Ostby, and Beverly Tharp. Peruse at your pleasure until November 15.

(Stay at) Home

I hope you are all safe and well, and perhaps preparing to (carefully!) venture back into the world in the next few days or week. Even as parts of the country re-open, I've remained focused inside, looking for scenes at home that mirror what we're all experiencing internally. You can see the results in a new, and ongoing, portfolio called "(Stay at) Home." Let me know what you think. And if you've been taking pictures at home, I'd love to see them.

In other news:

• Check out this little book of photos taken on a flight back from Iceland: "In October 2018, back when we took air travel for granted and a cold was just a cold, I flew from Rekjyavik to San Francisco. I had spent a week photographing in Iceland’s Westfjords region, and had picked up a severe head cold..."

• Last fall, I took a workshop in San Miguel de Allende with the master teacher and photographer Sam Abell. The portfolio consists of images taken mostly at night and before dawn, when the colors and textures of the city were at their richest.

Silver Award in San Francisco Bay International Photography Exhibition

A photograph I took early one January morning in Cuba has snagged a Silver Award in the San Francisco Bay International Photography Exhibition, the signature show for the SF Bay Month of Photography. The quality of work in this show is simply mind-blowing—check out the other participants—so I am truly honored to be selected.

The star-studded panel of jurors includes independent curator Elizabeth Avedon, editor and curator Julie Grahame, the Center for Photographic Art’s executive director Ann M. Jastrab, and Bokeh Bokeh Photo founder and editor David Garnick.

Twenty-eight of the winning images—including mine!—will be on display at the ACCI Gallery at 1652 Shattuck in Berkeley from September 4 to September 28. The opening reception is September 13 from 6 to 9 pm. Sadly, I’ll be out of town for that event, so instead I’m staging my own “opening” on Saturday, September 7, from 2 to 4 pm. I’ll be hanging out at the gallery admiring the photographs, and would love for you to join me.  Please stop by if you get a chance.

Honorable Mention at New York Center for Photographic Art

I’m delighted that one of my night photographs earned an Honorable Mention in New York Center for Photographic Art’s online exhibit, “Dusk to Dawn.”

The photo, of a highway merge above San Francisco’s Presidio, was chosen from more than 900 entries by juror Laura Ann Noble. Noble is the founder and owner of LANG, a London photography gallery.

Craftsmanship Quarterly Publishes Three of My Pix!

In case you’re not familiar with it, Craftsmanship Quarterly publishes yummy articles about people who work with their hands and, says their mission statement, “craftsmanship’s principles of excellence, beauty, and durability as a pathway to a better world.”

This spring, the online magazine published an article by my friend Laura Fraser, a talented Bay Area writer, that included three of my photos. Laura and I met up near Rimini, Italy, where she was reporting on San Patrignano, a well-respected rehab facility.

The program at San Patrignano heals through craftsmanship, teaching its residents skills such as leather crafting, weaving, horse breeding, fine workworking, graphic arts, and, happily for our taste buds, pizza making. In fact, trained by some of the best chefs in Italy, San Patrignano’s pizzaioli are considered the best pizza makers in the country.

So one evening, I joined Laura at SanPa’s pizza restaurant, “SP.accio,” to sample the wares and take photos in the kitchen. The pizza was outstanding, the pizzaioli were hard-working and inspiring, and the photography was fun. Hope you enjoy the article. And if you’re ever near Rimini, you should make a point to visit SanPa.

New Portfolio on Cuban Trumpeter Yasek Manzano

In January 2019, while on a trip to Cuba, I was introduced to the jazz trumpeter Yasek Manzano. Educated at Cuba’s renowned Alejandro Garciá Caturla and Amadeo Roldán conservatories, as well as New York’s Juilliard School of Music, and mentored by jazz greats Roy Hargrove and Wynton Marsalis, Yasek is considered one of his country’s most exciting and talented musicians.

So I was thrilled when Yasek agreed, as a project for a class I was attending in Havana with Santa Fe Photographic Workshops, to let me follow him around with my camera for the better part of a week. During that time, Yasek rehearsed with the pianist Roxana Coz, a string orchestra led by Alice Jane Guerra Rivera, and the string quartet Opus 10 for a concert of Baroque music and originals, and, one late night, he set up for an urban jazz show at a local club. I didn’t get to photograph a performance that week—the concert took place after I left and the club show was canceled due to weather—but I got to witness the creative drive, exacting passion, and deep musical understanding that make this man such an astonishing artist. I hope the photos in this portfolio convey those attributes.

"The Blue House" at Oakland's Gray Loft Gallery

I'm so pleased that my photo, "The Blue House," taken in Iceland last October, is included in Gray Loft Gallery's latest show, "Something Blue." Juried by the ever-perceptive Ann Jastrab, the show also includes some of my favorite photographers, Candice Jacobus, Eben Ostby, and Josie Iselin.

Gray Loft Gallery, run by photographer Jan Watten, has twice been voted Best Art Gallery by Oakland Magazine readers. Located in the Jingletown arts district on the third floor of 2889 Ford Street, it's a welcoming place for artists and viewers alike.

"Something Blue" will be on view from Saturday, February 16, to Saturday, March 23. The gallery is open Saturdays from 1 to 5 pm, as well as these special hours:

Opening Reception, Saturday, February 16, 4 to 6:30 pm
2nd Friday Jingletown Reception: Friday, March 8, 6 to 9:00 pm
Closing Reception, Saturday, March 23, 4 to 6:30 pm

"Burning Bush" Takes Award at Carmel Exhibit

I was thrilled to be included in the Center for Photographic Art's 2018 International Juried Exhibition. CPA, located in Carmel, California, was originally the Friends of Photography gallery founded in 1967 by Ansel Adams, Wynn Bullock, and Cole Weston, and it carries on those masters' discerning take on photography. The juror, Eve Schillo, Assistant Curator in the Wallis Annenberg Photography Department at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, chose 45 images from more than 1100 submitted, including my “Burning Bush,” left.

But even more thrilling, Schillo selected “Burning Bush” for an Award of Merit! In discussing the photo at the show’s opening, she commented on its sense of mystery and asked about the glowing red “heart” of the bush. That glow came from my trusty Proto Machine LED8, a full-spectrum, super-duper flashlight that I shined for about 20 seconds on the bottom of the shadow during the three minute exposure.

Coincidentally, “Burning Bush” was also recently included in a show at Black Box Gallery in Portland, Oregon. The show has ended, but you can page through (or even buy!) a book of the images from Blurb.

"Thank You, Tim" Earns 2nd Place in National Competition

In January 2018, this photo, “Thank You, Tim,” won Second Prize in Foto Foto Gallery‘s 13th National Photography Competition!

Some of you may recognize these buildings near San Francisco’s Crissy Field, with the Golden Gate Bridge casting a lurid glow in the background. My friend and teacher, Tim Baskerville, who has introduced scores to the delights and mysteries of night photography, graciously loaned his shadowy figure to the image.

In awarding the prize, juror Ann Jastrab said, “Susan West created a flawless picture, simply pairing the two buildings with their varied light sources: sunset, fluorescents, sodium vapor, incandescent, and who knows what else…that color and those color temperatures make the image magical. But then there is something else: splendidly framed in the glowing green light is the legendary Tim Baskerville himself.”

So, once more: Thank you, Tim.