Camping in Marin County!

In and out of the Golden Gate within two days is awesome fun! A change of scene can really change your mood and whole outlook on the world. Adventuring in Sonoma County = top ten places for sure!

Like bookends for our trip, the fog covering the Golden Gate Bridge was a gateway and a beacon toward home.

Rolling into and out of the mysterious fog- one of my favorite things about the city by the bay!

The unofficial border of San Francisco! ;P ....

Et voila! Sweltering heat...

The mountains just north of San Francisco.

For lunch we stopped at a place called Tomales Bay, where you can buy freshly harvested oysters and eat them to your heart's content. If I have to eat oysters, this is the best place to try them!

The trip was a great occasion too! One of my favorite people in the whole world was celebrating a birthday by inviting a bunch of friends to go camping!

The campsite was called Doran park which is a tiny strip of land between the Pacific Ocean and Bodega Bay.

It's very pretty and also very, very, very foggy. The night was cold, but the campfire was warm and the company as well!

After staying in Doran park overnight, I spent a few hours the next morning hanging out in Petaluma's historic downtown district with a friend! 

This mecca of early European settlement is one of my new favorite places to visit. In fact many of the towns in this area are adorably cute. Future vacation plans = in the works.

Among the treasures of the morning was breakfast at Hallie's Diner. Plantain breakfast burritos and homemade blueberry pancakes = what?! :)

Downtown Petaluma was filled with antique shops and cute boutiques. As per usual, I bought books I didn't need, but couldn't resist. Who can say no to "Historic Buildings in California"? Not me!

My favorite store by far was a crazy museum/antique store/historic site/treasure trove/awesome! Housed within what was once the American Trust Company Bank and later Wells Fargo, there is a literal treasure trove that is a sight to be seen. I wish I'd taken more photos, but somehow photography seemed inappropriate, even though no one seemed to discourage it.

I did sneak a few from the upstairs balcony, which overlooks what was once the main floor of the bank! If you get a hankering to visit, ask for the grand tour! Shower, bank vaults and ancient elevator below!!!

Highly, highly recommend Vintage Bank Antiques!

Driving into the city from Marin County after a few errands!

With the city's Iron Walls shrouded in the misty fog!

The official border. I really do prefer the foggy one. 

C'est finis! What a wonderful trip to remember for years to come! 

On the staircase of Vintage Bank Antiques, née the American Trust Company Bank, ca. 1926!

On a clear day, you can see forever in San Francisco!

There are days and there are DAYS. Today was one of the latter. A terrific DAY!

I left home early and got into the city mid-morning, with time to spare before the museums open.

On impulse, I decided to start my day with a slight diversion. This windy, uphill road leads to...

The San Francisco skyline!

On a clear day, you can see forever! Or so it seemed from the top of the Twin Peaks! The drive up to the city was beautiful, but you have to know how rare clear weather is to really feel the magic of seeing the skyline devoid of fog and the sky clear of clouds.

I could see everything...Barges on the bay. Birds. All the rows of colorful houses. Van Ness avenue. The financial district. Temple Emanuel. UCSF. Everything! It made me catch my breath, though not quite as much as the ambitious hikers and cyclists who made it to the top of the mountain without a car!

I sat and ate some breakfast with the view!

Packed cherries and apricots from the Farmer's Market!

I spent a bit of time at Twin Peaks, walking around the vistas and smelling wildflowers that grow on the hills...

 

View of the San Francisco Bay looking south.

The Golden Gate Bridge!

 

The Moon!

Being one of the highest points above the city, Twin Peaks has practical aspects to it as well. When I looked up at the functional towers, guarded off by the functional fence, I saw the moon, still out and about in the morning.

 Leaving the vista behind, I drove into the Sunset district for a morning pastry that I have sorely missed!

Et voila! A cornbread blueberry muffin from Arizmendi Bakery on 9th street!

Having eaten, I decided to head to the museum early and beat the other museum goers, but fortunately that was not to be. Some cyclist race was in progress and Legion of Honor drive was cordoned off by police officers and barricades. So I drove away, wanting ocean views and sunlight on my face.

Again I was diverted by police officers who were making sure that stray cyclists weren't being run over and after asking when the race would end, I decided to stop nearby. It so happened that nearby was Land's End, which was a true delight! For the first time (unbelievably!), I explored the Sutro Baths!

Adoph Sutro's famous Cliff House! 

A family of cypress trees!

The Sutro Baths!

The ocean was beautiful and it was so peaceful at this edge of the city. The seabirds love it. I don't know if in this picture you can tell, but that rock is covered in them.

Seagull resting (or maybe nesting?) on a rock!

Steps leading down to the Sutro Baths.

Sutro Bathhouse Ruins

For some reason, perhaps the weather and the spirit of the day or perhaps because I was longing for some freedom and felt it here, the Sutro Bath ruins reminded me of other places I've visited... Monet's garden at Giverny, Chantilly, the beauty of Caesarea's ruins in the sunshine. Somehow, this place, on this day held otherworldly magic. 

The Bath water is no longer clean, but the color is gorgeous and I caught a familiar reflection casting shadows!

In places, the ruins show rusted nails and pieces of iron sticking up at odd angles. These are left, but not forgotten. For the California History buff (cough, cough), there is a beauty to these ruins. The glamor of the 1890s is now a wasteland and a refuge for seagulls and tourists. To me it somehow seems poetic.

 In places the iron rots in shards that look up to the sun and face the sea.

And lovers carve initials. 

It's a beautiful place. Sad. Wonderful. And it was an unexpected wonder that I was meant to see today.

After the Sutro Baths, I headed to the Legion to see, one last time!, the Victorian Avant-Garde. It really is true, that when you practice looking more than once, you really start to SEE. In additional to looking, I listened in on a docent tour and heard about Rosetti's belief that a woman held his soul if only he could find her and new insights about Whistler's caricature of his former patron. When his creditors came to call, this is what they found...

James Abbott McNeil Whistler, The Gold Scab Eruption, Frilthy Lucre. 1862.

The disgusting creature playing the piano is Frederick Leyland who was once Whistler's great patron for whom he designed the exquisitely lavish peacock room. The house the creature sits on is the artist's White House, which was designed by his architect and artist friend Edward William Godwin. Because his patron refused to pay him for the Peacock Room, Whistler went bankrupt and lost his White House and most of what was within it. He had this to say about who he felt was responsible.

It was wonderful to hear a docent speak and get an even more enhanced insight into the exhibit. It was easily one of my favorites of the past several years.

One of the last paintings you see is called Midsummer by Albert Moore. 

Nothing compares to the vivid orange of this work. Certainly, none of the other paintings by this artist. I absolutely love it! It was interesting to learn that fire and heat may not be the theme of the painting at all. In fact, the docent pointed out that marigolds (which are strung in garlands and hung behind the central figure's head) are actually a symbol of grief. Is the central figure fainted or asleep? Is she sad or peaceful? I think the idea was that we aren't meant to know, only to consider and feel and perhaps be surprised with a revelation of ourselves.

It was a magical day. On the way home I loaded up on all my favorite Russian treats, with some to share. 

To Good Weather and Free Parking in San Francisco... I thank you for this day, from the bottom of my heart! :-)

Cult of Beauty: The Victorian Avant-Garde, 1860-1900 at the Legion of Honor

Another day in San Francisco and another phenomenal exhibit. What can I say? The Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco are on a roll.

Legion of Honor courtyard in the rain...

Currently on view at the Legion of Honor is Cult of Beauty: The Victorian Avant-Garde, 1860-1900:

This exhibit is free for members, so I wasn't expecting that it would be quite so impressive, but it really, really is. So good in fact, that I went to see it twice!

The name, "cult of beauty," refers to the British aesthetic movement that largely coincided with French Impressionism and Post-Impressionism. Like the French impressionists, the British "aesthetics" rebelled against existing styles of painting and overwhelmingly preferred art for art's sake to narrative painting. The exhibit is composed of works by Whistler, James Tissot, Frederick Leighton and many others, as well as interior design pieces by artists like William Morris.

Some of my favorites:

Julia Margaret Cameron [Public domain or Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

Julia Margaret Cameron was an amateur photographer with a very discerning and interesting eye. According the the audio tour she was friends with Tennyson and titled this photograph after a line in one of his poems. It is called Call, I follow, let me die. 1867. I love her compositions! There is another photo of hers in the exhibit called After the Manner of the Elgin Marbles that unfortunately I don't have an image of (and neither does Wikipedia). For that photograph, Cameron was inspired by a recently cleaned Greek marble sculpture at the British Museum.

Other favorites included the ladies in white:

James Abbott McNeill Whistler [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

James McNeil Whistler, Symphony in White, No 1. 1862.

According to the audio tour this work was shocking in that it was a radical composition with no moral content. Whistler cited music in his work, ie "symphony in white" to make the meaning of the painting even more abstract and take the viewer away from considering anything other than its beauty.

James Abbott McNeill Whistler [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

James McNeil Whistler. Symphony in White no. 2. 1864. Oil on canvas. This painting is of his mistress. She holds a Japanese fan and the mantlepiece holds an Asian vase. This shows again the influence that Japanese objects had on Whistler as an artist.

Frederick Walker. The Woman in White. 1871. (detail)

On loan to the Legion from the Tate in England. She is simply stunning! According to the audio tour she is the first British example of a large scale pictorial poster! I found her utterly captivating.

Whistler. Harmony in Grey and Green: Portrait of Miss Cecily Alexander. 1873. Miss Cecily was a young daughter of a banker. Whistler was very deliberate with this work. He designed everything including the dress that Cecily wore... to his studio...70 times. That is perhaps why her expression is somewhat sullen. The influence of Japanese art is clear throughout this work. The flat patches of color, the asymmetry of the composition and the flowers and butterflies are all inspired from Japanese Prints and Pottery.

Other favorites were:

Edward Burns-Jones. Laus Veneris. 1868. Unfortunately the striking, fiery red of Venus's dress doesn't come across in this digital image. Unlike many of the other paintings in the aesthetic movement and in this exhibit, Laus Veneris has a narrative theme. One of the figures looks right at the viewer, and recalls a memory of a Medici chapel in Santa Maria Novella, where one of the Medici invites you into the room and another guides you out by a direct stare. Burn-Jones was fascinated with medieval themes and Arthurian legends, which also come across clearly in the painting's narrative qualities. It easily calls to mind medieval tapestries.
 
 Frederick Leighton. Pavonia. 

Edward Moore. Azaleas.

Frederick Leighton. Syracean Bride Leading Wild Beasts

Spencer Stanhope. Eros, Love and Maiden. Loved Renaissance Painting, Botticelli. Painted using egg-tempera. 

Some Aubrey Beardsley illustrations for Oscar Wilde's Salome. 1893.
 

  Albert Moore. Venus. 1869.

George Frederick Watts. Study with Peacock Feather. Peacock feathers are a symbol of vanity!

Frederick Leighton. Cherries. 1865.

George Frederick Watts. Love and Death. 

According to the audio tour, Oscar Wilde LOVED this painting. I do too. It is awesome- truly. Monumental in size, the giant figure of death towers over cupid. This painting was hung during the opening of the Grovner Gallery- created to look like an artist's home and what became home to the aesthetic movement's great artists. At the gallery, Love and Death could wage a passionate struggle for all the upper-class and middle-class collectors to come and see. Oh, to be a fly on a Grovner wall in 1870-something. Sigh*

Whistler. Nocturn- Blue and Gold- Old Battersea Bridge.

And many, many others for which I don't have any images to share.

After the museum, I took short walk near by.

The Golden Gate Bridge

The Lincoln Park golf course

Lincoln Park Golf Course with white flowers

Not a trip to San Francisco goes by without seeing something amazing. Along the path I was walking I found another path heading toward the sea cliffs. It was somewhat secluded and filled with wild flowers- a kind I've never seen before. I have no idea what they are called, but I hope that my photos convey a bit of their fiery magic!



Cypress Trees

Wild flowers and Cypress trees.

I particularly love the contrast between the yellow green and coral colors. Just down the path a little farther...



I spy...

with my little eye...

Beautiful San Francisco Bay!
On a cloud-free, care free day.
:-)

As George Sterling once wrote about this city...

...The winds of the Future wait
At the iron walls of her Gate,
And the western ocean breaks in thunder,...


- a small snippet from "The Cool Grey City of Love (San Francisco)." 1920.