Tales of San Francisco: First week in school and the Sausalito Arts Festival

So... This was my first week of proper school and I have to say that I really love it at this school! (don't worry though, I am still coming back... There's no way I could ever afford the fees here without being crippled with debt for the rest of my life!) The selling points for me so far:

- SFAI is actually a very small school, so the class sizes are small too. I don't think I've got any class where there's more than 10 students, which means lots of time and attention from the tutors.

- All the year are mixed together and the divide is made instead through skill levels, so whether you're a first year or a 3rd year, you'll need to take Photography 101 if you've never used a camera, but if you're a first year and have already been taught photography previously, you might be able to speak to a tutor and progress directly to more advanced classes. I've got one class where we're all 3rd/4th year and grad students and we've got one 1st year with us. He was so sweet at the first class, all intimidated, as we were all showing examples of our previous work :-)

- I have homework for the first time in years! It's hilarious! And it's also really nice to have everything broken down for you into small assignments from one class till the next. Makes a change from our big 8 week assignments back home. On the other hand, I was having a conversation with a tutor today about the differences between SFAI and Glasgow School of Art and he said that he thought only a handful of students at the school would be able to handle the level of freedom and independence we have in the more studio based. self-led style of teaching available at GSA. On the other hand, studying here is gonna be a great opportunity for me to learn skill sets and techniques which wouldn't be so easy to access back home.

My classes so far:

- Art of the Street: in this class, I'm gonna be learning to design and screenprint posters. In one week, I've already been taught the basics of screenprintinting, so I can start printing by the time we get our next class! That was fast! And the tutor, Aaron Terry is great, really political! In our first class, he got us each to declare our political beliefs if any and talk about the issues that interest us in the news and in politics, because that's what we're gonna be using in our posters and he also gave us as an assignment for the whole term to watch the news and pick out a trend or two to follow and gather information for our end of term project.

- Kinetic Figuration: here I'm gonna be taught to design, build and animate marionettes made out of wood or plexiglass. The tutor, Richard Berger, is an established artist who uses marionettes a lot in his sculptures, in sorts of "tableaux vivants" which he animates. He showed us a few examples of his work and it was fascinating and a really effective technique. It's such an unusual class to be taught, I'm really excited about how it's gonna inspire my practice.

- Art by Instruction: in this class, we're gonna look at ways of making art without it necessarily being the artist making the artwork. So, we're gonna look at using fabricators, who are specialists you might delegate to, to make your work following your instructions, either because you don't have the skills or the facilities to make it yourself. We're gonna look at working in partnership with other artists, like hiring a photographer or a film-maker to take photos or video of you while you do a live performance. We're also gonna look at giving the public instructions, so that they make the artwork as they follow the instructions. This is gonna be a really interesting class because it's gonna challenge the basic definition of the artist as the person making the artwork. Our first assignment is to think of an work in progress, where we've either stalled or that we've abandoned because we didn't have the skills required to bringing it to term and then we have to find someone else in the class who has those skills, so that they can complete the project for us. A sort of skill swap.

I'm also meant to be taking a class where I would be teaching art to kids, but that one sort of clashed with my schedule, so I made the most the opportunity you get in the first 2 weeks to drop-in and drop-out of classes. Instead of this one, I'm gonna be taking an astronomy class, where we're gonna be taught astronomy but also how to make our own instruments for looking at the stars and the sky. The classes on offer here are so diverse, it's really great to be able to get such a varied mix! I start my astronomy class on Thursday and I can't wait!

Other than school, I went to the Sausalito Art Festival this week-end, which turned out to be a great big art fair with other 100 artists with their art for sale. Sausalito is a small seaside town, just outside San Francisco.There was a lot more sculpture there than you'd normally expect at these sort of events and the quality of the art work was at a really high standard.

And all of it to the good old fashioned sound of rock and roll! I missed the Human League unfortunately who were playing on the saturday... Damn!

These sculptures were very impressive and I loved the first one which imitates beautifully charred wood.

This photo really doesn't do this piece justice... It is a beautiful piece of weave made with such thin thread, it was truly beautiful and so delicate!

The designs on these clothes were all hand painted then sewed into, really nice!

These were my favourite pieces of the whole show, gave me a lot to think about for my kinetic figuration class. The artist is called Cathy Rose and is well worth looking up. There's a real poetry and sentiment in her work along with something a bit more sinister...

This was my second most favourite pieces in the show. The artist, Jeffrey Zachmann, again is someone worth looking up. These photos don't quite convey the reality of these sculptures which are actually kinetic with balls travelling up and down the sculpture in perpetual motion, like a very elaborate and beautiful version of Mouse Trap. If you check out his website www.zachmann.com, you can watch videos which show them at work.

This artist was very interesting, unfortunately, I didn't get his name... His work was all beautifully carved wood, with figures whose heads you could open up to then reveal another sculpture inside. Extremely talented!