Places I'm Visiting: Salt Point State Park

We spent Sunday in the woods at Salt Point State Park, north of Jenner and Fort Ross on the Sonoma County coast, participating in a mushroom foraging class led by experts. I had never gone mushroom hunting before. That is, my experience with mushrooms has been finding them while birding and my pleasure has always been simply in observing them, photographing them, and identifying them. 

Like many of my generation, I was taught as a child never even to touch a wild mushroom. Surely any mushroom not sold in a grocery store will kill you, it was implied. I imagine parents thought it prudent to instill a healthy fear of mushrooms in their children – just in case. The truth is, most mushrooms are not deadly. While only some are edible, most that aren't edible will simply make you sick for a while or they just aren't tasty enough to bother with. That said, the most poisonous varieties are so deadly that a little bit of mycophobia is probably not a bad idea.

Among edibles, we found mostly Hedgehog Mushrooms and Yellow Foot Chantarelles, which, despite their name, are now considered closely related to Black Trumpet Mushrooms rather than actual Chantarelles, although I noticed that they have the same pseudo-gills that Chantarelles have. Otherwise, they are skinny yellow hollow tubes that are easy to recognize once you’ve seen them. 

I really enjoyed the day. It was fun to have experts on hand who could make IDs immediately on the fly, but I wish I’d brought a notebook, as it’s difficult to remember all the names. 

The Cocktail Glass Collection: The Pink Elephant, Monte Rio

I came across this delightful neon bar sign recently on the way out to a mushroom foraging class at Salt Point State Park on the Sonoma Coast. The cocktail glass in this one is in the trunk of the elephant – a unique custom design. I'm not sure whether this place is still open. Some sources seem to indicate that it was shut down for a while but also that it has recently (summer 2025) opened again. I'd love to see the sign lit up at night.

For more neon cocktail glass signs, use the "Cocktail Glass Collection" search tab to the right side of the feed.

Miscellaneous: Local birds

After birding in Japan last week, here are a few recent photos of local residents: Anna's Hummingbird, a preening California Scrubjay, a White-breasted Nuthatch, and a Turkey Vulture.

Miscellaneous: Year-end Birding

I do quarterly bird surveys for two private properties in Sonoma County whose owners want an ongoing record of bird abundance and diversity. 

Inevitably, I end up looking at a lot of plants and insects as well. This past year (2024), I did the two winter surveys as well as three Audubon Christmas Bird Counts, all in December. 

With the unusually high levels of rain we've had in the past six weeks, there were mushrooms everywhere. I'm still learning to identify mushrooms and I don't have the confidence to harvest and consume the occasional edible species I encounter, but I very much enjoy seeing them. Here are a couple of bird photos from my year-end birding expeditions and some mushroom photos as well. 

Art I'm Making: Art Trails 2022

Art Trails, Sonoma County's premier juried open studios event, is approaching. More than 120 local artists, including me, will be opening their studios to the public over two upcoming weekends for the 2022 event. Studios will be open from 10:00AM to 5:00PM on September 24 and 25 and then again on October 1 and 2. If you're in the area, come by and see new work and see how I make the abstract monotype-based collages that are now my main artistic activity. This year, I'll be Studio 94. I look forward to making new friends and seeing old friends as well. Monotyping demonstrations on demand throughout the day. 

To preview some of my work, visit my website at: http://ctalcroft.wix.com/collage-site/

Art I'm Looking At: The Art Wall at Shige Sushi Closes (April 2019)

The Art Wall at Shige Sushi is no more. The restaurant owners have decided to permanently close the Cotati location to focus on their new location in Sonoma. It was a really fun four-plus years. As curator, I feel like I was able to show a great deal of really good local art in that time. I sincerely thank everyone who helped to make The Art Wall possible.

The first show was in December and January 2014-2015. Only one person came to the opening reception. It was pouring with rain, no one had heard of the place (except as a restaurant) and it was right before Christmas. In the end, that was a good thing. There would have been room for no more. We held the reception while the restaurant was open—a mistake in such a small space. I quickly learned to have the receptions on Mondays, when the restaurant was closed. I will always be grateful to Claude Smith and Sherrie Parker for agreeing to participate in the first show.

I curated 26 shows of 8 weeks each with a couple of exceptions—one was six weeks, one ten weeks. I showed the work of 28 artists, 27 living, one deceased (Lewis Bodecker). There were 23 solo shows, three group shows (collage work by Claude Smith, Sherrie Parker, and me; Lisa Beerntsen and Deborah Salomon had a show together, and we did a show of contemporary photography that included work by nine artists). Of the 23 solo artists, 17 or 74% were women. Several artists participated in more than one show, including Janis Crystal Lipzin, Sherrie Parker, Claude Smith, and Deborah Salomon.

We sold at least one piece in (or as a result of) seven of the shows, not including work I bought myself. Including that, we sold at least one piece in 11, or 42% of the shows. Katie McCann sold the most in one show, with three of her collages going to an enthusiastic collector. The most expensive piece sold was a piece in Sherrie Lovler’s show, which sold for over $800. As I took only a 25% commission on sales, The Art Wall at Shige Sushi was not a profitable venture in monetary terms. It would not have been possible at all if the owners at Shige Sushi had not allowed me to use the space at no cost. It was profitable in terms of other, more important things. 

Please join us next Monday, April 8, 2019 for a final closing party from 6:00PM to 9:00PM. Everyone's invited. If you never made it to one of our shows, this will be your last chance. Wine and beer will be provided, but please bring a little something to eat to share with friends. Pot luck. Bring your own bottle, too, if you care to. But come, even if you come empty-handed. I'd really like to personally thank everyone who was involved—the artists and the art lovers—with making The Art Wall at Shige Sushi a success.

The photo above shows postcards for each of the 26 shows I curated, in chronological order.

Art I'm Making: Art Trails 2018

Art I'm Looking At: Kerry Vander Meer on The Art Wall at Shige Sushi (May 1 through July 1)

I'm pleased to announce the upcoming show on The Art Wall at Shige Sushi. I'll be showing mixed media work by Kerry Vander Meer, who works in Oakland. She's an inspiring colorist and has an exquisite sense of composition. Her work incorporates drawing, printmaking, and collage, using paper, fabric, and other found materials. Beautiful work. Artwork will be viewable during the restaurant's normal business hours from May 1 through July 1. Opening reception Monday, May 7, from 5:30 to 7:30PM. Come see the work, have a glass of wine, and meet the artist. 8235 Old Redwood Highway, Cotati, CA 94931

Kerry has recently done a wine label for Imagery Estate Winery as well. She'll be at the winery for one of their "Gallery Days" events, Sunday, May 20, 1:00-3:00PM. Her label will be on the 2017 Albariño. (Stay tuned for information about my own Gallery Days event later in the year. One of my pieces will appear on the Imagery 2017 Viognier label.)

Art I'm Making: Art Trails Update

Because of the recent Northbay wildfires, Art Trails 2017 has been moved back one week, but the event will go on. Artists that are able to open their studios will do so on the weekends of October 21-22 and October 28-29. Note, however, that some artists will be open only one weekend. Some artists, sadly, have lost everything and will not be able to participate, but more than 140 artists will be opening their doors and showing art on at least one of the two weekends, most on both. Many artists will be donating a portion of sales to a support fund set up by The Sebastopol Center for the Arts to aid artists affected by the fires. For details on who is participating and where, see the Center for the Arts website for the most up-to-date information. I will be open both weekends.

Art I'm Making: Art Trails Open Studios 2017

A YEAR OF NEW WORK: The Sonoma County Art Trails open studio event (October 14-15 and 21-22) will soon be upon us. This year, I'm studio number 61. I'll be showing abstract monotype-based collage, photography, and printmaking again at 973 Stone Castle Lane, Santa Rosa, 95405. Come by and see what I've been up to in the past year.

To see more of my work, visit my website at:
http://ctalcroft.wixsite.com/collage-site

Art I'm Looking At: Chris Beards—Sculpture at Paul Mahder Gallery in Healdsburg (through July 15, 2017)

Chris Beards And After opening reception, Paul Mahder Gallery

The Paul Mahder Gallery in Healdsburg opened an impressive show of new sculptural work by Santa Rosa artist Chris Beards last night (May 27). The artist was in attendance, along with many of the North Bay’s best artists, gallerists, and curators. I say sculptures—and they are sculptures—but all the pieces are wall-hung rather than freestanding, and they are dramatically lit, casting complex shadows on the white walls almost as interesting as the art itself.

Chris Beards, Siege (2017), detail

The show comprises about 12 pieces made from steel—mostly formed from sinewy, twisted strips or wrinkled sheets of steel—mummified in paper. Beards works by encasing steel armatures in multiple layers (sometimes as many as 20 layers) of paper bonded to the metal with thinned glue and other media. The paper and glue layers are then heavily worked. The layers are sanded, overlaid with more paper and glue, re-sanded, painted or shellacked or gessoed, sanded again and then further overlaid and finished in a laborious process that results in remarkably refined, sensuous, satiny surfaces, suggestive not of the raw steel underneath but of other metals—well-used bronze, smooth-worn iron, patina-green copper—or even softly eroded marble. The underlying steel is present in that it defines form here, but the surface finishes Beards achieves are as important as form. The sculptures have a skillfully crafted look in an age of art that often celebrates the opposite, and they are refreshingly appealing for that. There is something decidedly seductive about the work. You’ll want to touch it—caress it, even. Happily, the artist gives permission to touch the work a little.

Chris Beards in front of Within/Without (2016)

Beards has titled the show And After. A statement on the wall explains that the work is about how memory transforms experience—in particular, about the way time distils raw experience into something softer. The work, Beards says, is about the way our “narrative of the past becomes smoother,” the way the “sharp edges and thorns are softened and dulled.” He speaks of his sculptures not as depicting specific memories but rather as addressing the idea of memory itself. The finished pieces are presented as the softened remains of their underlying rough metal selves. He likens these sculptures to “time-tumbled driftwood or bones” and the metaphor is apt.

Chris Beards, After the Last (2013-2015)

Among my favorites pieces were Within/Without (2016, steel, paper, glue, spray paint, acrylic paint), After the Last (2013–2015, steel, paper, glue, spray paint, graphite, soft pastel, shellac), and Tiered (2017, steel, tracing paper, glue, gesso). The first of these suggests an unearthed artifact—a scrap of an obsolete, abandoned farm vehicle, perhaps—rusted but its surfaces polished as if long-caressed. After the Last is evocative of more organic forms. It kept suggesting to me part of the mummified remains of a frilled lizard, perhaps squashed flat on a roadway, or a fragment of a grasshopper—but the sculpture is again transformed into something sensuous by its satiny surfaces.

Chris Beards, Tiered (2017)

Tiered, my favorite piece in the show, reminded me of centuries-old stone steps worn smooth by the foot traffic of generations of pilgrims (the interior staircase of the leaning tower at Pisa, the steps inside Haghia Sophia, in Istanbul, came to mind) or the much-touched drapery of a recumbent figure on a white marble sarcophagus lid. These are only a few impressions, but Beards’s work is beautiful to look at and richly evocative.  And After will continue at Paul Mahder Gallery (222 Healdsburg Ave, Healdsburg, CA 95448, (707) 473-9150) through July 15, 2017 (although Paul Mahder now represents Beard and will therefore continue to handle his work after the show). Highly recommended.

Birds I'm Watching: White-faced Ibises at Ellis Creek Water Recycling Facility

White-faced Ibises at Ellis Creek Water Recycling Facility (in Petaluma) have been a hot topic among Sonoma county birders the past couple of weeks. A group of nine of these birds (rare in our area) has been hanging out there since early January. Today I got some good photos. Also of interest were a large number of Green-winged Teals, among other ducks.

For more information about bird watching in Sonoma County, see my Website Sonoma County Bird Watching Spots.

Birds I'm Watching: Great Horned Owl (January 18, 2016)

A Great Horned Owl appeared in a tree across the street from my house this morning. I was alerted to its presence by a neighbor. The bird allowed me to take its portrait. It has a rather amiable look, but Great Horned Owls are among the most powerful predatory birds in North America. They happily eat skunks and have been known to go after fairly large pets. He was mobbed by about 100 crows off and on for several hours today. The  bird appears to be there still but all is quiet now. Yard bird number 68.

For more information about bird watching in Sonoma County, see my Website Sonoma County Bird Watching Spots.

Art I'm Looking At: New Show at Shige Sushi, Cotati (December 1 through January 31, 2016)

In my role as curator of The Art Wall at Shige Sushi, I'm pleased to present a new show, opening December 1—Mixed Media work by Jenny Honnert Abell.

JENNY HONNERT ABELL—MIXED MEDIA
On the ART WALL at SHIGE SUSHI, Cotati
Dec 1, 2015 - Jan 31, 2016
Reception: Monday, Dec 7, 2015 from 5:00PM to 7:00PM. Light refreshments served. Come have a glass of wine and meet the artist (note that Shige Sushi is closed on Mondays. The restaurant will be open on Monday, DEC 7 for the reception only). The show runs from DEC 1, 2015 to JAN 31, 2016. See the Art Wall website for details of opening hours and for more information. Http://ctalcroft.wix.com/artwallatshige/

Jenny Honnert Abell is a mostly self-taught artist whose work beautifully combines fine handwork with subtly exotic imagery. Abell's work is represented by multiple galleries in the US. Overseas, her work has been shown in Canada, England, Switzerland, and Senegal. A recent commission by the State Department’s Art in Embassy program honored her with a trip to Dakar, Senegal in West Africa where she was given the opportunity to experience the people and culture there. Reflections on that experience resulted in a series of 10 pieces now exhibited in the permanent collection of the US Embassy in Dakar. Jenny’s work resides in numerous private collections including world-class collections at Hall Winery in Napa, California and Imagery Estate Winery, in Glen Ellen, California. Originally from Cincinnati, Ohio, Abell has lived and worked in Santa Rosa, California since 1995.

Birds I'm Watching: Magnolia Warbler at Bodega Bay (10/21/2015)

A stray Magnolia Warbler has been hanging out at Diekmann's Bay Store, in Bodega Bay. Magnolia Warbler (Setophaga magnolia) is normally an Eastern species not found here. Once in a while a young bird will get lost west of the Rockies during its first migration south. I went to have a look and was lucky enough to get a good photograph of the bird. Warblers are such frantic foragers that I always feel lucky to capture one in focus (above).

A few days later I went again, but was unable to find the bird. I did, however, see a Nashville Warbler (Setophaga ruficapilla), also unusual here (although much less so). The birds can look similar in some plumages. Both have a complete white eyeing, a grayish head, and are otherwise greenish above and pale yellow below, but I knew this to be a Nashville because  of a number of differences--notably the lack of patterning in the wings, lack of a yellow rump, and the lack of the black and grey scalloping at the base of the tail present in the Magnolia Warbler (above). From underneath, it was all yellow except for a white patch at the base of the legs, which is typical of a Nashville (below).

For more about birds and birding in Sonoma County, see my Website: Sonoma County Bird Watching Spots. 

Art I'm Making: New Collages (May-June 2015)

The second weekend of Art at the Source Open Studios event is approaching. I've got new art to show--new collages I've made during lulls in the stream of visitors to "Studio 48." I put that in quotes because I'm actually showing in my mother's nicely repainted garage, not in my home studio.

Art at the Source (unlike Art Trails, the October Sonoma County event) requires you to show on the west side of Highway 101. Here are a couple of my newest pieces: Untitled Collage No. 101 (Santa Rosa), shown above, and Untitled Collage No. 102 (Santa Rosa), shown below.

Click on the images for larger views. Even better, come see my work in person during the second weekend of the Art at the Source Open Studios event, June 13 & 14, 2015. I'll be showing at Studio 48, in Sebastopol. Come see my photography (abstract work, nudes, bird photography), printmaking, and, of course, collages.

For more about my collage work, visit my collage website  at http://ctalcroft.wix.com/collage-site/.

Art I'm Making: A Collage in Prussian Blue (May 6, 2015)

A new collage: An arrangement of tones in Prussian blue, with a couple of sidesteps into other colors. Untitled Collage No. 99 (Santa Rosa). Acrylic on paper, acrylic monoprint, collage. May 6, 2015. Image size 8 x 11.6cm. Sometimes I think I'm happiest in Prussian blue.

Click on the image for a larger view. For more, visit my collage website at http://ctalcroft.wix.com/collage-site/. Or, come see my work in person during the Art at the Source open studios event, June 6 & 7 and June 13 & 14, 2015. I'll be showing at Studio 48, in Sebastopol.

Art I'm Looking At: "Ain't Natural" at Hammerfriar Gallery in Healdsburg

I attended the opening of the latest show at Hammerfriar Gallery in Healdsburg on May 2. The show, called "Ain't Natural," brings together four superb collage artists working in the Bay Area--Jenny Honnert Abell, John Hundt, Sherry Parker, and Scott Wilson.

Collage unites the four artists but they work in very different styles. Jenny Honnert Abell's work combines the surreal with religious iconography. Brought up a Catholic, she attended parochial girls' schools through high school. While explicitly religious themes don't seem central to her work, clearly the imagery of the church made a lasting impact on her sensibilities. In talking with her about her collages I sensed in her an uneasiness about making fun of the religious imagery she appropriates, a hard-to-shake compulsion to take it seriously, at least at some level. Yet, the work is irreverent. The show includes several small pieces on worn but fancy book covers, in themselves evocative of churchly things like decorated vestments. Onto these covers she's attached perches for Jesus-headed birds that somehow manage to look content and not unnatural--the serenity of expression of the Jesus heads doing its work. In other pieces on display, bird heads grow out of tree branches. Pictured here is a somewhat different piece entitled "The Monroe Flower" that I liked for its use of color and the multiple levels of enclosed detail it employs.

John Hundt seems to work exclusively with engraved book illustrations. He carefully cuts out architectural fragments, figures, animals, snippets of scenery and other elements with a tiny pair of scissors and assembles the pieces to create imaginary spaces that are clearly unreal but spaces that use perspective and subtle overlaps to trick the eye into seeing them as plausible, inhabitable. I'm reminded of the photographic work of Jerry Uelsmann. Merged and blended contradictions in Hundt's work involve not only physical space but also time; inevitably the old engraved images are evocative of something old-fashioned--we no longer illustrate books with engravings much and the subjects Hundt chooses are often historical--but, at the same time, the strange juxtapositions seem modern--at least modern in the sense the word is used in art history.

Sherry Parker is among the most delightfully inventive artists I've encountered in the Bay Area. Her work is consistently of the highest caliber. She has an exquisite sense of composition. Her subtle color sense is equally impressive. Most especially, though, I like her work for the slightly edgy whimsy she nearly always achieves. Bizarre creatures, part human, part machine, inhabit her surreal landscapes. These are dream worlds, yet they are familiar enough to be both seductive and deeply unsettling. They are inviting and a little frightening at the same time.

To take just one example, "Yellow-throated Lookout Bird" is immediately amusing because of its title, which plays on the conventions of real bird names, and many of Parker's titles are funny. Here we see a lone, one-legged sentinel on what looks like a coastal rock, keeping its squinty eye out for signs of approach. But its ability to see is illusory. The bird's eye is just a screw at the base of a blade from a pair of clippers--a rather long, decurved blade from a nasty-looking pair of clippers. The antenna, perhaps, takes in more useful information than the eye?

Scott Wilson's work is also slightly disturbing, but in a different way. Made largely from illustrated medical texts, the collages are interesting for their formal qualities of composition and attractive for their combinations of pinks and beige and palest orange--the colors of flesh and viscera. But many of the images used illustrate pathologies, so this is diseased flesh we are looking at. Collage titles name the diseases. Wilson presents his odd combinations as if they are plates in an actual text--deformities to be studied, learned from, repelled by. Abstract shapes often overlay or augment the human body parts suggesting early 20th century Russian abstraction. As a child, I remember being given an encyclopedia of the insect world. It was a very thick volume. I don't remember the text, but the plates were photographic and numerous. Each plate was an array of related insects--bizarre insects, large and small. Round beetles, oblong beetles, elongated beetles. Beetles with antennae longer than their bodies. Grasshoppers of every description. Walking sticks. All in black and white. Repellent yet fascinating at the same time. I spent hours looking at that book. I was immediately reminded of it when viewing Wilson's collages. They are likewise simultaneously fascinating and repellent.

Hammerfriar Gallery is at 132 Mill Street, in Healdsburg. The "Ain't Natural" show will run through June 22. Well worth a visit.

Art I'm Looking At: Suzanne Jacquot, Abstract Painter, on The Art Wall at Shige Sushi, Cotati

In my role as a curator, I'll next be showing the work of Sonoma County painter Suzanne Jacquot on the Art Wall at Shige Sushi in Cotati. The show opens this coming Tuesday, March 31 and will run through the end of May. Artist reception Monday, April 6.

This week is the last week to see the current show: Janis Crystal Lipzin—Color Photographs from The "Starflex Series" (through March 29). For more information, visit http://ctalcroft.wix.com/artwallatshige/

Food I'm Eating: Sushi Burritos (August 6, 2013)

Sushi Burritos? Japanese rolls meet Mexican rolls? Yes, that's about it. At Santa Rosa's farmers' market last Saturday I came across the food cart of one Takeshi Uchida, the man behind the idea. A sign advertised his mobile establishment as "The World's First Sushi Burrito Food Cart."

Essentially, Mr. Uchida creates giant versions of the seaweed rolls known in Japanese as futo-maki (literally, "fat rolls") filled with cooked stuffings--like a burrito. Three kinds are available--Tori Nanban (sweet and spicy Japanese-style fried chicken with a creamy wasabi sauce, beans, and shaved cabbage and carrots); Tara (simmered cod with wasabi tartar sauce, beans, corn, and shaved cabbage and carrots); and Vegetarian, with seaweed salad, tomatoes, shaved cabbage, romaine lettuce, Jalapeños, and cucumber. The drinks offered made me momentarily nostalgic for Japan--bottled cold green tea, ramune (a citrus-based soda), and canned iced coffee. While the idea of a sushi burrito seems a bit odd at first, a taste test quickly established that it's an idea that works. The Sushi Burrito cart is parked at various Sonoma County locations on different days. Go to http://www.shoubujapanese.com to get the latest on where to find Mr. Uchida and his unique creation, or go to the Sushi Shoubu Facebook page.