ArtZone461 opens the second part of its show on printmaking today at 461 Valencia. Late last month, I talked with the curator and gallery director Steven Lopez about William Wolff’s woodcuts.
A native San Franciscan, who worked for years teaching art at the Youth Guidance Center, Wolff died in 2004.
Unlike so many of his contemporaries such as the figurative painter James Weeks, shown now in the main gallery, Wolff focused on religious and mythical themes. Lopez talked about the woodcuts that showed another, more “humanist” side of Wolff. Regardless, they all have a sensual, emotional quality. Beautiful.
Although the show on Wolff’s work ended last week, Lopez still has some up and he has a treasure trove of prints in the back.
I’ve been a Mission resident since 1998 and a professor emeritus at Berkeley’s J-school since 2019. I got my start in newspapers at the Albuquerque Tribune in the city where I was born and raised. Like many local news outlets, The Tribune no longer exists. I left daily newspapers after working at The New York Times for the business, foreign and city desks. Lucky for all of us, it is still here.
As an old friend once pointed out, local has long been in my bones. My Master’s Project at Columbia, later published in New York Magazine, was on New York City’s experiment in community boards.
As founder and an editor at ML, I've been trying to figure out how to make my interest in local news sustainable. If Mission Local is a model, the answer might be that you - the readers - reward steady and smart content. As a thank you for that support we work every day to make our content even better.
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