Mission: It’s time to get your culture on. More than 100 Mission artists have opened up their creative spaces this weekend for Artspan’s Open Studios. The event lasts until 6 tonight.
The artistic styles of participating artists range from fine art to arts and crafts, in seemingly every medium possible. From watercolors, knit silk and beeswax sculptures to photo-realistic paintings, wire mobiles and silhouette cutouts, Mission Open Studios is an art lover’s weekend paradise.
“There’s been a lot of cool people coming in here who have been really interesting, which is cool,” artist Diane Kotamer said at yesterday’s event. Kotamer, known as “The Wireist,” has a small studio at 1890 Bryant St. On Saturday it was filled with people checking out her wall sculptures, black wire bent to shape human hands and figures.
“Sales are a lot better than I thought,” she said. “It’s been very busy. My little bunker gets filled up pretty fast.”
Open Studios offers art patrons the chance to see not just the many styles of Mission art, but also the artists’ studios, which can be as impressive as the work that comes out of them.
Painter Kirsten Tradowsky’s space, for example, a corner studio at 1890 Bryant, is filled with antique furniture and natural light streaming in through tall windows.
“This used to be a mayonnaise factory, which is interesting to me,” Tradowsky said. “Open Studios is mostly beneficial because you get to network with people in the community, and with collectors, too.”
Even artists who aren’t based in the Mission are getting in on the action. At the corner of Florida and Mariposa streets, painter Michelle Peckham had her work set up in the back of a moving truck she had rented for the weekend. On the truck’s side she had spelled out “ART” with black electrical tape.
Peckham moved her studio from the Mission to Bayview; the truck is her way of continuing to participate in her former neighborhood’s festivities.
“I decided I’ll rent a truck and be where I used to be for Open Studios,” she said. This is her fifth event.
Yesterday’s sunny weather brought out roving groups of art lovers, and today should prove no different. More information can be found here.