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[Flea]bag
A Heath Ceramics flea market, a Juneteenth tour through Black literary history, and a film screening that is not a film festival
Artist Windy Chien has led three lives. I toured her studio at Heath Ceramics through SF Art Week programming and left enamored with both her art and her story. She spent fourteen years running an independent record shop in San Francisco. That expertise brought her to Apple, where she helped build iTunes. She left the corporate world to reconnect with her creative side and found her way to macrame, where tying each knot gave her flow. She expanded her practice by teaching herself a new knot every day, turning learning into artistry and artistry into a full-time career. Heath Ceramics introduced me to not just an artist, but someone whose sense of self stayed constant across every reinvention.
Head to Heath Ceramics for a curated vintage market, enjoy a gallery fashion pop-up, and buy gay art.
Heath Ceramics | The Good Flea: A Curated Vintage Market
Category: Art & Literary & Fashion
Date: Saturday, June 27th @ 10am (Add to Google Calendar)
Location: Heath Ceramics (SF)
Price Range: Free (RSVP)
Why I Care: Heath Ceramics is holding their annual vintage market, filled with books, records, furniture, clothing, and of course, ceramics. Clay Studio Director Tung Chiang has personally selected each vendor to make the event part shopping event, part museum pop-up, with the pieces on display chosen for their design history relevance. Heath will also offer works from their own historical collections, so early arrival is oh-so-critical.
Opening Reception | Watershed: An Exhibition of Pulp Paintings made from Recycled Clothing
Category: Art
Date: Sunday, June 28th @ 10am (Add to Google Calendar)
Location: 2727 California Street (East Bay)
Price Range: Free
Why I Care: Artist Tess Rubinstein’s exhibition Watershed brings her latest pulp paintings to Berkeley. Rubinstein is a California-based artist working at the intersection of art and ecology whose work can be seen at Google, the Bolinas Museum, and personal favorite Junes Pizza. This latest collection was made possible by the city hosting it: a Berkeley civics arts grant funded the pulp beater that transforms recycled clothing into paintings. Rubinstein will give visitors the chance to understand the process through a paper making station where jeans can be turned into paper.
This Is Not A Film Festival
Category: Film
Date: Saturday, June 20th @ 7pm (Add to Google Calendar)
Location: Artists’ Television Access (SF)
Price Range: $7+
Why I Care: This is Not a Film Festival is a monthly program at Artists’ Television Access where Bay Area artists can present their films. The program is set up such that no fees or selection process is involved, allowing any independent filmmaker to have their work seen by the public. This month’s lineup include an official music video, a coming-of-age dramedy, and several other shorts from local filmmakers.
Opening Reception | Buy Gay Art!
Category: Art & Literary
Date: Saturday, June 27th @ 6pm (Add to Google Calendar)
Location: Sour Cherry Comics (SF)
Price Range: Free
Why I Care: The exhibition title speaks for itself. The opening reception for Buy Gay Art! features queer artists and zinemakers selling their own work at tables alongside the exhibition. The event will take place at Sour Cherry Comics, a queer-focused comic shop that holds workshops, art shows, and an annual comics convention.
Juneteenth Tour | Black Memory Scholar: The Language of Storytellers
Category: Literary
Date: Thursday, June 18th @ 1:30pm (Add to Google Calendar)
Location: Letterform Archive (SF)
Price Range: $23
Why I Care: Letterform Archive is honoring Juneteenth with a curator-led tour of Black Memory Scholar: The Language of Storytellers. The exhibition brings together literary artifacts that exist in spite of concerted efforts to deny Black communities access to the written word. True to Letterform Archive’s wider mission, the tour anchors on the importance of preserving letterforms to understand our communities and stories. Thank you, Same Page SF, for bringing the event to my attention.
Fashion Pop-Up | NEVEREND Studios
Category: Fashion & Art
Date: Saturday, June 20th @ 11am (Add to Google Calendar)
Location: Strike-slip Gallery (SF)
Price Range: Free
Why I Care: Strike-Slip Gallery is hosting a fashion pop-up alongside their current group exhibition, Aphorism and Sea Shell. The pop-up features NEVEREND Studio, a clothing line by designer Haley Slocum where found and secondhand materials dictate garment design. Her latest collection, Chrysalism, draws on the solitary metamorphosis of a caterpillar becoming a butterfly. The theme connects to the gallery's wider exhibition, which is curated around beauty, mythology, and the natural world. The weekend includes beats and wine.
Closing Reception & Performance | Evidence: Holding Space for the Ephemeral
Category: Art
Date: Saturday, June 27th @ 6pm (Add to Google Calendar)
Location: Temescal Alley (East Bay)
Price Range: Free
Why I Care: UNTITLED vol.2 is closing their exhibition Evidence: Holding Space for the Ephemeral with a spoken-word performance and poetry reading. The exhibition explores the critical role of documentation in preserving and interpreting performance art, with this being the third and final event in its programming. Artist Guillermo Gómez-Peña, known for his activism and advocating against borders, will perform, while Oakland poet Quinn Edlin will also read her work. Et al. will have a selection of books available for purchase.
Next Drop: Monday, June 29th