Daily Door(s)

The Life of Lee Miller

I know that the city is abuzz with excitement over the Frida Kahlo exhibit at the MOMA, and rightfully so.  However, the best thing that came out of my recent visit to the Museum was stumbling upon The Life of Lee Miller.

While some of Miller’s work has registered on my radar in the past, I had no idea just what a broad range of subjects her works touched on.

In the Lee Miller retrospective at the SFMOMA, museum-goers are treated to a multi-course visual feast that follows Miller’s career through her early days as a model...

... to a stint as a surrealist photographer in Europe where she cozied up with Picasso and Man Ray...

(Lee Miller,Charlie Chaplin, Paris, 1931© Lee Miller Archives, England. [above])

(Marie-Berte, Max Ernst, Lee Miller & Man Ray [above])

... continuing through to her more shocking photojournalist work, including this self-portrait of Miller bathing in Hitler’s bathtub shortly after the fall of The Third Reich…

...and on to her eventual settling down to a life on a small country farm.  I could delve more into the fascinating story of Miller’s life, but truly, half of the fun of going to an exhibit is in leading your own tour through a body of work, so on that note, I'll bid you adieu...

Home sweet Home

While I generally prefer to write about restaurants that I have a personal relationship with, i.e.  that I have eaten at,  I couldn’t help but share my latest gustatory/design find.  Located in Via Tortona, the Milan neighborhood known for its discerning aesthetic, Home is the brainchild of owner Monica Bagnari, designer Luca Rossire and architect Riccardo Salvi.  But Home is more than an evocative restaurant name; this epicurial sanctuary is also the personal residence of Bagnari, who converts it back into her home every night once the doors are closed to the public.

Each April, the Via Tortona neighborhood hosts the Salone del Mobile Internazional – one of the world's largest design trade fairs. In consideration of the project's unique location, Rossire and Salvi offered a number of top furnishing companies a partnership in the restaurant in exchange for donated goods, an opportunity they were wise to jump on.  As you can see, the result is a striking space where designers and gourmands alike would feel right at Home.

Midwest Side-- Sonnenzimmer

Of the many artistic talents to have blossomed in the Windy City (Frank Lloyd Wright, Ernest Hemingway), there are but few I have personally chatted about vegetarian cooking with, most notably Nick Butcher and Nadine Nakanishi of Sonnenzimmer Studio in Chicago.  Whit and I met them several weeks back, and amongst a sea of felt-applique pillows (nothing against felt-applique pillows) and cheeky canvas totes (and who doesn't love a cheeky tote?), I was immediately drawn to their graphic design collaborations.  Sonnenzimmer's subdued use of color and non-representational style made them really stand out.  With their mastery of geometric imagery,  these two visionaires seamlessly blend both mod and  futuristic/technological influences in a very subtle and yet striking way.

Their gig posters were really captivating in their design and simplicity, and seemed to really represent the underground Chicago music scene they help to promote: confident, stylish, a little stark, and ultimately, very cool.

Daily Door

Victory is yours... if you're hungry

(an inspiring pitstop from my recent trip to LA)

The Victory Gardens so widespread during WWI and WWII are having a modern resurgence-- and a modern re-interpretation.    Urban organic gardens are popping up all over our city, as a way to reconnect with the land, a way to foster self-reliance in an ever-unstable economy, and a way to utilize public and private space to provide local, sustainable organic produce and reduce the food miles associated with the average American meal.

There are several community gardens in the city where yard-less urbanites can have access to a plot of soil on which to plant, tend and nurture greenery.

San Francisco Garden Resource Organization has a directory of all the Community Gardens in the city.

Also check out SF Victory Gardens, an amazing citywide project in which 15 households are chosen as sites for urban gardens, in an effort to create a city-wide mini farm of sorts.  These households will be welcoming expert Garden Teams into their yards/porches/windowboxes/etc., in order to ready them to yield abundant produce right here in the city, with crops assigned according to the various growing conditions of the sites chosen.  The fruits of their labors will be collected and re-distributed throughout the city as part of an urban CSA box.

Last but not least, check out the blossoming Victory Garden in the sprawling front yard of our very own City Hall.  Tended lovingly by SlowFoodNation volunteers, this ambitious garden will provide organic produce for local food banks, in an effort to get quality organic food to those who would otherwise be unlikely to acquire it.

Happy planting!

Gillian

SF Events about town

A friend recently pointed out that we have a habit of posting pictures of events after the fact instead of letting our readers in on the fun. Since there are an abundance of fun events this weekend we thought we’d list a few:

• Home: New work by Julia Rothman and Caitlin Keegan at Rare Devices. The opening is tonight from 7-10pm. Guests who participate in this jumpsuit themed event get 20% off all merchandise.
• The 13th annual Silent Film Festival runs Friday July 11th –Sunday July 13th. We stumbled upon this event last year and were blown away by the live musical accompanists.

Musical highlights this year include Bay Area ensemble the Baguette Quartette, who specialize in Parisian dance hall music of the 1920s and will be making their festival debut with comedy provocateur René Clair’s LES DEUX TIMIDES (Two Timid Souls, 1928).

• Renegade Craft Fair at the Fort Mason Center this weekend July 12th and 13th from 11am-7pm. Contributors include: Art School Dropout, Betsy Ply, 3 Fish Studios, Caralyndon and many more renegade crafters from across this industrious country of ours.
• Local handmade guru Minnie Wilde hosts a summertime sale with other local designers turk + Taylor, Tinc, and Alma at El Rio (3158 Mission Street) this Saturday July 12th from 4-7pm. 21+ no cover.
• Bambuddha Lounge hosts Stellar: SF Fashion Awards Show. Over the past few months, local fashionistas have nominated their favorite designers, style bloggers and models – winners to be announced Sunday July 13th from 3-11pm. DJ commodore 69 will be mixing electro-rock favorites.