Tofu's Art

Rhapsody: Works from the Cooper Rosenwasser Collection 

Visited the Berkeley Art Museum and had a look at the current exhibit Rhapsody: Works from the Cooper Rosenwasser. It is great news that these pieces are becoming part of the museum’s permanent collection — everyone will be able to enjoy them when they are exhibited for years to come.

There is a lot of outstanding work, and of course I really get excited when I see other artists doing art that is all about circles and grids.  Jennifer Bartlett’s Binary Combinations was a favorite of mine.  Howardena Pindell’s piece is one of those things that makes me say, “I wish I had done that…”  Consider me inspired.  The current show is up through June 28, 2026.

For those of us that liked the Vaillancourt Fountain, it is now a font so we can always remember it. A big thank you to Danielle Baskin for creating this/

An Attempted Murder

I like my rights ICE Free!

RawHound Productions

This week’s Portland trip included a visit to the studio of RawHound Productions and a sneak peek at their latest projects. In 2025 they won an Audience Choice award at the Portland Festival of Cinema.

Portland Art Museum

When I travel, I always try to make time to visit local art museums. I especially like to go to museums that are smaller, less well known, etc. I often discover real treasures, from excellent regional work, artists who should be better known and even works from very famous artists that never make the art books and travelling blockbuster museum shows. Santa Barbara, Long Beach, Tucson, Boise, just point me to the art museum.

I get up to Portland now and then but realized it has been 18 years since I visited the Portland Art Museum. The museum has tripled in size since my last visit.  This is an example where more exhibition space is better (that is not always the case).

It is always satisfying to see a lot of local artists featured in a museum. The Inkling Studio show is an excellent showcase of local printmaking.  Mark Rothko was a local artist, but most of the blockbuster work is elsewhere. As an artist, I found seeing some of his early work fascinating. There is a beach scene that reminded me of Chaïm Soutine.  The museum has Soutine’s The Little Pastry Cook — a pleasure to see as we do not have any of his work on display in the Bay Area. The photography of the Kenji Nakahashi was also well curated, it is shown with contemporary Japanese ceramics.

On my visit to Portland, I got to attend the Portland Correspondence Coop monthly meeting. It was a real treat.

The meetings are hosted in this amazing place called Cargo.

Cargo is sort of like an antique mall but for artists and makers.  Instead of antiques, you have booths filled with all kinds of groovy stuff.  Some of the artists represented are even San Francisco refugees.

How I wish we could have a space like this in San Francisco. But alas, pretty much any big warehouse like this would be snapped up by some tech company to make another useless app.   I ❤️ Portland.

City Stickers

Stickers covering the backs of street signs are not unique to any community. It happens in a lot of places. But the stickers themselves are often unique.

Past, Present, Future — U.S. at 250

World Collage Day

Polenta Post?

How to respond to mail art call for Italy when the theme is “Terra Madre”. Maybe a painting of a map of the world that looks like polenta on a plate.  Is it time for Sunday lunch? 🍽️🇮🇹

Cascadia Art Post

Reading is Travel

On the way to France for a mail art call with the theme Travel in Literature.

California Postal Service

Even though the USPS no longer distributes airmail stickers, you can make your own.  You can even send a batch to Dystatic in Canada, and you will get a bunch sent back to you.

Mail Art Book #2

In June 2022 I completed Mail Art Book #1.  Nearly four years later, the second in the series is finished.

Along with their mail art, many artists include ephemera, stickers, artist stamps and other pieces in their envelopes — and sometimes the envelopes are works of art too. In 2020 I began to repurpose this material in artist books.  I always start with a large, used coffee table book — armed with glue and scissors these 170 pages are the latest results.  I am already looking for another old book to start filling up.