The Lost Ballon, a color plate from Let’s Play

Play, Paradise, Pioneering

This month marks the San Francisco–based Book Club of California’s book release of a hidden treasure, Let’s Play, a historic children’s book. Created in 1929 by the Pasadena-based Gearhart sisters—Frances (1869–1958), a leading California woodcut artist; May (1872–1951), a leading color etching artist; and Edna (1879–1974), a high school art teacher who was skilled in the art of drawing—the manuscript was recently rediscovered by former ABC networks censor–cum-curator Susan Futterman. While researching the upcoming retrospective of Francis Gearhart that she is creating for the Pasadena Museum of California Art (opening October 4), Futterman learned of the existence of the text and original linoleum cuts, which had been archived at the Cotsen Children’s Library at Princeton University.

This charming book, the Club’s first children’s book, featuring twenty-five precious color plates and one laid-in loose print of young children at play, along with eleven delightful verses, as well as an afterward by Victoria Dailey—an expert on the works of Frances Gearhart and a Book Club director—and a note on the Gearhart printing technique by Futterman, is being released in a limited edition of 1,000 ($75). bccbooks.org.

2012: Super-Bato by Enrique Chagoya

Another kind of play is featured in new work by (beloved) Bay Area artist Enrique Chagoya: gambling. Chagoya has done a full artistic overhaul to create an edition of eight fully functioning slot machines, or “one arm bandits,” to be played with coins created by the artist (coins feature the phrase: “life’s a dream, then you wake up”), available at Electric Works. An opening reception marking the release of the series will take place May 7.

Titled 2012: Super-Bato, the works’ theme is the year 2012, which marks the end of the Mayan 5125 calendar, a time of great change. “Super-Bato,” the figure whom you help in the game to save the world, is a combo character, part comic-book superhero, part vato, or Mexican-American “homeboy.” In step with Chagoya’s previous work, and embodied in the work’s hero, imagery featuring a fusion of Mexican and American influences is as humorous as it is serious, all housed within this iconic American machine, which embodies both hope and demise, light fun and destructive addiction. A powerful commentary on our quickly changing times delivered in a game of chance.

The Art of Travel

Art-infused summer travel just found a new home in the jungle a la Monte Azul, part luxury eco-chic boutique hotel, part artist retreat—total secluded rainforest paradise.

Located on 125 acres of private nature rainforest preserve in the Talamanca river valley of Southern Costa Rica, Monte Azul features fine art throughout the resort and an artist-in-residence program where select artists work, painting, sculpting, or printing—using eco-friendly practices—on the printing press (with the option of using paper handmade on site and customized to the artist’s specifications), providing collector and art-loving guests the opportunity to meet and interact with artists and to interact with the artistic process first hand.

“Studio visits are always one of the most exciting aspects of art collecting,” points out Monte Azul’s co-founder, SF native, and long-time art dealer Carlos Rojas Jara, “so we wanted to create that sort of experience in a paradise setting.”

This summer, the residency program will host SF artist Gustavo Ramos Rivera. The internationally recognized Rivera is known for his bright and playful abstract works on paper and canvas. Additionally, Monte Azul features ongoing art-related events, education, and exhibitions; there is also a strong emphasis on fostering the talents of Costa Rican artists such as Alvaro Gómez, José Pablo Solís, and Karla Solano.

Closer to home, an exhibition of works recently created by Henry Jackson during his Monte Azul residency—black-and-white prints featuring primates—will be on show in San Francisco this month (101 Townsend, 2^nd floor); a reception for the artist takes place May 7.

When not immersed in the contemporary art, the jungle preserve serves up world class bird watching and spectacular flora. The on-site Café Blue features organic, seasonal options, much of it locally sourced or grown on site. Or enjoy the original, handcrafted contemporary furniture—featured throughout the site as well as through the Monte Azul Casa line—created using sustainable methods. Divinely “green”!

Award Winning

Pioneering San Francisco–based artist and filmmaker Lynn Hershman Leeson was recently awarded the highly prestigious 2009 Guggenheim Fellowship. The award will allow her to fully dedicate herself to completing Women Art Revolution, a ninety-minute documentary film which traces the feminist art movement in the U.S. since the 1970s. Hershman Leeson was inspired to create the film after assessing the hours of footage she had of video interviews she’d conducted over the decades with “people who just passed through my living room,” she says—people, women, who are pioneers in feminist art, of which she is an integral part as well. Hershman Leeson had unwittingly captured the history of the movement.

The time has finally come, says Hershman Leeson, when the film can be completed—now that women are finally finding success as artists, as curators, as tenured art professors . . . as more integral participants in the entire art dialog. In addition to the film, a supplementary website, created in conjunction with Stanford University, will be launched when the film is released, giving visitors access to all of Hershman Leeson’s over two hundred hours of footage. It will also allow for others to add to the feminist art story. For additional information, womenartrevolution.com.

Take Mom . . . to the Roof!

There are numerous reasons to celebrate this May 10. It’s Mother’s Day, of course, as well as the opening of the much anticipated 14,400-square-foot rooftop sculpture garden at SFMOMA. In addition to providing a stunning spot for relaxing, contemplating, or sunny socializing, it’s an opportunity to be surrounded by outstanding modern sculpture, including Ellsworth Kelly’s Stele I, Kiki Smith’s Virgin Mary, Juan Munoz’s Conversation Piece N.Y. (1,2, and 3), and Mario Merz’s The Lens of Rotterdam, the latter two being new museum acquisitions.

And it’s free! Thanks to a generous grant provided by the Koret Foundation in honor of its 30 ^th anniversary, SFMOMA, in addition to sixteen other Bay Area museums—the de Young, Oakland Museum of California, Contemporary Jewish Museum, San Jose Museum of Art, the SF Zoo, and the Exploratorium, among others—are free and open to the public on that magnificent mom-honoring day of May.

Chérie Turner is the editor of the Nob Hill Gazette.