What if she's an Axe Murderer?

Rebeca in her studio

 Don't you just love it when men half listen? So let me start at the beginning. I was to accompany my husband to San Francisco where he would be working all day.  I contacted a blog friend of mine, Rebeca whom I seemed to have a lot in common with and I knew lived in the area, she was free and invited me to come see her and her art and gallery and studio and artist friends! The only problem was I didn't have a car and the bus takes 3 hours because of all the stops, and the last bus returning to the city leaves at 4:15 which leaves not much time to see and do everything. So I asked my husband and Rebeca asked hers and it was decided that if we ran out of time or were just having too much fun, I would spend the night.

So now back to the 1/2 listening part. As I am getting ready to fall asleep the night before I am to catch the bus, my husband says to me...well I hope your friend is still as nice as you remember her in high school and I say, what are you talking about? and he says, you know your friend that you are going to visit and I say what? I've never met her before! and he says What!? you are spending the night with someone you met on the internet! What if she's an ax murderer? Well then after that conversation, I didn't get much sleep. But Rebeca and her husband turned out to be as nice and gracious as I had expected!

And what a wonderful whirlwind 24 hours we had! She picked me up at the bus stop at 9:40 am and we went straight for a tour of the studio, as the thrift stores do not open until 10.

lot's and lot's of goodies but all very organized

Clear spice jars hold all kinds of small buttons, beads and baubles

part of her collection of doll heads, we had a tutorial on how to pull the heads off dolls.

We had the tutorial because I told her about my squeamishness to tear anything apart and how I mostly just use the item as is. I also told her the story about Nancy's Nightmare.

Finished Assemblage pieces

A piece in progress with interactive parts

Rebeca calls her art  Obtainium Art(click for link to website) Materials used for paintings or sculpture, not bought new, but obtained in other ways, such as second-hand, dumpster diving, chance findings or donations.


After several quick stops to her favorite thrift stores we were off to visit SOFA, the art district and meet some other artists and their wonderful studio's and work.

Cat Kaufman's studio

Cat and her quirky world of assemblage

Fascinating mixed media assemblage

 To see Cat's website visit: http://www.catkaufman.com/
Cat and Mary and a few other artists share a building were they have studios in the back and their own gallery up front. The current show is Mary's acrylic paintings. Some are on canvas and others are on old washboards or board games. Then over the pieces she pours resin. I really like her work. Mary's website is http://www.maryvaughan.com

This is Mary Linnea Vaughan and her current exhibit at the gallery.

Next we popped in and said hello to Jack Jones.

 Jack is quite the character and a great painter, he had my ear for a while and when I found out he was recently written up in the paper I had to google it, it explains more about his 88 years as an artist and designer than I could ever tell. click here: Jack Jones for the article.

From there it was off to the Sebastopol Gallery to see Rebeca's work on display and to drop off a new piece as she had just sold one. Yeah!

Next was a tour of Rebeca's house...

Artsy entrance to Rebeca's home...

...and wonderful backyard

We decided I needed to spend the night so we could go to garage sales in the morning and had a wonderful evening attending an end of the school year party, drinking good Sonoma wine and walking around town.

Assemblage loot- thrift store, garage sale and items given to me

picture frames 10 cents each!

I didn't really want these but the lady at the garage sale kept going down on the price because she really wanted someone to take them. I didn't take them because they were inexpensive I took them because her mother had made them and she had passed away a few years and she was trying to let go of her mothers things that she was hanging on to. I could tell she was a little upset about this so I said I would take them and honor them in some way and she said, I know you will.

some tchotchkes given to me  from Walt's office. When I walked in and saw all the knickknacks and mobiles in his small office I said, NOW I know why you two are married. 

 When we spied a box marked FREE on the side of the road Walt did a u-turn so Rebeca could see what was in it. I know Bill loves me but he would have stepped on the gas!!

It was a fitting way to end our 24 hours of non-stop fun and Rebeca dropped me off at the bus stop with a street taco to go and I was on my way back to the city! What fun! Thank you Rebeca and Walt!