Friends and collectors came from near and far on Sunday to my Open Studio- top photo I'm with Joyce who came from Palo Alto; she has a giclee of my vertical turtle. She bought a full set of my photo cards. Second down is Dale who came from Berkeley with her new honey and her smiling face- such a welcome surprise to see her. Third with his dog Sebastian is my friend Bill, a fellow artist from our MICA art class-  he's drawing again after a long hiatus."The disparate elements (of my Istanbul series ) , sea life, modern/industrial and ancient figures work well together- compelling.."
   Last photo is of my friends Patricia and Mark, the parents of Claire and Declan whom I gave an art lesson to last fall. They had several of my prints in the bathroom at their old apartment where I also did my gardening work. Since moving to their new house, the prints await unveiling discreetly in their boxes.They told me about the kids new activities- Declan takes fencing and is in the choir, Claire is into crayon art- pinned to a board and then heated with a hair dryer to melt into interesting shapes/patterns. They bought photo cards of their favorite paintings " for my wish list".  I'm looking forward to the next art session with the kids .
 I almost forgot to mention the first visitor of the day , Heather Villyard, the director of ArtSpan. She lives in my neighborhood and is hosting several artists in her  home gallery space next weekend- www.truesilversf.com .She was blogging about her artist visits on her smart phone and included a photo of me and my location. She noted the difference between her earlier career, working as a fund-raiser at the Museum of Modern Art in San Francisco and her current one- " it's so liberating it is to take collectors around to view art in the studios - people who can trust their own taste rather than rely on what " the experts" decree. I'll be at the gallery next Friday night .