Today was a gallery day. We went to see the Absolute Abstraction show at the Viewpoints Gallery in Los Altos. I anticipated seeing Jane Ferguson’s acrylics which of course were awesome but was surprised to see that Floy Zittin created an abstract too, ant it was a very unusual one with tree branches growing from nowhere. I love Floy’s new pieces done on canvas, they have a wonderful touch of magic to them; not a fantasy art, just something a little different than traditional realism. It’s still watercolor, but it looks so different on canvas, its amazing.

The rest of the gallery was just as much pleasure to see as the featured exhibit: Terri Ford’s glowing pastels, Jean Prophet’s pottery, Berni Jahnke’s watercolors (she had portraits of old people on display, and shared their stories with me and Slava), Diana Jaye’s colorful oils, Kathleen Alexander’s graceful flowers and exotic fruit (at least I think that green thing was a fruit, I loved it more than flowers, and it looked great in watercolor), and so much more. It seems that every time we visit this gallery it becomes better and better.

We stopped at Gallery 9 too, since it is located on the next street. Nice to see what Belinda Lima and Rajani Balaram have there, and I don’t remember if I saw Kiyoco Michot’s ceramics before but those bowls that resemble fruit split in half are very beautiful.

To add to the pleasure of taking in art, it was pouring outside. Such a wonderfully quiet, rainy day!

We came to the fair unusually late this time and found out that there were more opportunities to park close to the trail that lead to the fair. It was almost chilly, and taking a shuttle ride in an open trolley didn’t look even remotely appealing. Not that walking up and down hills warmed me up, but it was definitely better. The ground was dump in some places, like it was raining earlier here.

When we later talked to Terry Steinke (which is always a pleasure, just like seeing his wonderful etchings), he said it was just low clouds from the ocean that condensed on trees so much it actually felt like a drizzle if you were standing under a tree. What felt so nice to me, was not doing any good to unprotected artworks on paper, and even some glazed ones and their mats were warping.

There was a lot of glass art, and diffused light made it even prettier than on a sunny day: Dehanna Jones, Sue Marek, Dan & Eve King-Lehman, and a few others who didn’t have business cards or anything else to help remember them. Why do artists do that?

New great finds:

• Esther Barr who creates almost animated animals in an ancient repousse technique
• Chunhong Chang, a Taiwanese artist whose beautiful paintings combine traditional European and Chinese techniques. Classic small Dutch paintings meets Ming Dynasty art.
• S. Fuess and her colorful horses in oil. She does not limit herself to horses only, it just happens to be my favorite subject that I notice first and that I remember better than anything else.
• Paul Wisdom with metal art that almost always incorporates bamboo in some form.

Artists whose work I was glad to see again:

• Joseph Battiato with all sorts of stoneware pots
• Ginny Conrow and her elegant crystalline glaze porcelain, Bruno Kark with bold, large ceramics of which vases in the form of folded tubes are my new favorites
• Nancy Chien-Eriksen and her most wonderful eclectic collection of dragons, horses, and other creatures
• Timon Sloane and his pastels full of emotion and color
• Sharon Spenser with new bronze sculptures that now harmoniously incorporate organic materials.

Got ourselves a new Aryeh Frankfurter’s CD, “The Twisting of the Rope.” Haven’t listened to it yet, but I am pretty sure it will be good. Everything by Aryeh that we had so far was good.

When we were leaving, ocean clouds were almost touching the ground. My attempts to shoot it without a tripod resulted in a series of images that showed varying degrees of camera shake. Still got some useful reference for future drawings.

We had just one more day to see the rest of open studios, so we started it by planning the route. That took some time because less sites were still open on the third weekend, and they were scattered all over the valley. We did make it to many more sites than yesterday, so I will be brief.

Margaret Prendergast Washington was the first artist we visited. Her watercolors are like fine China – light, elegant, and very pleasing to the eye.

A lot of interesting artists were showing in the Alameda Galleries – a labyrinth of studios behind the Recycle Book Store with a very unassuming entrance.

The artwork that caught my attention first was four pieces of burl with colorful pictures on them done with some dry media that I could not identify. It had no information next to it, but I was assured that the artist herself is about to arrive soon and I could ask her. We did not get to talk to the artist, but her husband was kind enough to explain that it was pastel on burl and that it’s a lot of work to complete such a large piece. I would imagine it was, but the result looked fabulous. The name of the artist was Patti Linder-Dodd, and her business card said she specializes a murals.

Nancy Walters shoots and paints wild animals. The portrait we saw go beyond capturing likeliness, they convey personality. Nancy must feel strong connection with her animals.

I am not sure how David Lippenberger’s art should be classified or if it even needs to be put into any specific category. He had many unusual pieces in his studio of which one with black wooden shapes for a city and rope-clad skies was the best. There was something about earthy tones of the rope playing against ominous black mass beneath that captivates the eye.

On the wall of the passage next to David’s studio were several abstract painting of Simone Raoux, a wonderful sequence of gorgeous pieces rich with texture and radiantly warm colors. In her studio, there was more wonders to see, all very different, each of them with its own emotion. Somehow they did not clash with each other; despite their differences, they formed an intricate harmony on the walls. I don’t remember being that immersed in abstract art since I first saw paintings by Karen Hale years ago.

There were more artists in the Alameda Galleries, but we wanted to see other sites too so had to leave.

Douglas Vincent’s Ilfochrome photos of nature seemed to glow from the inside and have almost a three-dimensional feel to them. He’s obviously a very talented photographer who does not need to rely on an unusual technique or materials, but they certainly add a special touch to his art.

We barely entered Amy Brown’s yard when I was stopped by beautiful ceramic fish on the fence. The whole yard was full of birds, fish, shark head vases and so much more that I was not sure where to look first. Amy had to invite us into the house more than once, and I finally followed with a small pelican in my hands. I am partial to ceramics, what can I say. She paints her tropical scenery, flowers, and frogs in acrylic, but the result looks like oil. There was a triptych of Red Eyed Tree Frogs above the fireplace that to me was the best thing in the whole room, I am not even a frog person.

Noreen Christopher and Jeanette Turkus were showing at the site that had a funny contrast between very good lighting and wooden floors generously spattered with paint of all colors imaginable. I liked Noreen’s abstract acrylics and Jeanette’s figurative art most of all, but the whole exhibit by those two artists was very strong.

Judging by the imagery outside, I expected to see a cat or two in Joe Decker’s house, but we saw none. His breathtaking photos were hanging, laying, and standing everywhere, and Joe could tell a story about each and every one of them down to the exact name of the place and a year when the shot was taken – what I would give to have that kind of memory!

Janet Trenchard works in many different media, and her display reflected that. She creates unusual mixed media assemblages, paints in acrylics, and does some sort of printmaking that I never saw before. Unfortunately, the name of the technique escaped my mind as soon as we left the site, but it had a delicately weathered look to it. Janet said that because it is not an easy technique, very few artists are engaged into it.

By that time studios started to close down, and we decided to call it a day. And it was a very good day, I might add.