The things I've been up to

Week before last I headed out to San Francisco to see this... it's an art installation.

The name of the work is Buffalo Bill and the Indians on the Beach, by Thom Ross, a Seattle artist who specializes in whimsical Western imagery. He created 107 plywood figures, each based on an individual in one of those large panoramic group photographs of Buffalo Bill's Wild West, taken in 1902 at this same location, on Ocean Beach just south of the Cliff House restaurant. Ross' version was so long that I couldn't get my camera lens to capture the whole thing (Thom got one -- go to his site to see the whole shebang). Below is one of two groups of Indian women Ross painted. He didn't slavishly copy the portrait, but instead interpreted each figure in his own style. Ross attached ribbons, furniture tacks, feathers, and things like that to each one, so they'd move just a little bit with the wind. This guy was my favorite.

The installation was in place September 8-14. While I was there, several tour busses stopped to take pictures, and nearly everybody wanted to talk to the artist to tell him how great they thought the work was. I say nearly everybody, because the installation attracted a Native American protest, mostly against Custer (Custer was not in the original portrait, nor was he featured in Ross' work on the beach).

While I was in San Francisco, I did manage to get good and lost, driving around downtown. I did the extreme up-and-down of Divisidero Street -- I love San Francisco, just to look at it and move around in it. The Golden Gate Bridge was shrouded in fog, but you could still see some of the very bottom supports in the water. A great time was had by me, and I hope to go back sometime soon.

I didn't knit a single stitch while traveling -- instead, I took Yellow Laptop with me and wrote some much-needed job application documents. However, I've been knitting a little bit since I've been home, and have nearly finished the second Tofutsie sock, finally. I've started some Christmas knitting (the Emperor is getting purple striped socks, shhh) and am thinking about the next project beyond the Celtic Tote. Have you seen the new Knitty ? See that gorgeous purple sweater? That might be the next thing to gravitate onto my needles... provided I can pick a color. Yeah, I know, I'm like a bird with a shiny object. Cheep, cheep, oh so pretty.