Places We Go : South of Market (SoMa)
One great thing about living in Oakland, CA is that I'm only a 25-minute BART ride from San Francisco. Last Thursday, Jayne and I met at Thai Osha for a lunch of pumpkin curry and lemongrass chicken. The restaurant filled up quickly - nice to see people back at work in San Francisco's Financial District. Crossing nearby Market Street, we moved into SoMa (South of Market district).
The one-mile walk to our destination was curtailed as we came across a gondola. A new transit center (buses, light rail and Greyhound) opened in 2018, along with a spectacular upstairs park. Seventy feet above, it runs the entire length of the transit center’s nearly four-block stretch. The gondola whisked us up two stories to the 5.4-acre rooftop. There are about 600 trees and 16,000 plants arranged in 13 different botanical feature areas, all surrounded by an external base of lacy white metal. In the three years since I last visited, things had grown in beautifully.
Across the street from the gondola (on the grounds of the 61-story Salesforce Tower) stands the infamous Millennium Tower - infamous because it's currently leaning an astounding 29 inches at the top at the northwest corner. It's now sunk some 18 inches; it's rotated slightly; sidewalks that wrap the building continue to stress under its shifting weight and position. New piles are being installed at the foundation but there's a no guarantee this will stop the problems. While condo prices have dropped, units are surprisingly still being sold.
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Finally, we reached our primary destination - The San Francisco Art Museum (SFMOMA) - sandwiched on a SoMa street of businesses.
Carl Van Vechten 1932)
Our reason for visiting was to see a current exhibition. Back in 2008, Connie and I saw the Frida Kahlo exhibit there. Frida Kahlo lived in San Francisco with her husband in 1930-31 when he was commissioned to paint murals here. She even remarried him here in 1940. This time, it was her husband's turn to exhibit. Diego Rivera (1886-1957), born in Mexico, was an extraordinary painter, muralist and costume designer.
Many of Rivera's paintings portray daily life in different regions of Mexico. And as Jayne opined, the original hand carved frames were works of art in themselves.
One of Diego Rivera's many paintings of a flower vendor with calla lillies.
A large mural set in a grove of almond trees in Atherton, CA. Atherton is now home to some of the most expensive homes in California but doesn't it look magical back in the 1930's?
If a mural couldn't come to the museum, the museum took us to look in situ. There were 3 life-size walls of video. Here's a Rivera wall mural in Mexico City. We watched as pedestrians walked by and tourists took their time looking at the market scene.
Meanwhile, Jayne inspects Diego's portrait of his 1st wife.
At the end of the exhibit was this wedding portrait of Frida and Diego, painted by Frida in 1931 and now owned by SFMOMA. The couple married twice and were each other's models for twenty-five years. This beautiful exhibit150+ pieces of Diego's art runs through January 3, 2023. I hope you get a chance to see it. In the meantime, enjoy your Sunday!
for more info -
Salesforce Park :
San Francisco Museum of Art :
https://www.sfmoma.org/visit/
top photo : Karl Mondon / The Mercury News / Getty
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