Sketch Tuesdays: The Museum Toilers Edition

Sketchy Museum Toilers

Sketch Tuesdays offers the San Francisco arts community “a place to congregate, to talk, to create and to be seen”. Long communal drawing tables are set up in the middle of the gallery (and conveniently next to the bar) for invited artists, and I found plenty of “drop-in” artists happily drawing on benches and chairs throughout the large space. The concept is similar to the scene at So You Think You Can Paint [reviewed], with a few key differences: 1) Thanks to curation, Sketch Tuesdays often features a chance to watch established artists in action. 2) The presence of alcohol draws a mellower crowd with a slightly higher age median. 3) At Sketch Tuesdays, you can BUY the art fresh off the artists’ sketch pads, often for $20 or less!

Ron Turner checking out the affordable art wall.
Ron Turner checking out the affordable art wall.

For inexplicable reasons, I had never made it to a Sketch Tuesday session at 111 Minna before this week. Technically, as last night’s edition of the recurring San Francisco sketchfest happened on a Wednesday, I guess we still haven’t. But now we’re hooked.

I think this is Jim Boyer drawing his cat!
I think this is Jim Boyer drawing his cat!

Last night’s session was curated by Adam Rozan and dedicated to “museum toilers by day, artists by night. The Museum Edition is featuring artists hiding out as museum preparators, registrars, curators, marketers, educators, and more.” Artists are everywhere! Viva la Day Job!

Click through for the list of featured artists and what I picked up.

Featured artists included Ryan de la Hoz, Mae Boyer, Anthony Pinata and David Sullivan of The Oakland Museum of California; Willa Koerner, Tim Svenonius, Christian Davies and Claire Pasquier of SFMOMA; Lisa Sindorf and Alex Smith of The Exploratorium; Kathy Jaller of The Contemporary Jewish Museum; David Fiveash and Carrie Cottini of DeYoung & Legion of Honor;  Lisa Ricci, Jim Boyer and Ian Hart of The California Academy of Sciences; Andrew Farago of The Cartoon Art Museum; and Andrew Agutos of The San Jose Museum of Art.

Rats by Lisa Sindorf
Rats Show Empathy to their Fellow Rats by Lisa Sindorf

I scored this inspirational piece on empathy in the animal kingdom (for only $15!) by Lisa Sindorf. She was illustrating interesting scientific research papers of the past year. If you’re surprised by the kindness of rats, you can read all about it in Empathy and Pro-Social Behavior in Rats. So, who wants to share a chocolate bar with me? See you next Tuesday!