The Last Day of November

2011-03-12T14:12:00.000-08:00

Saturday March 12, 7-10pm.

Opening reception.

Root Division Gallery

3175 17th Street (at South Van Ness)

Manufactured Organic: Exploring the Environmental Implications of Art.

Curated by Ryan Jones, Marisa McCarthy, and Kate Stirr.

Exhibition Dates: March 9 - March 26, 2011

Gallery Hours: Wednesdays - Saturdays, 2-6 pm (or by appointment)

ROOT DIVISION  3175 17th Street (at S. Van Ness) San Francisco, CA 94110 415.863.766 www.rootdivision.org

Opening reception. February 4, 2011. 6-9pm. SOMArts. 934 Brannan Street; SF, CA.

2011-02-04T13:42:00.000-08:00

Metal door, blue wall.

2011-01-31T11:08:00.000-08:00

Our porch was also the laundry-drying area. I liked the effect of backlit cotton sheets -- intimate and cozy.

2011-01-31T11:06:00.001-08:00

Huitlacoche-harvesting after the field trip proper.

2011-01-31T10:46:00.000-08:00

Artists take each other to dinner...a magical end to an evening with Lily at the Magnus.

2011-01-31T10:40:00.000-08:00

The shower curtain in the bathroom at my friends' house made a lovely lightbox, and was my preferred light source for that room.

2011-01-31T10:37:00.000-08:00

A cobblestone alley...my favorite kind of place to eat outside at night.

2011-01-31T10:11:00.000-08:00

San Francisco Seed Swap

2010-12-13T20:30:00.000-08:00

SAVE YOUR SEEDS!

The 4th annual Solstice Seed Swap is just around the corner, and we hope that you will join us -- rain or shine -- for some old-fashioned communal fun.

Tuesday, December 21, 2010. 3-7pm. Rain or shine.
Dearborn Community Garden*
Bring seeds or plants to share. Bring a small bell if you have one.
Young people are welcome; dogs are NOT

*Dearborn Community Garden is located at the corner of Dearborn and Bird Streets, very near to the Women's Building, in San Francisco, California.

Please label your seeds with as much information as you can provide: Location and date of collection. Species and variety. Color of bloom (when applicable). Adaptability to particular microclimates (which one are you in?). Cultivation preferences of the plant (does it like to have cool feet and a warm top?) if you know them.

We will provide some seasonal treats to share, and we welcome you to bring some if you feel inspired to do so.

Who are we? We are artists who love food and celebrating the Winter Solstice. Bill Basquin, Johunna Grayson, Greta Snider, and Brenda Hutchinson, with the support of Liz Keim and The Exploratorium Museum of Art and Science.

2010-12-13T20:15:00.000-08:00

2010-10-31T13:00:00.000-07:00

2010-04-15T21:37:00.000-07:00

2010-03-17T20:46:00.000-07:00

2010-03-17T20:27:00.000-07:00

2010-03-16T16:52:00.000-07:00

2010-03-16T16:41:00.000-07:00

Artist statement from show at San Francisco Community Acupunture:

Land and Sea photographs by Bill Basquin

The Livermore Range series is from a location scouting trip for a film I made called the 10,000 Mile Bike Race that was commissioned for the Bay Area Now 5 art exhibition at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in 2008. I had loved this mountain range for a long time, but had always enjoyed its undulations from the drivers’ seat of a rental car while traveling on Interstate 5. I am pleased to report that these hills amply reward a closer look.

The waterscapes are an ongoing project. They are, for me, an experiment in pleasure and in color monochromatism; they were instigated both by my love of landscapes and by my love of Hiroshi Sugimoto’s black-and-white Seascapes (www.sugimotohiroshi.com/seascape.html). The series includes a perhaps unlikely waterscape of a frozen lake in Wisconsin (Ice Fishing Shanties).

Some of the images in this show are from the Soiled series; I made these over the course of a year during which I attempted to grow as much food as I could in my 7’x14’ community garden plot without spending money on things like fertilizer and pots (I did purchase seeds) and document the results (I often ate the vegetables before I could take their pictures). The short version of the story is that I did it –I spent very little money, probably less than $100 in seeds and materials (twine) over the course of a year –and that what I was able to grow in the space that I have (98 square feet) is a small fraction of what I consume in a year; the statistics that I've read say that it currently takes commercial agriculture 15,000 to 30,000 square feet to raise all the food for one person for one year. In his book "How to Grow More Vegetables," John Jeavons details techniques that may allow a gardener to grow their years' supply of food on the equivalent of 3403 square feet. (Jeavons, 1974, 2002). The long version of the story is about me as a person and artist who engaged in a year of slow inquiry and the emotional and artistic ethic that emerged from that time. I’d like to note here that that year was made possible both by chronic underemployment (which afforded me the time that I needed) and by a grant from the San Francisco Arts Commission (which afforded me the luxury of not seeking further employment).

The biological nature of my subject matter means that the unfolding of the drama is both slow and fleeting. I often wake up early and begin to photograph as the sun starts to shape the land around me. In the process of making my artwork, I find that I am developing a somewhat intangible skill set – skills that I never would have thought to call skills, except that I know that I have them; what this amounts to is something about trusting and investing in myself, and pursuing, on a very basic level, that to which I am attracted (the waterscapes are an example of this).

Bill Basquin
January 2010

Land and Sea

2010-01-20T00:23:00.001-08:00

Land and Sea

photographs by Bill Basquin

opening reception
Friday, January 22, 6:30pm

San Francisco Community Acupuncture
220 Valencia Street; SF, CA 94103
415.675.8973

2009-12-19T12:41:00.000-08:00

Mobile Compost Observation Bin, prototype #1

2009-02-10T22:40:00.000-08:00

eucalyptus leaf at sunrise

2008-10-09T17:30:00.000-07:00

bridge comb from Eli's bees

2008-10-09T17:28:00.000-07:00

Former Site of the Sanders Woolshed #2

2008-10-09T17:22:00.000-07:00

potato skin

2007-12-28T17:23:00.002-08:00

observation hive

2007-12-20T22:08:00.000-08:00

dearborn and bird

2007-08-05T01:45:00.001-07:00

coast starlight

2007-08-05T01:40:00.000-07:00

Synopsis

2007-04-12T13:50:00.000-07:00

The Last Day of November is the first film in a series of three that "gently inquires into work, mortality, identity, and the flesh." This film follows a family of deer hunters as they return from the field to the barn.

The Last Day of November

2007-03-27T12:26:00.000-07:00

The Last Day of November, a short 16mm film by Bill Basquin, will be presented at the Santa Cruz Film Festival:
2:45pm, April 26, 2007, at the Riverfront Twin.

http://www.BillBasquin.com/catalog.0.html.0.html

Here is what some of the critics are saying about Basquin’s work:

“Beautifully photographed.”
–Jonathan Marlowe, Green Cine Daily

“Graceful, intense and moving.”
--Joanna Priestley, Filmmaker

“This delicate triptych gently inquires into work, mortality, identity and the flesh.”
–Konrad Steiner, Independent Filmmaker and Curator

“[Basquin’s work is] fresh and substantial.”
–Greta Snider, Professor of Film, San Francisco State
University

"Refreshingly spare"
--Jonathan Rosenbaum, Chicago Reader

“Beautiful and exciting.”
--Cissie Peltz, Peltz Gallery; Milwaukee, WI

“Subtle and rich with subtext.”
–Shawna Swartz, www.afterellen.com

“Scrape away the Hollywood gloss or indie veneer from movies such as Brokeback Mountain and Boys Don't Cry and you'll get closer to the quieter truths in Bill Basquin's movies. A gifted cinematographer …Basquin has crafted a triptych of short films about family, farming, and hunting that subtly reveal unspoken aspects of masculinity — his 2004 film Martin got sheep-ish before Ang Lee did in Brokeback.”
--Johnny Ray Huston, San Francisco Bay Guardian

“Out of the Bay Area came riding Bill Basquin's Range, a lyrical depiction of the workaday life of a working rancher.”
--B. Ruby Rich, San Francisco Bay Guardian