Dogpatch is a fun place to wander around and explore, with its numerous parks, green spaces, and clearly identified slow streets and walking paths. One place worth visiting, the Museum of Craft & Design, is tucked into a large warehouse building near the Third and 20th streets Muni stop. It’s recent “Fight and Flight: Crafting a Bay Area” show featured a mix of textiles, prints, ceramics, paintings, found art and an audio immersive piece, highlighting the works of Bay Area residents Libby Black (Berkeley), Angela Hennessy (Oakland), and Richard-Johnathan Nelson (Oakland), among others.
In the back of the building a community makerspace, MakeArt Gallery, provides craft supplies, tools, tables and chairs to enable visitors to spend time being creative.
For the upcoming “Designing Peace” show, the museum is constructing an enormous raised peace symbol that’ll fill the gallery’s center floor. Artwork will be projected and displayed atop.
Tickets are $10 adults, $8 for students and seniors, with free admission for children, EBT, military, CalFresh and Medi-Cal. The museum is presently closed until October 6.
At the Woods Yard Park free live music series visitors can dance in the middle of the afternoon.
“The ‘Designing Peace’ exhibit will be very design-based, as opposed to [the recent ‘Fight or Flight’], which was much more craft-focused,” said Breanna Assumma, visitor services and development associate.
“We were originally thinking of doing an outdoor film series at Woods Yard,” said Jason Kelly Johnson, Green Benefit District (GBD) board member. After talking to a neighbor, the idea was changed to live jazz. “Since it’s not a large area, it needed to be something we could pop up and take down really quickly.”
Roughly three years ago, Johnson led installation of the public red chairs and tables and chairs in Woods Yard Park. More recently, GBD received a grant from Avenue Greenlight, an organization dedicated to providing micro grants to activate public spaces.
“The music series is a part of that; to bring the neighborhood together. That area is the neighborhood’s living room,” Johnson said.
“People say San Francisco is dying; that there’s no children, and everyone’s moving away. But the reality is, when you come down here and look around, it doesn’t feel like that!” Donovan Lacy, GBD president.
On October 7 Jazz the Glass will perform.
This is the first of a two-part series.
