Archive for August 7th, 2008

I passed it during the day after checking out SF Camerawork – an unassuming brick building, formerly a warehouse or something like that, with subtle signage that says “too hip for the likes of you” while reading simply, “salt house.”  Was it really a salt house?  What is a salt house anyway?  Could somebody who likes salt as much as I possibly pass this up?  Especially after the morning’s flyover of salt ponds?  I made a note and resolved to return in the evening.

At 9pm on a Wednesday, salt house (they use e. e. cummmings’ capitalization – or more likely, k. d. lang’s – in the name) was packed.  It seemed a little late for the after-work crowd but maybe people work late here, or just go for a drink after work and linger.  Lots of business casual and not so casual, and a few poor souls who were still wearing their company logo gear after a trade show.  True to its warehousy heritage, Salt House is all exposed brick and weathered metal and wood.  Way too dark to photograph without flash.  There’s a loft space in the front and double-high ceilings in the back, lit by fixtures made from postcard racks with 4×6 bits of wood in the slots.  In addition to regular tables, there’s a small bar and a long but narrow communal table that reminds me a bit of the one at Toro in Boston.  I found a spot at the group table.

I immediately got a 3-segment pain d’epi (that French bread that looks a bit like a stalk of wheat where you tear off individual rolls) served on a sheet of butcher paper, and after asking, a milk bottle of tap water.  The wine list divides the universe into reds and whites by new world and old world.  Being in California, I chose a 2005 Cabernet Sauvignon from Silver Palm on the new world’s North coast.   It was extra purple with a big plum cherry currant thing happening, a little spicy at the end.  Delicious.

The dinner menu was on the brief side with seven entrees and a dozen or so small plates.  Keeping it light since I intended further grazing, I ordered white corn soup with aleppo chile and crispy scallions and heirloom tomatoes with garlic croutons and balsamic.

The soup arrived first with dire warnings about the plate temperature.  It was a bisque with a small pile of whole kernels and fried zucchini flowers in the middle.  No sign of the scallions, but there were a few swirls of chile oil to keep things interesting.  The white corn was smooth and sweet, and the flowers perfectly done with just a bit of crunch, and the chile oil wasn’t overpowering.  I had to slap away an attempt at premature bussing as I reached for some bread to mop with.

I’m almost never disappointed by a nice plate of tomatoes, but I have to say my heart sank when I saw this one.  It was huge.  I was hoping to have room for a third dish (peaches with bacon and pistachios, marinated yellowtail, and poutine were all on deck in my mind) or even dessert.  And it was tasty enough that I ate nearly all of it anyway.  Big chunks of red and yellow tomatoes were heaped in the center with the croûtons under a layer of microgreens and some shaved cheese on top and pools of oils and vinegar all around.  The thoughtful waitress brought salt and pepper.  The tomatoes were meaty and sweet, working well with the cheese and greens.  The croûtons had gotten soaked in balsamic, and I’m not that big a fan of overbalsamified things, but it all worked together well.  I did add salt, but not that much.  it was sea salt from a grinder, but nothing special, salt-wise.

Definitely worth a return to check out the entrees and desserts.

I don’t know how many times I’ve been to San Francisco and somehow missed out on SF Camerawork, a place that “encourages emerging and mid-career artists to explore new directions in photography and related media by fostering creative forms of expression that push existing boundaries.”  I went today to check it out.

I was not disappointed.  SF Camerawork is an extensive space on the second floor of a building that includes a handful of galleries and small museums a stone’s throw from SFMoMA and the rest of the South of Market artsy scene.  There were three solo shows: Sunburn by Chris McCaw, Ruins to Renewal by RonRong and inri, and Alan B. Stone and the Senses of Place.

You should see them all, and they run concurrently through August 23, so you’d better hurry.  But it was McCaw’s work that really held my interest, and I’ll share some of it with you.  Here’s some of the exhibition text:

SF Camerawork presents a solo exhibition of the work of emerging, San Francisco-based photographer Chris McCaw as part of its New Works Program. In his series Sunburn, McCaw turns the subject of his work, the sun, into an active participant in the printmaking process, creating fascinating prints that are literally burned by the path of the sun. The body of work was the result of a happy accident. Intending to create an all night exposure of the stars while camping, McCaw failed to wake up before sunrise. He discovered that while the night’s exposure had been destroyed, an interesting phenomenon had occurred on the film base, which had a hole burnt through it from the intense rays of the rising sun.

The exhibition at SF Camerawork displays McCaw’s most recent images that are made by putting paper, in place of film, in his camera’s film holder. Each paper negative, due to varying sky conditions and length of exposure, is scorched by the sun to differing degrees, sometimes burning completely through the paper base. McCaw uses both an 8 x 10” view camera and a home made 16 x 20” camera to create the paper negatives. As a result of the intense sun exposure, the sky reacts in an effect called solarization, which turns the paper negative into a positive. When developed, the paper negatives become actual one-of-a-kind prints.

We’ve all seen long-exposure photos that turn celestial spheres – stars, moons, planet, the sun – into arcs and lines.  McCaw’s work takes those lines from cool geometry to a powerful physicality.  What is hard to see from any web-based representation of this work is that the prints are actually burned, in some cases, all the way through.  You can see char marks on the print and sometimes the mat board behind it, and imagine a little wisp of smoke in the air.

Even photographers need to be reminded once in a while that light can cut and burn.