November in SOMA

• What's Going On? Events and Activities
• Culture Collective: Reflections on an Art Filled November
• SOMA Name Dropping: Ring(g)old Street

SOMA November Events

Lot's of opportunities to give back to SOMA this Thanksgiving season

11.15 – 9-12:30 PM
🌴 Tree Planting/Welcoming
📍 8th and Tehama
Join your neighbors and DPW in welcoming some new trees to our neighborhood. With enough support this will be the first of many tree planting initiatives so come by even if it's just to say Hi!
RSVP

11.20 – 6-8 PM
🥂Free Neighborhood Happy Hour
📍Decentered Arts 1175 Folsom St
See some art and enjoy a neighborhood hang with the SOMA West CBD
RSVP

11.29 – 10-1 PM
Planter Building Party
📍 Victoria Manalo Draves Park
Come join your neighbors in beautifying our local park by hanging out and completing our planter build.
RSVP

Culture Collective: Reflections on an Art Filled October

by Taylor Snowberger aka RuthieDay

Man, October was PACKED with art events in SOMA. ArtSpan’s SF Open Studios, 2 Blocks of Art on Market, and a showing of the documentary WHO IS BOZO TEXINO at a pop up gallery in the former Rayko Photo building were the three events I got the chance to peruse. 

Starting with SF Open Studios, I went to the opening night at ARC and saw the lovingly hand carved block prints of Sushma Kothari. She moves between India and San Francisco, and the parallels in the winding, rambling, magical moments of architecture can make it hard to tell which place she is depicting at times, in the best way. Walking through the lower floor of ARC, I was able to peep a few studios and talk with silvi alcivar, the pop-up typewriter poet who has been haunting the streets of San Francisco with her unique literary offerings for 13 years! She received an Honorable Mention at the ArtLaunch reception party for ArtSpans SF Open Studios that I wrote about mid-October. I also talked with Lena Lee, who has been busy peddling her photorealistic watercolor explorations of light, reflection and color at multiple SF Open Studios venues around SOMA this month.

Next I was able to make it out to 2 Blocks of Art, a two block stretch of 18 different venues with SITE+SOUND exhibits. It was a fun, refreshing...

SOMA Name Dropping: Ringold St

By Cindy Casey

Named after Cadwalader Ringgold, a US Navy officer. From 1838 to 1842, Ringgold participated in the Wilkes Expedition in the Pacific, commanding the USS Porpoise. 

The Wilkes Expedition, also called The United States Exploring Expedition of 1838–1842, explored and surveyed the Pacific Ocean and surrounding lands.w

Ringgold was promoted to commander in 1849, and he began the definitive survey of the San Francisco Bay region. His location for a dockyard for the Navy's Pacific station became the Mare Island Navy Yard.