Spotted: at Pier 70, San Francisco
Occupation: Global Web Producer for Adobe
What are you up to today?
Just enjoying the weather and checking out Pier 70, there's an art event called Artbeats going on all weekend and I'm mostly interested in the building [laughs].
What is it about the building?
Just the architecture—a lot of the spaces that are still kind of raw are now getting lost in San Francisco, so this is nice that it's open right now.
Is it abandoned or are there people living there?
I don't really know, I just really became aware of it about a week ago. It's some Pier 70 group and I don't know what's happening with it. Seems like there's some kind of ownership going on—they're going to be doing events and stuff. I'm still trying to figure it out myself.
Did you just sort of stumble across the event?
Some people I know had posted it on Facebook and asked if I was going and I said ok, I'll check it out.
Do you live in the area?
I actually live down in San Jose, but I'm kind of all over the Bay. We have a studio in Oakland, and then most of my social life is here in San Francisco. Sometimes I work here, my main office is in San Jose, but when you live in the South Bay, the tri-city area is more like one big city to you.
You said you had a studio you work out of?
Yeah, in Oakland in NIMBY. It's out near the Coliseum.
What kind of art do you do?
Well my background is in computers—I have an MFA in Computers in Fine Art—so I worked for about 10 years collaboratively with people that I went to graduate school with. We had a group called C5 and we did a lot of data visualization art. I went to China and traveled from the western end of the Great Wall—out near the Silk Road—and followed the Wall across northern China to where it ends at the Yellow Sea. I collected data from that journey and then brought it back to California to try to lay it over the landscape of California. Then we figured out where the Great Wall could land in California. So yeah, those kind of things.
Does the crew you go to Burning Man with have a specialty?
Well, the car that we built—that's over at NIMBY—is called the Rajaphant. It’s an electric van that you can steer from the top. Carl Heiney was the real mastermind behind it but it was a great project to collaborate on.
So what is your favorite place you've traveled?
Probably India. I've spent quite a bit of time in there, because I was working over there. I really love India.
What were you doing out in India?
I was working for Adobe in Bangalore, and then I took some time to travel.
What's your favorite part about your job?
I guess that I'm always learning and that it's about troubleshooting and problem-solving. It's never boring because it's always changing. I'm on a team that's on a 24-hour clock with people from all over the world, so it's very dynamic.
What do you typically work on?
I'm in production, so I do prototyping and I'm a liaison between the developers and the designers. The back end of our site is Java-based and so there's a deep end of it, where we're working in the middle so we can speak the language and build and translate the layers between design and development—UAT (user acceptance testing)—we're checking to see if somebody who is not technical is going to build something with this, can they do it without having a lot of trouble.
Well, I also stopped you because of what you're wearing and I'd love to hear all about it, including your hair—how long have you had it pink?
Ahh . . . [pauses] since 1997? It's been a lot of colors, but pink works the best with my complexion [laughs] so yeah, it's the one I stay with!
Is it a lot of maintenance?
I go every six weeks to get it done; it's like my major, I dunno, splurge? I don't spend a lot of money—my car is like from 1999. I'm not into stuff like that, but my hair, traveling and clothes—those are my things!
The floral pattern on that dress is really cool!
I found it at a place called Moon Zooom down in San Jose. There's one in Santa Cruz too. It's a vintage or secondhand kind of place.
How did you come across those shoes?
I found them in Seattle in 1997 in a store called London Underground. They're like my slippers—I've been wearing them ever since. I just keep getting them repaired. I found a shoemaker that built up the whole front of them for me last year because they were pretty trashed! My shoemaker just sort of grumbles, like, “I don't think we can do any more with these." They fit perfectly.
And what's the story of your tattoo?
That was my pet rat Riff. Riff Rat. I drew the picture and took it to a place out on Geary Street for a tattoo back in like the, gosh, that was the late 80s. He was a very cool rat. He would respond by name and he'd come running across the floor. Rats just don't live long, that's the bad part.
You can follow Geri's work on her website.
