Spotted: Alemany Flea Market, San Francisco
Occupation: Nonprofit HQ Director
What are you up to today?
Let's see [laughs] . . . today I just went to lunch—I live close by so I come by every Sunday. I usually like this one vendor here because she's really sweet and she's got good vibes.
How long have you been coming here?
Well I grew up in the city so I've been coming here since I was a teenager.
What is your occupation?
I work for a nonprofit in the Mission called the Gray Area Foundation for the Arts. I'm the HQ Director.
What does your organization do specifically?
We're a nonprofit supporting digital art and technology. We teach creative code, which is code to create art. So it's all digital artworks.
What's a project that you guys have been working on that you've been pretty excited about?
We've been really working on our education program right now. For the last 7 months we've been working to renovate a theater in the Mission that used to be a dollar store for about 12 years. It's a movie theater that was built in the 1940's, and the guy who had the space didn't care about any of the beautiful art deco work inside. So we're just, with our own hands, scraping stuff off the floor and the walls and the bathrooms. We uncovered this amazing terrazzo tile in the lobby so we've just been really hunkered down for the last 7 months doing that.
How long has your nonprofit been around?
We've been a nonprofit for about 8 years. We were in the Tenderloin, and now we're so lucky to be in the Mission. We just moved there—we signed a 10-year lease with a 5 year option, so we're excited to be there 15 years. And the landlord is really excited, too, to get a nonprofit and some arts back into the theater.
Will the theater be open to the public?
Yeah it sure will! We're probably going to have our opening in April. Right now we've just been pushed back by the city because of all the permitting. There's so much construction going on in the city that the whole planning office is backlogged, so we've just been going through the process.
What drew you to this field? This combination of tech and art?
I attend Burning Man festival, and I met my partner at Gray Area at Burning Man. She had just gotten a space in the Tenderloin and we just started it! She had started it in LA with a gallery, and then she moved to San Francisco and that's when I met her. My background is in advertising and art direction and so we just all got together and made it happen. We wear many hats.
What's been the most challenging thing about the project that you're working on?
I would say dealing with the City of San Francisco and letting them understand that we're a community arts organization trying to put arts and culture into the city—whereas they are really hung up on permitting and it's really hard to get through the red tape. It can get discouraging and a lot of people give up, but we haven't and so I think they're now listening.
What's the most gratifying thing about your project?
Building community. We also teach teens creative code, and so we're giving them a new outlet to discover new artworks and new avenues that they might not ever have known. We teach a lot of underprivileged kids in the Tenderloin and now the Mission. We've worked with the Boys and Girls Club there in the Tenderloin and they just opened their eyes to a whole new age of digital art.
How do you get kids interested in seeing code as a creative tool?
We usually tell the kids about the shows we produce to showcase the community's work. We reach out to different schools and we invite them to come and see what is possible in the art that we teach. They can come and get an idea of oh, wow, that's so cool—that person actually made this! I can actually take that class and learn how to do that myself. We have an amazing classroom that we built upstairs in our new space that used to be the old projection room of the theater. So we took all these huge machines out and cleared it out, and now it's a gorgeous classroom.
Love your outfit today! How would your describe your personal style?
My personal style—I love colors and comfort! [laughs] And I really love this [points to jumper]. This is actually a really weird outfit. These are shorts, which look like a dress, with only one pocket! I have no idea who made this. And I did buy this dress for $1—this thing, whatever this is.
And it looked like you were stocking up on some hats?
Yeah, I was draw to these hats. I really love shiny things. I'm kind of like one of those birds, I'm not sure what they're called, that go to the shiny things. I saw this hat, and I think I definitely want to get it [shows me the sparkly gold turban hat she has]. It's kind of like turban disco. I really love this particular flea market because I feel like the vendors here are real, they're fair with their pricing and it fits within my budget [laughs]. It's kind of interesting that today is the Treasure Island Flea Market and some of the really local vendors are still here because they like it here too. The vibe here is really great and it's super local.
How did the tights and the boots come about?
The tights are from a friend's company. I'll give them a shout-out. They're called We Love Colors. And they're only online. He specializes in making tights in any color of the rainbow. I got these because it gets cool in San Francisco, so these keep me warm. The boots, I'm really a fan of fringe boots and these particular boots are called Zodiac. I got them off of Ebay. I just thought it would be a really weird thing to put pink and red and this dress thing together.
