The Art of Fingernails with Kristen Valdez-Doherty

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By Noma Faingold.  (December 24, 2025)

Nail artist Kristen Valdez-Doherty is a maximalist in terms of nail design, which is reflected in the kitschy, crowded décor of her Nails of Modern Art Clement Street studio. She’s surrounded by abstract splashes of bright turquoise, chartreuse, hot pink, shades of purple, along with gold and silver metallic accents. Labubu dolls share shelf space with other whimsical pop culture figurines – from Wednesday Addams to Japanese anime characters. Continue reading →

Messages for the Future

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The United Nations Association Film Festival returns to the Bay Area with another urgent, globally expansive lineup. Running from October 16–26, the 28th edition of UNAFF brings 60 documentary films to venues across Palo Alto, East Palo Alto, San Francisco, and Stanford University. More than just a film festival, UNAFF is a civic forum—a space for dialogue, reflection, and action.

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Artist Rose B. Simpson Transforms Classic Cars While Healing Herself

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By Noma Faingold  (Updated September 10, 2025)

Artist Rose B. Simpson is more than a little preoccupied with vessels. She views pottery, cars, her figurative sculptures, the womb and clay, a material she most often uses in her creations, as vessels.

Courtesy of Rose B. Simpson

“I think in clay. Clay was the earth that grew our food, was the house we lived in, was the pottery we ate out of and prayed with,” Simpson told a de Young Museum audience at a very personal lecture she delivered earlier this year. “My relationship to clay is ancestral and it has a deep genetic memory. It’s like a family member for us.” Continue reading →

Lawrence Ferlinghetti-Painter & Poet for All Generations

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By Noma Faingold                 (August 1, 2025)

“I never wanted to be a poet. It chose me. I didn’t choose it. One becomes a poet almost against one’s will, certainly against one’s better judgement. I wanted to be a painter, but from the age of 10, these damn poems kept coming. Perhaps one of these days they will leave me alone and I can get back to painting.”

           – Lawrence Ferlinghetti, poet laureate, publisher, activist, playwright, novelist and painter

The poet and artist Lawrence Ferlinghetti in his San Francisco studio. (Photo courtesy of Brian Flaherty for The New York Times)

Calling someone an “icon” is annoyingly overused these days. However, when it comes to the late multi-hyphenate Lawrence Ferlinghetti (1919-2021), the moniker is appropriate, especially in San Francisco, where he thrived artistically and socially since his arrival in 1951. Continue reading →

Isaac Julien Dreams A World

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By Noma Faingold (April 16, 2025)

Watching the 28-minute, 10-screen film/art installation, “Lessons of the Hour,” by British artist/filmmaker Sir Isaac Julien, isn’t as overwhelming as one might think. In fact, the flood of images, sounds and words, dedicated to the life of writer, orator, philosopher, and social justice activist Fredrick Douglass (1818-1895), a former slave, allows the viewer to absorb and interpret the immersive experience in their own way.

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Cake Happens in San Francisco

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“CAKE PICNIC™ was born out of a simple desire to eat a lot of cake. And be surrounded by friends,” writes founder Elisa Sunga. “It is a gathering for the love of cake. It celebrates cake in all of its forms — chiffon cakes, upside down cakes, Princess cakes, Russian honey cakes, meringue cakes, jello cakes, trifles, multi-tiered cakes, sponge cakes, butter cakes, and more. Continue reading →

Wrestling the Angel: Two Bay Area filmmakers compose an intimate portrait of a California artist at crossroads

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By Farwa Ali          (January 30, 2025)

Graceful veined hands turn the seashell over a few times in reverent contemplation. A few moments later artist Ann Arnold tosses the seashell back into the rippling cerulean waves lapping against the shore of San Francisco’s Baker Beach. It has completed its journey, traveling from the ocean into Arnold’s life; where she has acknowledged its value, captured its luminous existence in her painting, and respectfully returned it to the ocean from whence it emerged. Wrestling The Angel – an Artist’s Passage, does more than capture Arnold’s artistic journey.

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The Secrets of Tamara de Łempicka

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An Interview with Director Julie Rubio

by Geneva Anderson

Tamara de Łempicka, the Russian-born 20th century painter known for her cosmopolitan Art Deco portraits and arresting nudes, is front and center in the Bay Area with two major Bay Area venues showcasing her: the Mill Valley Film Festival and the de Young Museum.

Orinda filmmaker Julie Rubio’s years-in-the-making documentary, “The True Story of Tamara de Łempicka & The Art of Survival,” had its world premiere at the 47th MVFF with two sold out screenings and more to come. Simultaneously the de Young Museum opened “Tamara de Łempicka,” the first major museum retrospective of the artist in the U.S. It runs through February 9, 2025.  (Details at the end of the article.)

Director Julie Rubio and Tamara de Łempicka

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