New Year, New Ring on the Tree: Exciting Art Exhibition Opening Updates
January Breakfast @ Tiffany's Newsletter
Happy New Year! On these fresh days of a new ring on the tree, I always have so much hope. Last year’s ring had a lot of hard moments but it was also infused with great moments of joy. That’s what life is all about: that mixture of the inspiring helping to get you through the rest. And in a world where so many things seem out of control, it’s been good to be super-focused on making things that open up conversations and bring people together . . . through art. Ken and I have been working 15-hour days to get ready for our show.
We’re looking forward to sharing it all with you at our Jan 22nd opening of Ancient Wisdom for a Future Ecology: Trees, Time & Technology at di Rosa SF during SF Art Week. RSVP here. Of you can’t make it then, there are other programs listed below.
The exhibition originated as part of Getty PST ART Art & Science Collide at the Skirball Cultural Center last fall and now is expanded with new site-specific works and the brilliant curator Twyla Ruby also selected words from our individual practices. It involves tree rings sculptures, AI and time-based media work. The final weeks leading up to an exhibition are intense, but I love seeing everything coming together. And while I love openings, one of my favorite parts is to walk through the creative process in an more intimate setting. Ken and I will be doing several artist-led tours and talks with a different focus. Pick your flavor.
Jan 22, 6-8pm: Opening Night Reception Special drink for the “Ancient Wisdom” exhibition “Ancient Fizzdom” made of juniper berries found near the oldest trees in the world, the bristlecone pine trees, that will be provided by The Long Now Foundation. Remarks at 7pm.
Jan 24, 11am-noon: Saturday Artists Tour & Talk with Curator
Feb 1, 1-3pm: Trees, Time, and Tu BiShvat New Year for the Trees; An Artists-Led Tour
March 7 1-4pm: An Afternoon of Feminist Art + Action with Dendrofemonology: A Feminist History Tree Ring
March 12, 6:30-8:30pm: Art, Artifice & AI: A Conversation with Whitney Museum Curator Christiane Paul & Ken
March 26, 6:30-8:30pm: Ecology Now: Krista Tippett in Conversation with Me & Ken
April 11: Closing night celebration. RSVP
A big thank you to di Rosa Center for Contemporary Art & our exhibition sponsors Eve’s Ark & Women Connect4Good!
So great seeing the exhibition featured in SF Arts Guide in our Sunday New York Times.
*You can see above that we updated the photo of Ken and me below that Print Magazine published 10 years ago with Debbie Millman photographed by John Keatley. I love this photo because it captures our partnership in a geometric way. My longtime readers know that I love recreating photos as time goes by. We will try to do this every 10 years . . . until we are 100. I laugh thinking of the version when we’re in our 90s.
Catharine Clark Gallery has represented Ken as an artist for 25 years. She will be showing the the original version of our time-based media work Speculation, Like Nature, Abhors a Vacuum, in her media room as part of the exhibition with Masami Teraoka: From Here to Eternity, Five Decades of Art Making opening this Saturday.
Inspired by Ed Ruscha's Streets of Los Angeles archive (1965–present), this aerial video offers an artistic interpretation of tree canopy coverage on four major LA boulevards. Whereas Ruscha focused on urban architecture, Ken and I use AI tools and Google’s Auto Arborist Dataset to focus on urban treescapes, panning down Hollywood, Sunset, Manchester, and Whittier Boulevards to contrast their shade differences. “The pairing of Goldberg and Shlain’s work with Teraoka is inspired by the roots of Teraoka’s practice in the pop and conceptual movements in Los Angeles of the 1970s and 1980s characterized by artists like Ed Ruscha. The video was also selected for its focus on the environment, and economic disparities.”
Ken and I look forward to being at this opening at Catharine Clark Gallery this Saturday, January 10 from 3-5pm.
In our di Rosa exhibition opening Jan 22nd, we’ll be showing a site-specific San Francisco version in their media room based on four San Francisco Streets for the Ancient Wisdom exhibition.
One of the aspects of working on an exhibition, in addition to making the work (some pieces we are racing to finish), is working with the curators. Ken and I love this part. We’ve been doing a lot of walkthroughs of the space with curator Twyla Ruby to create the experience. Those of you on Instagram, I tried to capture this behind-the-scenes layered process.
It was great to see Nob Hill Gazette feature our Tree of Knowledge artwork, 10,000 pounds and with nearly 200 questions in humanity’s quest for knowledge burned into the wood. An exciting piece of news is that this artwork will be on display at the atrium entrance at Minnesota Street Project also opening Jan 22. This is one block away from di Rosa’s new museum space. You can start at di Rosa and then head over to MSP one block away. We love the Minnesota Street Project and love how the show spans two great spaces. Minnesota Street Project is launching Atrium, a new alternative art fair showcasing small, emerging, and underground contemporary art galleries in the greater San Francisco Bay Area that opens that night the 22nd too. It’s a vibrant month for art in SF. You can see the Tree of Knowledge artwork that will be featured in the atrium entrance below.
2026: The Year of More Analog
I have been seeing so many articles from the NYTimes (also here) and even in Vogue about how 2026 will be the Year of Analog, with more people cutting out screen time. As you can imagine, I love seeing this. Turning off all screens one day a week for the past 16 years has been the best practice I have ever brought into my life. If you are looking to cut down your screen time and spend more time outdoors and working with your hands, I recommend checking out my book 24/6. I recently discussed the book with Olio by Marilyn, which you can read here.
I’m on the host committee of Outward Bound’s invitation for people to all take a break from their screens collectively this coming Jan 24, for The Great Reset. You can find out more here. I enjoyed discussing going into nature and off screens with Outward Bound CEO Ginger Naylor; watch our conversation here.
Because I am so focused on the show, I’m doing an abbreviated version of my Breakfast @ Tiffany’s newsletters, here with a short list of things to check out.
Hot Takes for You to Check Out:
One of my best friends Tina Sharkey’s new Substack Sparks with Soul about possibilities just launched— highly recommend. The image in it (below) was first a sculpture I made for her while she was in surgery called Opening (I thank the universe she is completely fine now) and it all inspired many insights and a new opening . . . which you can read about in her newsletter.
Ken’s and my daughter Odessa’s recent newsletter was one of my favorites—triple KVELL.
Rebecca Goldstein is such a insightful writer. Can’t wait to see her at the JCCSF on Feb 5 discussing the “Mattering Instinct.” Tix here.
Loved Marty Supreme and Song Sung Blue, about a husband-and-wife Neil Diamond cover band, based on a true story. So good. It’s been a Neil Diamond couple of weeks for Ken and me. We saw that movie and then our friend Mireille Silcoff wrote a great article in the NYTimes about films with key Jewish characters (Dylan, Diamond, Oppenheimer) that don’t delve into their Jewish backgrounds. (Marty Supreme def. did.) A great read. Her article inspired Ken and me to watch Neil Diamond’s 70’s hit The Jazz Singer.
I have been listening to Mary Gabriel’s audiobook about female painters, Ninth Street Women—loving it! I had bought the book years ago and never finished it and something about listening to it is taking it to another level for me.
Kevin Kevin’s new book Colors of Asia is so visually sumptuous.
BAMPFA’s new Theresa Hak Kyung Cha Multiple Offerings opens on Jan 24. Cannot wait to see her interdisciplinary work all in one show that explores her mark in the SF experimental art scene. Looking forward to checking our friends’ art shows: Trevor Paglen’s new show at Jessica Silverman Gallery and Greg Niemeyer’s new exhibition Water Futures opening Jan 8 at tiat and Lena Wolff’s new textile collaboration with Erica Tanov, We Belong To Each Other. Those of you in NYC, Bridging the Divide: Forming a New Alliance Between the Black and Jewish Communities on Jan 21.
To lots of new art and connection infused into this new 2026 tree ring!
xoxo
Tiffany
