The premise was simple: Search out local artisans and makers to best complete the ellipsis-ended phrase, “When you love your body, you…..” Here is what we’re calling “starter suggestions” for loving one’s—or a beloved’s—body.
When you love your body, you honor all sentient beings.
One’s family pet often feels like an extension of their own human body. Nurturing a little beast or beauty includes attention, but also, let’s face it: food and playthings. For fish, one may pop into High Tide Aquatics in Oakland to find products, like San Francisco Bay Brand’s Frozen Spirulina Brine Shrimp, and other items made by local crafty caretakers of aquarium habitants. Alameda See Spot Run carries treats, daily food staples, toys and accessories for dogs and cats. hightideaquatics.net, alamedaseespotrun.com
… value growing things and their ‘houses.’
Native plants, fruit trees and more are found at Planting Justice locations in Oakland and El Sobrante. The organization provides living wage jobs for formerly incarcerated people and offers multiple community-building support programs.
And to complete the deal, one may attend the Berkeley Potters Guild Holiday Show and Sale during three weekends in December. In the warehouse and gallery, 17 artists are participating. Among them are Piper Christine, who transforms other artists’ unwanted, secondhand clays, glazes and minerals into magic, organic vessels and planters, and Ida Thistle, a ceramicist offering delightfully asymmetrical, organic plant holders and pots. plantingjustice.org, berkeleypotters.com
… treat your skin with respect.
To create the perfect getaway space in a home or apartment, one may start by inviting photographer, author and book designer Josie Iselin into their bathroom. Along with a copy of her most recent in-print book, The Curious World of Seaweed, published by Berkeley-based Heyday Books, they may order and install one of Iselin’s breathtaking shower curtains featuring sea glass, kelp and seaweed.
Finally, one may splurge for something from Samudra Skin & Sea, a Bay Area-based skincare company with package design from Iselin and high-end sea soap, clay mask, and seaweed body butter and face cream.
Yet another source for skincare is Clean 360, a workforce enterprise that crafts artisan soaps and whose makers are all participants in Oakland’s Roots Community Health Center’s workforce development program, the Emancipators Initiative. One hundred percent of the sales are re-invested in the program; price points are marvelous; and all products contain no animal products and are never tested on animals. josieiselin.com, samudraskin.com, clean360.org
… satisfy all cravings.
There are the expected chocolates, wine, beer and cannabis edibles. But one may choose to think broadly and capitalize on the lasting pleasure supplied by local art-makers in literature, music and fine art. Suggestions that each in its unique way revolve around love, reading, tasting, looking and listening, include Chef Tu David Phu’s Vietnamese American Recipes from Phu Quoc, Oakland, and the Spaces Between.
For sonic pleasure, there’s Grace, a four-disc set published by Pentagon chronicling five decades of former San Francisco Symphony director Michael Tilson Thomas’ compositional career and expanded by a booklet of notes, essays and photos. For wall art and sculpture by local artists, one may consider a trifecta: Gray Loft Gallery, Mercury 20 Gallery and Slate Contemporary Gallery.
Another direction to head, especially for discovering new talent and supporting a broad network of rising mid-career artists, is a few miles north of those galleries. At Richmond Art Center, exhibitions, festivals, a gallery and other community events bring the full spectrum of Bay Area artists and their work to the forefront.
Regardless of one’s preferred culinary, musical and visual art preferences, creating a body-loving library getaway provides a sanctuary during pressing, overwhelming times. If there was ever a time to love oneself and these artisans and art-makers, that time is now. richmondartcenter.org, slatecontemporary.com, grayloftgallery.com, mercurytwenty.com
