Visit to Headlands

So I was home for a couple of months, except for a week visiting family in California. My visit there happened to coincide with Open House at Headlands Center for the Arts, so... residency junkie that I've turned out to be... I had to go check it out. It's on a former military base in the Marin Headlands just north of San Francisco, and a stunning location! Of course, it being San Francisco, it was foggy. The buildings are a little military-strange and very funky. Lots of peeling paint and old army stuff, but man, what space! Headlands has residents who come for a month or two like other residencies, but they also provide studios to local artists who are accepted for their Affiliate Artists program. And they grant a year-long residency to 4 grad students graduating from the SF area art schools. So it is a big group in a big space. If you wanted to work on installation projects, this would be the place!

The studio buildings

Some of the larger studios (some are quite small too)

A full wood shop

An installation piece in the former gym

Residents' housing

And look what's just down the hill...

But look what's right next door—a former nuclear missile site. It is now a historic site run by the park service, and one can go down in the launching elevator and look at the missile (warheads removed long ago...). So we did, of course. Everything looked so old and old-fashioned, It's hard to believe the things would have worked. I have to say that going from artist's studios to listening to retired missile crewmen talk about missiles as a nuclear deterrent was jarring to say the least. At least the rest of the old base has been put to better use.