Welcome to my year-end pictorial blog/travelogue! If you already follow me on IG or FB, you might have seen some of these photos there too, but there are more here, so please check out my slideshows.

Upon returning we walked through my favorite part of Golden Gate Park, the SF Botanical Garden. It always reflects a perfect mix of seasonal vegetation, including this Cup & Saucer Magnolia petal.

ALREADY DECEMBER

Chilly, rainy, dark – and darker with SF blackouts!

We’ve been home for a couple of weeks now and hit the ground running. Four days after we got back, I hosted the annual open studio holiday event at Art Explosion. Fellow studio artists (3 floors) put more than the usual effort into making it successful. Thank you to the artists and friends who showed up! It was a festive party featuring Mimosas and Aperol Spritzes. Admittedly it felt like there were too many other free year-end art events competing with ours. I pulled out more of my pre-digital drawings, more prints, more art merchandise, including floor samples, and sales were brisk.

POSTING WHILE TRAVELING

Even while I’m traveling I’m looking forward to some quiet time sitting at my laptop and monitor, sorting out my thoughts and images from our travels. This was a particularly dense trip, in a great big country, with a language I don’t understand (Brazilian Portugese with many strong local accents).

Although we’ve traveled to many parts of the world, Brazil felt a little more complicated, possibly because we started off on the wrong foot, despite our wonderful guides, friends, and thoughtful itinerary: Salvador, Belo Horizante, Foz do Iguacu, Curitiba, Morretes, Ponta Grossa (party location), Rio, Paraty, and back to Rio.

The trip timing was just at the bitter end of the US budget freeze, so we were concerned about three airport changes required to reach our first destination. Through a comedy of airline errors, we finally arrived at our first (and our favorite) city, Salvador, but we were 24 hours late. My iphone told me that I hit a record number of steps while pacing around the Rio airport from 2am to 4pm. This is not an airport where you want to spend a night. Maybe you saw me posting on IG while killing time.

SALVADOR FIRST NIGHT & FIRST DAY

CULTURE IN COLONIAL SALVADOR

Established in 1549 as the first colonial capital of the Americas, we arrived in Salvador at last, to join our six friends and guide. We immediately peered out of our hotel window and saw a dreamy lit-up view of the South Atlantic Ocean. Trying to adjust quickly, we took a walk around the Old Quarter and heard live music wafting through the warm night air and caught sight of people moving to the sounds. In a quaint yellow building we enjoyed a delicious meal of the Brazilian-African fish and coconut stew called moqueca, which we learned to make the next day.

On our first morning we were guided through an extraordinary food market, with very few tourists, followed by our restaurant, where we prepared another moqueca with their all-women cooking staff.

HISTORIC SALVADOR TO WILD IGUAZU FALLS (& IN-BETWEEN)

SO MUCH TO EXPERIENCE

A visit to a church where “wish ribbons” are everywhere!

A trek through an art-filled botanical park!

A city-sighting and visit with one of the largest rodents in the world:

Capybara (Hydrochoerus hydrochaeris), which is a semi-aquatic mammal native to South America, known for its friendly demeanor and ability to grow over 4 feet long and weigh up to 150 pounds, making it almost twice the size of a beaver. These social herbivores are closely related to guinea pigs, have webbed feet for swimming, and must constantly chew to wear down their ever-growing incisor teeth.

More local wildlife – the Brazilian version of a raccoon and monkeys swinging through the trees.

A side trip to a very small town to see their 18th Century theater and meet the kids performing there today!

A quick stop at a very funky waterside shrine for fishermen!

A tour of the stunning mid-century modern curvaceous tiled church, designed by Oscar Niemeyer, an architectural gem!

And a never-completed church built for slaves (interrupted by the dissolution of slavery)!

Another tour of an incredible food, household goods, and domestic animal market with meat, fish, cheese, sweets, strips of tobacco, coffee (world famous) and liquor, where we did tastings. I brought home a sample of the plastic-sealed dulce de leche strips that were hanging everywhere.

WHAT BROUGHT US TO BRAZIL

We attended a local family event – for Matt and Angela, which was the original instigation for the trip. Our frequent travel friends Alida and Christopher invited us to join them for their friends 10th wedding anniversary combined with her parents 50th. It was a very local / Brazilian experience and it brought us to less touristed sites.

Then, we arrived at the most famous tourist site, Iguazu Falls (Foz do Iguacu). I’ve been to Niagara Falls as a kid, but this place takes the cake. Bordered by Argentina and Paraguay, we got to see all its vastness from above, by helicopter, then cruising directly into the falls by boat!

After that rush of excitement, we walked for hours through the biggest and best bird park (with the world’s friendliest butterflies), set in that same rain forest…

We had to go through Rio to get to Paraty so we were there twice and experienced it two ways, inland and on the beach. Paraty was a welcome site – so charming!

FROM RIO TO COLONIAL PARATY

“Paraty’s old town dates from the 16th century and has wobbly, uneven streets that naturally slow your pace.” says The Lonely Planet Guide. We also explored Paraty’s coast by boat, took in an excellent little gallery run by printmakers, bought Indigenous jewelry and art objects from artisans in tiny windy shops and on the streets (but didn’t buy feathers, claws, or skulls, though many were worn and for sale). We enjoyed fresh and inventive meals, including sushi for Thanksgiving. Chia seeds are plentiful and my favorite use was in a chia pudding served for breakfast. We ate fresh fruit everyday – a treat I wish I could repeat in my SF life – perfect ripe mango, papaya, pineapple, passionfruit, melon, banana and more.

There’s a serious sweet tooth in Brazil probably due to their historic cane sugar plantations cultivated by the Portuguese colonialists. The industry thrived by using enslaved Africans for labor as they were imported directly across the Atlantic. Think dulce de leche, dessert carts rolling through streets, and Brazil's national drink, a potent and flavorful distilled spirit. Made from fermented fresh sugarcane juice, it differs from rum by its direct sugarcane juice source, offering grassy, fruity, or aged notes, and famously used in the Caipirinha cocktail. Cachaça (pronounced ka-SHAH-sa) is still distilled locally and by boat we visited a very old distillery, tasting several varieties. But I just bought a smoky hot sauce to bring home.

We spent our last couple of days chilling out in Rio. Although there was plenty of excitement there as they’d just won an important soccer match, we managed to avoid the crowds (filled the streets and lit it up with fireworks) and we got to enjoy a sunny beach day before taking off for our marathon return home.

What’s Next?

SO MANY activities with NCWCA, SFWA, SCA, & AE!

And here’s some of my most recent work, because in addition to my independent curatorial projects and Board work, I continue to make, exhibit, and sell art.

See my next major exhibition in January 2026!

I’m co-curating & exhibiting the annual Bay Area group exhibition "Drawn from Life" at Sausalito Center for the Arts.

OPENING RECEPTION

Saturday, Jan 19, 4-7: Refreshments, Music, Curators & Gallerist Talks

CLOSING PARTY

Sunday, Feb 8, 3-6pm: Refreshments, Life Drawing with Peter Williams & Artist Talk by Stephen Namara

https://open.substack.com/pub/jonathanfarrell2/p/the-bay-area-figurative-art-movement?r=15dygp&utm_medium=ios

Visit me in my art studio!

I’m at Art Explosion, 744 Alabama Street, btw 19th & 20th Streets, #209 (2nd floor), SF

Note that the building is across from Southern Exposure, Muttville, and True Laurel, and near Atlas Cafe, Tartine, and Heath Ceramics. We will be hosting Spring Open Studios!

Check out my work nearby at the new STUFF/LUXE.

1830 Harrison Street, SF | Updates on IG: @stuffbyluxe