The nation’s birthday is just one of the celebrations happening around the Bay Area this month: museums are reopening, food trucks are back, chefs are hosting dinners at wineries and the circus is coming to town.
July 1 Exploratorium
The very hands on museum reopens today after a 15-month closure with timed entries and the After Dark Reopening Celebration that evening, with rainbow lights, music and a chance to let your imagination take you wherever it wants to go.
July 2 Charlotte Bernström
Robert Green Fine Arts Gallery in Mill Valley hosts the sixth showcase of the Marin artist. Bernstrom’s work explores the deep-rooted relationship we have with Nature and humankind’s innate connection to Earth. Her work visually embodies the emotional realm; things we feel deeply within.
Jul 3 A Spirit of Disruption
Celebrating its 150th anniversary, the San Francisco Art Institute’s exhibition reflects the school’s extraordinary legacy and its profound and sustained influence on contemporary art, shedding light on some of the seminal, but often overlooked, figures of the Bay Area arts scene.
July 4 Sail
All aboard the Schooner Freda B, an 80-foot gaff-rigged coastal schooner, and honor the nation’s birthday with a sail on the bay to marvel at the beauty of Marin and the Bay Area as seen from its waters.
July 5 Cedars Harmony
Presented jointly with the San Anselmo Arts Commission, Cedars organized show to embody what has given each artist a sense of what harmony meant to them during a year-plus of isolation and discord, through August 27.
July 6 Michael Pollan
Join the author of This is Your Mind on Plants in a live, online discussion of three plant-based drugs and the mind-altering impacts they can produce, hosted by Book Passage.
July 7 Helene Wicker
The author of The Golem and the Jinni, Helene Wicker returns with a sequel to her historical tale, The Hidden Palace, a novel about immigrant New York threaded with mythology from Arab and Jewish traditions. commonwealthclub.org
July 8 Francine Prose
The author of Blue Angel and The Lives of the Muses, releases her new book, The Vixen. bookpassage.org
July 9 Convergence
After a year of redefining our personal and public spaces, an exhibit at Marin Museum of Contemporary Art features artists from around the country who explore concepts such as merging, verging, combining and coming apart in shape, form, color, and meaning in a variety of media, through July 18.
July 10 A Musical Promenade
ECHO Chamber Orchestra returns to live performance with works by Dvorak, Bach, Zelenka and more.
July 11 MFA Graduate Exhibition
Today is the last day to see exceptional works by Berkeley Master of Fine Arts graduates, including works by Biz Iqbal, Anna Riley and Nadia Shihab, are showcased in an annual presentation.
July 12 Berkeley Labs’ Advanced Light Source Tour
The East Bay center of science research is hosting a series of events to honor its 90th birthday, including a virtual tour of the facility that specializes in producing extremely bright x-ray light for examining the atomic and electronic structure of materials.
July 13 Stand up Comedy
Reserve a table to enjoy the fresh brews from host Local Brewing in San Francisco’s SoMa neighborhood and live comedy at the pub’s intimate, roofed parklet.
July 14 Next to You
Make a reservation for timed entry at McEvoy Arts to experience a transitional space designed to bid farewell to Covid Times, capture the healing role of arts and greet whatever lies waiting in the future.
July 15 Fairytale
Aerialists, contortionists and a special acrobatics appearance by City Circus Trio are just part of the old-fashioned oddities under the traveling tent of the Flynn Creek Circus when it returns for a stint in Sausalito, through July 18.
July 16 Golden Gate
In a site-specific exhibition, artist Hung Liu, who grew up under China’s Maoist regime, explores and celebrates international and domestic narratives of migration through a very personal lens, through January 2.
July 17 Chef Philip Tessier
The executive chef of PRESS Napa Valley and winner of the first gold for an American team at France’s biennial World Chef Championship, Bocuse D’Or, kicks off a summer dinner series of acclaimed Napa chefs in Yountville. brionwines.com
July 18 District Six
Formerly SoMa StrEat Food Park, the food truck-o-rama reopened seven days a week to satisfy all your noshing needs. Fridays mean Night Market, from 5–9 p.m.
July 19 NextGenGolf
Grab a few friends and your clubs, then join in on a scramble format at San Francisco’s TPC Harding Park course. Top teams qualify for a tournament over Labor Day weekend.
July 20 Santa Barbara
In collaboration with a scriptwriter, a casting director, and a group of actors from the 1980s soap opera of the same name, Moscow-born artist Diane Markosian weaves together the family’s final days in Russia with an idealized California experience and the reality of her immigrant experience, through November 7.
July 21 Linda Shiue
The chef and physician sits down with chef Joanne Weir (chef-owner of Sausalito’s Copita) to discuss her vegetarian and pescatarian cookbook, Spicebox Kitchen: Eat Well and Be Healthy with Globally Inspired, Vegetable-Forward Recipes in an online event.
July 22 Live Comedy
Standup is live and in-person from Best Medicine Comedy and Dope Show Comedy, at the outdoor, seated patio at San Francisco’s District.
July 23 An Evening with Lilias White
A brand new concert from the Tony and Emmy award winner known for her ruthless honesty and self-awareness combines her Broadway chops with her blues mama sass, through July 24.
July 24 House of Names
An evening-length, contemporary ballet focuses on four women of the Bible and mythology: Lot’s Wife, Cassandra, La Llorona and Miriam, presented by Marika Brussels.
July 25 Ceramic Interventions
New and recent works in clay from Nicki Green, Sahar Khoury, and Maria Paz demonstrate clay as vital medium for today’s emerging artists with experimental and transformative pieces, through July 31. dirosaart.org
July 26 Golem: A Call to Action
Three video artworks pull themes from allegory, folklore and spiritual practice in an effort to confront societal and environmental disasters, through December 5.
July 27 Sharks
Sink your teeth into a recently opened exhibit at the California Academy of Sciences dedicated to a creature that has existed on planet earth for 370 million years, through January 23, 2022. No swimming required!
July 28 Music Time with Megan
Bring your own instruments to dance and jam along with Megan Schoenbohm, a Bay Area singer-songwriter, in a program designed for pre-schoolers and their caregivers under the tent at Bon Air Center.
July 29 Last Supper in Pompeii
Focused exclusively on what its citizens were eating and drinking when the volcanic ash began to rain down on them in A.D. 79, an exhibition at the DeYoung Museum presents evidence from recent excavations that shed light on the gustatory delights of ordinary people, through August 29.
July 30 A Delicate Balance
In collaboration with the City of Sonoma, the Sonoma Valley Museum of Art opened a public art installation at the Sonoma Plaza with eight large scale sculptures from Bruce Beasley, Catherine Daley, Peter Hassen, and Jun Kaneko that explore the balance between nature and technology, through October 19.
July 31 Sittings
Bay Area artist David Wilson, the first long-term artist-in-residence at San Francisco’s The David Ireland House, interacted with the house and its Mission neighborhood during COVID times, resulting in this interactive exhibition of the house and its community.
More from Better:
- What’s New in Marin in June 2021
- Surfing Is More Popular Than Ever: And Now, California’s State Sport Is Going to the Olympics
- 7 Reasons Why We Love Kamala Harris
Christina Mueller is a long-time Bay Area food writer. She hails from the East Coast and has spent way too much time in South America and Europe. She discovered her talent as a wordsmith in college and her love of all things epicurean in grad school. She has written for Condé Nast Contract Publishing, Sunset, and the Marin Independent Journal, among others. She volunteers with California State Parks and at her child’s school, and supports the Marin Audubon Society, PEN America, and Planned Parenthood. When she is not drinking wine by a fire, she is known to spend time with her extended family.s the Assistant Editor at Marin Magazine and a graduate of Elon University where she studied Professional Writing and Fine Art. Born and raised in San Francisco/Marin, she loves traveling just as much as coming home to the Bay Area. She has curated a sophisticated palate for food, travel and culture and uses her travels as an outlet to develop her photography portfolio and hone her writing craft.
