This week: The Dipsea Trail, a crow take-over, award-winning BART poem, and site-specific sculptural CD art. Plus, a beloved pop-up bakery gets its own space, a local violinist shines at the Super Bowl, and Black Panther Emory Douglas’s collage images.
Between stations
On a daily ride between San Leandro and the Mission, a young poet found her page in motion. Sehinne’s poem BART earned a rare sweep of nine-or-higher scores at the 2025 Brave New Voices festival, helping Team Youth Speaks Bay Area take first place.
In the piece, the train becomes a steady, slightly offbeat presence — part family member, part witness — a place where writing happens in stolen minutes between stations. The poem draws from her internship at Youth Speaks on 16th Street Mission and can be watched in full online. — Bay Area Rapid Transit
In full view
Violinist Rose Crelli’s path runs from one-room cabins in Alaska and the Yukon to the Super Bowl halftime stage. Raised off the grid after being adopted from China, she learned discipline and resourcefulness through long drives for lessons and battery-powered practice.
@frozenfiddlerose Best time of my life 😍Come spend the day with me performing for the @NFL Super Bowl Half Time Show with @Bad Bunny 🎻 Performances like this make all the years of hard work & long days worth it. 🥹 Who would've thought this small town girl from Alaska would make it to the Super Bowl Halftime Show? Forever grateful for this opportunity to show that no matter how small of a town you come from, anything is possible! 🙏🏼 #bayarea #badbunny #superbowl #applemusichalftime #halftimeshow ♬ original sound - Rose Crelli Violin 🎻🌹
In San Francisco, she built her own work — teaching, performing locally, and posting online — until a call brought her to Levi’s Stadium to play with Bad Bunny, Lady Gaga, and Ricky Martin. The moment reflected years of work, craft, and a deep connection to her roots. — 7x7
Sweet debut
Grand Opening bakery, run by James Beard–nominated pastry chef Melissa Chou, is now taking orders from its West Oakland kitchen at 2311 Magnolia St. (off Grand), located inside 02 Artisans Aggregate alongside Soba Ichi and other local businesses. Chou, who previously popped up at Mister Jiu’s in San Francisco, offers a menu of whole cakes, pies, and cookies, including a black sesame almond cake with blood orange and a strawberry lychee cheese tart.
Standard favorites like the burnt honey pie and Parisian egg tart remain, alongside a rotating selection of sponge cakes and seasonal desserts. — Berkeleyside
Images of a revolution
At the Fillmore District’s African American Arts and Culture Complex, Emory Douglas’s sharp ink-and-collage images return to the Bay Area, where they first appeared in local papers and the Black Panther Party’s own publication. As the Black Panther Party’s Minister of Culture, Douglas shaped a visual language driven by urgency — scenes of police violence and poverty set beside intimate moments of family life.
The work was never meant for galleries, but its bold lines and clipped photos became inseparable from the movement itself, influencing activists far beyond Oakland. Emory Douglas: In Our Lifetime runs through October at the African American Arts and Culture Complex in San Francisco. — KPIX
Discs of daylight
Inside the Transamerica Pyramid Center, ICA San Francisco opens its program with Stratagems, a room-filling installation by sculptor Tara Donovan. Towering columns made from thousands of recycled CDs catch and scatter daylight, shifting tone and intensity as the sun moves and seasons change, turning the space into something closer to an instrument than a gallery.
The materials are ordinary and familiar, but their repetition bends perception, making hard edges feel fluid and almost biological. Organized with the Transamerica Pyramid Center and timed with SF Art Week, the exhibition runs through July 31. — Groove Atelier
Lifting without limits
In SF’s Noe Valley, Iron + Mettle offers a space where women focus on heavy lifting without intimidation or macho energy. Founder Danielle Repetti built the gym to teach proper form, gradual strength building, and confidence in a welcoming, small-group setting.
Members gradually increase weights and celebrate personal milestones, supported by coaches who understand women’s training needs. The studio blends community, education, and barbell work to make strength accessible to anyone who walks through the door. — Mission Local
Ferns and water
In Marin County, a short trail slips quickly out of the everyday and into something greener and quieter. The 3.8-mile route winds through fern-lined canyons and shaded forest, opening now and then to ocean air, waterfalls, and wide views that feel borrowed from another era.
It’s a moderate hike that rewards an unhurried pace, the kind where you stop often without meaning to. Best tackled with a friend, enough water, and the patience to leave the place exactly as you found it. — California Views/Instagram
A crow boom
San Francisco’s winter crow population has surged to a record 3,260 birds, more than double last year’s count and well above historical norms. Drawn by easy food, warm roosting spots, and fewer natural predators, crows have adapted quickly to city life while other bird species struggle.
At dusk, the birds gather in large, coordinated flocks — a daily spectacle shaped by both social behavior and survival. — SFGate
Top image: Nicholas Lea Bruno
Previously: Field Notes: 124-Year-Old Light Bulb, UC Davis’ Cheeto the Cat, and ‘Trash Falcons’ Art Exhibit
