Creativity Aboard the Vallejo

The ferry Vallejo before its restoration  |  post by Larry Clinton  |  photo by Bob Engman

It may seem odd to travel to Sonoma for an exhibition about the heyday of the ferry Vallejo, but that’s where you can go to see the exhibition Ship of Dreams: Artists, Poets and Visionaries of the S.S. Vallejo from April 28 to June 10.

A collaboration between the Sonoma Valley Museum of Arts and Lucid Art Foundation, the exhibition tells the story of how the decommissioned ferry boat became an important cultural crossroads in the history of California and America. Moored on the north side of Sausalito in 1949, the S.S. Vallejo became the dynamic home and cultural incubator for artists, musicians and literary luminaries such as Gordon Onslow Ford, Alan Watts, Jean Varda, Allen Ginsberg, Wolfgang Paalen and many others.  This exhibition examines the contributions of the circle of S.S. Vallejo from 1949 to 1969 with important visual works of art by Onslow Ford, Varda, Paalen, Roberto Matta, Ruth Asawa, Lee Mullican, Fritz Rauh, Richard Bowman, J.B. Blunk and others.

This is the first ​exhibition to survey the full spectrum of creative life aboard the S.S. Vallejo from 1949 to 1969. It was a pivotal period in the development of California and American culture with many of its thought leaders gravitating around this singular place on the edge of San Francisco Bay.

Sounds like it might be worth a road trip. The Museum is located at 551 Broadway, the main street leading into the town of Sonoma.