where can we find out what is coming up after dark? >> that is easy, exploratorium .edu/afterdark. >> thank you. thanks for watching>> when stepr died, he was working on one of

the biggest shows of his career, matter and spirit. it is a retrospective look at the many faces and faces of the life of an innovative artist from the california clay movement. stephen de staebler's developed in an area dominated by abstract expression. even his peers saw his form. >> he was able to find a middle ground in which he balanced the ideas of human figuration and representation with abstraction and found it even more meaningful to negotiate that duality. >> another challenge was to create art from a meeting that was typically viewed as kraft material. his transforming moment was an accident in the studio.

an oversized vertical sculpture began to collapse under its own weight and spread onto the floor. he sought a new tradition before him, landscape sculpture. >> you feel this extended human form underneath the surface of the earth struggling to emerge. eventually, it does. it articulates his idea that the earth is like flesh, and the archaeology and geology in the earth are like the bones, the structure of the earth. this tied in with his idea of mother earth, with the sense that we are all tied to nature and the earth. >> a half dozen bay area museums and private collectors loan the massive sculptures to the museum for its matter and spirit retrospective. but the most unusual contributions came from stephen himself. a wall of autobiographical masks and hence from the early decades

of his private study. >> he had one of the most beautiful studios i have ever been in. when you walk in, your first impression is of these monumental figures that you see in the exhibition, but if you went into the back corner of his studio, there was a series of shells with these diminutive figures. he told me, these are the heart of my studio. these little, and held intimate study is that he referred to as his sketchbook. a painter might make drawings. stephen de staebler made miniature sculptures. >> during the 1970's, he was inspired by the monuments of egypt. he assembled a large rocks of clay into figures that resembled the ancient kings and queens. he credited a weathered appearance by rubbing glazes' into the clay while still wet. the misfires from his killed were brought in his backyard in his berkeley home.

he called it his boneyard. in the last year of his life, he dug up the artifacts from his own history, and the bones were rearranged, in the were slimmer figures with wings. >> even if you knew nothing about his life or career, you sensed there was an artist dealing with this fundamental issue of life and death, the cake, netting back together, and you feel there is an attempt to deal with mortality and immortality. there is a seeking of spiritual meaning in an existential stage. >> during his 50-year career, stephen de staebler worked to form and out of the clay of the ground and give it a breath of life. matter and spirit gathers the many expressions of his meditations. and gives the viewer and insight into the artist's life. learn more about the retrospective on line at

i'm the president of friends of mclaren park. it is one of the oldest neighborhood community park groups in san francisco. i give a lot of tours through the park. during those tours, a lot of the folks in the group will think of the park as very scary. it has a lot of hills, there's a lot of dense groves. once you get towards the center of the park you really lose your orientation. you are very much in a remote

area. there are a lot of trees that shield your view from the urban setting. you would simply see different groves that gives you a sense of freedom, of being outdoors, not being burdened by the worries of city life. john mclaren had said that golden gate park was too far away. he proposed that we have a park in the south end of the city. the campaign slogan was, people need this open space. one of the things that had to open is there were a lot of people who did a homestead here, about 25 different families. their property had to be bought up. so it took from 1928 to 1957 to buy up all the parcels of land that ended up in this 317 acres. the park, as a general rule, is heavily used in the mornings and the evenings. one of the favorite places is

up by the upper reservoir because dogs get to go swim. it's extremely popular. many fights in the city, as you know, about dogs in parks. we have 317 acres and god knows there's plenty of room for both of us. man and his best friend. early in the morning people before they go to work will walk their dogs or go on a jog themselves with their dogs. joggers love the park, there's 7 miles of hiking trails and there's off trail paths that hikers can take. all the recreational areas are heavily used on weekends. we have the group picnic area which should accommodate 200 people, tennis courts are full. it also has 3 playground areas. the ampitheater was built in 1972. it was the home of the first

blues festival. given the fact that jerry garcia used to play in this park, he was from this neighborhood, everybody knows his reputation. we thought what a great thing it would be to have an ampitheater named after jerry garcia. that is a name that has panache. it brings people from all over the bay area to the ampitheater. the calls that come in, we'd like to do a concert at the jerry garcia ampitheater and we do everything we can to accommodate them and help them because it gets people into the park. people like a lot of color and that's what they call a park. other people don't. you have to try to reconcile all those different points of view. what should a park look like and what should it have? should it be manicured, should it be nice little cobblestones around all of the paths and like that. the biggest objective of course is getting people into the park

to appreciate open space. whatever that's going to take to make them happy, to get them there, that's the main goal. if it takes a planter with flowers and stuff like that, fine. you know, so what? people need to get away from that urban rush and noise and this is a perfect place to do it. feedback is always amazement. they don't believe that it's in san francisco. we have visitors who will say, i never knew this was here and i'm a native san franciscoan. they wonder how long it's been here. when i tell them next year we'll get to celebrate the 80th anniversary of the park,k,