The Tribal and Textile Arts Show , held at Fort Mason Center, Festival Pavillion features thousands of museum-quality artifacts including African and Oceanic sculpture and masks, Middle Eastern jewelry and textiles, Central and South American pottery and folk art, Spanish colonial art, sculpture and weapons from New Guinea, Native American pottery, and much more. Over 80 international dealers participate, providing San Franciscans a unique opportunity to see, in one place right here right now, a selection of art and artifacts that would take weeks, even months to see if traveling from dealer to dealer, city to city, country to country. The show, which runs through February 15, opened with the Preview Gala on Thursday evening, February 12 to benefit the galleries for Textiles and art from Africa, Oceania, and the Americas at the new de Young Museum.

Wanna know why I like shows like this? I'll tell you why. Those of you who could care less why I like shows like this, kindly proceed to the next paragraph. I like shows like this because they're like going to museums except for one big difference-- everything's for sale. That option-to-buy adds a whole new dimension, an excitement, an edge not present at any museum anywhere. You get to meet bona fide top-of-the-heap dealers from far and near, people who dedicate their lives to scouring the face of this planet for the best of the best of the best of whatever it is that they deal in, in order to bring it on home to you, the consumer, in the off chance that you might want to spruce up the den with something a bit out of the ordinary.

So I'm walkin' around, lookin' at rugs and masks and weapons and jewelry and stuff-- really cool stuff, I might add, and well-lit; stuff that's so rare and so beautiful, that even the most sophisticated aficionados are impressed. I saunter up to this booth, with a modicum of self-assurance, to ask a question unrelated to textiles and tribal arts which I know little about, and let it fly, "Where's Graz, Arizona?"

You see, I've been to Arizona many times and have never heard of Graz, but I know Arizona pretty well, so at least, once the person I've asked tells me where Graz is, we might be able to talk about the local geography or the textile trade down there or whatever, and maybe I can learn something. So she looks at me and says, "It's in Austria, not Arizona." I take another look at the sign that hangs in the booth, identifying the exhibitor, and see that it does indeed say Graz, Austria, not Graz, Arizona, at which point, I politely thank her and walk away.

Now for the visuals: