Your City // For Creatives: A Love Letter To San Francisco

I’m excited to share the next instalment of Your City // For Creatives. This week we are visiting San Francisco with Sarah and Lisa from Awfully Grand.

It’s hard for us to think of how we feel about San Francisco without the song It Had To Be You coming to mind.

For nobody else gave me a thrill

With all your faults, I love you still

It had to be you, wonderful you

It had to be you

Lisa moved from NY to SF in 1997, she was 20 and about to start art school. Living alone in a very small studio apartment in Russian Hill Lisa did everything solo. Lisa went to Golden Gate Park alone, ate alone, and even went to the Fillmore alone. San Francisco and Lisa were serious. She was in love. What began as down and dirty, hot young love, has grown into a 15-year love affair with the city by the bay. There simply is no place else Lisa would rather call home.

Sarah moved to San Francisco to escape the endless sunshine and bumper-to-bumper traffic that is Los Angeles. She had 48 hours to find an apartment and a job and did both. She worked for a wholesale basket importer in the Dog Patch and lived with a crazy girl in the TenderNob. She took her camera and went on endless walking adventures down Polk Street, through Russian Hill, down to Ghiradelli Square and she fell in love hard-core. Sarah started buying scarves and knew in her heart that San Francisco supported her in all of the ways she was impossible everywhere else.

There is not a corner of this city that does not inspire. From the amazing vistas that leave you breathless to the gritty street corners that break your heart, San Francisco is full of emotion. We do things differently here and I think at the core of this is an unspoken agreement to just be yourself. Whatever you are into, whatever inspires you, turns you on, lights your fire, you can find it here, so do it with great passion and abandonment. Get that neck tattoo you’ve always wanted, join a drum circle at hippie hill, eat at a food truck, start a Twitter account, buy that garish polyester orange dress at the thrift store, start collecting unemployment, ride a fixed gear bike, or start living out your wildest dreams. We follow our hearts here and cultivate the entrepreneurial spirit with everything we do.

Of all the neighborhoods, beaches, parks and streets that weave within San Francisco, The Golden Gate Bridge remains our favorite spot for inspiration. Rain or shine, it always takes our breath away. Peeking through the fog or standing out against the bluest of blue skies the Golden Gate is truly a thing of beauty. Feeling creatively blocked in San Francisco is an impossibility with the magnificence of the bridge close by. The color, texture, expansiveness, stories and history thrill us. One morning we ventured to walk half way across the bridge from the Marin side and here are photos of our adventure.

We heart you SF!

Forever yours,

Lisa & Sarah

All photos copyright of Portraits To The People 2012

Lisa is a full time stay at home mom and Maven of Make, designing for her business Zelma Rose Handmade Goods and crafting just about everything in between. Along with sharing her creative business adventures on the Awfully Grand blog, Lisa is also a licensed psychotherapist, blogger and resource writer for IndieMade, mildly afraid of peaches and ambidextrous! Lisa’s passion is to grow her business, Zelma Rose, by leaps and bounds and make this crafting life a viable reality.

Sarah is a natural light photographer who has been working, living, and loving in San Francisco for almost ten years. Specializing in portraits, not-so-corporate headshots, families, engagements and weddings. Her biggest thrill in life is to follow her passion and manifest her dreams of living full time as an artist. Sarah chronicles the adventures of her creative life on the blog Awfully Grand.