Every November, the vast, sun-washed expanse of the ICB Building on Sausalito’s waterfront hums like a beehive. For two days, its 100-plus studios are open to the public for ICB/ART Open Studios—a half-century-old tradition that’s part pilgrimage, part art fair and part family reunion for the Bay Area’s creative class.
This year’s edition, taking place Saturday and Sunday, Nov. 15–16, from 11am to 5pm, comes with a small but meaningful shift: It’s happening earlier than usual. The move from December to mid-November keeps visitors (and their shoes) safe from the seasonal king tides that periodically flood the building’s parking lot, while also giving collectors and gift-seekers a head start before the holidays.
Housed in a World War II-era shipbuilding warehouse at 480 Gate 5 Rd., the “Industrial Center Building,” aka “ICB,” has long been a crucible for Bay Area creativity. Just down the waterfront, painter Richard Diebenkorn was transitioning from abstract expressionism to what would become the Bay Area figurative movement. Nearby, Jean Varda threw parties on his floating studio; Ruth Asawa twisted wire into wonder; Alan Watts pondered enlightenment; and Jerry Garcia tuned up between gigs. Their ghosts linger, and the spirit is very much alive—embodied by more than 180 artists who now occupy the building’s three floors.
“The first time I walked the hallways, I felt the residue of decades of searching—paint scraped back, risks taken, ideas tried and abandoned,” says ICB artist Rachel Davis, one of more than a hundred participants in this year’s event. “You can almost hear it humming in the walls. Working here is a daily reminder that I’m part of a lineage of artists who took their work seriously enough to show up for it, over and over. That atmosphere matters. It keeps you honest. It gives you permission to make the next bold mark, not the safe one.”
That sense of lineage is precisely what draws visitors back year after year. The weekend-long celebration offers a rare chance to step inside the creative process itself—to see what’s beneath the varnish, both literally and metaphorically.
“The finished painting is only the visible tip of the work,” Davis explains. “Under every surface are erased lines, failed passages and choices that got painted over but still influence the final piece. When people see the charcoal transfers, taped fragments and scraped panels on my floor, they understand that art is built, not conjured. I want them to feel the aliveness of process—and maybe walk away less afraid of their own imperfect beginnings.”
It’s a theme that resonates throughout the building. Each hallway is a corridor of contrasts—ceramicists next to photographers, sculptors beside designers, painters sharing air with architects. “It’s like a hive—100 doors, each opening onto a different universe,” Davis says. “One moment you’re inside a serene textile studio; the next you’re watching someone weld steel or pour resin. The energy is generous and cross-pollinating. Ideas travel through the building faster than the elevator does. And during Open Studios, that private hum becomes fully public—visitors get to feel what we feel every day.”
Though many of the ICB artists exhibit nationally and internationally, the weekend maintains a refreshingly local intimacy.
“The wider art world is important, of course,” Davis adds. “But there’s something grounding about opening the actual studio door and saying, ‘This is where it happens—come in.’ People see the taped reference photos, the drying racks, the bad brushes I refuse to throw away. The work becomes less mythic and more human. I hope visitors leave knowing that collecting art isn’t just about owning an object—it’s about forming a relationship with the maker, the story, the room it was born in. That’s what a building like this makes possible.”
ICB/ART Open Studios runs 11am–5pm, Saturday–Sunday, Nov. 15–16, at the ICB Building, 480 Gate 5 Rd., Sausalito. More information at icbart.com.
