DeGrazia Gallery In The Sun, Tucson

The 10 acre complex in the foothills of the Santa Catalina Mountains was designed and built by Ettore "Ted" DeGrazia who painted scenes of native cultures from the Sonoran Desert. The buildings are made of hand crafted adobe bricks made on site. He built the Mission in the Sun in 1952 in honor of Father Kino who first brought Christianity to the natives in the 16 hundreds. It is decorated with DeGrazia murals and the ceiling is open to the sky. It is dedicated to Our Lady of Guadalupe, the patron saint of Mexico.

Near the Mission is DeGrazia's original home that he built, his grave site, and the Little Gallery that hosts visiting artists during the winter months.  Below is a picture of a picture of the artist in his home, a picture of the living area, a picture of my friends Glenice and Tom with me in front of the house.

The following pictures are a sampling of his many works of art.  The total collection contains over 15,000 DeGrazia originals.

"Tschaikovsky Concerto No. 1" watercolor, 1944

"Rachmaninoff C Minor" watercolor, 1944

Painted skull

"Fiesta at San Xavier" oil on canvus, 1960

"Kino's Indian Wedding" 1961

"Crowds Looking for Christians" 1973

"Silent Prayer" 1960

"Eetoi. Christ of the Papagos" 1974

"Seri Boy and Girl" 1970

Painted Bench

"Wind From The East" 1964

Gallery Front Door

The grounds and foothills around the property.

Tucson, Arizona in Sabrino Canyon with Glenice and Tom

Amazing cacti and wild life in the canyon on Wednesday.

Docuday in L.A.

Saturday was the annual Docuday in L.A. where all the nominated documentary films that are nominated for an Academy Award are shown at the Writers' Guild on Doheney.  The five long films (about 90 minutes each) and the five short films (40 minutes each) are shown from 9:00 AM to near midnight with interviews with the film makers and Q & A after the shows.  Most of the documentaries share something about life that we are not aware and are very moving.  The nominated short films are:

"Redemption" is about New Your City's gleaners...living on the redemption of bottles and cans at 5 cents a piece.  Thousands of New Yorkers are living this way and the competition is fierce especially since the Great Recession.

"Mondays at Racine" is about two women who provide salon services to women  diagnosed with cancer for free on one Monday a month.  The women are cared for physically and emotionally as they deal with this life crisis.

"Open Heart" is about 8 Rwandon children whose hearts have been ravaged by preventable strep throat turned deadly due to heart valve damage.  These children were selected from dozens who need this surgury to save their lives.  After seeing this movie, the government of Rwanda is now taking steps to prevent this heart disease and to open a heart surgery center in their own country.

"Inocente" is a 15 year old girl who is homeless, undocumented, and clings to her hope to be an artist in the face of a bleak future. This documentary won for the best short.  Inocente was on the stage at the academy awards as well as at Saturday's viewing.  She is now living independently and supporting herself through her art.

"Kings Point" is about former New Yorkers who moved to this retirement community in Florida and live their life there away from family with new transitional friends.  This "waiting for God" environment is filled with daily drama that includes dating, sickness, death, and isolation in this "paradise."

The nominated feature length films are:

A Palestinian farm worker buys a camera in 2005 to document his new born youngest son but instead documents the creeping Israeli settlements on the West Bank near his home.  The community's non violent protests grow as barriers are cut through their land and their olive trees are destroyed.  Each of his 5 broken cameras documents a an act of violence that he experiences. 

"The Invisible War" is about the nearly 20,000 women and men who are sexually assaulted in the military each year and the cover up and lack of justice victims experience.  After viewing this video last summer, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta ordered the restructuring of investigations to take the process outside the direct command in order to bring justice to the victims.  Also, commanders from all over the globe were flown in to see the movie and were directed to respond to this crisis where only about 10 percent of the assault cases end in prosecution of perpetrators.

"How to Survive a Plague" is about the activism that was necessary to respond to the H.I.V crisis in the 1980's to get adequate response from the government and the medical community.

This feature length documentary won the Academy Award.  "Searching For Sugar Man" is about the search for Rodriquez who was bigger than Elvis in South Africa in the early 1970's.  However, his two albums did not do so well in the U.S. and he "disappeared."  Actually he lived a quiet life as a demolition carpenter in Detroit.  He is still there but once "found" he has traveled to South Africa where he was given a King's Welcome and gave a concert.  He has also given concerts in the U.S. and is C.D.'s are now at the record stores.

I went to bed early, but Colleen watched the final documentary that began at 10 PM called "The Gatekeepers." It is about Israeli secret service former leaders talking about their actions and insights about the Occupation after the Six Day War in 1967.  At least one said that they were doing to the Palestinians on the West Bank and Gaza what the Nazis did to the Jews in Europe.

Rick Steves at the KCLU event in Thousand Oaks

On Friday night I enjoyed Rick Steves telling us about his roamings since he was 14 years old.  He enjoyed traveling through Europe with his parents so much that he went back on his own an age 18 and his frequent trips have become his way of life.  He and his staff of 80 update his "Back Door to Europe" book every year by going back to all the places and tours he recommends and making additions and changes in his book.  He no longer leads tours but hires well paid tour guide to take 25 people on a capacity of 50 bus tours.  His guides cost more because they do not take kick backs from the various tourist traps where most guides take you.

I enjoyed a private reception before the program and met Rick and a very nice couple who are frequent travelers.  Then we all went to the large auditorium that was sold out as a fund raiser of KCLU public radio...at California Lutheran University.  Church friend Mary is the general manager and made the tickets available at our church's silent auction last fall.

Here are some of Rick Steves' travel tips:

His 21 day Europe travel recommendation is:  Fly to Amsterdam, go to Haarlem (2 days), Bacharach, Germany (2), Rothenburg, Germany (2), Reutte, Austria (2), Venice (2), Florence (2), Rome (2), Cinque Terre, Italy (2), Lauterbrunnen Valley, Switzerland (2), Beaune, France (1) and fly home from Paris after 2 days.  I am tired from thinking about it...but you can rest on on excellent trains or on the tour bus if you go with Rick's folks.  His fully guided tours are $5,000 plus air per person based on a double.

He is loving Turkey these days and also loves Eastern Europe, North Africa, and is touring Egypt, Israel and Palestine.

He says the best time to see the tourist areas is after 5:00 PM when the tourists go to their hotels in the suburbs on back on their ships if it is a port.  He said take tours on Germany' Moselle River plus the Rhine.  Go to ruined castles, be a temporary European...be a part of the scene like a soccer match.  Another idea is start in England and end in Turkey when everything is cheaper and you can buy and send home.  He also says fly in to one end of Europe and out the other....don't waste the time having to get back to your entry port.

His company has all the travel guides including free apps for your smart phone with audio guided tours.  Don't bother with travelers checks and lots of Dollars.  Use ATMs to get the funds you need when you  need in the currency of the country you are in.  Buy city museum and tour passes that get you in to everything, buy tickets on line ahead of time and avoid the ticket lines.

Europe second class sections on trains are good...Eurail passes are all first class.  Take public transportation to be with the real people.  Eat with the seasons on side strees packed with locals. "A great dinner is a spa for your tongue."  He recommends small family run two star hotels and bed and breakfast places near the center of town if possible so you can enjoy the town before and after the tourists.  Go to Hulu.com for free Rick Steves tours on line.

He also says pack one smallish roller bag and day pack so you can get around easily.  Thanks Rick for the inspiration and advice....I got to get to Europe again soon!

A week of Roaming

The roaming has been especially good this week including Sunday's walk around the Palm Springs Convention Center for their Fine Art Fair with 55 galleries from 25 cities and 3 countries showing fine art. 

The two paintings below were a couple of my favorites.

"Juno" by Daniel Phill, 2012 from the Sandra Lee Gallery at 251 Post Street, Suite 320 in San Francisco.

"Wexler House" by Andy Burgess, 2012-2013 at the Cynthia Corbett Gallery 15 Claremont Lodge, 15 The Downs, London, U.K.

On Monday it was off to Huntington Gardens, Museum, and Library for lunch and a walk around with friend, Bonnie.  We particularly enjoyed the children's garden which was full of delighted children off from school on Presidents' Day.  The garden is a creative place for children to explore and play in water, a misty fog, tunnels, and figures of animals.  It was fun to watch the small children picking up hand fulls of rocks and dropping them through a crevice with metal horizontal bars that sounded like chimes as the rocks fell through.  And of course the hundreds of camellia bushes are in full bloom.

Thursday I led the class at the V.A. as we finished this discussion of Picasso and art work created by Guy from our class.  He was there to discuss his creative digital process and hoped to hear that he had been a winner at the V.A. art show the day before.  Then some of us went on an outing to the Los Angeles County Museum of Art to see the Picasso paintings, sculptures and other works of art.

"Odyssey in Color" entry in the Digital Art category by Guy

"Pride Before Fall", entry in the Color Photography category, by Guy

Last night I was off to the Los Angeles Philharmonic concert at Disney Hall.  Conductor Gustavo Dudamel was back from his travels and led the orchestra is a feast of amazing music.  First was Siefgried's Death and Funeral Music from Gotterdammerung by Wagner.  The huge orchestra was bursting on the stage with 3 harps, two sets of timpani, cymbals, tenor drum, 5 French Horns, 5 Wagner Tubas, and three of each of the woods plus an English horn, 4 trombones, bass trombone, 3 trumpets, and of course a regular Tuba along with all the strings. 

That was followed by the Brahms Violin Concerto in D major with Gil Shaham.  Mr Shaham was amazing with his work on a piece that was written to challenge Brahms good friend, Joseph Joachim who he met when he left his Hamburg home at the age of 20.  The Concerto was first performed in Leipzig on New Year's Day 1879 by Joachim, the dedicatee, who composed the cadenza that Mr. Shaham played last night.  The soloist and conductor seemed to have a great friendship with Mr. Shaham grinning at Dudamel during the concert.  They hugged and bowed to each other and also to Ariana Ghez, who played a beautiful solo in the oboe.  After the break, the orchestra played Schumann's Symphony No. 3 which I also greatly enjoyed.

During the intermission, the key woodwind players were perhaps discussing the amazing first half of the evening.  Michele Zukovsky, is the Principal Clarinet, Whitney Crockett is the Principal Bassoon, Ariana Ghez, Principal Oboe, and a new lead flute player for the evening....could he be the new Principal Flute player??? We will see if an announcement is coming to fill the vacant Principal position.

The Orchestra awaits the conductor at the start of the second half of the evening's program.  Joseph Pereira is the amazing Principal Timpanist.

Sunday at the Palm Springs Art Museum

Palm Springs has a great art museum that I enjoy when I am in town visiting friends, Tom and Penny.  The special exhibit that was great fun is called Antibodies, The Works of Fernando and Humberto Campana, 1989-2009.  They are two creative brothers from Brazil that make interesting furniture and art pieces.  They are made of a variety of materials including bubble wrap, garden hoses, scraps of material, metals,  and sticks of various sizes.

Inspired perhaps by the Campana Brothers, students from a local school entered a "Chair Challenge" and came up with inspiring works of their own.

I then roamed downstairs and out into the museum's sculpture garden to enjoy the works of Dale Chihuly, the glass blower whose gifts I have enjoyed at the Botanical Gardens in Phoenix a few years ago.  These works include "Red Reed Installation," 1997 and "End of the Day #2," 1996.

Yes, there is much more in the two outdoor sculpture....don't miss them when you are in P.S.