Turtle in Hawaii

Linda Waters and Jim Van Dussen recently visited Hawaii and took this amazing picture of a sea turtle on the North Coast of Oahu that looks like one of the rocks with legs and a head.  Thank God for natures many gifts....friends and turtles.

Roaming in local galleries

ltdlosangeles Gallery is on Sunset near Curson.  Shirley Morales is the gallery owner.  She gave me a tour of the gallery which included introducing me to Brian, pictured above, who has created an art library in the gallery where I purchased a book on art critic.  The works of Rachel Foullon are "hanging" in the large main gallery.  Her wall sculptures shown below hang on wooden pegs like tack or hooks in the barn.

These sculptures hang on a movable cleat system that go with the pieces when they are sold.  The artist uses colorful dyes on the ropes and unhemed canvas that she uses to create each piece.  Some of the items were culled from an old barn in upstate New York such as garden hoses, gloves, electrical cords and other left overs.  She uses colorful descriptions of her work such as:  "There is a lot of binding and tying involved!  Again, I am talking about relationships that tether individual beings to one another where survival is at stake.  So cooperation of some kind is obviously a requirement in these mutually dependent dynamics." 

In describing the dyeing process she stated:  "I see this staining as a suggestive representation of corporeal negotiations with the environment." 

She also has displayed several pieces she calls "Cruel Radiance".  She collected pre-industrial vintage tools and stripped them of "their romantic patina, effectively liberating them from their nostalgic aura and the lazy seduction of the found object."  Parts of the sculptures are nickel plated.  The shining parts "reflect the viewer and the rest of the show."

My first reaction to Rachel Faullon's work was to walk quickly by it in a dismissing manner.  Shirley Morales helped me to see the beauty in the arrangements and the colors brought forth by the dyes.

My next stop was the Matthew Marks Gallery on Orange Grove just South of Santa Monica Blvd.  This show displayed two pieces in a large open room.  The works are by Charles Ray.  The first is called "Sleeping Woman" and the other is a life size figure of a nude man.  The L.A. Times reviewer, Sharon Mizota, described the man as nude and stands with a slight contrapeosto, but his figure deviates a bit from the classical ideal - softer, with love handles.  The woman, she describes, as curled awkwardly on a hard bench, can be seen as a modern-day version of the languid sleeping nymphs of antiquity, although she slumbers under far less ideal circumstances.

These figures are not cast as are most of the bronze statues we know.  These are machined from solid pieces of steel.  The result is the man weighs 1,500 pounds and the woman 6,000.  They were carved out a giant pieces of steel using a computer-controlled industrial machine to shave flakes using a computer reading a digital model that the artist created from a clay sculpture created from a digital drawing. The L.A. Times reviewer wrote that "art history reverberates through the sculptures whether or not we know how they were made, but by insisting on faithfulness to the concept....creating a deeper connection across the ages."

My last stop of the day was to the Steve Turner Contemporary gallery across the street from LACMA on Wilshire.  Upstairs in a room by itself is a sculpture of "philomela", a life-sized sculpture by Jacob Yanes.  Behind her is a tapestry that records the abuse from her brother-in-law who raped her and cut out her tongue.  She told her story through her weaving that she sent to her sister.  The story from Ovid.  The L.A. Times review wrote:  "Philomela's skin is black instead of white and its smooth surfaces are achieved - amazingly - with cardboard and wood putty...grouped...with the slaves, abused and silenced". 

Downstairs are works by Deborah Grant including "The Provenance and Crowning of King William" and is based on the life and art of William H. Johnson on 24 wood panels.  Born in 1901 in South Carolina and died in 1970, Johnson was an African American artist who moved to New York where he excelled in painting.  He faced many obstacles as a black artist and left for Europe in 1926 where he had a very successful career.

Palm Springs Art Museum

The photo above is by Michael Childers, titled The Hockney Swimmer, 1978.  This is a part of an exhibit called The Backyard Oasis:  The Swimming Pool in Southern California Photography, 1945-1982.  This exhibit is the last of the "Pacific Standard Time:  Art in L.A. 1945-1980.  The museum guide states that Backyard oasis examines photos of swimming pools as visual analogs of the ideals and expectations associated with Southern California.  The themes of the exhibit are Hollywood and Celebrity Culture, California Architecture and Design, Suburbia, Bodies of Desire, and Conceptual Interventions.  There are 145 photos plus film clips. 

The above picture is of the Michael Petry exhibit called "The Touch of the Oracle".  It includes "Golden Rain" which are 100 gold mirrored droplet-shaped glass vessels that reference the Greek myth of Danae in the form of a golden rain shower.  Each one has a piece of artwork, poem or text inside one of the mirrored bottles, asking them to imagine being locked in tower and having the bottle as their only means of communication.  Petry then permanently sealed the mirrored bottles, leaving their contents hidden.

Joshua D's Wall is a field of 250 hand-blown glass stones that are scatted over the floor.  This alludes to the Biblical story of Joshua and the crumbling walls of Jericho.  The Dilemma is a sound piece that plays periodically throughout the gallery and offers up the possibility of sound as a work of art in and of itself.

This sculpture is by George Montgomery called "To General Custer's Death", 1977.  George Montgomery was an actor who collected and created art and then donated his collection to the museum.

After an enjoyable stroll though the museum with Penny and Tom Hirschman and their daughter, Jill, we all went to Lulu's California Bistro on Palm Canyon Drive for an enjoyable lunch.  The restaurant is a piece of art as well as you can see by the above bar scene.

Palm Springs

In PS to visit Penny and Tom, we had a wonderful dinner at Trios. I highly recommend the pot roast with spinach salad. Penny and Tom are loyal friends for many years.

Photo by Gary Dorothy.

Santa Ynez Valley

The weekend roamings included the Santa Ynez Valley with Colleen, barrel tasting at Gainey Winery and then the next day lunch at Lincourt and sipping at Alta Rosa. Alma Rosa was created by Richard Sanford. He graduated from UC Berkeley and then discovered the Santa Rita Hills as a perfect place to grow Pinot Noir grapes. The only East - West valley is warmed in the day and cooled by ocean breezes at night. His natural non chemical methods have led to good wine that is good for the land. Below are pictures of Victoria serving us sips of wine, the outside of the winery and the beautiful hills with contented cows.

UCLA's Fowler Museum

I returned to the Fowler museum on Thursday.  I enjoy the walk around the campus and trying to remember what it was like to be a Freshman at Iowa State University nearly 50 years ago.  The energy of the students is exciting and it us fun when students who are passing out fliers about their student organizations' activities hand one to me....the big old man roaming through the campus...and seem to include me as they recruit people to come to their activities.

The Fowler exhibits include their silver collection and a permanent array of artifacts from cultures around the world.  They challenge me to approach these treasures with the same excitement as I approach a Renoir and a Van Gogh painting.

The following is a Barkcloth painting from New Guinea.  Their exhibit also included Barkcloth paintings from Central Aftrica. The program guide says that Second Skins juxtaposes two separate traditions of fabricating vibrantly graphic clothing from the inner bark of trees:  one shared by diverse peoples who live in and around the Ituri rainforest in the Congo andthe other produced by the Omie of Paupau New Guinea in the South Pacific.  The patterning on the cloth was originally linked to forms of body decoration. " As wrap-around loincloths or skirts, the barkcloths become second, similiarly decorated 'skins'."

The above painting tells a story of the Lost Boy and Ninivo, the Bird of Paradise of Mt. Omie, 2010.

Gray May Roamings

It has been a Gray May week so far.  Yesterday my retired neighbor, John, and I went to Musso and Franks, the 1919 Hollywood landmark that hasn't changed anything except prices in 93 years.  Good time and good food.

Today I hung out at the Huntington Gardens and Museum.  I explored to exhibit call "Visions of Empire...The Quest for a Railroad Across America, 1840-1880".  The politics of the time are presented as well as a bit of bribery and graft.  It took the Civil War and the succession of the South to get the Congress to pass the Pacific Railroad Act of 1862 that led to allocating the money to pay the railroads to build it.  Hopkins, Crocker, Huntington, and Stanford, the 4 kings, were central to the endeavor and they did pretty well for themselves along with New York railroad financier, Thomas Curant.  Even Iowa congressman, Samuel Curtis was in on the deal to make a profit from this endeavor.The government gave government bonds and grants of public lands to the Union Pacific and the Central Pacific Railroad of California.  The Civil War took the man power so not much was completed until the push from 1865 to 1869.  The Chinese laborers got the tracks over the Sierra's.  The telegraph lines were strung along the root so communication across the country was greatly enhanced by the completion.  This expanded the move Westward taking advantage of the natural resources and land.

The Chinese Garden was beautiful with another years growth of the trees and flowers making it look like the buildings, bridges and lagoon have always been there.  The newly remodeled Japanese Garden is more beautiful than even....then there are the amazing flowers.  Another great day, although gray, at the Huntington.

Then this Canadian Goose and his buddy flew in to greet me with lots of noise and fanfare.  It's nice to be welcomed so grandly.