Tuesday roaming at the Nethercutt Museum with Jim and Bob

Jim had heard about this amazing museum in Sylmar, so we took off for an adventure.  This is where we viewed 120 antique, Vintage, Black Iron and Classic automobiles and a 1912 Pullman Private Car and 1937 Canadian Pacific Royal Hudson Locomotive.  Across the street in the Nethercutt Collection there are 50 more autos plus "the world's finest assemblage of Mechanical Musical Instruments" which we didn't see as they are only available for scheduled guided tour on Thursdays to Saturdays.  The collection was the creation of J.B. Nethercutt who moved to Santa Monica, CA in 1923 to live with his aunt and founder of Merle Norman Cosmetics, Merle Nethercutt Norman.  He and his wife Dorothy were married 70 years until her death in 2004.  J.B also died that year at the age of 91.  His son Jack and his wife Helen carry on the family collection and leadership of Merle Norman Cosmetics.  Here is a bit of what we saw:

1929 Kissel, White Eagle Speedster.  Jim tells me that at one time there were 2000 auto makers.  This one has a golf bag mount.

1937 Talbot-Lago Sport Coupe

The Engine and Private Pullman Car once owned by Clara Baldwin Stocker, eldest daughter of California pioneer E.J. "Lucky" Baldwin.

Inside the Engine

The Parlor and Dining room.  The car has two bedrooms with bathrooms and a kitchen with quarters for the cook/valet

1948 Tucker Sedan

1917 Pierce Arrow Seven Passenger Touring.  The body is cast aluminum.

1952 Hudson Convertible

1923 Voisin Sporting Victoria.  Rudolph Valentino once owned this one in Hollywood and two others that he left in Paris

Fire! Fire!

1912 Cadillac

The Hood Ornament on a 1939 Packard

The Hood of a 1938 Lincoln Touring Coupe

The Hood of a 1931 Packard Sport Sedan owned by movie star Irene Rich.

LA Phil on Friday

We enjoyed an evening with the L.A. Philharmonic lead by Bramwell Tovey.  The Casual Fridays program featured an interview with Gregory Roosa, horn player.  He talked about his move to L.A. in September from St. Louis where he played in the Symphony.  The Michigan born Roosa moved to L.A. with his wife and child and talked about the challenge of the freeways and joys of the beach.   

Next we heard a Tovey composed "Songs of the Paradise Saloon" with solo trumpet Allison Balsom.  During the performance she played three types of trumpets to denote different mood of the piece that was composed as part of an opera called "The Inventor."  It is about a real live person named Alexander Keith who was a con artist and a "sociopath but loving father."

After intermission we enjoyed Shostakovich's Symphony No. 5 in D minor.  This was written in 1937 at a time the composer was working hard to stay on the good side of Stalin in the USSR.  Some say he hid messages that represent the ruthless torment that many of the citizens experience under Stalin rule.  The full orchestra created a strong Russian sound with Joseph Pereira, the Principal Timpanist having a good pounding during the finale.

Following the concert we talked with a couple of the members of the LA Phil in a reception.  This included Marion Arthur Kuszyk, Associate Principal Oboist who has been with the orchestra for 18 years. 

Alison Balsom on trumpet with conductor Branwell Tovey.  Photo is by Jay L. Clendenin of the L.A. Times

A return visit to the Hammer Museum on Thursday

I went to the Hammer and found many new works by several artists that are now on view.  The art you see as you walk up the stairs is by Maya Hayuk.  Her large abstract murals greet you as you enter the museum with their many bright colors drawn in straight angles on top of one another.  To some they may bring the feeling of anxiety...to me they make me feel joy.  What do you think?

Maya Hayuk

Maya Hayuk was born in Baltimore in 1969.  She has studied at Massachusetts Collage of Art and Design, University of Odessa, Ukraine, and at Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture, Skowhegan, Maine.  She lives in Brooklyn.

James Welling has created photographs for more than 35 years "operating in the hybrid ground between painting and sculpture and traditional photography."  He is a postmodern artist and studied at the California Institute of the Arts in Valencia, California.  He was born in 1951 in Hartford, Connecticut.  Here are a couple of his works shown at the retrospective of his creativity.

The second one is a creation of dried flowers he found in a family book.  He laided them on a platform and then shined colored lights over them making them come alive and taking a photo.  The first one was created by cutting slices of paper of different sizes, dropping them on a platform and shining colored lights on them.  These creative photos are beautiful to see.

The next artist featured at the Hammer is Forrest Bess.  He lived from 1911-1977.  This is the first museum retrospective devoted to Bess in more than 20 years.  It is called "Seeing Things Invisible."  The program refers to the "significant recognition and painful isolation during his life."  He was born in Bay City, Texas and educated at the University of Texas at Austin.  After a brief period in the army where he suffered a slight breakdown related to a head injury, he moved to a small trailer isolated near a river where he began to paint.  He believed that becoming a hermaphrodite was the key to immortality.  In 1960, he operated on himself to become a pseudo-hermaphrodite.  He died in a nursing home with a long battle of alcoholism.  According to his wishes, his art is shown with pictures and explanation of his theory and surgery.

Below are photos of some of his work.

Next, there is a small walkthrough exhibit of the works of Mark Leckey.  This includes a video of a man playing a drum.  This London-based artist grew up in the north of England.  This exhibit is entitled "On Pleasure Bent."  The program states that this exhibit is an attempt to make sense of Leckey's own desires and pleasures and their imbrications with technology.  Above and below are two of his photos.  These are from videos.  In the second the camera focuses on the details of the drum and then moves to the drummer.

The final exhibit is a movie of a puppet show acting out the writings of a Lebanese writer, Amin Maalouf's "The Crusades through Arab Eyes" created by Egyptian artist, Wael Shawky.  "The artist attempts to present this revisionist narrative from a distanced perspective, carefully avoiding the representation of any singular point of view and instead offering viewers a completely interwoven recollection inspired by the voices that are so offend silenced in the production of histories."  Three films make up "Cabaret Crusades:"  "The Horror Show File" (2010), "The Path to Cairo" (2012, and "The Secrets of Karbala" (in production).  The first part is being shown at the Hammer. 

Shawky was able to borrow more than 120 two-hundred-year-old marionettes from the Lupi collection in Turin, Italy.  The artist made period-specific costumes for the marionettes, built intricate sets, created a score, and wrote a script in Arabic that narrrates these years of conflict.  The marionettes molded with ceramic heads and hands take on the various roles of historical figures and every day people 

Wael Shawky was born in 1971 in Alexandria, Egypt where he lives and works today.  He studied at the University of Alexandria and the University of Pennsylvania.

Last class on the works of Giacomo Puccini

The last class on Puccini Wednesday cover his final works  including the three one act operas in 1918 called Il Trittico.  Each opera was an hour long.  The first being "Il Tabarro" meaning the cloak.  It is a violent scene on a barge in the Seine river.  The second "Suor Angelica" is religious and redemptive taking place in a cloistered nunnery.  The final opera is "Gianni Schicchi" a comedy taking place in Florence in 1299 with a character from Dante's "Inferno."

In searching for his big production opera to rival Verdi's "Aida," he creates Turandot in 1924.  However he died before the final act was finished so it was completed by Arturo Toscanini and Granco Alfano based on Puccini's notes.  The tenor aria from this opera that helped make Luciano Pavarotti famous is Nessun Dorma which translates as "None shall sleep."  The final line is "I shall win."  Puccini wrote this song and although died before the opera finish...He Won.  Through his main operas "Manon Lescaut," La Boheme," "Tosca," "Madame Butterfly," "La Fanciulla del West," "La Rondine,""Il Trittico," and "Turandot" he lives in our daily hearing, viewing, and singing of his music.

"The Pomegranate Lady and her Sons" Tuesday night at Aloud at the Central Library

Goli Taraghi, the author of "The Pomegranate Lady and her Sons" was interviewed at the Aloud program on Tuesday night by Reza Aslan a professor at U.C. Riverside and author of "Zealot."  Both authors are natives of Iran and Aslan referred to the great number of Iranians living in Los Angeles so that they sometimes refer to the city as Terangeles...many were former residents of Terran, the capitol of Iran.

Goli Taraghi left Iran shortly after the overthrow of the Shah in 1979 because a loss of property and freedoms.  She grew up in the upper class of Terran and so they family lost most of their property and wealth.  However, her brother remained and they were able to keep their main house.  She fled to Paris were she has lived for 34 years although she publishes in Iran...even with the censors.

Taraghi said that exile is a terrible thing...like a river...just swim in it and make the best.  She does not publish in France and does not refer to it as home...her home is Iran.  However she is censored in Iran...it inhibits her expression of thought.  Although women are suppress in Iran, they make up the majority of college students and writers.  They are very modern in many ways such as working in jobs.

Her book of stories "The Pomegranate Lady..." is about life in Iran when she was growing up in the 1940's through the 1970's.  She referred to the Pomegranate as a beautiful rich red fruit and when you open, it oozes with rich red seeds.

The Huntington Library reopening for members on Tuesday

It was a beautiful day to roam around the Huntington Gardens and into the newly renovated Library.  The main room had displays of original Shakespeare Plays, the Gutenberg Bible, Chaucer writings, Audubon's birds, writings of Susan B. Anthony and Frederick Douglass.  Some of my photo's are below:

The beautiful North Yard at the Huntington

A close up of one of the statues

The Huntington Library Building

The Library's front display room

Above are Nez Perce Lodges, Montana Territory 1871 and below is Ga-hige, Omaha Chief, Nebraska 1868 by William Henry Jackson as the official photographer for the U.S. Geological Survey.





The Gutenberg Bible printed by Johann Gutenber in Mainz, Germany in 1455.  One hundred and seventy-five copies were printed...only 48 survive today.

"An illegal vote' is an account of the proceedings on the trial of Susan B. Anthony on the charge of illegal voting at the presidential election in Nov., 1872.  She was convicted and ordered to pay a fine but she never conceded guilt.  The publicity about the trial advanced the women's suffrage movement.

African Americans were allowed to join the Union army after the Emancipation Proclamation in 1863.

Carleton E. Watkins, 1829-1916, photo in 1861 of Yosemite Valley inspired a Congressional act that led to a National Park.  These were put on display in the Capitol building in Washington D.C.

In this book, "Passional Christi und Antichristi," written by Martin Luther and printed in 1521 scenes from the life of Christ are paired with illustrations showing the pope and other church officials behaving in dubious ways....presenting Christ ascending to heaven and the pope being hurled into hell.  Martin Luther had charged the Catholic church with corruption.  In 1521, the church declared Luther an outlaw.  He went into hiding but continued to preach and publish his beliefs



"The Birds of America:  From Original Drawings" by John James Audubon (1785-1851).  Audubon sought to portray birds as they appeared in nature life size.



"The Boston Slave Riot and Trial of Anthony Burns," 1854, focused attention on the country's polarization over slavery.  Burns, a Virginia slave who escaped to Boston, was arrested and charged under the Fugitive Slave Law.  He was returned to the South.  However, Abolitionists bought his freedom and he eventually settled in Canada.

Roaming over the weekend to the Santa Ynez Valley and Lompoc, CA

It was a beautiful weekend in Santa Barbara and the Santa Ynez Valley, especially for wine tasting and eating....my favorite things.  We also ventured to Lompoc and visited the La Purisma Mission State Historical Park.  The mission was founded in 1787 by the Franciscan order under the jurisdiction of Spain and once covered 470 square miles.  It was home to the Chumash people, Spanish settlers and 24,000 cattle and sheep.  The mission was extensively restored by the 1930's by the Conservation Corp workers. 

We roamed through the buildings and around the grounds of the park that covers nearly 2,000 acres.  We saw the replication of where people lived, worshiped and worked in weaving, pottery making candle making, blacksmithing, leather work and tending livestock.

Here are some pictures of the mission:

We found a great place for breakfast in Lompoc and admired the many murals in town.