TAG (The Artists' Gallery) in Santa Monica

Saturday evening we attended the opening reception at TAG (2903 Santa Monica Blvd, Santa Monica, CA 90404) for a friend, Katherine Kean. Also exhibiting were Anne M. Bray and Carol Kleinman.

I always enjoy Katherine's work which she describes as "memories, dreams and visions." Her paintings have an other-worldly quality which take me on journeys of the imagination... disquieting, yet peaceful and safe, all at the same time. The photo here shows Katherine in the center surrounded by her paintings.

The inset painting of the field of sunflowers (which I couldn't quite squeeze into the photo) is my favorite from this exhibit. I have always loved sunflowers. My mother is from Argentina and made sure we always had sunflowers growing in our garden in England. Of course, Van Gogh's sunflowers have a special appeal for me. Katherine, as always, has her own spin on this subject, not the bright, sunny scene we might expect, but one of mystery. I was especially taken by the one sunflower that refuses to conform and turns its back to the viewer, either out of mischieviousness, or perhaps saying to the other sunflowers, hey guys, let's make a run for it! Or perhaps just wanting to drink in the view for itself.

One of the other artists, Anne M. Bray, showed some landscapes in pastel. I was particularly interested in the sunset over the Nevada desert. Rough, dark storm clouds contrast with the smooth sweep of the foreground hills depicted in rich browns. A line of blue/grey mountains divides the foreground hills from the sky which occupies three quarters of the landscape.

Unfortunately, the TAG website, which is supposed to be at www.tagtheartistsgallery.com, is not currently in operation. But give it a try anyway, maybe it will be back one of these days.

(All photos on this blog copyright roslyn m wilkins and not to be used without permission.)

Tim Hawkinson at the Getty Center

Whether you are a Tim Hawkinson fan (I am) or have never heard of him before, it's worth the effort to see his Überorgan installation in the atrium lobby at the Getty Center. This is a wondrously organic conglomeration of balloons, hoses and horns which floats about your head as you walk in the entrance. We were fortunate enough to arrive (on Saturday around 2:00) just as the "music" started (for five minutes on the hour). I put the word music in quotes for a reason which you will discover when you hear it. The piece of art itself and the music puts a smile on everybody's face.

After enjoying the organ, we went in search of the rest of the exhibit. We found it in a small room in the basement. Having seen the immense show of his work at LACMA two years ago, this was a little disappointing, but I realize this was just a sideline to the main event.

We also drifted into "A Place in the Sun: Photographs of Los Angeles" by John Humble. I've seen a lot of photo exhibits of LA and after a while they all look alike, after all, how many times can you photograph the corner liquor store and the LA River. But this was pretty good. With his artist's eye he looked at some pretty awful landscapes and made them spectacular. Truly, beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

Another great day at the Getty. The only downer was the parking. Just making a left turn off Sepulveda was a major achievement, only to face the traffic jam snailing its way to the kiosk. With all the engineering and design resources available to the Getty, how did they end up with this mess? We expected to see a mob of people at the museum but it was not that bad once inside. Next time, we just have to arrive earlier.

I believe now I am Getty'd out for a while, I don't need to visit either the Villa or the Center for the next few months.

Stories in Stone at the Getty Villa: Visits 2 and 3

I attended the gallery course at the Getty Villa on March 21 in conjunction with the Stories in Stone exhibit which I had previously seen. In the morning there were three speakers on different topics including a general history of mosaics (while interesting, I could easily have delivered this talk myself), current mosaics (with Lillian Sizemore, a working mosaic artist herself), and some insight into the conservation of mosaics in Tunisia and how the exhibit was brought to Los Angeles. A real treat was a visit to the conservation lab where the head of the department was preparing a new backing for a large mosaic using techniques and materials used in the aerospace industry. Similarly, in the exhibit there is a display of dental tools which are used in conserving the mosaics on site... next time my dentist is invading my mouth I'll just try to think of myself as a mosaic... As it was, I did have a dental appointment that afternoon so after listening to a docent's talk on the exhibit, I ended the day stuck in traffic on Wilshire Blvd. in a desperate attempt to get to Beverly Hills on time. That certainly spoiled the tranquility of another day at the Getty Villa.

But I was back that Sunday with another friend in tow. Everybody's favorite mosaic in the exhibit seems to be Oceanus (third century). It is an amazing mosaic, more so everytime I have seen it in person. More amazing is seeing the photograph of it in context with the mosaic work that surrounded it. As I have mentioned elsewhere, until recently archaeologists thought the right thing to do was to remove the figurative portions of the mosaic for safekeeping in museums, leaving the surrounding, usually more geometric designs, to rot. So in the museum, not only do you not see the mosaics intact but totally out of any kind of architectural context. Fortunately, the light bulb went on some years ago and now the policy is to leave mosaics in situ as much as possible, sometimes even covering them with the local soil to bury them for posterity after documentation.

This exhibit closes April 30 and the mosaics return to their homeland. I feel fortunate to have had the opportunity to see them three times.

Culver City Art Group Walks the Culver City Art Galleries

Seven members of the Culver City Art Group met at The LAB 101 gallery on March 17 for an informal walk along Washington Blvd and La Cienega to visit the art galleries that have popped up in the last couple of years. (Much has been written about this area recently, so I won't go into that, but a good article can be found here if you are so inclined: Art of the new. How a previously industrial area in Culver City morphed into the latest gallery hotspot.)

I was still feeling a little woozy from oral surgery a couple of days before, but decided to go anyway, rather than spend the day on the sofa. Whenever I push myself to do something I have made a commitment to do, I always feel better that at least I gave it a try! And this try turned into visiting at least 15 galleries along Washington Blvd. and La Cienega Blvd. The thing I enjoy about visiting galleries is not the satisfaction of seeing a lot of artwork that I necessarily love and admire, it is more the variety of creativity on view.

At Lab 101 I was fascinated by the work of Andy Howell. I am always attracted to collages and I liked the juxtaposition of grotesque faces with the fancifully-patterned backgrounds in the exhibition “I Wish I Was Here.”

At Corey Helford the walls of the showroom were eerily decorated with rubbery arms extending out of swooping black drapes. This was appropriate for the David Stoupakis exhibit, "Sheep Will Follow." Paintings of dead children or just ghastly dolls? Creepy in a wonderfully amusing way. And beautifully framed. I am always aware of the choices of framing, as the right or wrong decision can enhance or detract dramatically from a piece.
We visited a few more galleries with nothing particularly interesting to me (which doesn't mean it wouldn't strike someone else's fancy).

Then at d.e.n. contemporary, Carlos Estrada-Vega's "About 4,000 Paintings" caught my attention. Each painting is comprised of tens to hundreds of individual squares or rectangles of varying depths, made of different colors and hues from his own mixture of limestone dust and pigment. At first it seems like a simple concept, one of those, "why didn't I think of that," ideas. But really quite complicated when you look at each piece closely.

At Blum & Poe, we walked into Sam Durant’s “Scenes From the Pilgrim Story: Myths, Massacres and Monuments.” Yep, that’s right. We couldn’t decide if it had been stolen from the Natural History Museum, was a put on, or somebody was serious about it being a work of art. Think a 70s presentation of what it meant to be a Pilgrim in wall plaques and vignettes, and you got it. Well, at least I remembered it.

At the George Billis Gallery, I was particularly struck by one painting of a 76 gas station with a dried-up palm tree in the foreground and a dinosaur in the background, everything suffocating in thick brown smog. Unfortunately there is no artist attribution on the website so I will never know who painted it. Interestingly, as a nod to the sudden hipness of Culver City, they have their address listed as Culver City with an LA address. Although the galleries along La Cienega are actually located in the city of Los Angeles, it is now considered part of the “cool” Culver City gallery neighborhood.

I believe it was about here the lack of Vicodin and antibiotics caught up with me. End of tour, to be completed another day.

I would encourage anybody who is an artist or has an interest in art to make the effort to stroll around current art galleries, whether it be in Culver City, the Melrose area in West Hollywood, downtown LA, etc. Take a friend and have a conversation about the art you are seeing… good or bad, it’s always interesting and stimulating.

(All photos on this blog copyright roslyn m wilkins and not to be used without permission.)

Los Angeles Conservancy March Mosaic Tour

The LA Conservancy is partnering with the J. Paul Getty Museum to celebrate mosaic in Los Angeles in conjunction with "Stories in Stone: Conserving Mosaics of Roman Africa." (See previous blog.) Among other activities, LAC is sponsoring a self-driving tour on Sunday, March 25. the tour will include Watts Towers, St. John's Episcopal Church and the Birth of Liberty at Forest Lawn Memorial Park. For more information go to the Los Angeles Conservancy website.

Another event, which was sold out to the general public when I attempted to sign up initially, is the Wednesday, March 21 Gallery Course at the Getty Villa. As a Conservancy member I was able to sign up for that today. Oh joy!!

I was a docent for the LAC for 15 years and enjoyed every moment of it. Unfortunately, when I decided to go back to school and devote more time to my artwork, along with still working fulltime and other obligations, some things had to go, and this was one of them. I'm hoping some time in the near future I can once again put on my tour-giving hat for the Conservancy...

Sister City Tiles at Vets in Culver City

Culver City has a plethora of Sister Cities, at least five, including: Uruapan, Michoacan, Mexico; Kaizuka, Japan; Iksan City, South Korea; Lethbridge, Canada; and Yanji City, Jilin, China. The first four of these were honored on March 3, 2007, with the unveiling of ceramic tiles painted with scenes relating to those places. The tiles were painted by Lori Escalera, who was the founding president of the Culver City Art Group and has other public artwork around the city. The tiles are being installed at the Veteran's Building (at the corner of Culver Blvd. and Overland) on the doors of rooms named after these sister cities.


At left: Artist Lori Escalera with Mayor Gary Silbiger and the Uruapan tiles.

As a tile painter/artist myself, I really enjoyed the speech Lori gave about art as function. Here are a few snippets:

"I would like to address the idea of some that “Artwork may be diminished by its relationship to function.” History proves that art and functionality go hand in hand. It has provided artists with gainful wage, and survival - beginning with cave art, which functioned as a practical method to focus society on a fruitful hunt. In the Renaissance, artwork was a guild business as religious leaders communicated to the masses of spiritual interests and wealthy patrons needed portraits to record and exhibit their prestige. In the 17th, 18th and 19th century artists were hired as illustrators for secular business advertising.

However following the Industrial Revolution there was a clear understanding that artists needed to relate aesthetics to ugly massed produced goods. A true movement of function integrated with art emerged by the 20th century... Work again emerged for artists as they were hired to progandize modern war and politics. I wonder if anyone realizes in the 21st century, how “Public Art Ordinances” service the artist as a viable business [as a] functional reaction to damage caused from urban development. Proving again, combining art with function enhances the world humans inhabit. Art that is remembered throughout history IS tied to function.

It is only a very contemporary idea that art may exist without function – as a sole means of human creativity. But if we look at modern life we see that mankind finally has the leisure time to contemplate his naval - for the sheer fact that it is there. Man is not constantly consumed by survival mode.

...enjoy artwork. Do not shy away from controversy over art. Do not think that art can only be an emotional experience or an intellectual one. We are humans given two separately functioning brain hemispheres that may work together for different reasons at different times. The more art stimulates us in passion and intellect the more successful it is."

(All photos on this blog copyright roslyn m wilkins and not to be used without permission.)

Skin + Bones: Parallel Practices in Fashion and Architecture

This afternoon BG and I visited the Skin + Bones exhibit at MOCA. I have wanted to see this since it first opened in November of last year. Living in LA has one giant disadvantage (everybody knows about the traffic so that doesn't count anymore): There Are Too Darn Many Things To Do! Yesterday I remembered this exhibit was closing imminently (next weekend to be exact). I don't mind doing things like this on my own, but it's always nicer to have company. So I emailed BG who works in the fashion industry, and as I have a background in architecture, what better combination to view this exhibit together.

I am a MOCA member and as I am not a big fan of much of their art, every year I threaten to cancel my membership. But just as I decide to do that, something like this comes along and I realize why they need my support. So, okay MOCA, you suckered me for another year, just in the nick of time, as usual.

From beginning to end this exhibit is well-designed, thoughtful and fun. I was hooked at the entrance with several mannequins (or is that womannequins, maybe not...) in a circle dressed in ever-increasingly covered-up outfits, the final mannequin looking like her head was popping up out of a sofa. In fact, many of the styles looked like people wearing sofas. Hey, this would be fine with me and I could probably get a discount as I already have the padding.... One video display showed models removing chair covers and turning them into dresses as they put them on. Very clever.

I was particularly impressed with the idea of showing floorplans of buildings alongside patterns for clothing. As BG noted, it's all about engineering. One theme in the exhibit is how much modern architecture (in particular) is akin to fashioning a dress with all the tucking, pleating and pinning of the architectural materials. Of course, Frank Gehry's Disney Concert Hall (across the street from MOCA) is front and center with that comparison.

This exhibit is large, visually overwhelming and not for the faint of heart. Two-thirds of the way through I felt dizzy and wondered if my vision had suddenly changed. I took off my glasses in the hope that not seeing everything so clearly might help, and strangely, it did. (Note to self: remember I am not in my twenties anymore and weird things happen!) So I made it through to the end and happy I did, although I did not see one dress made out of ceramic tiles which I thought was clearly a missed opportunity.

So now my question is, which came first? Did the early humans start making shelters first (and I don't mean diving into a cave when it rained or standing under a tree to get out of the sun)? Or was a piece of clothing the first item of industry? I feel as though it must have been the latter, and once they got the hang of making clothing, extended it to housing. Perhaps starting with a patio right outside the cave for a summer barby???

So much art makes one hungry so we drove back to Culver City and stopped at the Cafe Brasil on Venice Blvd. just west of Overland across from Culver Center (and officially in Los Angeles, I believe, although Culver City and Los Angeles do the tango for several miles along that stretch, so it hardly matters). There is a nice blog here about Cafe Brasil which says it all as well as I can. BG ordered the flank steak and I had the Picante Catfish. Whenever catfish is on the menu there is no other choice for me. Catfish is really good or really bad, there is no in between. Fortunately, this restaurant happens to do catfish excellently. Along with everything else, including a good cup of Brazilian coffee with a crystallized sugar swizel stick that I can't resist.

So, another day, another adventure, comes to an end.