Three for a Friday

Conservator Jeff Maish restores the painted decoration on a fragmentary mixing vessel. (See below for photo copyright information.)

This past Friday was one of those days that I could repeat over and over again and never get tired of it. In the morning I did my volunteer gig at the Fowler Museum lab in Westwood, bought some groceries at Whole Foods (skinless sausages made from humanely raised chickens and rainforest coffee), then drove along Sunset Blvd. as it winds its way through upscale neighborhoods and past Will Rogers State Park to Pacific Coast Highway and the Getty Villa.
I visited three exhibitions at the Villa: Reconstructing Identity: A Statue of a God from Dresden, The Getty Commodus: Roman Portraits and Modern Copies, Fragment to Vase: Approaches to Ceramic Restoration. One of my interests in art and archaeology is conservation and preservation. Over the centuries the term "conservation" has had various interpretations. In earlier times, statues that had lost arms or legs, or even heads, were given body parts from unrelated statues in order to make them whole. Today, museums are more likely to display statues with the missing parts, or at least indicate where the original statue leaves off and the restoration begins. Personally, if there is a drawing or photograph of how a statue looked in its original state, I don't mind seeing it restored as it was originally intended to be seen, as long as the restoration parts are clearly identified in documentation displayed nearby.
A Statue of a God from Dresden is a wonderful lesson in conservation history all by itself. You could say it has survived the restoration wars! Everything imaginable happened to the statue since its discovery in the 1600s, and the Getty has done a splendid job in telling its story.
The Getty Commodus is another story, literally. The exhibition explains the difficulties in determining the date of origin of a sculpture. This piece was at first thought to be the work of an Italian sculptor from the late 16th century as it was fashionable at that time (and through the next few centuries) to make copies of ancient works of art. However, after weighing all the clues, it is now thought to be an original ancient sculpture from an archaeological dig.
As interesting as the first two exhibits are, my favorite is Fragment to Vase. In the past, the approach to restoring a fragmented vase was to do everything possible to make it look like an unbroken piece by gluing, painting, cementing... some of this was for purely practical purposes, but it was also done to make it saleable to unsuspecting collectors. In the 20th century it was usually the policy to show plainly the difference between the restored part and the original, sometimes resulting in a not very intelligible piece. The Getty's approach today is to balance aesthetics with preservation, making the patching less obtrusive but distinguishable. I like that idea.
My policy, if possible, is to time my visit to an exhibit so I can go through at my own pace, then if there is a guided tour to participate in that either before or after (after is my preference as then I am already familiar with the subject) which is what I did on Friday.
The drive home along Pacific Coast Highway in the late afternoon was splendid. Usually I am enamored of the sun sparkling on the calm blue of the Pacific. But this drive was in a storm and the ocean was heaving up murky, dangerous-looking waves as my windshield wipers were having a hard time keeping up with the deluge of wet stuff falling from the sky. Fortunately, the traffic was relatively light for that time of day on a Friday, maybe because everybody left work early for the safety of their homes.
As usual, I am glad I made the effort to see the exhibit. I have wasted countless hours of my life watching detective shows on TV and putting together jigsaw puzzles... which is perhaps why the art of conservation and preservation is so fascinating to me!

(Photo copyright The J. Paul Getty Trust
© J. Paul Getty Trust
For useage information see http://www.getty.edu/legal/copyright.html)

The Puppy Bowl (and other ceramics)
My friend KJ tells me that, yes, there is a Puppy Bowl (on Animal Planet, of course) on Super Bowl Sunday with cat cheerleaders at halftime. How could I make this stuff up?
I was at her house on SB Sunday to admire her tile and mosaic work at the entrance to her house. A really super job.
But our mission on this day was to visit the 65th Scripps Ceramic Annual exhibit at the Ruth Chandler Williamson Gallery in Claremont.
It was a splendid sunny southern California day for the first day of February, and with four brand new tires on my car gripping the road, a great day for the hour or so drive out there from her house to the little town at the foot of Mt. Baldy. We could see just a dusting of snow still at the cap. I was reminded of my trek up to the top 25 years ago in heavy snow and ice with pretty much white-out conditions when we reached the summit and could not imagine attempting such a hike today, or even wanting to!
The Williamson is a nice little gallery. The exhibit was small. I knew it was going to be contemporary ceramic art, and we all know the problems I have with anything labeled "contemporary" and I was not disappointed. So I won't go into all of that again. Let's just say it wasn't my cup of tea. We looked at some of the catalogs from previous years and personally, I would have preferred to see one of those exhibits. Maybe I'll take another shot next year.
But one of the works did fascinate me, if not in the way the artist probably intended. A series of shovels made with "human bone china." My aunt and uncle who recently passed away donated their bodies to science. So I wondered, did the people who ended up on this wall know they were going to be part of an art exhibit when they died? And how do you go about donating your body to art? And can you specify the work of art you want to be?
I thought about the pickled sheep at BCAM at LACMA. I would not want to end up in a tank of formaldehide for the whole world to see. But I wouldn't mind being turned into a beautiful bone china teapot used for elegant tea parties at some rich lady's mansion. Or maybe as part of a sculpture in a park where families come to sit at my feet with their picnics. As I like functional art more than anything, it would be nice to know I would be useful as well as decorative when I am gone.
But in the meantime, before I give up this body for some higher purpose, I am in need of it to take me to more art exhibits and galleries!

Does This Make You Homesick? A friend and I saw the movie "Last Chance for Harvey" at the theater today. I liked it. The acting skills of Emma Thompson and Dustin Hoffman turned it from a predictable, schmaltsy, romantic comedy into something worthwhile. I would give it a 3.75 out of a possible 5. That's a pretty good rating from me. So go see it, or rent it!
I rarely go to the movies as I am madly in love with NetFlix where I can sit in the comfort of my own home, on my own sofa, with my 32-inch TV and nobody around me munching popcorn, rustling candy wrappers or TALKING! But as my initial plans fell through, then my secondary plans also didn't pan out, this seemed like an opportunity to spend some time, share an event, with somebody I don't see very often.
As the movie takes place in London, my friend asked, "Does this make you homesick?" The answer is yes and no. I actually love living in Culver City. Maybe one day I'll write about the hundreds of reasons why.
But there is a part of me that wonders what my life would be like if my parents had stayed in England instead of emigrating to the US. I didn't want to come here... both times. I was a child the first time, a teenager the second. My life was in England. To this very day I feel like a person without a country. Even though I've lived here all my adult life, when I'm here I'm English. When I am in England I'm American. You can't possibly understand if you haven't lived it and I no longer attempt or care to explain.
So, I enjoy looking at this Victorian tile in my collection that came from a house built in 1880, in Worthing, the last town we lived in before coming to America the first time.
In the 1700s Worthing became a popular seaside resort attracting wealthy and aristocratic visitors. I liked living there. Probably my favorite of all the many places we lived in England. Maybe it reminds me of Culver City in some ways. A small town but a lot of history. When we lived there I believe the population was about 70,000 whereas Culver City is currently around 45,000.
So I am always homesick for England. But when I am away from Culver City I'm homesick for this little town too. And, perhaps I'm fortunate that I can be homesick for two places!
You can see some of my other tiles at http://www.tilelove.com/.
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(photo copyright roslyn m wilkins)

Ladybug, Ladybird, don't fly away!My decision to write about Alice, Artist, Goddess of Nature has made my blog so much more fun for me! And as Alice is so prolific it has given me a ton of material to write about.

Every year Alice entrusts me with a nest of baby ladybugs (in England these insects are called ladybirds which I like a lot more). They literally crawl out of the woodwork near the window in my office and cling precariously to the screen.

(I wondered what that strange noise was, it's the sound of rain falling on my roof... yippeeeeeeee!)

I have to get my ladybug catcher... an old prescription bottle... coax them into the bottle, and release them on a hibiscus plant on the deck. Some fly off immediately. But some stay around for days as there is a veritable feast of aphids (which I believe they eat) on the flowers.

Above is a photo of one of those ladies who chose to hang around for a while... along with a visiting cricket.

Of course, ladybugs are a symbol of good luck, so I feel especially lucky to be in charge of these beautiful little creatures. Did you know their red coloring actually scares off predators?

If memory serves me, the ladybugs usually arrive in the spring. But here they are in January. There were only about a dozen over a period of several days, whereas in the spring I have to transport that many in a day over a week. So perhaps this was just a trial run.

(photo copyright roslyn m wilkins)

The Unbeautiful Sky

Most mornings I like to greet the day (after feeding the cats, that is) by standing out on my roof deck, cup of coffee in hand, looking for that perfect sunrise with wondrous splashes of reds, oranges, yellows.... and sometimes disappointed when it doesn't appear. Today when I walked out there the sky was filled with ominous black and grey clouds. Not my picture of the perfect sunrise at all. But as I stood watching the clouds subtly change shade and hue I thought about all the elements and events that had to come together to create this moment, and I realized, of course, this was one more masterpiece from the brush of Alice, Artist, Goddess of Nature. How boring it would be if every sunrise was picture postcard "perfect." This sky was so much more interesting and I was grateful for the opportunity to enjoy it. The unbeautiful became beautiful.

(photo copyright roslyn m wilkins)

Lampposts, Hearst and Vanity
I ended up, through a curious set of circumstances, at San Simeon in February of last year. It was my first visit to Hearst Castle in over twenty years. Aside from the buildings and artwork I enjoyed the film we were shown about Hearst's life. What I didn't realize before was what an enormous influence his mother had on his love of collecting art as she herself was an art collector and connoisseur who took her son on European travels.
On Saturday I visited LACMA (Los Angeles County Museum of Art) with eight members of the Culver City Art Group. Although I visit LACMA throughout the year with different friends or by myself, going with a group lends another dynamic. We headed straight for the "Hearst the Collector" exhibit. I was impressed with the eclecticism of the collection. From the suits of armor to the fabulous tapestries to the paintings and ceramic dishes... it was interesting to see all the pieces out of context in the museum setting. Of course, Hearst had several grand homes to furnish and show off his collecting prowess. It seems this alone would fully occupy most people's lives, certainly it would mine, with or without assistants, let alone running a business empire! The Hearst exhibit ends February 1st so you need to hurry over there.
The other exhibit I enjoyed was "Vanity Fair Portraits: Photographs 1913-2008." This runs through March 1. I'm not that intrigued or interested in the whole celebrity culture. But I have to admit, many of these photographs caught my attention... they were works of art, capturing people at a place and time that told a story. One of my favorites: White-haired Tony Curtis, Madonna and Mick Jagger are sitting at the same table at an awards ceremony. Curtis is all over Madonna, couldn't be any closer if he was sitting on her lap. At the other end of the table is Mick Jagger. The expression on his face is palpable: What the HELL (probably a different word with the same number of syllables) am I DOING here?
Don't leave yet, the best is yet to come! My brain can only take in so much at the museum, so after that I was done with exhibits. I went outside to my favorite part of LACMA, the new entrance with the installation by Chris Burden which incorporates more than two hundred restored cast-iron lampposts from Los Angeles County. As I roam around LA I am always fascinated by the many different types of lampposts, not the modern, boring posts, but the lamps from decades ago that still adorn the streets of our fair city.

I wandered through this forest of lampposts taking some snapshots. You can see them all here should you be interested. (Click on the "go" icon at the bottom right of the page, it may take a while to get started.)

Another satisfying afternoon at LACMA (not to mention another great Cabo San Lucas salad at Marie Callendars afterwards)!

(Photo copyright roslyn m wilkins)

Alice Paints the Sky

I was going to start a new blog but I decided it was really part of this one. I am a stalker, yes, I have come out of the closet to admit it. No, this isn't like when the original Star Trek first hit TV and my friend and I discovered Leonard Nimoy lived in our neighborhood and we sat outside his house for hours and hours and hours evening after evening after evening waiting for just a glimpse of those pointy ears in the window... (Of course, I was just in diapers then and had to crawl there on my hands and knees). Oh, am I really admitting this, yes, I must come clean so I can move on with my life!

Okay, so now I stalk the Goddess of Nature. Or more particularly, her artwork. I can't reveal her real name as that would be an invasion of privacy. She has been known by various pseudonyms throughout the eons of her existence. I am going to call her Alice, after an aunt. I don't why this struck me as appropriate, especially as my aunt changed her name decades ago for reasons I don't understand. But I just like the idea of the Goddess of Nature being named Alice. Her business card will now read Alice, Artist, Goddess of Nature. Yes, that sounds good!

So what artwork does Alice have to show us today? Of course, you've already seen it... the moon over Culver City. I'm grateful to Alice and the universe for my roof deck. The night after the full moon the sky was really spectacular. I was out on the deck about 8:00pm. It was like somebody turned on all the Christmas lights in the sky, the stars were so bright. Then from the northwest I saw a line of planes coming into LAX all heading towards the moon like moths to a flame. I could have grabbed my camera and shot a movie but it wouldn't have been the same. But it will live in my mind, and maybe some day, a painting?

(Photo copyright roslyn m wilkins)