Friday, May 29, 2015

Art in LA: The Rest of It

Markus Bacher
Susanne Vielmetter Los Angeles Projects

I had three more Art in LA blog posts in mind, but I'm about to leave town again and look at a whole bunch of new art in a new place, and will want to tell you all about that when I return, and so to clear the decks we roll all the remaining Los Angels art-looking into a single massive post right here, right now! Go!

Part One, which starts with the above image, is the rest of the Culver City Galleries (I talked about a few before here):

 Tam Van Tran
Susanne Vielmetter Los Angeles Projects

 Maria E. PiƱeres
Walter Maciel Gallery

 Ed Templeton
Roberts & Tilton

 David Maisel
Mark Moore Gallery

Max Maslansky
Honor Fraser

Part Two--the contemporary shows at the Hammer Museum (old stuff that I liked from there is here):

Heatherwick Studio

Lily van der Stokker

Jim Hodges

Charles Gaines

Pedro Reyes

From “Apparitions”
show on rubbings from 1860-2015

Part Three--West Hollywood galleries:

Taschen Gallery
(who knew such a thing existed?)
 
Michael Goldberg
Manny Silverman Gallery

Raymond Pettibon
Regen Projects
 
Michael Sagato
De Re Gallery
 
Steve Shapiro, Selma, 1965
Fahey/Klein Gallery

Howang Tran
Gallery 1988

Mariah Robertson
M + B

Thursday, May 28, 2015

Next Up in the Continuing Poem Series About the Summer of 2006



June 16, 2006
All week we’ve been having

those simultaneously beautiful
and mildly painful
blinding mornings of sun
shining straight down the street
at my face as I walk to work
but this morning was the first time
that it was also quite warm as well

It really is so bright as to be a bit agonizing
but also beautiful and buoying enough
to make me not want to cross over the street
to the shady side though of course I easily could

It’s funny because
somehow last night
my conversation with Bill
drifted for a minute
into the topic of deconstruction
and I was talking about how
direct experience is really real
it’s only the words we use to describe it
that are a web of faulty systems
and people seem to forget that side of it
And the example I used was that the sun on my face is real
its only when I try and say what it feels like that the unreality sets in

Little did I know
I would feel the sun on my face
the very next morning
and try and describe it
this very afternoon

happy
it makes you happy


Wednesday, May 27, 2015

Writerhood Is Happening!


I am very pleased to tell you that I just shook hands with my new editor for my third book as an author / first book as a writer! In the previous two books I authored, This is Happening  and New York Jackie, my job was mostly pulling images together, and only penning a very few words. But for this new one I will write all the words! It will be about art. And happiness. I'm very excited. More updates soon!

Tuesday, May 26, 2015

Peonies, The Life Cycle


I've talked before about my love of peonies, and how it has much to do with the child's middle name being Peony (actually, which love came first is a chicken-and-egg conversation for another day). And of course every blogger girl and instagram girl in the universe is flipping out these past few weeks about the start of the always-too-brief and always-amazing peony season. But nevertheless I must show you these photos I took over the course of several days, as the peonies we bought bloomed from tight-closed spheres, to full-blown blossoms, to gone-by but still-lovely faded beauties.











The Gang


Last month we got together with some of our best pals--three other families of adults and children ranging from nearly 3 to nearly 8--and for the first time ever the children all ran off and played together while the grown-ups sat around and chatted and drank coffee. A watershed moment.

Friday, May 22, 2015

Ye Olde Portraits at the Hammer Museum


The Hammer Museum is a small but excellent (and, bonus, always free!) museum in LA. Most of their galleries are devoted to modern and contemporary art (about which more anon) but there are two large galleries dedicated to the original art collection of industrialist Armand Hammer, who founded the joint back in the days when industrialists and robber barons did things like found art museums to show what cultured guys they really were. One room is all big lovely Impressionist nature canvases and the other is full of portraits. I really liked those portraits. They had faces and features and expressions and eyes that looked so familiarly human. I mean, there they are, blobs of paint meant to represent people who lived in different eras and who would not get us at all, nor would we get them. And yet they look so recognizably like people. That sounds obvious and inevitable, but not all portraits are like that. But many of these ones were. So, here you go.

The above is anonymous gentleman is attributed to Theodore Gericault


Sarah Bernhardt by Alfred Stevens


Rembrandt doing his divine self-portrait thing


Peter Paul Rubens doing his divine Rubenesque thing


Monsieur Jacquet by Edgar Degas


Alice Legouve by Edourad Manet


Portrait of a Man in Armour by Titian

Thursday, May 21, 2015

We Arrive at a Momentous Moment in the Ongoing Poem Series About the Summer of 2006



June 15, 2006
Today I bought tiny cakes

to celebrate the simply wonderful and amazing fact that
today is Bill’s last day of school
I’m so proud of him I don’t know what to do with myself
and so relieved we made it to the end of this first year

The cakes came in a little white box with a handle
and it felt great to carry them down the street

I started this journal with the blueberry muffins on his first day of school
as a way to try and work around the certain quantity of upset feelings
I found myself feeling in the process of learning to live with
support and help him a tiny bit in this astonishingly challenging endeavor




that first poem, about the blueberry muffins, lives here

image source is here

Wednesday, May 20, 2015

Today's Read


This is a fascinating article. I'm not familiar with the source, so am taking it with a grain of salt, but it was drawn to my attention by the imminently reputable Publisher's Lunch. And if even a fraction of the things it alleges are true, it's a scandal of vast proportions. If you care even a little bit about the publishing industry it's well worth a read.

Tuesday, May 19, 2015

Overnight Getaway


Over the weekend Bill and I went on a little one-night sleepover to celebrate our tenth wedding anniversary. Though I must admit that, at first, when he came up with the idea of staying at the Waterfront Hotel in Jack London Square in Oakland, I was somewhat dismissive of the idea--I mean, ok a) Oakland? and b) isn't Jack London Square basically a mall? But he won me over and, in fact, it turned out to be quite fabulous. We took the ferry there, checked into the adorably nautical themed hotel, went to the movies, ate fancy old fashioned seafood overlooking the boats and the water, lounged around drinking coffee the next morning, and then took the ferry back. Even though we were less than half an hour away, and certainly not in an exotic location at all, it was quite different from our normal stomping grounds, and I often think it's that difference, really, that does the magic thing that travel does--simultaneously waking you up to your surroundings and soothing you into a relaxed state. I'm proud to say that I was having such a pleasant time actually experiencing this little jaunt that I did not take a ton of pictures of it, but here is a glimpse.







Monday, May 18, 2015

Welcome Home Mamma!


When you've been away from your darling kiddo for several days and then are reunited, often, I find, you just want to take a picture of her nice face.