Replenishing

Yesterday I drove up to the city for some inspiration. I've been putting out a lot of work lately, and set aside this day for some intake, as opposed to outflow. I think about Saturday nite at the MAH Stars Auction, when I was talking to my pal Roy Johnson, who designs and manufactures exquisite lighting. We have this wall sconce (shown at left) in two of our bathrooms, and his light fixtures all through our home. Back in the olden days, Roy and I played on the Art Center Co-Ed Softball team with Peter Vizzusi, Christie Thomas and Scott Lindberg, and many other talented artists who are still producing gorgeous art today in Santa Cruz. Anyway, Roy and I were talking about how insane it is, that the thing we love to do, we get to do about 2% of the time, and the other 98% is spent marketing, meeting, billing, supporting it.

Julia Cameron's book, The Artists Way, suggests that in addition to writing The Morning Pages; every week you take yourself on an Artist's Date. Yesterday was my Artist's Date. Technically you're supposed to go alone, but I went with Eileen (what do you want for breakfast-poppy seed bagles with cream cheese, swiss cheese and the Earl grey tea) Goldenberg, and Carol (it's all about product) Charney. I've already told you about how talented Eileen is, but I haven't gone into rapture about Carol, so fasten your seat belts.

Carol is my "hairsister." Which means we share the curly hair gene. When I stay with Carol in the city, she won't let me leave her beautiful apartment without several pounds of product on my hair, so my curls are just right. Anyway enough about hair and the gene pool, Carol is talented in a variety of media. She is an amazing photographer, and spans 2 very distinct styles. You know like Ben Hur (please don't imagine Charlton Heston) stradling the two chariots. One side of this work is called Marked for Life. She interviews and photographs survivors of the Holocaust, and has traveled extensively to this end. It an enormous passion for her. Her other vision is called Interior Landscapes, which to me, are fantastic abstract paintings. I think you need to see for yourself her amazing work at carolinezcharney.com. She also shows at galleries in SF and LA. For as long as I've know her, she has also been interested in making films. She continues to take classes and explore this medium. I know that in the very near future, we will be seeing her films as huge installations in museums. Yet another Carol talent, is that she is an award winning Graphic Designer. I have the great privilege of having her design my "identity system" as she calls it. She has designed my business card, stationery, lables, post cards and my website. Anyway, I can't say enough about this Goddess of Aesthetics. She totally rocks! I look up to her, even though she is my much younger hairsister.

Funny how Kim said lastnite that my Blog was so succinct, and now I'm going off the deep end, and getting quite longwinded. Well, it was quite a day to write about, my yesterday.

So after Eileen and the bagels, we took off for the new de Young Museum. I was Eileen's guest, (thanks BW) and she carefully pointed out the amazing work of Herzog & de Meuron Architects. How each perforated panel of the facade is different. It was Dotty Heaven. Also she made sure I checked out the cracks in the pavers that were actually the amazing Andy Goldsworthy Sculpture at the entrance. There is a cool podcast you can download from their site, with Andy talking about the sculpture. Be sure to go up in the observation tower, which is free! Here is an abstract painting we captured from above!




The entrance area to the elevators to the tower have a pretty enormous Ruth Asawa installation. Eileen took these photos, which I've altered a bit. There are amazing vistas, 360 of the city.

Here is a huge Gerhard Richter photo of the atom strontium. Totally Dotty. It's rather out of focus up close.



We didn't have much time to spend there, and decided to concentrate on the Jolika Collection of New Guinea Art.


Here is a portion of a gorgeous contemporary African tapestry constructed out of aluminum cans. It is huge, maybe 10 feet square, put together with wire.



I have so many ideas now for artwork. It boggles the mind.

By the way, Eileen's work is in the museum store, so if you go, you can get up close and personal with her beautiful ceramics.

We then had Asian food for lunch, (what else is new), and took off for the Galleries Downtown. Pretty discouraging overall. 49 Geary, The Haines was closed for an installation. Patricia Sweetow had interesting work of Rachel Lachowicz, Elins Eagles-Smith beautiful space had some interesting work by Ricardo Mazal, Raymond Saunders at Stephen Wirtz (who is quite charming). We got to have a preview of one of Carol's photog friends who will be showing there starting on Jan 5th. I think the most interesting and inspiring was a painting by Marc Katano.

At 77 Geary, Rena Bransten Gallery had Ruth Asawa sculpture and works on paper. Very inspiring. Takes me back to my days at UCLA, crocheting picture framing wire. That will be another enire blog, so don't get me staaaarted.

We then went over to Mason Street at the Hotel Nikko to see Rob Larson's work. I am a total Rob fan. You can see more of him at the Baxter Chang Patri .

We capped it all off by getting caffinated. I drove home down highway 1, made pretty good time picked up Kim and scurried off to the John Dizikis lecture on Opera at UCSC, where I sat and doodled and sketched all the dots and lines and shapes of the day, being completely filled up.