more art and food in LA, and the beach, of course

Our college-student kids joined us for a couple of days in Los Angeles, and food is always top of mind. Lunch one day was at the Grand Central Market from Prawn and Press Brothers Juicery before heading to Santa Monica to see the ocean. A late dinner after a work-related reception for John took us to Karl Strauss Brewing Co. but the dining highlight with the kids had to be dinner at Toca Madera, which just opened a restaurant in Scottsdale and hired our daughter as a hostess. Guacamole was served with plantain and tortilla chips. I had street tacos that were served in a warm wood box with tiny bowls of condiments on top. I pulled out the drawer and to find tiny individually wrapped corn tortillas blanketing grilled shrimp and ready to customize with salsas, chopped onion and cilantro. The dark dining areas twinkle with candles and lanterns. Service was excellent. All of us enjoyed our meals, which included veggie tacos, sautéed scallops and shrimp fajitas.

But food wasn’t the only attraction, and Sarah and got to spend time exploring the Museum of Contemporary Art and shopping in the Fashion District. We walked about 8 miles that day.

We put the kids into a cab Saturday morning so they could get to the airport and back to their campuses in other states, packed ourselves and then met a former student of John’s who’s now on the faculty at California State-Fullerton. She and her husband took us out for dim sum at Din Tai Fung and it was pretty phenomenal. We shared woodear mushrooms in vinegar, soy noodle salad and spicy noodles with pork, sautéed spinach and bok choy, and numerous dumplings filled with combinations of shrimp, crab, mushrooms, pork and all shaped into beautiful little bundles. It was great fun working our ways through the steamer baskets that arrived 2-3 at a time and stacked up in the center of the table. This massive midday meal was all we needed to fuel our trip back home.

another iconic library; more modern art; and restaurant links, of course

A recent trip to Los Angeles was lovely in part because we stayed at the Millennium Biltmore hotel downtown, literally across the street from the Los Angeles Central Library, an institution I grew to love while reading Susan Orlean’s The Library Book. The library’s stunning architecture, the breadth of its collections and community outreach along with its fascinating history made it the perfect spot to spend a fall afternoon before checking in. The building was erected in the mid-1920s, suffered fires and earthquake damage in 1986-87 but was restored and reopened with an additional wing and new gardens in 1993. While there, I learned from the “Undesign the Red Line” exhibit, which focuses on housing discrimination and has traveled to many cities across the country, including Omaha, where it was based at the Union for Contemporary Art. I strolled through many reading areas, enjoying the murals and browsing in the stacks, and I smiled when I saw fliers promoting the library’s offering of musical instruments available to borrow.

After picking up a few items in the gift shop, I strolled a couple of blocks to the other side of the hotel to see Pershing Square, a park hosting a farmer’s market that day. I had a really good fish taco doused with fresh salsa.

weekly farmer’s market in Pershing Square

After checking in and regrouping a bit, we gathered for drinks and conversation in the hotel and then off to the Border Grill for some delicious fresh-Mexican food, something a friend living in central New York state gets rarely.

I slept in and then walked to the Grand Central Market for breakfast the next morning at the EggSlut, strolled through Grand Park and down Grand Avenue past the Walt Disney Concert Hall with its sweeping steel forms designed by Frank Gehry to the Broad museum, which boasts a large collection of modern art displayed in building designed to pique interest in architecture. There are many great works to see here and the museum frequently loans works for other exhibits. I was delighted to see Calder mobiles and several Basquiat paintings, was moved and disturbed by Kara Walker’s silhouettes depicting the brutality of slavery, and saw a few popular works that I don’t personally find that interesting or appealing by Jeff Koons.

“Horn Players” by Jean-Michel Basquiat, an homage to Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie

The best came last for me in this museum visit. Although I was immersed for literally a minute, in that minute I felt suspended among stars. Yayoi Kusama is known for her net paintings and polka-dotted sculptures and paintings, and her experiential infinity mirrored rooms are mesmerizing. This one is called “The Souls of Millions of Light Years Away” and I was transported while standing amid the twinkling lights that appear to extend into immeasurable vastness. It created such a tranquil feeling of joy and contentment, similar to those sparked for me when visiting natural habitats such as grasslands and oceans that inspire feelings of connectedness to the earth while putting my anxieties into perspective.

in Yayoi Kusama’s mirrored infinity room called “The Souls of Millions of Light Years Away” at the Broad in Los Angeles.

portraits and books

While in DC, I visited the National Portrait Gallery, primarily to see the Obama portraits. At the time I visited, I was the only guest in the gallery where Amy Sherald’s stunning portrait of Michelle Obama hangs. Seeing artworks in person allows you to appreciate their energy, seeing texture and detail hard to detect in even the best reproductions. There is power in the range of grays Sherald uses to portray skin tones and the crisp colors and pattern of the gown Ms. Obama wears. Tears welled in my eyes as I recalled her incredible poise and grace as she worked on behalf of our country while raising her girls. I then went up a floor to the galleries holding portraits of past presidents. There is a small roped off area leading toward the Kehinde Wiley portrait of Barack Obama. The vivid colors of the foliage and flowers in the background struck me first but as I took my turn in front of the portrait, President Obama’s strength of character and dignity moved me again to tears. Wiley’s glowing skin tones vibrate with life. I was so proud to be part of the electorate who brought Obama to office. And while I believe our republic is strong enough to survive even the most unqualified of office-holders, I’m saddened and disheartened by hateful rhetoric and refusal to acknowledge facts. The impeachment inquiries were gaining steam on Capitol Hill that very day.

I also stopped by the portrait of John F. Kennedy by Elaine de Kooning. It’s always been a favorite portrait of mine with its unconventional colors and loose brush strokes. Energy and the sense of movement just stilled emanate from the canvas.

A special exhibit at the gallery focused on the passage of the 19th Amendment, which acknowledges women’s right to vote. It was great seeing artifacts and learning more deeply about the movement and groups working to ensure this right. It made the portrait of women justices of the Supreme Court that much more striking. “The Four Justices” by Nelson Shanks powerfully portrays Sandra Day O’Connor, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Sonia Sotomayor, and Elena Kagan.

The gallery shop includes an area filled with books, and I found several titles to take home with me. I enjoy reading fiction during waits at airports and while flying, and The Muralist looked like a great read. I’d read B.A. Shapiro’s earlier work, The Art Forger, and looked forward to reading about painters in New York before World War II. I recommend it! Ninth Street Women: Lee Krasner, Elaine de Kooning, Grace Hartigan, Joan Mitchell, and Helen Frankenthaler: Five Painters and the Movement That Challenged Modern Art by Mary Gabriel is a thick volume but so interesting. I’m familiar with several of these artists and am looking forward to learning more about the others. Agnes Martin: Her Life and Art by Nancy Princethal looks to be an interesting examination of painter Agnes Martin, a painter whose abstract pieces have inspired and compelled many artists. I’m encouraging seeing titles that recognize more women artists and their influences on the larger contexts of the art and cultural landscapes in which they worked.

the flops, aka shitty first drafts

In her book Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life, Anne Lamott refers often to the “shitty first draft” as she encourages writers to get something, anything on paper as a way to begin. It rarely is anything worth keeping.

The lesson applies to painting, too, and when I’m working on paper, the shitty first drafts get tossed onto a shelf or cut up to use as gift tags or to collage into other pieces. Paintings on panels get multiple layers, so there is a long process of adding and taking away until I’m pleased with what’s appearing on the surface. I started those cloud paintings during my recent artist residency at Cedar Point Biological Station as a way to get started with something. I also played around pressing leaves into paint, using dried stalks as tools for making marks and sprinkling sand into wet paint. None of these experiments yielded anything worth sharing, but were part of my exploring the place in my work. The puffy clouds will either get cut into pieces or covered with additional layers until they are unrecognizable as these particular works.

I did make two paintings explicitly based on the shapes and colors of the landscape at Cedar Point and share images below. While they’ll both get signed and probably framed, I’m really only happy with one of them. The second painting has an ease about it while the first one feels overworked. It’s also true that what I see as overworked may actually appeal to a particular viewer because it’s a bit more literal and does have some whimsy about it.

one of two paintings on paper based explicitly on the Cedar Point landscape.

Another painting on paper based on Cedar Point. I prefer this painting for the flow of the composition, the variety of textures and the sense of ease it conveys.

Shared spaces

One of the great things about participating in an artist residency is meeting other artists. Learning how they approach their subjects, what questions drive them, how they manipulate their materials to tell their stories help me examine my own methods, materials and media.

During my two weeks at the Cedar Point Biological Station, I spent time with three other artists who are doing really interesting work.
Jennifer Bockerman and I shared studio space for several days. She worked on large mixed media pieces on paper as I painted. After leaving Cedar Point, she spent a week in New York City with the Art21 Summer Institute for educators and then went back to Cedar Point for another week. She teaches art to middle-school students in Lincoln, Neb., and helps lead international trips through EFTours.
Sophia Ruppert created a table-top sculpture using parts of yucca plants and also cast plaster figures during her time at Cedar Point. We spent a foggy morning gathering fringed sage, also called prairie sagewort, (artemisia frigida) to tie into fragrant bundles. She’s completing her MFA at University of Nebraska-Lincoln next year and expects her thesis show to examine gender roles and family narratives.
Anne Yoncha worked on a large pencil drawing of prairie plants highlighted with ink she made from red cedar needles, and we spent several evenings watching sunsets and storms move across the open landscape. After recently completing her MFA at the University of Montana, she’s off to spend a year in Finland on a Fulbright grant.

I’m looking forward to following all these young women as they further their careers!