500 Empty Bowls

 

bowl by Kenneth Chung

The best charity event I've ever been to was Saturday's 500 Empty Bowls, where one-of-a-kind, handmade ceramic bowls were going for $10 bucks each, with the money donated to feeding people in need. The metaphor serves the reality, which is nice, but that's not why I enjoyed it so much.

I planned to spend $10 but that was impossible because I had $20 in my pocket and it had to go. Every single bowl was beautiful, and they were all worth more than $10. (Don't need bowls? A handmade, one-of-a-kind ceramic bowl makes a great gift.) I bought two I loved, then ran into Pasadena Adjacent, who had alerted me to the event. She was practically forcing a bowl onto our mutual friend: "Take this one, this is a special glaze, it's really hard to do, this guy's so talented," etc.

bowl by ? Let me know if you know

Damn. I had already spent my $20. I wanted to keep the bowls I had and buy the special bowl. I told our friend I wanted the special bowl and I'd have to pay her later. No dice. She claimed it. Plus I didn't win the raffle. You'd think these setbacks would have ruined my fun, but I was in a souq of ceramics, ice cream, and people, with not a single pearl-bedraggled, evening-gowned matron in sight, and it was a blast.

Next year I'm going to bring a lot more money.

You can take classes in ceramics and other things at the Monrovia Community Adult School. Well worth a look.

Peace Pole

I'm thinking of not telling you where this is. Some people will know, of course. But this is the sort of urban art the authorities love to remove, and I think it's kind of nice. It's human. Anyone can make one.

Bellis and I think there's something to it. She led me there, and there is where both of our dogs got confused. They suddenly couldn't hear us. I think Boz was faking, but maybe not.

Altadena Rocks

My friend's foot is in a cast. I went to visit. She gave me coffee and a fresh, homemade scone. Apparently she hasn't been staying off her feet 24/7.

But hobbling around the house is about all she can do, and her sweet, relatively large dog is being patient about it.

"Is he getting walks?" I asked.

"When I have a volunteer," she said.

You know the rest. I enjoyed a walk around a quiet, Altadena neighborhood with a dapper escort in the form of Kirby, the yellow lab. (I'm guessing about the spelling of his name. "Kerby" would be a pun. "Curby" would be a double pun.)

Smart dog. He knew not to pee on these rocks.

Margaret Finnegan: Goddess of Inspiration

Today is release day! You can now buy a brand spankin' new copy of the brand spankin' new novel, The Goddess Lounge (paperback here), by South Pasadena's Margaret Finnegan. That is a beautiful thing, partly because I love Margaret and partly because I love The Goddess Lounge (ebook here). Also partly because Margaret inspires me.

Margaret's blog, Finnegan Begin Again, would be inspiration enough to read her novel because one always wants more of her unique writer's voice. But she's gone further by involving her readers in the processes of publication and promotion. We've been reading about goddesses, we voted on the book cover, and when it was time to make book trailers we contributed photos of ourselves being goddesses.

Margaret has created two (two!) book trailers. Here's one:


Here's the other:


I'm in the second one twice! The first photo you see is one John took of me. Plus, that's my voice, reading from Chapter Two. I'm honored to be included.

The publishing industry has changed so much in the past few years that publishing the book yourself has become the way to go, or it's certainly at least as viable as the traditional way.  I love what Margaret's doing. Her energy and innovative ideas inspire me, and I can't wait to get my copy of The Goddess Lounge.

The Birds Like the Stars

Last weekend's Knowledges at Mount Wilson Observatory was an ambitious exhibit of contemporary art, the Saturday portion of which sold out--okay with me, as I'm past my staying-up-late days. Because the exhibit was scheduled for the entire weekend, Bellis and I drove into the mountains on Sunday to see it.

Bellis and I especially liked this (plexiglass?) sculpture with three chambers: a lower, clear chamber, an upper chamber containing a complicated birds' nest, and a slim, top chamber with an inch or two of water in it. From one angle the sun shone through, from another you could see the solar telescope framed in the bottom chamber, from another angle, the bird's nest literally disappeared. From every direction, something new happened. Unfortunately, the piece wasn't labeled.

After deciding we liked the work very much, Bellis and I went on to walk around the Observatory. It looked like a lot of the works had been removed, but a trip to Mount Wilson is never wasted unless the place is closed, and even then you've had a relaxing mountain drive. A few interesting pieces remained, but I'd have been fine with it even if our plexiglass nest holder had been the only one still there.

Unfortunately, the brochure listed the artists but not their works, making it impossible to identify what works there were, as very little was labeled. But this is the first time they've done anything like this at Mount Wilson and I hope they do it again. I think it was pretty good for a first try. 

On our way out we stopped to visit our favorite piece again. By this time the sun was playing with the water in the top chamber. Hot yellow! Sugar pink! Searing blue! Bright green! Depending on where you stood you'd get a different flash of color, and we exclaimed like kids at the Fourth of July fireworks. "Ooh! Ah! Amazing!" We were thrilled with it; we kept moving around to all sides to see what it would do and where the sun would go. Oh! And how did the artist make that nest disappear?

A young man sat nearby taking pictures. So we asked, and yes, he was the artist. Otherwise I would not be able to tell you that this magical work is called "The Birds Like the Stars," and it was created by Claude Collins-Stracensky. I think he enjoyed our exclamations. It's art, of course, and as Collins-Stracensky hadn't declared his presence he could just as easily have overheard criticism. He said that's part of the fun. What a pleasure it was to meet him, and to be able to tell him honestly how much we liked his work. But he already knew that.

"This is a place of magic," the brochure says. They got that part exactly right.


(LOOKY! Pasadena Adjacent went Saturday night!)

Commute, 8

We're heading east on Silverlake Blvd. in Silver Lake, Los Angeles, approaching the corner of Reservoir St. This mural is on the back of what I think is still Tom's Burgers. Tom's is on a corner-shaped spit because really, where Silverlake meets Reservoir it also meets Parkman Avenue which, if we turn left on it, takes us behind ourselves to Sunset Blvd, under which we've just driven.

I love that sentence, even if you don't.

I didn't find out the name of the artist, but I did find Jubilee.


Update:
Thanks to Adele for discovering the name of the artist: Dcypher CBS. 

Commute, 1

Last week folks reacted positively to the Anawalt elephant. I see a lot of interesting things on my Wednesday commute to Hollywood. I don't get to photograph all of them because I'm driving, but if and when traffic stops (and it does, oh yes it does), I pass my wait time taking pictures of the good stuff. So perhaps Thursday is a good time to post the shots I get on the Wednesday drive.

I took this one on Santa Monica Blvd. somewhere around the junction of Hollywood and Silverlake (the areas, not the boulevards). I haven't been down Santa Monica Blvd. lately so I'm not sure if it's still there. I'm glad I got it when I did.

I had this photo for a while before I noticed what was extra special about this artwork.

Change is Work

The work must be done. Changes must be made. Things were falling to ruin and it's time to reverse the entropy. Get rid of what doesn't work and replace it with something that does. Chop-chop. The deadline looms.

Even so, there's room for beauty if you make it.

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CDP bloggers: if you're concerned about theme day because the portal's not working, check out Julie's link. 

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More emails coming in today from people unable to comment on Blogger. Thank you all, and wish me luck! This weekend I attempt the move to Wordpress so we can get back to normal around here. I'm not a software genius so there are no guarantees, and I will need that luck.

Ars Brevis

Bright colors haven't been the norm on this scraggle-spit of ground, where Foothill splits from Walnut to begin its eastern trek. I like this area, especially along Walnut: it's where small industries and artist studios set up shop, and you can find old train tracks along the north side of the road.

Now you can also find art. This work is called Planting a Garden. It's by Margaret Lazzari and Lauren Evans, and it's part of Pasadena's Rotating Public Art program. Medians and scraggle-spits like this one are just the spots for works such as this one. Watch for them at your favorite (or least favorite) median around town. Each piece is displayed for 18 months before it's rotated out and replaced with a new one.

This piece looked to be in fine condition when I stopped so I'm not sure what the caution tape was for. But this brings me to the fact that I stopped--stopped the car, got out, and looked up close. I recommend it. I like the piece as a whole, but I like the details even more. Click on the photos to enlarge them.

Plus, when you look closely, you can see the materials. I like knowing how this piece was put together and with what.

I also liked seeing how the location interacted, however tentatively, with the piece.

One of my favorite things about art is its subjectivity. No single work will please everyone. That's one of the many appealing things about this rotating program. Don't like the art? Don't worry. Just give it a little time.

Lincoln Heights: Art

There's art all over Lincoln Heights. Here's some of it.

We talked about Lincoln Park yesterday in the comments. I like this piece a lot, and not just because you can frame a tree with it. I like how the neighborhood rises beyond it, like its reason for being there.

If you turn around you see it's part of a larger artwork, The Wall las Memorias, the first publicly funded AIDS monument in the nation.

Roberta (Latino Heritage) mentioned this yesterday in the comments. You can see the horseshoe peeking out from behind it. It's actually not a horseshoe, but a design based on the AIDS awareness ribbon.

I don't know, do you call this art or architecture? Good architecture is art, after all. Maybe I should have put this in the architecture post from the other day. I like it a lot.

This mural has several panels. Karin posted another part, where the artists included pictures of themselves painting the mural. The whole thing is witty that way. I love how in this panel the artists incorporated the night deposit box as our hero's footrest.

I took a picture of the artist's signatures or I'd never remember that the mural was done in 1977 by Los Dos Streetscapers, David Botello and Wayne Healy, and renovated in 2006 by Paul Botello.

Lincoln Heights: Blessings

While in Lincoln Heights we stopped at Sacred Heart Church (est. 1897) for a few minutes and listened to the high school kids sing. The church was packed. It was noon-ish on a Wednesday. It was hard not to be charmed.

Sacred Heart School is across from the church. Karin tells the story of the mural here. It's about family and community, lives long and short and intertwined.

Manny estimates Lincoln Heights to be about 70% Hispanic (mostly of Mexican heritage), 20% Asian and 10% "everything else." Surely I'm generalizing, but 70% Hispanic/mostly Mexican is likely to mean a lot of Catholics.

Many of the markets in Lincoln Heights (except the Asian ones) have a representation of Our Lady of Guadalupe painted on the exterior. Always a lot of color; always Our Lady.

PLUS I CAN'T BELIEVE I FORGOT to include this in yesterday's post about Lincoln Heights architecture!

I haven't forgotten it's Thanksgiving, no indeed. I'm thankful every day for too many things to mention. Really, you don't want me to start. Once I get started I think of more and I can't stop.

So I'll just say here and in keeping with this post that I'm thankful for the diversity in our world and our nation, not to mention in Los Angeles and Pasadena and especially in my neighborhood of Northwest Pasadena. What a great place to live.

Happy Thanksgiving! May you have many blessings to count.

Grand Mosaic

This is  one of those things where if you know it's there it's no surprise, but if you don't, when you come upon it it's somehow incongruous.

I was of the latter persuasion, coming upon this and thinking, well, a modern tile mosaic is the last thing I expected above the entrance to underground parking.

I should make you guess where this is.

Maybe you already know?

It's at the north end of South Grand Avenue--the last building before the Colorado Street Bridge. It's nice to park there (on the street) and walk out onto the bridge for spectacular views and, right about now, some bracing wind. You can stop in the driveway for a bit of erudition on the way back to your car.

Hardware Horse

I thought of this for a Zen Monday shot, but make no mistake: I'm not making fun of it. I love this metal horse. John and I saw it while out perambulating. (We shouldn't take cameras, they slow us down.) I didn't notice until I put this on the monitor that the horse has a "for sale" sign tied around its neck.

A couple of days after I took the photo I was driving in Pasadena after dark. A truck changed lanes and pulled in front of me--this truck, with this horse in the bed, his for sale sign flapping like a proud, howdy bandana. I prayed for a red light because I wanted to take another photo. I got my red light, but the truck made it through and I lost him.

I don't know the asking price but I hope it sells high. 

Art, Art Everywhere

We were just walking, is all, moseying through the park, not expecting to find art. But this is the Dena, where you practically trip over art if you're not careful.

Kids played on the jungle gym. A couple flirted at one of the picnic tables. Guys got a soccer game going on the baseball field. I've never seen anyone play baseball there, only soccer.

If anyone noticed me taking pictures, they didn't care. No one claimed ownership of these works. I have no explanation for them whatsoever. There were birds' nests, landscapes and, uhm, what-have-you, but this is the piece that struck my fancy. This is the seminal one. I hope I don't mean that in all its definitions, but now that I think of it I don't want to know what materials were used.

Ce N'est Pas Une Tomate

Is it a picture of a tomato on the kitchen counter or is it art? 

I'm not fishing for compliments. I'm trying to make a decision.

When does an object become representative of something else? Where does art happen? On the kitchen counter? In the camera? On the computer screen? In the eyes of the beholder?

And what does it have to do with Pasadena?

Side Street Madonna

The stretch of Orange Grove Blvd. between Los Robles and Fair Oaks has Mexican restaurants, a Latin grocery, a hair salon and more. People live here, work here, get stuff done here. It's all a bit tattered--the only shiny thing besides the church is the new plant nursery on the corner of Orange Grove and Marengo. There's always a lot going on.

Google's street view photo, showing the north side of Orange Grove between Worcester and Marengo, must have been taken before I moved to Pasadena. The photo shows small homes. Now it's all storefronts.

The side streets go north and south into the neighborhoods. Just north of Orange Grove on a street called Worcester, a faded Madonna waits and watches in a meditative pose. I've driven by many times, and didn't notice until I finally stopped that she has little plastic stars glued into her thick, chipping paint. Someone must have thought the stars had value; many of them are missing.

Art like this abounds in Los Angeles, where Catholic Latin America makes its second home. Altadena Hiker did a couple of posts a while back featuring photos of murals along a downtown commute. East of West L.A., is always finding urban religious icons with which to haunt us. (Just look under "previous posts" and click on what intrigues you.)

Some of Pasadena's hidden treasures are more hidden than others.

Villa Parke Community Center

The Villa Parke Community Center is close to my house, but I had never been inside the courtyard until I found out there was a library there and they had a book I wanted.

If you haven't been to Villa Parke you're missing this extravagant and surprising fountain created by artist Dora De Larios. I say extravagant because it dominates a relatively small courtyard, and surprising because it's just beyond the doors from the street. Who knew it was there? I would imagine the thousands who use the community center's "social/recreation room, weight room, boxing room, teen facility meeting rooms, senior room, several small meeting rooms, two kitchens, lounge, and a gymnasium with showers and dressing rooms" knew it was there, but I didn't. I did know, however, about the farmers' market on the grounds, Tuesdays from 8:30am to 12:30pm.

The library is small, but the staff is friendly and helpful. They didn't have the book I wanted, but they located it for me at another branch. I got what I came for anyway.

Love Tag

I almost posted this photo for yesterday's "graffiti" theme day. I see this kid-sized blackboard on my walks in the neighborhood. I've even featured it before. The messages change, as you can imagine. This time I got permission from the homeowner to come onto the porch and get a close-up.

I resisted posting about graffiti yesterday--so much so, that when I did I used an old photo where the graffiti is off to the side in the picture. I don't want to encourage taggers. I don't want to spread gang messages.

As Margaret mentioned in yesterday's comments, "tagging and graffiti art are different things." As long as the owner of the "canvas" (i.e. wall, fence, or whatever's painted on) is fine with it, it's fine with me.

I do wish we, the City Daily Photo bloggers, would vote for more ambitious monthly themes. I'd like to see us challenge ourselves more.

Our Invisible Selves

photo by John Sandel

In yesterday's post I said, "I'm sorry some kids don't have art class in school today." I was referring obliquely to school budget cuts, not to any school district specifically. The first comment that came in was from J+P, who some of you know is my husband. I was asleep when, soon after midnight, he typed in his comment, "Kids don't have art classes any more? WTF?"

He must have stewed all day. I asked his permission to use his 5:18pm comment for today's post. The photo, too, is his.

Okay, so, what—now we’re supposed to start calling art & beauty &  self-expression luxuries? Because some benighted wart of a legislature can’t figure out how to reapportion its weapons allowance?

I’m thisclose to resigning my commission in a species which tells me that beauty and losing-one’s-way-in-the-forests-of-metaphor are less valuable than carnage over oil, or someone’s holy book. We can’t afford to teach kids art? So, then, the painters at Lascaux and Altamira—I guess they had it pretty comfy, 15,000 years ago. That must be why they handed their works of hallucinatory reportage down to us … not because they were in constant danger of attack from man & beast, nor cowed by nature’s baffling whims. They could afford art and its fierce timesink.

And what of the heroes lost to Nazi murderers—the Karels, Kleins and Weisses who withstood torture and starvation and still found a way to make art? They smuggled out symphonies and novels written on toilet paper rather than let their inspiration & craft fade away like smoke from a chimney. But we just can’t shift a few bucks out of the “Hummer” column into the “fingerpaint” column.

It makes my head smolder. We spend our present and bankrupt our future; this is no problem merely of money. When Shelley called poets “the unacknowledged legislators of the world,” he didn’t mean just writers and he wasn’t just being smug. Art has a power to drive the human imagination which war nor politics nor terror can ever match. But sometimes I wonder: maybe we know that and it scares us …

Art is central to our survival—it’s food for our invisible selves. Jesse Helms may have vilified Robert Mapplethorpe's photos because he knew about the towering outrage in the “Guernica”; and the subversive punch of Soul On Ice.

That’s pretty risky stuff, no? Better not let the kiddies get none o’that into their heads. But if they’d had a little more free expression as kids, the Stalins and Cheneys and Ahmadinejads of the world might have trained their energies into something positive.

This year, we cut the art budget. Gotta save the bucks, Charlie. Never mind the future—our appropriations guidelines were laid down for us …

Us. Never “them.” Never the kids. Always—us. It’s like we never got past the sixth grade, but we’re the ones with the plutonium.

June Gloom

It looks like some young artist couldn't be bothered to finish this plein air chalk work, and a few other things besides.

Gray skies, cool weather, on the gloomy side. Perfect for writers, but maybe not so great for those artists who need the light.

Here's hoping for a sunny Saturday!