Vampires on the Gold Line? Well, here is how it could happen!

Cate the Vampire has a hot new website.

Shameless self-promotion here!  I just published my newest novel, New Vampire Online.  And if you get it on Kindle and if you ride the Gold Line with your Kindle in hand you can carry  those vampires with you.  

And these vampires are a humorous bunch!  

In her human life Cate was a Hollywood make-up artist who was seduced by Jack, the vampire surfer.  What happens after that?  You can find out in the first book in the series, New Vampire in Town, which is now only .99 on Kindle, iTunes and Nook.

In New Vampire Online, the second book in the series, Cate the vampire, or as she thinks of herself, a ‘night person’, has launched a hot new online business with the help of Conrad, her sexy Cuban-American vampire boyfriend. Then Jack the vampire surfer shows up again.  Before long, cops ring the doorbell, asking questions.  And then more cops show up.  Then there is that little escapade at the Chateau Montaigne near the Sunset Strip and the disappearance of her RV.  Maybe Conrad is right: Cate seems to run into trouble everywhere.

To see photos of locations mentioned in the New Vampire books, visit my Pinterest Board.

 

Don't miss the Sam Francis show on October 11, Pasadena Art Night

Yes.  It's that time of year again.  Pasadena Art Night 2013 is on October 11 and admission to 18 art and culture venues will be free from 6 to 10 p.m.

New this year: eleven food trucks, stationed near various museums, will be donating 10% of their proceeds to support future ArtNight events.

Now, as the headline for this post indicates the Sam Francis retrospective at the Pasadena Museum of California Art (PMCA) should be at the top of your must-see list.  The 114 paintings in the show cover his amazing career from start to finish.  You will see the first work he did, a watercolor painted while he was flat on his stomach--for months--recovering from illness. Then decade after decade of his work unfolds on the museum walls, his assurance growing, his colors more vibrant. 

As always, a free shuttle service will take you from location to location, but unless you start promptly at 6 p.m. you may find it difficult to take in all the exhibitions.  There is almost too much good stuff!

I have another blog that may interest you: L.A. City Pix.  Visit it now.

What? Another Farmers Market? Well, this one has paella for sale

Cooking up paella at the Old Town
Farmers Market in Pasadena

Yep.  There is yet another Farmers Market.  It opened last Sunday on Holly Street between Fair Oaks and Raymond in Old Town Pasadena.  The vendors were selling all the usual stuff.  The greens, such as lettuce, looked very left over.  They were probably picked--or picked up--on Friday.  The stone fruits were okay as were the root vegetables.

I went to the market because I wanted to have a tamale for breakfast.  Unfortunately, there were no tables and I don't like to eat standing up, so no tamale for me.  And I doubt that they will be adding tables because a couple of the restaurants along Holly street were open for breakfast/brunch and they don't want the competition.

But then there was the group making and selling paella!  What a concept, paella for breakfast!

Oh, starting this Sunday, August 25th, Lula Mae, my favorite gift store at the corner of Fair Oaks and Holly, will be open during Market hours. 

One more thing:  I have a new blog, L.A. City Pix.  Take a look at it.

Scene Painting at PMCA - a must see!

During the Great Depression of the 1930s and on through the '40s and '50s, there was a flowering of watercolor painting in California.  Until that era, watercolor was a medium that generally was used to color prints or make studies for "real" paintings--paintings in oil. 

In this large exhibition at the Pasadena Museum of California Art you can see the results of artists who began to take watercolor seriously.  The works shown, however, are not only watercolor; in fact, most of the exhibition is oils, with a small side gallery devoted to prints and pencil drawings from the 1930 to 1960.

Happily, the curator has attempted to identify the specific locale of each painting.  It is breathtaking to see what California looked like then.  In many works the California image is still rural, still pastoral.  But the urban scene of that era is also represented in paintings of downtown Los Angeles including Bunker Hill when it was still home to old, rickety Victorian houses. Newport Beach appears less cluttered, more carefree.  But Sunset Blvd. near downtown looks like it could be a New York immigrant slum in one painting or, in a work by another artist, a Disney-ish happy land.

While most of the works are landscapes or cityscapes, one gallery is devoted to paintings of people involved in daily activities during that era. Again, there is a sense of great change.

Go see this exhibition.  It runs through July 28th, Wednesdays through Sundays only.

You can reach the Pasadena Museum of California Art in the Gold Line.  Get off at the Memorial Park Station and walk east.