Goats at Angels Flight

Okay, this isn't about the Gold Line.  It isn't about Art.  But it is about "eats".  More specifically about the goats brought in to eat the grass on the Angels Knoll on Bunker Hill. 

According to Johnny Gonzales, the young man keeping an eye on them, there are 90 goats.  He told me it would take 4 days for them to clear the grassy hillside which means you only have two more days to go to downtown L.A. to join the hundreds of people watching this urban fantasy.  Oh, the company providing the goats is Environmental Land Management.  This company specializes in clearing brush and creating fire breaks around private homes.



To go by Metro, take the Red or Purple Metro Lines from Union Station to the Civic Center Station.  Then walk downhill for about two and a half blocks.  For a quarter you can ride the Angels Flight rail to the top of the hill then walk back down to Angels Knoll.  The goats, by the way, are very friendly.

More Pasadena Chalk Art Festival 2010 Photos

The first chalk art event I attended was at the Santa Barbara Mission and almost all the artworks were incredibly detailed reproductions of famous Renaissance paintings.  The Pasadena Chalk Art Festival couldn't be more different.  A dominant influence for the artworks is pop culture--in particular things we've all seen on TV or at the moves.

This dragon is a stunning departure from the tradition of 2D paintings for chalk art festivals.  The colors of the dragon do, in fact, come from chalk.

At the end of Day 2, here are some of the artworks created on the Paseo Colorado plaza.  There are more artworks across the street in front of the Convention Center.

This ghoulish creature will make all the zombie lovers happy!

And what would a Chalk Art Festival be without a sexy bathing beauty drawn on the plaza!

To see more photos from the Pasadena Chalk Art Festival go to http://www.pasadenaneighborhoods.com/2010_pasadena_chalk_festival.htm

Pasadena Chalk Festival - Day one: June 19

The annual Pasadena Chalk Art Festival started this morning at Paseo Colorado, just a few blocks east of the Del Mar or Memorial Park Gold Line Stations on Colorado Blvd.

Over a hundred chalk artists now fill the plaza with art works in process.  Only the Laker's chalk art is finished as of Saturday afternoon.  As you look around keep in mind there is an additional section of chalk art works across Green Street in front of the Convention Center.

One thing that stood out:  there are a lot of heads of women now taking shape on the plaza and more women artists that we remember seeing in previous years.

 Shortly after noon today we saw these -- and more!  Lots more!

Every year Randall Williams produces gorgeous chalk artwork based on classics.  This year he is working on a nude.

These artists seem to have missed the point of drawing art on the plaza floor.  They created an upright dragon.  But perhaps by tomorrow that dragon will be emerging from a chalk painting on the ground.

The Pasadena Chalk Festival continues tomorrow, June 20, 2010.  Free admission.  And good entertainment on two stages. 

If you get hungry there is always Camille's located on the south end of the plaza.  At Camille's you can order delicious wraps, sandwiches, etc. for a very reasonable price. 

New plaza at the Fillmore Gold Line Station

When the Gold Line cut through Pasadena, it left a stub of a drab street at Fillmore and Raymond.  That short street has now been transformed into a graceful plaza, lined with tall date palm trees.

The landscape design also includes drought tolerant plants--obviously the city has little interest in paying any water bills.  In four huge  pots are palo verde trees, which at this time of year bloom with tiny yellow flowers and even tinier green leaves. 

A little trivia here: palo verde means green stick and the tree gets its name because the branches and trunk are green, not brown.  And as you can see in the photo the leaves are miniscule.

The plaza is lined with a low wall with seating all along it so you can bring your Starbucks latte from the other side of the rail tracks and enjoy it in a charming setting. 

The plaza was dedicated about ten days ago.  Plans are in the works to add other small shops along the south side of the Fillmore Station Plaza.  Or at least that is what they are telling us!


To see more about the Fillmore Station in Pasadena, California, go to www.pasadenaneighborhoods.com/fillmore_station_gold_line.htm

Jacaranda trees blooming along Del Mar in Pasadena

Walk just around the corner from the Del Mar Gold Line station and you will see a mile long parade of Jacaranda trees blooming along Del Mar Blvd.   It is a glorious sight!  But a fleeting one.  The jacarandas are already beginning to drop their beautiful purple flowers and put out their new bright green leaves.

These jacarandas--and all others in Southern California--are the descendants of trees brought back from Brazil by one of the earliest Directors of the Los Angeles Arboretum.  The Arboretum was founded with the aim of finding flowering trees that could possibly grow in Southern California, then testing them for viability in our climate, then making the trees available to plant nurseries.  The first Arboretum expedition in search of flowering trees went to Australia and came back with acacias and eucalyptus. These tres are still alive and growing in the northern part of the Arboretum.

 It was several years later that another expedition went to Brazil, home to the Jacaranda.  They brought young trees back and within years jacarandas become one of the most popular trees in Southern California--even if they are a bit messy. 

It is definitely worth the trip on the Gold Line to the Del Mar Station to see this annual blossoming!

Dennis Hopper's Out of the Sixties for sale

Signed first edition of Dennis Hopper's photography book "Out of the Sixties" in very fine condition. It was given to me as a gift over 20 years ago and has been wrapped in plastic (not a publishers wrap) and laid flat on a shelf ever since then. There is a very slight, very small smudge on the front dust cover. It is signed on the introduction page where he wrote about himself. He signed it "D. Hopper". Price: $439.


Contact me at carollight@sbcglobal.net

Los Angeles River and Huel Howser

How does the relentlessly cheerful Huel Howser regard the Los Angeles River?  Visit  the back gallery of the Pasadena Museum of California Art and you will see one artist's personal interpretation of Howser's outlook in a painting entitled "The Right Side of Huel Howser's Brain".   It will make you laugh out loud.


This painting is part of an installation/exhibition called The Ulysses Guide to the Los Angeles River.  The dirty underbelly of the L.A. River is partially recreated in the gallery--complete with a broken concrete overpass, sound effects, graffiti, and debris piled in corners.  There are also dozens of paintings from the book "The Ulysses Guide to the Los Angeles River", the basis for this exhibit. 


A young artist to watch: Rob Sato.  His "Land Admiral Levebvre's Fleet Makes Sail" is a detailed river fantasy not to miss.  It is from a private collection and will no doubt vanish from public view after this show is done.  Go see it now while you can.


The Metro Gold Line station nearest the PMCA is the Memorial Park Station.

Nighthawks, Cliff Dwellers and Millard Sheets

Who knew that Millard Sheets created a painting, "Beer for Prosperity", which is strikingly similar to Edward Hopper's famous work, "Nighthawks"?  (Or perhaps it is the other way around.  "Beer for Prosperity" preceeded "Nighthawks" by 9 years.)

Who knew that Sheets painted his own version of George Bellow's 1913 famed work, "Cliff Dwellers", a scene of N.Y. tenement street life in the early 1900s.  Sheets' entitled his 1934 painting "Street People".

And who knew that Sheets for a very brief period of time dabbled in impressionism? (Thank heavens he gave up that style quickly!) 

Millard Sheets is, after all, one of the most viewed California artists even today, over 20 years after his death. Every day thousands of people walk by and admire his huge mosaic murals on the exterior walls of what are now 80 Chase Manhattan Banks in California. (These murals were originally commissioned in 1963 by Home Savings of America.) For most people, the murals and his famous painting "Angels Flight"  at LACMA are the most defining of Sheets' art works.

So the exhibition "Millard Sheets: The Early Years 1926-1944" at the Pasadena Museum of California Art is revealing.  During this time Sheets was a young artist with growing influence whose work, especially his watercolors, came to define California Regional Art. 

One sees an increasing simplification in his watercolors and oils. Fewer details.  More broad strokes of warm, golden colors -- California colors that seen to minimize the negative aspects of his subject matter.  Even his paintings of migrant worker camps in the heart of the Great Depression or Los Angeles tenements are infused with light and a sense of the benign that seems to distance the viewer from what was, no doubt, the harsh and ugly realities of the scenes.  

One other issue:  Sheets was obviously painting to sell to people who wanted art for their homes. And in that era people wanted beauty on their walls. There was plenty of ugliness and harsh realities outside their doors.

The show is worth seeing.  If you are taking the Gold Line, get off at the Memorial Park station in Pasadena.  Their website is http://www.pmcaonline.org/

 A companion exhibition, The Ulysses Guide to the Los Angeles River, is in the back gallery at PMCA.  More about this provocative show to come...

Best Museum in Pasadena

Okay, declaring the Pasadena Museum of California Art to be "Best of Pasadena" is definitely going out on a limb.  There are, no doubt, some who would argue that the Norton Simon, with its sizeable European art collection, is the best.  Others would immediately leap up and shout: "What about the Pacific Asia museum."


But my vote goes to Pasadena Museum of California Art for curating consistently interesting--even provocative--exhibitions of art works by Californians.  Take the Art + Science exhibition last year.  The artists whose work was exhibited often have "day jobs" at JPL or Cal Tech.  And these were not just cute little paintings done by scientists; the art work was good science first of all.  3D photos of Mars.  Art work create on site by pendlums.  Hyper close-ups of insects.  Topping it all: wall shadow/art created by a technology that I really did not understand. 


And that was just one show. 


While the Art + Science show took up the entire exhibition space at PMCA, generally, their space is split up and each of their five galleries is devoted to one artist.   For instance, the most recent exhibitions, for Fall 2009, included a retrospective of Wayne Thiebaud's paintings in the main gallery, prints by Frances Gearhart in the back gallery, and portraits on glass in the Foundation Gallery upstairs.  In all, this show demonstrated a century's worth of work by California artists.


This last Saturday, a new exhibition opened, showcasing the early works of Millard Sheets.  More about it to come...

The Gold Line station closest to the Pasadena Museum of California Art is

www.pasadenaneighborhoods.com/memorial_park_gold_line_station_museums.htm


PMCA is located at 490 E Union, Pasadena CA.  Open Wednesday through Sunday, noon to 5 p.m.

A Mystery at the East L.A. Civic Center

Of all the Gold Line Stations on the southern part of the line, the East L.A. Civic Center is the richest from an arts point of view.  There are sculptures, artistic ironwork, and murals at every turn. And one of these murals has a mysterious mosaic within it.

The Roybal Health Center is just across from the Gold Line station.  You can't miss it.  The broad brilliant primary color stripes of tile can be seen for blocks.  Nice colors, you think, looking at the side of the building that faces the station.

Then walk around to the front of the building and you will see a mosaic mural of Mayan pictograms embedded high up in the white stripe.  The series is almost one block long! 

My question is:  were they chosen for aesthetic reasons or do they contain a message? 


Does it say something like "Community Health Care at this location"?  Or "Bring sick people here"? 


Or are these just interesting figures lined up in a row to dramatize the cultural ancestory of most people in the neighborhood?  The color of the tiles in this mural are all the same: brown, blue, white and red.  Is that an artistic or cultural choice or was it simply a budget limitation?

The only thing I have seen that approaches this mysterious use of the Mayan alphabet is at the Heritage Square station, where Mayan characters have been cast in concrete and sited in a bed of plants beside the platform.  And I don't know what they say either.

To see the ones at the Heritage station, go to:

 http://www.pasadenaneighborhoods.com/heritage_square_gold_line_station_los_angeles.htm

More to come

Going Southeast on the Gold Line

I'm a Westside L.A. Lady (now living in Pasadena, I have to confess) who never ventured east of the L.A. River. Well, that's not entirely true, either, but more about La Serenata and Self Help Gallery later.


One day a year or so ago I got onto the Gold Line to go all the way down to Long Beach to meet someone for lunch.  It was a lark--a mini-adventure. Then a new world opened up before my eyes as I saw parts of Los Angeles I had never seen before. (And I moved here in the mid-1970s.) Suddenly I was reminded of my travels by rail in Europe. Los Angeles seemed to be a more urban city, more sophisticated. And the art works at the Metro stations was impressive.


So armed with my Canon digital camera I began to document the art at all the Gold Line stations. It's taken some time now, but I am almost done. There is no page yet for Little Tokyo/Arts District, but there will be soon. My Long Beach friend and I are going to the Geffen. I am encouraging her to take the Blue Line from Long Beach instead of driving her Mercedes and having to deal with traffic and parking.



As I explored the Gold Line, the one station that left me agog is at the East L.A. Civic Center. California golden poppies facing skyward inspired the sun shelter. The art at that Civic Center is amazing. And then there is the lake, a pool of serenity on the eastside.


If you want to see more right now go to:

http://www.pasadenaneighborhoods.com/east_l_a__civic_center_station_metro_gold_line.htm

More to come...

Best L.A. travel bargain and great art

The Metro Gold Line could be called the L.A. and Pasadena "Culture Line". Along its route are six notable museums as well as well as dozens of other cultural sites. And when you get hungry along the way, you can eat and rest and eat some more at terrific and very convenient restuarants.

To see more to to www.pasadenaneighborhoods.com/del_mar_station_gold_line.htm