Arroyo october 2016 by Southland Publishing

FINE FIN FI N E LIVING IN THE GREATER GREA ATER R PASADENA PAS PA SAD SADENA AREA

October 2016

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arroyo

VOLUME 12 | NUMBER 10 | OCTOBER 2016

PHOTOS: (Top) Courtesy of The Huntington Library, Art Collections, and Botanical Gardens; (bottom left) Ken Hively; (bottom right) Alex Berliner

FALL ARTS 13 PICASSO’S PROCESS A new Norton Simon show of midcentury lithographs reveals “the movement of [the artist’s] thought.” —By SCARLET CHENG

19 THE ARTS OF MARRIAGE Pasadena couple Rachel Fine and Christopher Hawthorne help shape L.A.’s cultural landscape. —By DENISE ABBOTT

33 CHINESE WOODBLOCK PRINTS The Huntington exhibits rare, important examples of the neglected genre. —By SCARLET CHENG

39 THE END OF AN ERA Jeffrey Kahane embarks on his last season as the acclaimed music director of the L.A. Chamber Orchestra. —By BETTIJANE LEVINE

DEPARTMENTS 10

FESTIVITIES HBO Emmy party, Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom opens at the Taper

LÉON BING The mother of all role models

ARROYO HOME SALES INDEX

KITCHEN CONFESSIONS The hot sauce craze sizzled in Long Beach.

THE LIST Wicked Lit haunts Altadena, The Autry opens California Continued, “the Da Vinci of data” comes to Art Center

ABOUT THE COVER: A detail from Women of Algiers I by Pablo Picasso, courtesy of Norton Simon Art Foundation 10.16 ARROYO | 7

EDITOR’S NOTE

Arroyo’s Fall Arts issue is one of my favorites (and judging from the large number of museums — eight [nine including the Bunny Museum] — in Pasadena and San Marino, relative to the modest population of 150,000, I’m not alone). This month we talk to some of the people who help shape L.A.’s cultural landscape, like Altadena newcomer Jeffrey Kahane, who’s embarking on his final season as lauded music director of the L.A. Chamber Orchestra. In conversation with Bettijane Levine, Kahane looks back on 20 years conducting from the piano, in which he accomplished the unlikely task of blending innovation with a mainly classical repertoire. Denise Abbott talks to a Pasadena couple who make their careers in the arts — Rachel Fine, the new managing director of The Wallis theater complex in Beverly Hills, and Christopher Hawthorne, the LA Times’ architecture critic. And Scarlet Cheng interviews curators of a couple of terrific museum shows on view this month – Chinese woodblock prints at The Huntington and Picasso lithos at the Norton Simon. You may be unfamiliar with Chinese woodblock prints, which have been largely eclipsed in the West by their Japanese counterparts. But that’s precisely why this show is not to be missed. The important, rare works on display include The Huntington’s own recently acquired first edition of a 17th-century painting and calligraphy manual considered among the most important illustrated Chinese books ever published. As Cheng learned from co-curator June Li, this is the first time this edition of the Ten Bamboo Studio Manual has been on public view. Cheng also spoke to the Norton Simon’s Emily Beeny, who assembled a fascinating series of Picasso lithographs from 1945-60. For the Spaniard, that was a fertile period for experimentation in the medium — he produced multiple images from each litho plate that together revealed “the movement of [his] thought.” —Irene Lacher

EDITOR IN CHIEF Irene Lacher ART DIRECTOR Carla Cortez ASSISTANT ART DIRECTOR Stephanie Torres PRODUCTION DESIGNERS Rochelle Bassarear, Richard Garcia EDITOR-AT-LARGE Bettijane Levine COPY EDITOR John Seeley CONTRIBUTORS Denise Abbott, Leslie Bilderback, Léon Bing, Martin Booe, James Carbone, Michael Cervin, Scarlet Cheng, Richard Cunningham, Carole Dixon, Lisa Dupuy, Lynne Heffley, Kathleen Kelleher, Rebecca Kuzins, Elizabeth McMillian, Brenda Rees, John Sollenberger, Nancy Spiller, Leslie A. Westbrook ADVERTISING DIRECTOR Dina Stegon ACCOUNT EXECUTIVES Lisa Chase, Brenda Clarke, Leslie Lamm ADVERTORIAL CONTRIBUTING EDITOR Bruce Haring HUMAN RESOURCES MANAGER Andrea Baker PAYROLL Linda Lam CONTROLLER Kacie Cobian ACCOUNTING Sharon Huie, Teni Keshishian OFFICE MANAGER Ann Turrietta PUBLISHER Jon Guynn 8 | ARROYO | 10.16

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SOUTHLAND PUBLISHING V.P. OF OPERATIONS David Comden PRESIDENT Bruce Bolkin CONTACT US ADVERTISING dinas@pasadenaweekly.com EDITORIAL editor@arroyomonthly.com PHONE (626) 584-1500 FAX (626) 795-0149 MAILING ADDRESS 50 S. De Lacey Ave., Ste. 200, Pasadena, CA 91105 ArroyoMonthly.com

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FESTIVITIES

Billy Butchkavitch with his event team, Peggy and Brian Butchkavitz

Phylicia Rashad 10 | ARROYO | 10.16

For his 18th HBO Emmy party on Sept. 18, Pasadenabased event designer Billy Butchkavitch turned West Hollywood’s Pacific Design Center Plaza into a veritable sea of blue — with numerous green-lit fountains, one a dramatic cascading fountain sculpture 24 feet high that dominated the VIP dining tent, topping 50,000 square feet of custom carpet with a rippling water pattern. HBO again took home plenty of the gold with 22 wins, including 12 for Game of Thrones, bringing the show’s Emmy total to 38, the most ever awarded a fiction series. Other winners included satirist John Oliver and Veep’s Julia Louis-Dreyfus, who mock lamented, "Our show started out as a political satire, but it now feels more like a sobering documentary.”… The Mark Taper Forum opened its revival of Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, August Wilson’s searing classic play about racism in Chicago’s music industry in 1927, on Sept. 11. The production, directed by Phylicia Rashad, brought out a slew of stars, including Debbie Allen, Angela Bassett and Mad Men’s Matthew Weiner.

Matthew Weiner

Angela Bassett

Julia Louis-Dreyfus

Erica Schmidt, Matt Berninger and Peter Dinklage

Niecy Nash and Amy Schumer

Norm Nixon and Debbie Allen

PHOTOS: Jeff Kravitz/FilmMagic and Gabor Ekecs (HBO) ; Ryan Miller/Capture Imaging (The Mark Taper Forum)

John Oliver and Kate Norley

LÉON BING Bing’s mother in her salad days

MOTHER COURAGE W

hen I was a kid in Northern California, a favorite treat was a long afternoon drive with my family in my grandfather’s sedan. Pampy, which is what I called my grandfather (for whom I was named), got a new Cadillac every two years but the colors never varied: dark blue with velvety gray upholstery. I always sat in the back seat between my mother and Hotten (my great-aunt); my grandmother Nonnie rode in the front passenger seat. We always took a picnic hamper fitted out with blueand-white–speckled enamel plates and mugs, a checkered cloth and napkins, and fi lled with individually wrapped chicken sandwiches on white bread with the crusts off, stuffed eggs, oranges and ladyfingers for me. There was a big Thermos of coffee for the adults and one of ice water for me. (I didn’t like milk but I gulped down water by the glassful; Pampy invariably referred to me as “the water fiend.”) When we drove past fruit orchards, he would pull over to the side of the road, we would all get out of the car and the adults would pick clean any of the branches hanging over the fences. This was not considered stealing by my family: anything outside the boundaries of an orchard was rationalized as public property. Then we’d get back in the car and drive on until we came to a wooded area, preferably bisected by a stream. This would be the place where we would stop and have our picnic, after which I’d take an empty jar to the bank of the stream and try to catch tadpoles. When I succeeded at this enterprise, everyone exclaimed over the tiny trapped creatures and then we would pour them back into their shallow stream with the promise that we’d come and see them when they turned into frogs. At some point during any excursion that involved a stream, it seemed inevitable that Nonnie would stumble and wind up sitting in the shallow water. This even got a smile from my stern, often humorless, grandfather. And the rest of the family, including my grandmother, laughed until we were breathless. After the last of the food had been eaten and the hamper put away, Pampy would sometimes announce that we were going to visit the Water Temple. That was always a thrill because the Sunol Water Temple in Alameda County was very beautiful, with tall columns and a tiled roof crowned by a sculpture of dolphins. I loved going to the Water Temple, even though looking down at the pale blue gallons roiling noisily around the white-tiled walls was rather frightening. When I asked my mother if there was a bottom to the well, she told me there was not. None at all. Of course, this wasn’t true. The Sunol Water Temple marks the confluence of three sources of water flowing into the Sunol Valley of southern Alameda County. But, thanks to a small untruth, it was my fi rst palpable encounter with infinity. I didn’t live with my mother or any of the five stepfathers who stepped briefly into our lives. My father had been banished when I was about three and I saw him less and less as the years went by and new husbands came and went. Before I was enrolled in a Berkeley boarding school, I lived with my grandparents and Hotten and Uncle Henry (both my grandmother’s siblings, both unmarried) in a rambling bungalow in Piedmont, a hilly enclave near Berkeley. But Mother was a constant presence: she’d come to see me nearly every day and we’d take long drives in her car. She brought with her a kind of naughty fun: my favorite was the Swearing Game, in which I’d call out words like “hell” and “damn” and “mumser” (something Nonnie hissed about a neighbor she despised) and my

I LOVED MY MOTHER WITH A THROAT-SWELLING INTENSITY DURING THOSE AFTERNOON DRIVES... mother would repeat them in a dramatic tone. I was crazy about that game because it was a secret between us; nobody else was allowed to know about it. I loved my mother with a throat-swelling intensity during those afternoon drives, but sometimes a feeling like sheet lightning inside my head made me want to scream at her and force her to tell me why it was all right for her to leave my father but not all right for him to come and take me on drives in his car so he and I could make up our own private games. I never worked up the courage to ask her — I was grateful for our afternoons and I was afraid that if I asked about my father, I might cry. My mother never cried and I thought she might stop liking me if I did. –continued on page 12

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LÉON BING Estelle Lang,a few husbands later

–continued from page 11

Mother told a very interesting story to Nonnie and Hotten one afternoon after our drive. They were seated around the kitchen table with a plate of pastries and a pot of coffee and I was reading in the breakfast room, but when my mother began to speak, I leaned forward to listen. She had begun to go out with a man named Barney, who owned, among other enterprises, a nightclub in East Oakland. One evening my mother hectored Barney into taking her to the club. The patrons who flooded the club’s dance floor were young shipyard workers and flashily dressed girls given to gum-snapping and squeals. My mother had a great knack for fitting in, so she ordered a beer and she and Barney danced and then she asked him for directions to the restroom. Barney told her to use the bathroom in his office and guided her around the teeming dance floor to a small room with a battered desk, a chair, a metal cabinet and stacks of 10- and 20-dollar bills piled on every available surface. Barney opened the door to a tiny bathroom and glanced at the cash. Then he turned back to my mother, told her he’d be waiting just outside the office door and that he wanted to hear her hands clapping the whole time she was alone inside. Then he stepped out of the room and she began to clap her hands while she stood quietly for a long moment, thinking. Then she raised her skirt and began to slap the inside of one long, slender thigh in a steady cadence. Later, when Barney’s car pulled to the curb in front of her apartment, he leaned forward to kiss her. She nudged him back, smiling. “I have something for you.” “Aw, you shouldn’t be buyin’ me presents, honey.” “Don’t worry. I didn’t buy it.” And my mother opened her bag and turned it over. Twenties and tens showered down to the floor in a pool between them. Barney’s eyes widened and he stared at my mother. “What the hell…?” My mother leaned in to whisper. “I’m Estelle Lang. I don’t steal. If you need to hear applause, buy tickets to the opera.” That was my mother: proud, independent and never at a loss for the perfect response. She was like that until she died, well into her 80s, in 2002. She was my best friend, she could always make me laugh and I miss her every day. |||| 12 | ARROYO | 10.16

, 1946

IMAGE: Courtesy of the Norton Simon Museum

PICASSO’S

PROCESS

A new Norton Simon show of midcentury lithographs, curated by European art expert Emily Beeny, reveals “the movement of [Picasso’s] thought.” BY SCARLET CHENG

PUTTING TOGETHER A MUSEUM EXHIBITION REQUIRES

PICASSO LITHOGRAPHS 1945–1960 (OCT. 14 THROUGH FEB. 13,

DEDICATED RESEARCH AND INFORMED SELECTION THAT

2017) A YEAR AGO. HER JOB WAS FACILITATED BY THE FACT THAT

MAY TAKE A YEAR OR MORE TO COMPLETE. EMILY A. BEENY,

THE MUSEUM HOLDS OVER 700 PRINTS BY PABLO PICASSO BUT,

ASSOCIATE CURATOR AT THE NORTON SIMON MUSEUM,

LIKE ALL GOOD CURATORS, SHE WANTED TO BE ABLE TO TELL A

BEGAN WORKING ON THE NEW EXHIBITION STATES OF MIND:

STORY THROUGH HER SELECTIONS AND PRESENTATION. –continued on page 15 10.16 | ARROYO | 13

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IMAGES: Courtesy of the Norton Simon Museum

–continued from page 13

“I’m not a Picasso specialist by training,” Beeny says during an interview at the Pasadena museum. Still, her quick and lively answers while calling up images from her computer or pulling a book off the shelf reflect the enthusiasm with which she plunged into the subject matter. “For me this has been a tremendous journey of discovery.” Beeny came to the Norton Simon two years ago, from a job as assistant curator of European paintings at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston. She had studied art history at New York’s Columbia University, where her doctoral dissertation was on Nicolas Poussin, considered the father of the classical French tradition of painting. In 2009, she moved to Los Angeles briefly, for the length of an internship at the Getty Museum. “I fell in love with the Norton Simon collection,” she says. “So when the position of associate curator came open, I leapt at the opportunity to return to L.A. and work with these amazing objects.” Carol Togneri, chief curator of the Norton Simon, says, “Emily has been a wonderful addition to the Norton Simon Museum, bringing her expertise, enthusiasm and expansive knowledge of European art to our galleries.” Comprising some 80 artworks, States of Mind explores the artist’s venture into printmaking and how it helped him work out creative ideas. In the mid-1940s, Picasso, who had spent the war years in Paris, felt that he had come to the moment “when the movement of my thought interests me more than the thought itself.” Printmaking, especially lithography, easily allows for early versions to be made before the final one. In lithography the image is directly drawn or transferred to a litho stone or plate, then the surface is treated to repel the ink except for the marked areas. Unlike the traditional practice of creating one final print, Picasso advanced the medium by producing multiple versions — redrawing the image or using different colors on the same litho plate. –continued on page 16

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Head of Young Girl, 1945

Early in his career, in the 1910s and 1920s, Picasso had made a few dozen lithographs using standard techniques. As a seasoned artist in his 60s, he was inspired to experiment by a 1945 visit to the Mourlot Frères lithography shop in Paris. (He had also recently changed girlfriends, taking up with the young art student Françoise Gilot the year before. Gilot is the mother of Claude and Paloma Picasso and a former Southern California resident as the second wife of the late polio vaccine pioneer, Jonas Salk.) “He arrived as though he were going to battle,” recalled Fernand Mourlot, the studio’s director. The artist came armed with new ideas for the medium, such as using collage, mixed media and grattage (a surrealist painting technique). That prompted one master printer to ask indignantly, “How could anyone possibly print from that?” Picasso was resolute and industrious. In three years, he produced 185 plates, then 400 more by the end of the 1960s. A set of 228 of Mourlot’s prints joined the art collection of American industrialist Norton Simon through a single sale in 1977; Mourlot sold them through the Berggruen Gallery in Paris. Simon was known for his business acumen, making Hunt’s Foods a household name in the mid-1940s, later diversifying into publishing (McCall’s Publishing), soft drinks (Canada Dry), car rental (Avis) and cosmetics (Max Factor). By the mid-1950s he was a passionate art collector, specializing in Old Masters, Impressionists and South Asian art and, in 1973, he took over the ﬁnancially crippled Pasadena Museum of Modern Art. Simon combined its holdings with his own collection and reopened it the next year as the now world-famous Norton Simon Museum, on the corner of Orange Grove and Colorado boulevards. States of Mind focuses on lithos Picasso completed from 1945 to 1960, for which multiple stages can be shown. They provide some insight into his creative process. For 16 | ARROYO | 10.16

example, dramatic changes can be seen in three stages of the 1945 portrait Long-Haired Young Girl, although some key features of the subject (almost certainly inspired by Gilot) survive throughout. The first one included in the exhibition, pulled Nov. 6 of that year, is basically a working sketch, with many thinner lines working into darker, thicker ones to define a woman with large, uneven eyes, a large bouffant hairdo divided in the middle and a skinny neck. In the next one, pulled three days later, the face became larger, the pupils removed, so that the figure seems to be staring blankly into space. The final print, pulled Nov. 24, was highly simplified and graphic, with head and hair mainly outlines. Another example of his working from “dark to light,” that is, removing sections that will be inked, is The Bull from the same year. Bulls, and bullfighting, appealed to Picasso’s well-documented machismo and were subjects he returned to again and again. This work went through 11 recorded stages, four of which are in this exhibition. What’s impressive is that each is a work of art one would be pleased to own. The first one is again a working drawing, with many lines and shadings. “He moves bits of the anatomy around, the head is suddenly swollen to immense proportions, and you can see the plate is also kind of dirty,” Beeny says. In the show’s next version (actually the fourth), the bull becomes “carved up into these geometric segments, and progressively simplified.” The 11th and final state is basically a stick figure, with a big “U” on its tiny head to signify horns. While many of the lithos are in black and white, Picasso occasionally worked with color, as he did in Still Life with Three Apples (1945), which is shown in three stages. The work depicts a grouping of three apples next to a vase, and the final version is almost

IMAGES: Courtesy of the Norton Simon Museum

–continued from page 15

Long-Haired Young Girl, 1945

midcentury in style, with just three patches of solid pastel color behind the simple line drawing. The artist later attempted far more complex compositions; for example, he made a series of lithos inspired by Eugène Delacroix’s famous Orientalist painting, Women of Algiers, a highly exoticized rendering of women lolling about in their palatial quarters. Picasso’s prints juxtapose various artistic renderings of women — a large ﬁgure to the left with a headdress and bared breasts, one in the background that is basically a cut-out shape, one to the right that depicts a blocky sculptural form. Around the same time he also produced 15 paintings with the same title, and one of them, Women of Algiers, I (1955), is included in the exhibition; these paintings are listed by letters of the alphabet to distinguish them. “A claim we’re making with this show is that serial lithography informs his painting practice in the last decade of his life,” says Beeny, “that he essentially tries to do something in his paintings that he’s done in his lithographs.” The painting on display also juxtaposes numerous images of women in diﬀerent states of dress and undress and poses, crammed into a tight architectural space. It is quite colorful and evokes Matisse’s Orientalist paintings. In a way, says Beeny, it is an homage to Matisse, an artist whom Picasso saw as his only real rival and who died in 1954, during the Spaniard’s litho period.|||| States of Mind: Picasso Lithographs 1945-1960 runs from Oct. 14 to Feb. 13, 2017 at the Norton Simon Museum, 411 W. Colorado Blvd., Pasadena. Call (626) 449-6840 or visit nortonsimon.org. 10.16 | ARROYO | 17

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Christopher Hawthorne and Rachel Fine

THE ARTS OF MARRIAGE IT’S THE DAY FOLLOWING WELCOMEFEST, THE PUBLIC SMASH-BASH HOSTED BY THE WALLIS ANNENBERG CENTER FOR THE PERFORMING ARTS TO WELCOME ITS NEW ARTISTIC DIRECTOR, PAUL CREWES. THE FREE FESTIVAL INCLUDED A ROSTER OF MORE THAN 100 ARTISTS (INCLUDING THE ACCLAIMED CHOREOGRAPHER MATTHEW

Pasadena-based arts administrator Rachel Fine and architecture critic Christopher Hawthorne help shape L.A.’s cultural landscape. BY DENISE ABBOTT

BOURNE, DEAF WEST THEATRE AND JACOB JONAS THE COMPANY) AND DREW CULTURE SEEKERS

PHOTO: Alex Berliner

FROM ALL OVER LOS ANGELES. The Wallis’ managing director, Rachel Fine, is basking in the success as the budding Beverly Hills theater kicks oﬀ its fourth season. “The Wallis is now poised to solidify its identity as a major cultural player in Los Angeles,” she says with pride. “We have two theaters, plus an educational wing and an outdoor space built into the fabric of the building. There’s no arts venue like it anywhere.” Fine is relaxing in the Pasadena home she shares with husband Christopher Hawthorne, the architecture critic for the Los Angeles Times. The striking duo stand out in greater L.A.’s creative community as leaders in the conversation about the city’s cultural future. While culture has always been inﬂuential here, L.A.’s status as an arts hub really blossomed 13 years ago with the downtown opening of Frank Gehry’s Walt Disney Concert

Hall, Fine observes. The Music Center’s spectacular fourth hall houses not only the world’s largest orchestra but one of its the most prominent, she says. “The New Yorker’s classical music critic now divides his time between New York and L.A.,” she says. “The building itself has become an iconic space.” Indeed, architectural experimentation is rife in L.A. as the city enters what Hawthorne calls “Third L.A.” — the transition from a place dominated by car culture and single-family dwellings to a city that has run out of space and is folding back on itself. (Third L.A. is the subject of a book Hawthorne is writing and an Oct. 23 KCET Artbound episode about his view of the city as “a model of urban reinvention for the nation and the world.”) “Now that we’ve run out of room the challenge is to transform the innovation we’ve so admired in the private sector into the public realm,” he says. 10.16 | ARROYO | 19

Christopher, Adelaide, Rachel and Willa

Exciting, yes, but the challenges can be daunting. Case in point: In 2005, philanthropist Wallis Annenberg’s foundation donated more than $27 million to turn the former Marion Davies estate on Santa Monica State Beach into a public recreation facility; it took four more years to build the Annenberg Community Beach House after hammering out an unusual partnership between the Annenberg Foundation, the City of Santa Monica and California State Parks. “It’s a huge undertaking,” Hawthorne says. “We need more patrons of that nature. Eli Broad has said the [Broad] museum is his last major philanthropic eﬀort. Where is the next generation going to come from?” Finding folks to pony up is of ongoing concern to any arts institution or project. “There’s an art to making sure you have a balanced portfolio of funders and establishing relationships and cultivating loyalty that you can leverage into funding,” observes Fine, whose multifaceted job includes fundraising, marketing, facilities and operations. “It takes time,” adds Hawthorne, who also teaches urban and environmental policy at Occidental College in Eagle Rock. “We don’t have families who’ve been sitting on boards for generations.” And yet the graying of arts audiences and benefactors has been a fact of life since the beginning of time. “Older audiences are the ones who have the time and ﬁnances to support these areas,” Fine says. “When kids are done with college, parents start participating. That’s just how it is.” 20 | ARROYO | 10.16

PHOTOS: Kevin Parry

–continued from page 19

It seems nearly inevitable that these two like-minded individuals would have ended up together. Although they didn’t realize it until later, they grew up within two blocks of each other in North Berkeley. Their fathers were in the same law school class at Berkeley’s Boalt Hall, and both attended Yale — Hawthorne as an undergrad, Fine as a grad student in musicology. But happenstance is what brought them together. They met at a Bay Area party in 1995, shortly before Fine moved to New Haven, Connecticut, for grad school. They reconnected when Fine returned to Northern California and married in Berkeley in December 2000. The setting was as stunning and significant as you might imagine — a landmark 1910 Berkeley church by architect Bernard Maybeck, who blended Craftsman style popular at the time with elements of Gothic, Byzantine and Romanesque revival. “We recognized in each other from the outset an insatiable curiosity, love of learning, adventurous spirit, and willingness to take risks,” Fine says. “Finally (and most important), our lives revolve around really good coffee. Absolutely critical to our relationship and marriage!” By then, they were living on the East Coast. In 1998, Fine followed Hawthorne to New York where he pursued a fellowship in arts journalism at Columbia University and she worked in administration at The Juilliard School. He returned the favor three years later, when the couple moved to Washington, D.C., for Fine’s fellowship in arts administration at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. After four years on the East Coast, they realized their hearts belonged in California, so they returned to the Bay Area. But when the L.A. Times offered a job to Hawthorne, then Slate’s architecture critic, in 2004, the thought of moving south was frankly distasteful. L.A. was not even on their radar. They’d visited only once, for the opening of the Getty Center in 1997. “When you grow up in Berkeley there’s a certain bias against L.A. that we had to overcome,” Hawthorne says. “We’re surprised we like it so much.” They love discovering new restaurants, doing “everything cultural,” participating in each other’s events and occasionally hanging out to binge-watch House of Cards. They share their busy lives with daughters Willa, 12, and Addie, 7, in an English country-style house in Pasadena. It might seem surprising that someone who writes about the new would settle in an area known for preservation, but Hawthorne grew up in a home that treasured the past. “A lot of my Times colleagues reside here. That was kind of our way into the behemoth that is L.A.,” says Hawthorne, whose mother co-founded the Berkeley Architectural Heritage Foundation. “The vintage architecture is similar to Berkeley, and I love the richness of character.” Pasadena also satisfied Fine’s stipulation that a Peet’s Coffee House be located within walking distance. “Peet’s is a Berkeley institution, and we lived close to the first one. That was a must.” They’re happy that so much is in walking or biking distance — the kids’ private school as well as The Huntington and Caltech. Not surprisingly, their girls get plenty of exposure to the arts. “When Willa was in Los Angeles Opera’s production of La Bohème, Addie came and was so excited to see her first opera, she went twice,” says Fine. Not all L.A. children are so fortunate, and the pair lament the lack of arts funding in public schools. For administrator Fine, community outreach is a high priority. “Many studies are showing that the arts are key to other elements in kids’ lives,” she says. “The Wallis’ Education Wing brings in about 92,000 underserved schoolkids a year. “ Her head is swimming with ideas now that she’s focused on one brick-and-mortar theater complex, Beverly Hills’ renovated former post office, built in 1934. Her extensive arts administration background before The Wallis includes four years as executive director of L.A. Children’s Chorus in Pasadena and five years with the L.A. Chamber Orchestra, which performs in Pasadena and around L.A. There she spearheaded such high-profile community events as 2013’s Strad Fest L.A., a four-day citywide festival showcasing eight Stradivarius violins, which earned national press coverage and a record-breaking fundraiser for LACO. In 2012, Fine, a professional pianist herself, managed the L.A. leg of “Play Me, I’m Yours,” an internationally touring interactive music/art installation by artist Luke Jerram. The ambitious three-week project placed 30 pianos in 30 locations across L.A., where they were played simultaneously. “They were exciting but very, very difficult to pull off,” Fine says. With projects like WelcomeFest, Fine wants to spread the word that The Wallis is a space for everybody, not just people in Beverly Hills. Sharing the city’s cultural riches is of utmost importance to the couple. “Old frontiers can become new frontiers again,” concludes Hawthorne, “but it takes time.” |||| 10.16 | ARROYO | 21

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PHOTOS: Courtesy of Gardenview Landscape and Pools

—ADVERTISING SUPPLEMENT—

From there, the pool became a fixture in the major cities of ancient Greece and Rome, where they became an architectural mainstay and a key part of public sanitation efforts. They were also a major social hub and an important part of raising children. The ancient Greeks believed it was essential that children be taught to swim as part of their standard education. The ruling class of ancient times had private pools that are remarkable even by today’s standards. The Romans in AD 305 had one bathing area that was over 900,000 square feet, warmed by fires beneath the pool floor. Emperors of both societies had pools where people enjoyed the water abounding with live fish. The first Jacuzzi was added around 8 BC by an associate of Emperor Caesar. And no, his name was not Jacuzzi – it was Gaius Macenus. The name Jacuzzi comes from the Italian brothers who set up a pumping system in the mid-20th Century to ease the pain from rheumatoid arthritis suffered by a young son. The idea soon caught on beyond physical therapy, and the name became synonymous with any and all similar spas. In the United States, the first in-ground pool is believed to be the deep Eddy Pool in Austin, Texas. Once a swimming hole on the Colorado River, the attraction grew into a resort, and today is operated by the city as a popular public pool. Not to be out-done, the Philadelphia Racquet Club built an above-ground pool in 1907. It was one of the first aboveground pool structures in the world. Today, the Association of Pool & Spa Professionals trade organization estimates there are more than 10 million residential and more than 300,000 public pools in the United States. No longer rare or exotic, today’s pools have become a hub of family activities and a prime entertaining area that takes advantage of our mild climate. –continued on page 24 10.16 | ARROYO | 23

PHOTOS: Courtesy of Huntington Pools in Glendora

—ADVERTISING SUPPLEMENT—

–continued from page 23

TRENDS IN POOL DESIGN While your standard square and kidney-shaped pools are still around, today infinity pools (so named because there’s no apparent edge) are the rage, creating the image of a pool that blends into the horizon without an apparent edge. Another huge trend is pools that have beach entries, which gained their name because you can enjoy a smooth transition into the water similar to that experienced at the ocean or lake. For those who like to show off a healthy glow, tanning ledges (sometimes called lounging edges) are becoming a must-have poolside feature. These shelves allow for maximum sun exposure while still cooling off in shallow water. There are also perimeter overflow pools, which have water spilling over the edges of the pool perimeter and recycled back, creating a fountain-like effect that’s very relaxing, as the sounds of burbling water calm the savage breast and create a pleasant back-tonature effect in our urban wilderness. Pool shapes aren’t the only innovation. Gone are the days where the bottom of the pool was merely a concrete seal against leakage. Glass tiles are becoming increasingly popular throughout the pool, reflecting warmth into the water and accenting the beauty of the water. Stone tiles, a more traditional option, are also adding textures and accents to liven up the ordinary. Outside the pool, fire pits and fire bowls add a bit of primal nature to your pool entertaining, particularly enhancing the nighttime swims, and textured pavers can add a touch of elegance to the pathway to get to your recreation area and the areas surrounding your pool LOCALS FRESHEN STYLES In the Pasadena area, there are already a number of homes that have established pools. But much as you change furniture and paint colors in a room occasionally to create a different vibe, so, too, can pool owners add a few simple touches to create a new and lively setting around their recreation areas. Jeff Lokker, the owner of Huntington Pools in Glendora, says that even established pool areas can be freshened with a few simple facelifts. The simplest touch? “We’re looking at plaster, tile and decking,” says –continued on page 27 24 | ARROYO | 10.16

10.16 | ARROYO | 25

26 | ARROYO | 10.16

—ADVERTISING SUPPLEMENT—

–continued from page 24

Lokker. “Every pool has a water line of tile and plaster – we remove that and replace it with a newer product, like going from standard white to a new pebble plaster finish or a glass pebble plaster finish. That’s the most cost-effective way to face-lift the pool.” Lokker is encouraging his clients toward more outdoor living, bringing indoor elements into the backyard. “That would be kitchens, outdoor barbeques, patio spaces,” he says. “A lot of (local) houses were built in the 20s, 30s and 40s, and that (outdoor living) trend hadn’t kicked in. We’re updating to incorporate that. We want to give them another way of using the pool, not just in summer.” Mark Meahl, the founder and president of Garden View Landscape and Pools in Monrovia, says the days when a pool was merely a concrete hole in the ground with water are in the past. “Making the pool a part of the outdoor living room that can also be used for recreation is a better investment and can be enjoyed year-round and in the evenings,” he says. Meahl is seeing a lot of area residents requesting the “Baja shelf,” a beach entry where the water is between six-inches to 18-inches deep. “Kids love it and you can put furniture and umbrellas in them,” he says. “If you go to a resort, you will notice most people are hanging out in the Baja Shelf and then occasionally dunking into the pool.” Surprisingly, diving boards are a thing of the past, Meahl notes. “Most insurance companies do not want to insure homes with pools that have diving boards,” he says. Ultimately, most people merely want “nicely designed pools that complement their home,” Meahl says. That’s one trend in swimming pools that’s as true today as it was 5,000 years ago.||||

10.16 | ARROYO | 27

arroyo

™

~HOM E SALES I N D EX~

4.28% ALHAMBRA ALHAMBRA (NEW) Homes Homes Sold Sold Median Median Price Price Median Median Sq. Sq. Ft. Ft. ALTADENA Homes Sold Median Price Median Sq. Ft. ARCADIA Homes Sold Median Price Median Sq. Ft. EAGLE ROCK Homes Sold Median Price Median Sq. Ft. GLENDALE Homes Sold Median Price Median Sq. Ft. LA CAÑADA Homes Sold Median Price Median Sq. Ft. PASADENA Homes Sold Median Price Median Sq. Ft. SAN MARINO Homes Sold Median Price Median Sq. Ft. SIERRA MADRE Homes Sold Median Price Median Sq. Ft. SOUTH PASADENA Homes Sold Median Price Median Sq. Ft. TOTAL Homes Sold Avg Price/Sq. Ft.

AUG. ’15 ’15 AUG. N/A n/a N/A n/a N/A n/a AUG. ’15 34 $675,000 1518 AUG. ’15 32 $910,000 1818 AUG. ’15 12 $812,000 1485 AUG. ’15 133 $640,000 1482 AUG. ’15 26 $1,450,000 2454 AUG. ’15 136 $690,250 1549 AUG. ’15 14 $2,190,000 3072 AUG. ’15 11 $950,000 1776 AUG. ’15 26 $1,040,000 1756 AUG. ’15 424 $561

AUG. ’16 AUG.’16 52 548000 $498,750 1442 1320 AUG. ’16 43 $740,000 1680 AUG. ’16 36 $990,000 1960 AUG. ’16 23 $690,000 1396 AUG. ’16 118 $685,000 1504 AUG. ’16 23 $1,800,000 2349 AUG. ’16 139 $704,000 1489 AUG. ’16 15 $2,162,000 2521 AUG. ’16 13 $1,290,000 1885 AUG. ’16 23 $950,000 1698 AUG. ’16 433 $585

HOMES SOLD

2016

433

AVG. PRICE/SQ. FT.

2015

aug.

HOMES SOLD

2.12%

aug.

424

HOME SALES

HOME SALES ABOVE RECENT HOME CLOSINGS IN THE PASADENA WEEKLY FOOTPRINT ADDRESS ALHAMBRA 500 North Almansor Street 238 South Curtis Ave. 214 North Bushnell Ave. 2802 West Ramona Road ALTADENA 2200 Midlothian Drive 1206 East Mendocino Street 2829 Lake Ave. 1999 East Altadena Drive 3821 Luna Court 1715 East Altadena Drive 3518 Hollyslope Road 1260 East Calaveras Street 1564 Gaywood Drive 928 East Palm Street 2475 Tanoble Drive 1937 Roosevelt Ave. 710 West Owen Court 1250 Meadowbrook Road ARCADIA 1076 Singing Wood Drive 1424 Caballero Road 105 Crystal Court 2101 South 8th Ave. 922 Derek Drive 1733 South 10th Ave. 150 East La Sierra Drive 1275 Oakglen Ave. 1328 North Santa Anita Ave. 332 Genoa Street 2256 Highland Oaks Drive 1752 North Santa Anita Ave. 1501 South Santa Anita Ave. 2624 South 10th Ave. 1770 North Santa Anita Ave. 610 South 2nd Ave. #C 151 Christina Street 1311 Loganrita Ave. 351 California Street #A 1036 Whispering Oaks Drive 2543 Mayflower Ave. EAGLE ROCK 4984 Vincent Ave. 5308 Live Oak View Ave. 4834 Ray Court 1819 Fair Park Ave. GLENDALE 3035 Country Club Drive 1350 Balmoral Drive 1601 Moreno Drive 1442 Virginia Ave. 3021 East Chevy Chase Drive 3337 Barnes Circle 1114 Orange Grove Ave. 1536 Bel Aire Drive 3335 Stephens Circle 1635 Virden Drive 5340 Quail Canyon Road 1477 Royal Blvd. 957 Pebbleshire Road 1612 Thompson Ave. 3933 El Lado Drive 1217 Winchester Ave. 4721 Moore Street 1338 Loreto Drive 1357 Moncado Drive 918 East California Ave. 3250 Altura Ave. 751 West Dryden Street 2652 East Glenoaks Blvd. 1329 Virginia Ave. 3542 Community Ave.

CLOSE DATE

PRICE

BDRMS.

SQ. FT.

source: CalREsource YR. BUILT PREV. PRICE

PREV. SOLD

08/11/16 08/31/16 08/24/16 08/04/16

$1,998,000 $1,368,000 $1,162,500 $925,000

4 9 4 7

4397 4791 3516 3307

1925 1928 1929 1976

$1,275,000 $1,189,000 $357,000

07/29/2011 05/23/2014 08/08/2002

08/15/16 08/18/16 08/05/16 08/05/16 08/16/16 08/18/16 08/10/16 08/16/16 08/08/16 08/31/16 08/18/16 08/03/16 08/05/16 08/30/16

$1,900,000 $1,600,000 $1,500,000 $1,475,000 $1,393,000 $1,375,000 $1,360,000 $1,315,000 $1,190,000 $1,149,000 $1,100,000 $1,067,000 $1,017,500 $965,000

3 3 4 4 5 3 3 4 3 3 3 5 3 2

3507 2719 2749 2265 3650 3005 2246 2087 2041 1960 1714 2558 2149 1884

1951 1924 1929 1948 1999 1920 1946 1926 1959 1937 1926 1926 1997 1948

$385,000 $865,000

08/29/1996 10/18/2002

$920,000

03/08/2011

$449,000 $800,000 $1,010,000 $280,000 $845,000

05/14/1993 06/02/2010 11/26/2014 08/16/1996 10/15/2012

$602,000

02/01/2012

08/02/16 08/01/16 08/11/16 08/10/16 08/11/16 08/15/16 08/08/16 08/15/16 08/29/16 08/31/16 08/30/16 08/23/16 08/10/16 08/26/16 08/23/16 08/24/16 08/16/16 08/23/16 08/05/16 08/30/16 08/29/16

$2,699,000 $2,420,000 $2,000,000 $1,700,000 $1,588,000 $1,575,000 $1,550,000 $1,450,000 $1,400,000 $1,315,000 $1,287,500 $1,240,000 $1,189,000 $1,118,000 $1,060,000 $1,030,000 $1,015,000 $1,000,000 $980,000 $968,000 $900,000

3 4 5 3 5 4 2 3 4 5 3 2 3 2 2 0 3 4 3 3 4

4260 3797 4617 995 3666 3732 1723 2336 2591 2726 2354 2095 1960 2165 1499 0 1949 2071 2484 2107 3085

1950 1950 2001 1950 1989 2006 1958 1971 1948 2015 1964 1948 1969 1946 1948

$1,390,000 $750,000 $985,000 $702,000 $640,000 $1,550,000

03/16/2004 07/24/1997 06/07/2001 11/08/2013 09/21/1990 11/28/2006

$655,000

11/05/2003

$820,000 $730,000 $886,000 $80,500

10/08/2004 08/16/2011 09/13/2007 02/24/1977

08/01/16 08/16/16 08/10/16 08/10/16

$1,149,000 $951,545 $917,000 $901,000

3 3 3 3

1364 2034 1708 1975

1916 1921 1947 1924

08/05/16 08/16/16 08/18/16 08/05/16 08/05/16 08/01/16 08/18/16 08/26/16 08/24/16 08/25/16 08/05/16 08/25/16 08/15/16 08/08/16 08/05/16 08/26/16 08/10/16 08/01/16 08/31/16 08/01/16 08/19/16 08/08/16 08/01/16 08/25/16 08/01/16

$1,695,000 $1,650,000 $1,625,000 $1,560,000 $1,400,000 $1,375,000 $1,310,000 $1,275,000 $1,250,000 $1,250,000 $1,208,000 $1,187,000 $1,165,000 $1,150,000 $1,150,000 $1,085,000 $1,056,000 $1,000,000 $999,000 $985,000 $980,000 $930,000 $925,000 $900,000 $891,000

2 4 4 3 2 4 7 4 5 3 5 3 4 3 5 2 3 3 4 5 4 4 3 3 5

2268 2972 3636 1521 2190 4060 3398 3094 4385 2339 4394 1823 2772 1921 2275 952 2545 2241 1928 2806 2000 1785 1876 1514 2125

1949 1981 1956 1924 1926 1988 1914 1926 1990 1963 1986 1946 1965 1955 1958 1921 1955 1967 1925 1922 1995 1941 1935 1923 1954

1971 1959 2000 1976 1950

$720,000

06/25/2004

$523,000 $174,000

04/01/2004 07/22/1985

$805,000

07/29/2014

$620,000 $295,455

04/30/2008 07/24/2003

$1,240,000 $860,000 $462,000 $705,000

06/17/2008 03/16/2004 05/13/1994 05/31/2000

$291,500 $355,000 $801,000

10/22/1986 11/23/1994 12/10/2012

$572,000 $1,025,000

03/13/2015 06/01/2005

$398,000

04/30/1998

$260,000 $702,000 $605,000

07/01/1997 02/05/2016 12/17/2012

–continued on page 30

The Arroyo Home Sales Index is calculated from residential home sales in Pasadena and the surrounding communities of South Pasadena, San Marino, La Canada Flintridge, Eagle Rock, Glendale (including Montrose), Altadena, Sierra Madre, Arcadia and Alhambra. Individual home sales data provided by CalREsource. Arroyo Home Sales Index © Arroyo 2016. Complete home sales listings appear each week in Pasadena Weekly.

10.16 ARROYO | 29

–continued from page 29 1260 Cleveland Road 1506 Thompson Ave. LA CAÑADA 4343 Commonwealth Ave. 5228 Escalante Drive 1941 Orchard Lane 5233 La Canada Blvd. 751 St. Katherine Drive 1746 Earlmont Ave. 811 Greenridge Drive 1204 Homewood Lane 2201 Canalda Drive 5804 Briartree Drive 2040 Orchard Lane 4384 Bel Aire Drive 519 Paulette Place 227 Starlane Drive 2124 Tondolea Lane 4756 Lasheart Drive 2111 Bristow Drive 1607 Verdugo Blvd. 4405 Vista Place PASADENA 1500 Normandy Drive 1 Oak Knoll Terrace 1215 Parkview Ave. 551 Prospect Blvd. 3141 East California Blvd. 766 South San Gabriel Blvd. 932 South Madison Ave. 869 South Oak Knoll Ave. 1105 Mesita Road 1415 Parkview Ave. 122 Arlington Drive 3400 Avondale Road 85 San Miguel Road 3044 Gainsborough Drive 1849 North Michigan Ave. 660 South Orange Grove Blvd. #A 1645 North Lake Ave. 381 Rosita Lane 275 Robincroft Drive 734 Rim Road 1480 Casa Grande Street 3180 Orlando Road 2001 Linda Vista Ave. 2265 East Orange Grove Blvd. 250 South De Lacey Ave. #406A 3438 Vosburg Street 1050 East Topeka Street 1979 Monte Vista Street 564 East Claremont Street 44 San Miguel Road 2710 Diana Street 1882 Rose Villa Street 2930 Coleridge Circle 3000 East California Blvd. 1631 Oakdale Street 744 North Catalina Ave. 1452 Brixton Road 2058 East Orange Grove Blvd. 1954 Oakwood Street 885 South Orange Grove Blvd. #17 1150 Armada Drive 1369 East Woodbury Road SAN MARINO 2290 Lombardy Road 1740 Ramiro Road 1215 Patton Way 2125 Adair Street 2532 South Oak Knoll Ave. 647 Winston Ave. 979 Roxbury Road 2836 Cumberland Road 1221 Roanoke Road 1635 Rose Ave. 1360 Blackstone Road 1320 Blackstone Road 1955 Rose Ave. 1857 South Los Robles Ave. 1815 Carlisle Drive SIERRA MADRE 71 East Bonita Ave. 258 East Alegria Ave. 546 West Highland Ave. 1920 Santa Anita Ave. 727 West Montecito Ave. 390 Toyon Road 50 Park Ave. 234 Ramona Ave. SOUTH PASADENA 1545 Ramona Ave. 1821 La Manzanita Street 1915 Mission Street 1712 Bank Street 1815 Monterey Road 2053 Primrose Ave. 1705 Mission Street 720 El Centro Street 4943 Harriman Ave. 825 Summit Drive 608 Fremont Ave. 136 Peterson Ave. 1928 Primrose Ave. 30 | ARROYO | 10.16

08/18/16 08/11/16

$890,000 $885,000

4 3

2357 1762

1941 1933

08/01/16 08/03/16 08/01/16 08/08/16 08/09/16 08/23/16 08/02/16 08/01/16 08/23/16 08/26/16 08/16/16 08/29/16 08/22/16 08/17/16 08/02/16 08/16/16 08/31/16 08/18/16 08/23/16

$5,000,000 $3,695,000 $3,525,000 $3,200,000 $2,550,000 $2,350,000 $2,200,000 $2,125,000 $2,075,000 $2,000,000 $1,940,000 $1,800,000 $1,520,000 $1,500,000 $1,179,000 $1,100,000 $1,013,000 $1,004,000 $900,000

4 5 3 3 3 4 4 5 4 5 4 3 5 4 3 3 3 2 2

6139 4480 1932 2261 2832 3273 4552 4123 3655 3772 3651 2839 2722 2216 1949 2349 1912 1567 1440

1999 2008 1953 1957 1948 1929 1990 1985 2007 1965 1991 1945 1955 1966 1960 1966 1962 1948 1954

08/31/16 08/29/16 08/29/16 08/24/16 08/26/16 08/02/16 08/01/16 08/17/16 08/30/16 08/18/16 08/11/16 08/15/16 08/24/16 08/10/16 08/23/16 08/24/16 08/09/16 08/23/16 08/17/16 08/24/16 08/19/16 08/16/16 08/09/16 08/19/16 08/19/16 08/23/16 08/10/16 08/05/16 08/24/16 08/09/16 08/29/16 08/17/16 08/08/16 08/09/16 08/17/16 08/31/16 08/08/16 08/16/16 08/01/16 08/25/16 08/04/16 08/11/16

$4,700,000 $3,950,000 $2,990,000 $2,785,000 $2,300,000 $2,255,000 $2,200,000 $2,200,000 $1,900,000 $1,800,000 $1,800,000 $1,800,000 $1,780,000 $1,730,000 $1,600,000 $1,550,000 $1,500,000 $1,500,000 $1,390,000 $1,325,000 $1,200,000 $1,188,000 $1,138,000 $1,111,000 $1,101,000 $1,080,000 $1,046,000 $1,025,000 $1,001,500 $1,000,000 $989,000 $984,000 $965,000 $960,000 $950,000 $925,000 $925,000 $921,000 $915,000 $895,000 $875,000 $875,000

6 3 4 5 3 4 6 3 4 5 3 5 4 4 4 3 8 4 13 2 3 2 3 4 3 3 3 2 4 3 4 3 3 3 3 2 3 3 3 3 3 3

7459 3088 3229 3246 2289 4467 2745 2164 2404 2916 1294 3269 3145 2356 3305 3086 3827 2225 7030 2289 1918 1879 2132 3303 1580 2137 2899 1358 3227 1754 2232 1522 1523 1634 1481 1104 1458 1532 1911 2081 1521 1488

1932 1938 1948 1927 1949 1989 1912 1924 1958 1923 1923 2014 1923 1945 1913 1952 1908 1954 1900 1951 1925 1948 1982 1937 2007 1889 1906 1916 1925 1935 1975 1924 1950 1951 1924 1906 1949 1926 1939 1973 1949 1931

08/29/16 08/31/16 08/05/16 08/01/16 08/19/16 08/31/16 08/30/16 08/09/16 08/01/16 08/30/16 08/26/16 08/29/16 08/29/16 08/11/16 08/09/16

$6,000,000 $4,100,000 $4,000,000 $2,930,000 $2,698,000 $2,380,000 $2,330,000 $2,162,000 $2,100,000 $1,615,500 $1,600,000 $1,546,000 $1,450,000 $1,220,000 $1,200,000

5 5 2 4 4 3 5 5 3 4 3 2 3 2 3

4710 4599 3304 3167 2514 2606 2521 3280 2721 2338 1976 1672 1649 1304 2333

1927 1928 1977 1931 1928 1955 1936 1939 1950 1939 1947 1948 1948 1924 1939

08/01/16 08/18/16 08/08/16 08/16/16 08/11/16 08/23/16 08/16/16 08/09/16

$3,388,000 $2,138,000 $1,600,000 $1,568,000 $1,400,000 $1,295,000 $1,290,000 $930,000

3 5 5 4 3 3 4 4

3980 5310 3004 1898 1759 1890 2584 1885

2005 1910 2007 1954 1932 1962 1900 1953

08/26/16 08/29/16 08/05/16 08/29/16 08/18/16 08/30/16 08/18/16 08/10/16 08/17/16 08/08/16 08/29/16 08/24/16 08/10/16

$2,191,000 $1,850,000 $1,550,000 $1,550,000 $1,402,500 $1,338,000 $1,200,000 $1,185,000 $1,153,000 $1,150,000 $975,000 $950,000 $910,000

5 4 2 4 4 3 2 4 4 4 4 3 3

4221 2699 2017 2160 2555 1698 1288 1960 2814 2101 2281 1645 1694

1911 1966 1911 1913 1924 1924 1915 1928 1981 1925 1950 1970 1908

$299,000

03/10/1998

$1,450,000 $1,050,000 $1,800,000 $270,000 $140,000 $285,000 $1,775,000 $905,000 $1,465,000 $980,000 $1,110,000

02/02/2015 09/03/1998 07/01/2015 04/29/1987 12/13/1984 06/22/2000 11/30/2007 07/24/2001 01/07/2014 04/19/2006 05/25/2010

$740,000 $525,000 $755,000

08/12/2004 09/21/2012 12/08/2015

$1,975,000 $1,975,455 $2,750,000 $885,000

06/25/2001 06/29/2001 07/09/2015 09/05/2003

$1,304,091 $595,000

07/09/2003 10/12/1999

$790,000 $1,500,500 $750,000 $860,000 $1,210,000 $1,100,000 $1,170,000

03/06/2015 05/12/2014 05/12/2000 08/30/2005 06/08/2012 01/15/2009 08/23/2013

$900,000 $226,000 $991,000 $998,000 $769,000

11/30/2012 09/17/1996 05/29/2008 08/10/2012 11/15/2011

$900,000

01/22/2013

$380,000

08/31/1998

$847,500

04/13/2012

$706,000

08/08/2011

$960,000 $725,000 $420,000 $750,000 $880,000

08/19/2014 12/30/2005 05/01/2013 06/20/2011 12/22/2014

$556,000

08/30/2002

$670,000

10/01/2004

$2,190,000

04/28/2010

$1,225,000 $825,000 $1,090,000

11/07/2003 11/27/2002 07/17/2003

$1,465,000 $706,000

04/17/2008 10/01/2002

$1,080,000 $365,000 $1,198,000

06/21/2013 08/12/1998 09/16/2011

$470,000 $1,300,000 $910,000 $779,000 $680,000 $715,000 $465,000

02/10/1989 05/29/2008 08/20/2014 04/14/2010 09/30/2011 03/14/2013 05/23/2002

$197,500 $1,159,000

03/27/1980 10/23/2009

$445,000 $1,402,500 $345,000 $389,000 $725,000

04/07/2000 08/18/2016 08/29/1997 06/22/2001 02/13/2009

10.16 | ARROYO | 31

32 | ARROYO | 10.16

IMAGE: Courtesy of The Huntington Library, Art Collections, and Botanical Gardens

Pomegranate and Magnolia with Bird, Qing dynasty, c. 1700–1750, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.

CHINESE T WOODBLOCK PRINTS The Huntington’s major international loan exhibition brings together rare examples of the neglected genre.

he Japanese are famous for their woodblock prints — the colorful ukiyo-e thrived with the rise of the merchant class with means during the Edo period (1603–1868) and became widely admired when exhibited in Europe and the U.S. in the 19th century. The Chinese also have a tradition of woodblock printing, but it is not so well known. Gardens, Art and Commerce in Chinese Woodblock Prints (through Jan. 9, 2017), a major exhibition that just opened at The Huntington in San Marino, will introduce many artgoers to the genre and certainly help lift its reputation. The large show, which takes up the entire Boone Gallery, includes several famous and rare items in ﬁ ne condition, including The Huntington’s recently acquired ﬁrst edition of Ten Bamboo Studio Manual of Calligraphy and Painting, considered one of the most historically and artistically important illustrated Chinese books ever published. The exhibition marks its public debut. Gardens, Art and Commerce touches on several of The Huntington’s specialties, including books and manuscripts, gardens and the history of gardens. As Huntington President Laura Skandera Trombley says, “This exhibition is utterly evocative of The Huntington’s transdisciplinary nature.” The Huntington’s own important Chinese garden, Liu Fang Yuan, is inspired by the period gardens found in Suzhou, a city near Shanghai.

BY SCARLET CHENG –continued on page 34 10.16 | ARROYO | 33

In the Manner of Shen Zhou’s Orchids in Clear Weather, Orchid 8 and 7, Ten Bamboo Studio Manual of Calligraphy and Painting, Ming dynasty, Chongzhen period to early Qing dynasty, c. 1633–1703.

Woodblock printing developed around the year 750 in China. Th is exhibition focuses on pictorial work from the late Ming (1368–1644) to early Qing (1644–1911) periods, a time when the rising merchant class joined the literati in the serious collecting of art and books, and the serious building of gardens. (Coincidentally, a current LACMA paintings exhibition, Alternative Dreams: 17th-Century Chinese Paintings from the Tsao Family Collection, also focuses on an overlapping period.) Prints were made for varied purposes, and some were made in single sheets, but many were part of albums, as this exhibition shows. Generally, they were produced by publishers to be sold, so they had to have some commercial appeal. Some were made to illustrate popular plays or novels, some were made to publicize events such as an emperor’s birthday and some showed oﬀ garden estates at a time when such properties were considered the province of the well-bred (and well-to-do) gentleman. And many prints were, of course, included in art books that showed how to render birds, ﬂowers, landscapes and calligraphy — and how to appreciate them. “This is our pride and joy, our Ten Bamboo Studio Manual of Calligraphy and Painting,” says June Li, the co-curator of the exhibition, as she stops in front of a glass showcase where album leaves are displayed. Li is founding curator of Liu Fan Yuan, or Garden of Flowing Fragrance, and co-author of the exhibition catalog, along with cocurator and Chinese art historian Suzanne Wright, associate professor of art history oryy at the University of Tennessee. During this preliminary exhibition walkthrough, only on nlyy a fraction of the 48 works have been installed, and the prized manual from the Ten n Bamboo Studio of Nanjing is among them.

Illustration from rare edition of the Northern Story of the Western Chamber, Ming dynasty, 1639, National Library of China.

34 | ARROYO | 10.16

IMAGES: Courtesy of The Huntington Library, Art Collections, and Botanical Gardens

–continued from page 33

IMAGES: Courtesy of The Huntington Library, Art Collections, and Botanical Gardens

Detail of two rocks from Ten Bamboo Studio Manual of Calligraphy and Painting, Ming dynasty, Chongzhen period to early Qing dynasty, c. 1633–1703.

Begun in the early 1600s, the original work numbered 16 volumes. Fortunately, says Li, at some point all the pages were taken apart and remounted, so that the calligraphy and the image could be seen together side by side when a page is opened. The Huntington’s edition (1633–1703), one of 17 known first editions, was acquired two years ago and is thought to be the most intact in the world, missing only two pages. Different pages are displayed throughout the exhibition. In this first gallery showcase, we are looking at Persimmon and Tangerines. The fluidly cursive calligraphy on the left is by Xing Yi, and on the right are two tangerines in a square bowl next to a single persimmon, rather unusually pink, on what looks like a plate made from a cross-section of a tree trunk. The image was made through the technique of multi-block color printing, with each color requiring a separate block to be created by a master carver and then individually inked when used in printing. This one shows a beautifully delicate range of colors, which required 19 blocks to produce. Why is the manual so prized? “First of all, it’s a prime example of early multipleblock color printing in China,” says Li. “Second, it’s in really good condition, and third, it’s an early edition.” The volume became so popular that it was printed and reprinted, so there are many later copies. “I think they were quite expensive,” she adds. Publisher Hu Zhengyan spared no expense and ended up hiring more than 100 artists to create the designs, as well as a number of calligraphers to do the text. She points out that the work was meant as a primer on how to appreciate painting and calligraphy; certain sections constitute a guide on how to execute specific plants or flowers. The other 47 –continued on page 36

Detail from Grand Birthday Celebration of the Kangxi Emperor, Qing dynasty, 1715–17.

Scenes from Story of the Western Chamber : The Complete Version, Qing dynasty, 1747.

10.16 | ARROYO | 35

Persimmon and Tangerines, from Ten Bamboo Studio Manual of Calligraphy and Painting, Ming dynasty, Chongzhen period to early Qing dynasty, c. 1633–1703.

works in the show have been borrowed from 14 U.S. collections as well as international lenders including the National Library of China in Beijing, the Nanjing Library and the Shanghai Museum. They include single sheets and albums, and vary widely in size and subject matter. The earliest work in the exhibition is one of the largest. Imperial Commentary on the Buddhist Canon is a long horizontal scroll measuring 9½ feet, commissioned by the Song emperor Taizong (reigned 976–97). Using only black ink, the print shows tiny figures — Zen monks living and working harmoniously in a landscape of mountains, streams and trees. (A huge enlargement of one section graces a wall scrim nearby, so you can easily appreciate some of its meticulous detailing.) “It’s an early representation of Zen Buddhist community,” says Li. “The idea of these communities is that they all work, and they find Buddhahood in themselves and nature.” Later, two emperors from the more ostentatious Qing dynasty, Kangxi and Qianlong, commissioned copperplate prints to show off their garden retreats. These are shown in a gallery further into the exhibition, and one can see that the style has shifted. European missionaries had brought Western art styles to the royal court, and these prints are done with a realism we’re familiar with, using such techniques as one-point perspective. An illustration of the Garden of Perfect Clarity, or Yuan Ming Yuan, shows Baroque and neoclassical architectural influences, including a fountain around which figures representing the Chinese zodiac are arranged. Once in a while prints were commissioned for special occasions, such as the Grand Birthday Celebration for the Kangxi Emperor (1715–17) for his 60th birthday. Formerly in book form, line illustrations are now mounted in a continuous handscroll depicting the entire route from the Imperial Palace (the Forbidden City) to his favorite retreat, the Garden of Joyful Spring outside Beijing. Along the way we see people, mostly men, traveling on roads and streams, by foot and on horseback, and gathered in public places such as markets and open spaces where theater is being performed. It’s really a celebration of harmony, the Confucian ideal, as the artist imagines all in order under a benevolent ruler.|||| Gardens, Art and Commerce in Chinese Woodblock Prints runs through Jan. 9, 2017 at the MaryLou and George Boone Gallery of the Huntington Library, Art Collections and Botanical Gardens. Hours are 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Wednesday through Monday (closed Tuesday). Admission costs $23 ($25 on weekends) for adults, $19 ($21) for students 12 to 18 and seniors 65 and older and $10 for youth 4 to 11; members and children under 4 are admitted free. The Huntington is located at 1151 Oxford Rd., San Marino. Call (626) 405-2100 or visit huntington.org. 36 | ARROYO | 10.16

IMAGE: Courtesy of The Huntington Library, Art Collections, and Botanical Gardens

–continued from page 35

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38 | ARROYO | 10.16

THE END

OF AN ERA

Jeffrey Kahane embarks on his last season as the L.A. Chamber Orchestra’s acclaimed music director after 20 years. BY BETTIJANE LEVINE

MUSIC AFICIONADOS KNOW ALL ABOUT THE GENIUS OF PIANIST AND CONDUCTOR JEFFREY KAHANE AND THE LOS ANGELES CHAMBER ORCHESTRA, WHERE HE HAS BEEN MUSIC DIRECTOR FOR 20 YEARS. LACO HAS BEEN DUBBED “AMERICA’S FINEST CHAMBER ORCHESTRA” BY INTERNATIONAL PUBLIC RADIO, AND THAT’S JUST ONE OF MANY SUCH KUDOS. KAHANE, WHO RECENTLY MOVED TO ALTADENA, HAS BEEN HAILED BY AUDIENCES AND CRITICS AROUND THE GLOBE FOR HIS MASTERY ON BOTH KEYBOARD AND PODIUM AND FOR HIS “LUMINOUS AND EXQUISITE” (NEW YORK TIMES) INTERPRETATIONS OF A DIVERSE REPERTOIRE, RANGING FROM BACH AND MOZART TO GERSHWIN AND

PHOTO: Michael Burke

LEONARD BERNSTEIN. For those who haven’t yet attended the group’s performances, which take place regularly at the Alex Theatre in Glendale and other venues in L.A., this might be a very good year to start. It is Kahane’s ﬁnal season as the group’s musical director (the longest tenure in the orchestra’s 48-year history), and it is packed with gems that could thrill even diehard fans of pop, rock, jazz, punk, bluegrass, folk and all the other musical genres that might seem unrelated to the classical works by Beethoven, Hadyn and Brahms. For Kahane, who is stepping down but not out (he’ll become the orchestra’s music director laureate and will continue performing), there is little need to judge music by genre. In a recent chat with Arroyo Monthly, he explained that he grew up in L.A. playing jazz, rock and pop while studying classical piano. As a 10.16 | ARROYO | 39

teen, he played in a series of bands and in the pit of a touring Broadway show and even imagined a career as a professional pop musician. You’re an Adele fan? So is Kahane. “I love her. I think she’s amazing, and I’m quite serious. My point is that there are only two types of music: good music and bad music. There’s good rock and bad rock, good jazz and bad jazz, good classical and bad classical. The only distinction that matters to me is quality. “I can also tell you that my experience over and over and over again throughout my entire life has been that people, no matter what their background is, people who are exposed to classical music at its highest level, when they hear something that is genuinely exciting and alive, they forget that it’s classical music. The whole term classical is almost not meaningful any more, because so many of the most outstanding young musicians today are equally at home in classical and jazz, or classical and rock, or classical and folk music.” We asked if Chris Thile, the mandolin virtuoso and front man for the bluegrass band Punch Brothers, is one of those he’s referring to. Punch Brothers performed at LACO’s annual gala in 2010, and Thile succeeds Garrison Keillor as host of Minnesota Public Radio’s A Prairie Home Companion next year. “Yes, certainly. He’s a perfect example, and a dear friend of mine. He’s someone who grew up playing bluegrass and actually didn’t even read music growing up, and he has now come to be recognized as one of the world’s greatest performers of the music of Bach. And that’s exactly what I’m talking about. When people come to hear Chris Thile and his band, Punch Brothers, they’ll be playing their pop music and their modern kind of bluegrass and then they’ll play some Bach or Debussy and the crowd goes crazy. They go wild. And that’s because it’s all great music.” LACO was part of a consortium that commissioned Thile’s classical mandolin concerto, titled “Ad Astra per Alas Porci” (“To the Stars on the Wings of a Pig”). Kahane conducted the premiere with the Colorado Symphony in 2009 and brought Thile and his concerto to L.A. the following year. Critics around the country have given the work rave reviews, with NPR calling it “jaw-dropping” and The Denver Post “astonishing.” Of course, Kahane has built his career on his mastery of the classics. That’s because he started studying piano at age 5 and, at 14, began studying with the world-renowned Polish concert pianist, Jakob Gimpel, who, he’s said, “totally transformed” his outlook. “There was something I got from Brahms, Beethoven and Bach that I couldn’t live without. And I wanted to make a contribution to keeping it vital and alive.” He went on to become a ﬁnalist in the 1981 Van Cliburn Competition, win ﬁrst prize in the 1983 Arthur Rubinstein Competition and embark on a career as a soloist and conductor. He has appeared with most of the country’s major orchestras, including the New York and L.A. philharmonics, The Philadelphia and Cleveland orchestras and the San Francisco Symphony. His international collaborators include the Rotterdam and Israel philharmonics and the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra. It’s an impressively rigorous life. A list of just his recent appearances includes the Aspen, 40 | ARROYO | 10.16

Caramoor and Blossom festivals, performances with the Toronto, Houston, New World, Oregon and Colorado symphonies, engagements with the San Francisco, National, Detroit, Vancouver, Indianapolis and New Jersey symphonies and the Rochester Philharmonic and, for the third time in four seasons, the New York Philharmonic. Add his recent appearances with Boston’s New England Conservatory Orchestra, The Juilliard Orchestra in New York’s Lincoln Center and the National Repertory Orchestra in Colorado and you have a schedule that would seemingly tax even the strongest constitution. We asked Kahane about that. He laughed and said, “I love it.” The maestro has just signed a three-year contract as music director for the Sarasota Festival in Florida and he’s embarking on a new position as a full-time professor at USC’s Thornton School of Music. And he will continue playing with and conducting LACO and other orchestras around the world. His LACO successor has not yet been named. “The Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra has, for the last 20 years, been kind of the center of my musical life, but actually, in terms of the numbers of concerts and the amount of time I spend doing it, it’s probably only about one-third of the actual number of performances I do. When I’m not in Los Angeles with the chamber orchestra, I’m traveling all around the country and the world, and that’s not going to stop.” Kahane is a favored recital accompanist for such luminaries as Yo-Yo Ma, Dawn Upshaw, Joshua Bell and Thomas Quasthoff, and he often appears with leading chamber ensembles such as the Emerson String Quartet. These associations have made it possible for him to bring some of the world’s most renowned soloists to perform with LACO. Somewhat more controversial among longtime LACO supporters is his adventurous programming, which has won him multiple ASCAP awards. He is known for finding and fostering unusually talented young musicians and composers, bringing them to perform with LACO before most of the music world even knows their names. His final season with the orchestra, for example, includes a Haydn and Brahms concert on Oct. 16 with his good friend, the revered cellist Yo-Yo Ma, with Kahane conducting from the piano; an Oct. 1 performance by international harpsichord virtuoso Mahan Esfahani, 32, whose stated mission is to bring that instrument into mainstream classical and contemporary music; and an evening with Swedish composer Albert Schnelzer, 44, whose acclaimed composition, “A Freak in Burbank,” is a kind of musical homage to filmmaker Tim Burton, who grew up in Burbank. The piece receives its West Coast premiere on Oct. 29. Kahane says one highlight of his 20 years with LACO is “all the many remarkable young composers with whom we’ve had strong relationships. One of the most exciting has been with Andrew Norman, who has been our composer-in-residence for the last several years. I was extraordinarily fortunate to catch him to become LACO’s composer-in-residence less than a year before he became a superstar and was in demand all around this country and beyond.”

PHOTOS: Jamie Pham

–continued from page 39

Norman wrote a piano concerto for Kahane, titled “Split,” which premiered in a New York Philharmonic performance at Lincoln Center with Kahane on piano. The New York Times’ Anthony Tommasini called the frenetic work “audacious, exhilarating and, in a way, exhausting,” and lauded Kahane as a “dynamic pianist.” Kahane and his wife, Martha, a clinical psychologist in private practice, have just moved to Altadena from Santa Rosa, their home for 20 years where he served as music director of the Santa Rosa Symphony from 1995 to 2005. Why Altadena? “For a number of reasons,” Kahane said. “It’s a beautiful place and close to the mountains, and my wife and I both love to be close to nature, so we’ll take advantage of the Angeles National Forest and the hiking trails and all of that. It’s also a community where a lot of artists and musicians live, and that’s a big plus. And it’s not a bad commute from Altadena to USC, if you go at the right time of day.” In a city with so many different arts organizations courting the public’s support, LACO has found a core of ardent followers. Pasadena’s Jerry Kohl, founder of Brighton Collectibles, who with his wife, Terri, gave LACO a $1 million challenge grant in 2012, says he didn’t know much about chamber orchestras until he decided to buy a Stradivarius violin and recruited LACO concertmaster Margaret Batjer to help him find one. “She’s how I became familiar with chamber music and now I love it because of people like her and Jeff. Jeff is unique, an expert who goes much deeper than just the notes. He tells audiences about the composers, the times in which they lived, what they were thinking when writing the music. Sometimes he shows you how the music was composed, takes it apart and shows you how the composer put the pieces together. He has made a difference in this city and he and Margaret have changed my wife’s and my life.” Pasadena’s Warner Henry, founder of the Henry Wine Group, and his wife, Carol, are sponsors of LACO’s Baroque Conversations series. Henry says he believes that LACO is tragically underappreciated by L.A. media. “The L.A. Times is asleep. They report on little but the Philharmonic. They’ve cut back so much staff that there aren’t enough people to cover the arts. But in New York there’s the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, which is fairly new and they’ve raised $26 million in two years. So that’s hotter than a pistol. Chamber music generates enormous enthusiasm and passion. I do the Baroque concerts and they’re sold out. So there’s a message there.” Altadena resident Dana Newman, a partner in the L.A. office of the Pillsbury law firm, says she’s been a LACO subscriber for about 16 years and a board member for about five. Asked for her opinion of Kahane, she practically leapt through the phone. “He’s a genius. To watch a man who plays at that top level of performance on a keyboard instrument and conducts simultaneously is to watch an amazing feat of musicianship that is compelling and fascinating. And he is beloved by the orchestra…We started off with a history of primarily doing baroque and classical music, and to have somebody come in and widen our horizons as he has done musically is really amazing.” Ruth Eliel, LACO’s former executive director, called Arroyo Monthly from Paris, where she was vacationing, just to be able to add her voice to what quickly became a lovefest for the departing music director. Eliel, who was with LACO for 11 years, started in 1997, the same year Kahane did. “Jeffrey has done so much on such a large level, not just for the orchestra but for the larger community. His vision is, of course, about the music, but it’s so much more than that. It’s about showing music as part of history, society and politics and all those things that relate to humanity. He has a very big creative imagination, which is unusual in the music world, and he’s a huge believer in music education. He has been personally very involved in all the education programs of the orchestra, which isn’t typical for music directors, who tend to farm those things out to some more junior person.” If this entire magazine were solely devoted to Kahane, there still wouldn’t be enough space to contain all the praise we received about his humanity and his music. But we’ll end with some words from violinist Margaret Batjer, the orchestra’s concertmaster since 1998 and a respected solo artist who performs and records with many of the nation’s leading orchestras. “Jeffrey Kahane is one of the great musicians of our time. He has such deep knowledge of not just music, but of humanity. And he brings that to every artistic endeavor. There are so many musicians and conductors driven by ego, and he is the antithesis of all that. He is all about finding the essence of the music and making it come alive. For all people.” |||| Visit laco.org for the 2016–17 concert schedule and tickets. 10.16 | ARROYO | 41

42 | ARROYO | 10.16

KITCHEN CONFESSIONS

Hotsy-Totsy THE AMERICAN CRAZE FOR HOT SAUCES RECENTLY SIZZLED IN LONG BEACH. BY LESLIE BILDERBACK

did di d so some something meth thi hing ing I rarely rare ra rely re ly do. do do. I went went to a food festival. I don’t typically like to attend these events because they bear a striking resemblance to work. But this one was different. Some might consider the recent Long Beach Hot Sauce Festival to be technically a festival of condiments, rather than food. And I might too, if I hadn’t spent three hours tasting hot sauces from teeny-tiny spoons. What I discovered is that these folks are not just crazy pepper-lovers whipping up spicy sludge in their blenders. (Although those guys were there too.) These sauces were no-bull, 100 percent–legit culinary creations, lovingly prepared by a group of super-talented chefs from all over the country. The flavors varied incredibly. I was shocked at the degree to which I could distinguish one sauce from another, despite the immediate contamination of my palate upon contact. I mean, I’d like to think I have a pretty good palate, but even these golden taste buds are easily tainted by capsicum. But as it turned out, I could easily distinguish, and appreciate, the offerings. Most vendors brought a variety of products, with tremendously varied flavors and uses. Acidic, sweet, smoky, fresh, herby — every flavor profile you can imagine is apparently available in hot sauce form. There were sauces inspired by the tropics, by Asia and India, by soul food, by campfires and by season and locale. Some were completely organic and sustainable, others pledged sustainability. Some just wanted you to know they were hot. Really hot. The claim of being the hottest was only slightly less common than the claim of being the award-winningest. There were more than a few sauces inspired by music — both specific bands and generic musical styles. And what was on the outside of the bottle was just as important as what was inside. Labels were commissioned by well-known artists, including graphic novelists, graffiti artists and rock-and-roll poster artists. And the art was not reserved for the bottles — T-shirts and hats were also hot items, as were limited-edition posters. Even if

typically like hot sauce, there was probably something you don’t typica there you could use. Dry rubs, barbecue sauces, jerky of many meats, pickles of many vegetables (including garlic) and about a million salsas. The better vendors talked us through each of their products, usually in a speciﬁc order, from hot to hotsy-totsy. Many oﬀered suggestions on how to best use their products (beef, poultry, seafood, tacos, marinades, etc.), and a few went into incredible detail about meals one could prepare. (I credit this enthusiasm to the free beer and shots in the VIP tent.) But enthusiasm is enthusiasm, which is why I want to take a minute here to rant a little about how much I love a good salesman. I love them because they are rare. Gone are the days of the Fuller Brush man, or the encyclopedia guy at your door. Salesmen these days don’t really seem to give a damn about the thing they are selling, let alone your satisfaction. Have you been to Best Buy lately? Cripes! Good salesmen have a stake in the product, and the best have crafted it themselves. The hot sauce people know salesmanship. (OK, rant over.) And did I mention there was a stage? In addition to music, there were several competitive events, including a chile-eating contest (for the Guinness World Record, no less), Bloody Mary–mixing championships, a margarita mixdown and a spicy burrito contest. But I’m not a fan of the Bloody Mary, and I’m not into competitive eating (every meal is a competition in our house), so I pretty much just ate sauce all day. And drank water all the way home. There were a number of products I will happily recommend. But more than that, I want to encourage all you spice lovers to get in your car and head down the 710 next summer. The Hot Sauce Festival comes around only once a year, and though it might sound a little silly, it ended up beingg super p fun. |||| –continued on page 45

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44 | ARROYO | 10.16

KITCHEN CONFESSIONS

–continued from page 43

My favorite products from the Hot Sauce Festival: Big Daddy’s My favorite was the Amplified Heat Hot Sauce, which smells just like a campfire. Born to Hula The sriracha-style Reaper of Sorrow has the very best name. Bravado Spice Co. Pineapple and Habanero is amazing. Char Man Brand I especially loved the Verde and Caribbean sauces. El Machete Microbrewed Chilli Sauces Loved the herby roasted–green chili Verde Rebelde. Hella Hot Hot Sauce So many small-batch sauces, using locally sourced ingredients, to choose from. Humboldt Hot Sauce Try the Habanero Mango! Paulman Acre Try the black, mole-inspired Pod vs. Pod.

Harissa

I venture into hot-sauce making from time to time — and this is my favorite. (Big surprise: it’s an excerpt from my latest book, Salt: The Essential Guide to Cooking with the Most Important Ingredient in Your Kitchen [St. Martin’s Griffin].) The terrific North African flavors vary from recipe to recipe, but harissa generally contains olive oil, garlic, hot chiles (I use whatever I can get) and spices. Use it as you would any hot condiment, or save it for your couscous and tagines.

INGREDIENTS 3 to 4 sun-dried tomatoes 1 to 2 dried red chiles, chopped (Try it with ancho, arbol, chipotle, negro, guajillo, New Mex) 1 red pepper ½ teaspoon coriander seeds ½ teaspoon cumin seeds ½ teaspoon caraway seeds

1 teaspoon dried mint 1 teaspoon smoked paprika 3 cloves garlic 1 small red onion, minced Grated zest and juice of 1 lemon 1½ tablespoons olive oil ½ teaspoon salt

METHOD 1. Cover the dried tomatoes and red chiles with hot water and set aside to plump. Roast the red pepper over an open flame (or under a broiler), turning, until the entire skin is charred black. Place in a bag or sealable container, close it tight and set it aside. The skin will loosen with the steam. When cool, rub off the charred skin. 2. Meanwhile, toast coriander, cumin and caraway seeds in a dry skillet. Cool slightly, then pulverize in a coffee mill or mortar. 3. Drain the liquid off the dried tomatoes and chiles and reserve it. Combine them with the red pepper and ground spices in a food processor and pulverize. Add the mint, paprika, garlic and onion, and continue to process. Add lemon zest and juice, oil and, finally, salt. Taste and adjust seasoning as necessary. Store airtight in the refrigerator for 2 to 3 weeks, or freeze for longer storage.

VARIATIONS: Green Harissa Often thinner than red harissa, the green version is used more like a pesto, drizzled into soups or served as a dip. Use fresh serrano or jalapeño chiles in place of the dried red ones, omit the tomato and paprika and replace them with 1 scallion, a half-cup Italian parsley, a halfcup cilantro and a half-cup spinach leaves. Rosey Harissa The most exotic version of this sauce has a lovely floral essence. Add to the above recipe 1 large fresh tomato (perfectly ripe), a handful of rose petals and a quarter-cup rosewater. Add 1 tablespoon of sugar, and season with a little more lemon, if you see fit.

Leslie Bilderback is a certified master baker, chef and cookbook author. She lives in South Pasadena and teaches her techniques online at culinarymasterclass.com. 10.16 | ARROYO | 45

THE LIST

Celebrating Chocolate

A SELECTIVE PREVIEW OF UPCOMING EVENTS COMPILED BY JOHN SOLLENBERGER Pomo feather sun basket, early 1900s

entertainment. The nonprofit provides

Oct. 1 — Chocoholics can get their fix at

free support services for cancer patients

the Pasadena Convention Center when

and their families. Tickets are $175.

TasteTV and the International Choco-

The Rose is located at 245 E. Green St.,

late Salon present the ninth annual L.A.

Pasadena (in Paseo Colorado). Call (626)

Chocolate Salon. Top chocolatiers and

796-1083 or visit cscpasadena.org.

confectioners will bring their wares to

5 p.m. Also included are a professional

Japanese Garden Festival, Spooky Stories at Descanso

cake-decorating competition, industry

Oct. 15 and 16 — The Japanese Garden

and food-tech talks, food, wine-tasting,

Festival features a display of ikebana,

lifestyle celebrity appearances and

the art of flower arranging, from the

more. Tickets cost $20 in advance, $30 at

Sogetsu School of Ikebana from 9 a.m. to

the door.

5 p.m. both days, as well as Kishin Daiko

The Pasadena Convention Center is

drummers performing at 11 a.m. and

located at 300 E. Green St., Pasadena.

1 p.m. A curator-led tour of the Japanese

Visit lachocolatesalon.com.

Garden exhibition takes place at 10 a.m.

the event, which runs from 11 a.m. to

Saturday in the Sturt Haaga Gallery.

Wicked Lit Haunts Altadena

The tour is led by Kendall Brown, a Cal

Oct. 1 through Nov. 12 — Unbound

State Long Beach professor of Asian art

Productions presents Wicked Lit,

history and author of Quiet Beauty: The

the company’s annual staged

Japanese Gardens of North America.

performances of classic horror literature

Also on Saturday, the Kinnara Gagaku

for the Halloween season, at Altadena’s

from the canon of Anansi stories and

AUTRY HOSTS GALA, OPENS CALIFORNIA CONTINUED

dance company performs Japanese

Ashanti proverbs — the tale of Anansi

Oct. 1 — The Autry Museum of the American West’s 29th annual Gala honors

costume.

the trickster and storyteller who finds

Ken Burns, the Emmy-winning documentary filmmaker behind The Civil War, The

Admission to all events is free with

himself the leader of his village when

Roosevelts: An Intimate History and Prohibition. The event starts at 6 p.m. with a

Descanso admission of $9, $6 for seniors

traditional hierarchies falter; and Ellen

cocktail reception, followed by dinner, an auction and dancing under the stars.

and students and $4 for children 5 to 12;

Glasgow’s “The Shadowy Third,” the story

Tickets cost $1,000.

members and children 4 and younger

of a shy young girl, an insane mother

Oct. 9 — The Autry unveils California Continued, spanning two new galleries

are admitted free.

and a goodhearted doctor, where

and an ethnobotanical garden in nearly 20,000 square feet of redesigned

Descanso Gardens is located at 1418 Des-

things are not necessarily as they seem.

indoor and outdoor spaces. The project explores the relationships between

canso Dr., La Cañada Flintridge. Call (818)

All performances start at 7:30 p.m.

Californians and their environment by connecting Native Californian history

949-4200 or visit descansogardens.org.

Tickets are $45 to $65. Optional post-

with traditional ecological knowledge and contemporary artwork. Also

show meetings with the playwrights,

included is Human Nature, a long-term exhibition on cultural practices for

actors and directors are available for an

tending the environment; The Life and Work of Mabel McKay, a temporary show

Psadena Symphony Launches Classics Season

additional cost.

of the work of the prominent Pomo basket weaver and healer; and the Human

Oct. 8 — The Pasadena Symphony’s

The Mountain View Cemetery and Mauso-

Nature Garden, a space illustrating traditional and contemporary uses of some

Singpoli Classics season commences at the

leum is located at 2300 N. Marengo Ave.,

60 native California plants.

Pasadena’s Ambassador Auditorium. Music

Altadena. Visit unboundproductions.org.

The Autry Museum of the American West is located at 4700 Western Heritage Way,

Director David Lockington conducts the

Griffith Park. Call (323) 495-4331 or visit theautry.org.

orchestra in Mendelssohn’s Violin Concerto

Mountain View Mausoleum and Cemetery. Works include H.P. Lovecraft’s “From Beyond,” the story of a great scientific discovery that turns deadly; “Anansi and the Demons,” adapted

MAK Center Architecture Tour

court music and dance at 3 p.m. Oct. 22, 23, 29 and 30 — Ensemble Shakespeare Theater presents a familyfriendly production of Slightly Spooky Stories at 11 a.m. each day. Children of all ages are encouraged to come in

with acclaimed BBC New Generation Artist and violinist Elena Urioste. The program also

Oct. 2 — The MAK Center for Art and

includes composer Andrew Norman’s “The

Harris, the Jules Salkin House by John

Ladies Night Out Benefits Cancer Support Community

rarely open to the public, in Echo Park,

Lautner and the Schofield House by

Oct. 6 — The Cancer Support

No. 4. The curtain rises at 2 and 8 p.m. Ticket

Silver Lake and Mt. Washington. Homes

James DeLong. The tour, which runs from

Community hosts its sixth annual Ladies

prices start at $35.

include the Oliver House by Rudolf

10 a.m. to 5 p.m., highlights influences

Night Out fundraiser at The Rose in

The Ambassador Auditorium is

Schindler, the Lipetz House and the Ross

on L.A.’s groundbreaking midcentury

Pasadena. The 6:30 p.m. event honors

located at 131 S. St. John Ave.,

House by Raphael Soriano, the Daniel

architecture. Tickets are $90 general ($75

local women whose lives have been

Pasadena. Call (626) 798-7172 or visit

House and the Orans House by Gregory

for Friends of the MAK Center).

touched by cancer and includes dinner,

pasadenasymphony-pops.org.

Ain, the Birtcher-Share House and the

Call (323) 651-1510 or visit makcenter.org.

games, a raffle, a live auction and

Architecture presents a tour of nine

Alexander House by Harwell Hamilton

historic houses by six noted architects,

46 | ARROYO | 10.16

Great Swiftness” and Brahms’ Symphony

–continued on page 49

10.16 | ARROYO | 47

48 | ARROYO | 10.16

THE LIST

FAMILY FUN, CHAMBER MUSIC AT CALTECH Oct. 14 — The Cashore Marionettes, hailed as engineering marvels, take the stage in family-friendly shows at 4 and 8 p.m.Tickets cost $25, $10 for youth under 18. Oct. 30 — The Academy of St. Martin in the Fields Chamber Ensemble performs works by Dvorák and Schubert at 3:30 p.m. in a Coleman Chamber Music Concert. Ticket prices range from $20 to $49. Both performances take place in Caltech’s Beckman Auditorium, Michigan Avenue south of Del Mar Boulevard, Pasadena. Call (626) 395-4652 or visit events. caltech.edu.

–continued from page 46

Wheels on Fire in Pasadena

event is a comedy night featuring Nikki

Oct. 8 — The second

Drennon Davis. Tickets cost $40. Proceeds

annual Wheels on

benefit Union Station’s numerous services

Fire Car Show comes

for homeless individuals and families.

Glaser, Ian Karmel, Jackie Kashian and

to the Brookside Golf Club from 9 a.m.

Arclight Cinemas Pasadena is located

to 3 p.m. The event, benefiting the Fire

at 336 E. Colorado Blvd., Pasadena. Call

Family Foundation — the charitable

(626) 240-4559 for information and visit

arm of Firefighters First Credit Union —

unionstationhs.org/comedy/2016/ for

showcases hot rods, classic cars, trucks,

tickets and updates.

vintage motorcycles and antique fire

L.A. County and other departments are

Beer Takes to the Streets of Burbank

also on display. Look for a beer-and-

Oct. 15 — The

wine garden, food trucks and photo

Burbank Beer Festival

opportunities with firefighters. Admission

returns to downtown

PHOTO: Matt Cashore (The Cashore Marionettes)

trucks. Active fire engines from Pasadena,

costs $5, free for guests 15 and younger.

Burbank with two sessions of tastings,

The Brookside Golf Club is located at

from noon to 3 p.m. and 4 to 7 p.m. Each

1133 Rosemont Ave., Pasadena. Visit

session showcases more than 85 brands

firefamilyfoundation.org.

from more than 45 local and out-of-state breweries. A free street fair from noon to

Comedy Benefits Local Homeless Services

7:30 p.m. includes live music on several

Oct. 10 — Pasadena’s Union Station

a tasting glass.

Homeless Services hosts its annual

Visit burbankbeerfestival.com.

stages. Beer tickets cost $45 and include

Evening for the Station from 6:30 to 9:30 p.m. at Arclight Cinemas Pasadena. The

–continued on page 50 10.16 | ARROYO | 49

THE LIST

–continued from page 49

The "da Vinci of Data" at Art Center

Noh Theatre of Kyoto is performed in

Oct. 20 — Art

11th-century Japanese literary classic, The

Center College of

Tale of Genji — will have its world premiere

Balch Auditorium. At 4:45 p.m., Imagined Sceneries — a musical depiction of the

Design’s Hillside Campus presents “The

at Clark Humanities Museum. At 7:30 p.m.,

Thinking Eye,” a lecture by sculptor

the Ruth Chandler Williamson Gallery hosts

and data-visualization pioneer Edward

the opening reception for the exhibition

Tufte (above), known as “the da Vinci

On Stage: Japanese Theater Prints and

of data,” from 7 to 8:30 p.m. in the

Costumes, which continues through Dec.

Ahmanson Auditorium. A reception for

17.

the art-science exhibition Uncertainty,

Scripps College is located at 1030

featuring the work of 16 artists including

Columbia Ave., Claremont. Call (909)

Tufte, follows the lecture from 8:30 to

607-3397 or visit scrippscollege.edu.

10 p.m. in the Alyce de Roulet Williamson

through Jan. 22. Both events are free and

Art Show for Retired Racers

open to the public.

Oct. 1 through

Art Center College of Design Hillside

16, Oct. 22 — The

Campus is located at 1700 Lida St.,

California Art Club

Gallery. The show is on view from Oct. 11

Pasadena. Call (626) 396-2397 or visit artcenter.edu.

and Santa Anita Park have teamed up to benefit retired race horses with an art exhibition and sale

Artwalk Comes to Playhouse District

through Oct. 16. The Majesty of the Great

Oct. 22 —

Historic Santa Anita Park showcases

Pasadena’s 2016

paintings depicting the grace, heritage

Artwalk comes to the

and heart of Santa Anita. The works

Playhouse District,

were created at a plein-air paint-out

Race Place: California Art Club Paints

along Colorado Boulevard between

in February, when artists had exclusive

Madison and Oak Knoll avenues, from

access to the whole racetrack, in order

11 a.m. to 5 p.m. The free event features

to document the grounds and race-day

an open-air market with juried works in a

activities of their four-legged subjects.

variety of media by more than 75 artists,

A reception and sale of the artworks

music by local musicians, free admission

will be held from 12:30 to 5 p.m. Oct 22

to the Pasadena Museum of California

in Santa Anita’s Chandelier Room, with

Art, a self-guided architectural tour and

20 percent of the proceeds from sales

hands-on activities for the whole family.

of art and reception tickets benefiting

Call (626) 744-0340 or visit playhousedis-

the California Retirement Management

trict.org/artwalk.

Account (CARMA), a nonprofit dedicated to funding the rehabilitation,

50 | ARROYO | 10.16

There’s No Theater Like Noh Theatre

retraining and retirement of California

Oct. 29 — Scripps

include reception admission, views of

College in Claremont

the day’s live races, buffet-style gourmet

celebrates Japanese

dining, valet parking, wagering tip sheet

racehorses. Tickets to the reception and sale ($65 through Oct. 10, $75 thereafter)

Noh, the oldest major theater art still per-

and daily racing program.

formed, with a slate of free collaborative

Santa Anita Park is located at 285 W.

performances by visiting artists and scholars

Huntington Dr., Arcadia. Visit santaanita.

of Japanese culture and Claremont Col-

com/full-calendar to purchase tickets.

leges students. At 3 p.m. Faces of Passion

Visit californiaartclub.org for information

and Regret: Women in Noh by the Kongo

about the club. ||||

10.16 | ARROYO | 51