Art Highlights Magazine - Spring 2020 by Art Highlights Magazine

SPRING 2020 Edward GOLDMAN The DOORS Gerard STRIPLING Bernard HOYES Orange County THEATERS Arthur TAUSSIG John SEED ABT's OF LOVE AND RAGE LA ART SHOW ARTIST Directory

PUBLISHER Ludo Leideritz Ludo@ART-Highlights.com 949 350.9370

EDITOR Eric Marchese Eric@ART-Highlights.com 714 836.1104

ASSISTANT EDITOR Daniella B. Walsh Daniella@ART-Highlights.com

CREATIVE & MARKETING DIRECTOR Charles Michael Murray Charles@ART-Highlights.com 949 306.9640

ILLUSTRATOR Francis Bade Francis@ART-Highlights.com

PHOTOGRAPHERS Ludo Leideritz Charles Michael Murray

CONTRIBUTORS Francis Bade Laura Bleiberg Barbara Gothard Eric Marchese Chris Clemens Martello Pam Price Judy Sklar Jean Stern Daniella B. Walsh

ADVERTISING DIRECTORS Ludo Leideritz Ludo@ART-Highlights.com 949 350.9370 — Charles Michael Murray Charles@ART-Highlights.com 949 306.9640

ADVERTISING sales@ART-Highlights.com

EDITORIAL editorial@ART-Highlights.com

ART HIGHLIGHTS MAGAZINE 303 Broadway, Suite 104-144, Laguna Beach, CA 92651 info@ART-Highlights.com Art Highlights Magazine and website serve Southern California with a focus on Laguna Beach, Palm Springs and neighbor cities. The opinions expressed by writers and contributors do not necessarily reflect those of the publisher or team. Content herein provided has been credited and proofed to the best of our abilities. Art Highlights Magazine is published four times a year by Art Highlights, Laguna Beach, CA. ©2020 ART HIGHLIGHTS

Promoting the Arts, Artists and Culture

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Highlights Gerard Basil Stripling: Speaking Softly and Making Big Art 4 Letter from the Publisher 10 Bernard Hoyes’ Spiritual Journey from Jamaica to the Desert 13 An AHM Exclusive One-on-One with Edward Goldman 22 The ‘Amazing Feeling’ of the World Premiere 28 College friends trading labor leads to a lasting legacy 32 Arthur Taussig: A Man for all Arts 36 Diversity Drives Many an Orange County Theater Company 42 The 2020 LA Art Show: A Shining Silver Anniversary 46 Artist Finds Spiritual and Artistic Guidance in the Desert 52 Art Historian and Author John Seed Illuminates the Art of Our Time 54 Artist Directory 60 Art Highlights Team 70

Yucca Valley artist and curator Michael McCall is a midcareer artist who works in several mediums: painting, sculpture, photography, performance and conceptual art. Blending abstraction and realistic imagery, he combines color, shape and form with the use of graphic symbolism.

Youthful Dreams, Ambition, Talent and Versatility Guide an Artist’s Journey

Gerard Basil Stripling: Speaking Softly and Making Big Art

by Daniella B. Walsh

ooking at a child’s tricycle or a teen’s skateboard, one expects gaudy plastic, sturdy wheels and perhaps a network of dents and scratches. So, when most viewers see sculptor Gerard Basil Stripling’s bronze and stainless-steel bandage-wrapped replicas of those youthful conveyances or a grade-schooler’s desk similarly wound, they are startled at first. Ominous as the works may look, they are not. Benign as their titles, such as “Inception” and “Thrill Monger,” their creator says that they are a paean to the fleeting nature of childhood. “The ‘Preservation Series’ are wrapped toys meant to suggest that childhood memories should be preserved as long as possible – to remind us of who we were as kids, to allow us to be true to who we are,” says Stripling. The father of a daughter and two sons, now ranging in age from 30 to 19, recalls that he never rode his trike “normally,” trying instead for wheelies and flips. As the little hotwheeler grew up, he developed dreams of becoming an artist. Growing up in Los Angeles among seven siblings, he says that he also came to determine that, in his universe, “starving” would not prefix “artist.” He eventually enrolled in the Fashion Institute of Design and Merchandising (FIDM) and, after graduating in 1986, landed a job with Hollywood fashion designer Bill Whitten (1944-2006), touring with and designing costumes for music groups, Michael Jackson and Lionel Richie among them. Traveling through Europe and South Africa first on business and later on family trips, he immersed himself in the arts – sculpture, the Old Masters and architecture. “I went to museums and galleries and, while in Italy, became fascinated enough with clocks to build one for myself. It took two weeks from concept to fabrication,” he recalled. Thereafter, he taught himself how to weld. “Welding equals problem-solving – you have to figure out where the pieces fit,” he says. “I do not like guesswork.” Recently he showed a visitor his first bronze sculpture, “Breath of Life,” a piece inspired by South-African medicine men who place ashes into the cavity of a vertebra and blow it at a sick person to heal them.

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New Beginnings and Finding Fulfillment in Creating Art for Community Once an Angeleno, always an Angeleno? Stripling’s wife Melissa showed him Laguna Beach and ultimately convinced him to settle there. The move stuck: The couple bought a unique, mid-century modern style house not too far from Laguna’s schools, and it turned out to be an ideal place to not only raise a family but also to develop and showcase his art, which would become a full-time, sustaining occupation. While he praises the Laguna Beach community for its steadfast support of the arts as well as artists and their families, the lion’s share of credit goes to Melissa, the owner/operator of a hair salon. “My wife has been supportive all the time, working to support the family. She did the base hits, while I did the home runs,” he says. Stripling fits the description of a selftaught artist to the letter: Becoming enamored of large work, he built his first piece of public art for the city of Brea in his garage. “It was 12 feet tall, and I built it on its side. I did not see it upright until it was installed,” he says. More commissions from that city followed. Today, one can find Stripling’s public works of art not only in Brea but also in Anaheim, Bellflower, Cerritos, Fontana, Huntington Beach and a total of three in Laguna Beach. He currently works out of a spacious studio sitting on more than four acres of land in Corona. “Public Art creates a dialogue for me,” Stripling said. “All my pieces have a message and I can, hopefully, start a conversation in someone’s head.” Citing the Isamu Noguchi Garden in Costa Mesa as inspiration, he says that he is not only conscious of the work of art but of the space that surrounds it – and how a

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Gerard Basil Stripling

masterful combination of the two can affect o n e’s i m m e d i a t e perceptions. However, his quest to impart a message, to say something, transposes itself into everything he creates, whether smaller sculptures (think of his wrapped typewriters addressing the power of words, real and invented news, propaganda or his “Telephone Series” in which he addressed significant gains in technology and their inevitable obsolescence), paintings and assemblages.

Collaboration and Recognition Stripling also exhibited at the Festival of Arts and the Sawdust Festival, where he met Michele Taylor (1970-2019), a sculptor who became his working partner on projects like “Moving Forward” and “Eternal Legacy,” an elegant tribute to two Laguna Beach police officers fallen in the line of duty. Stripling and Taylor received the 2014 Artist of the Year Award for their insightful homage to country, community, honor and duty that sits unobtrusively in a corner of the police headquarters building. “You will never reach your dreams without honoring others along the way,” says one of the inscriptions surrounding the sculpture’s main element. (The credo extends to Stripling’s youngest son, Miles, who currently serves in the U.S. Marine Corps.) He describes the initial meeting of his and Taylor’s creative minds as an attraction of opposites. A glass and mixed media artist, Taylor had sculpted the charmingly whimsical “Laguna Tortoise” in Bluebird Park, while Stripling’s first piece of Laguna Beach public art, “Repose,” a sharply linear and edgy bronze installation, graces Treasure Island Park. The two pieces illustrate the divergent aesthetics of their respective artists: “When I met Michele,” Stripling said, “I immediately liked her work. Her lines are soft and flowing while mine are hard,” he recalled. Pieces like “Moving Forward,” a bench that is both whimsical and thoughtprovoking, and “Eternal Legacy” show how the artists successfully meshed their talents. “We designed the Police Memorial together: I did the construction and she did the hands-on work,” he says. Sadly, this past year (2019), Taylor succumbed to cancer at age 49.

Serving on the Art Commission Offers New Insights Stripling served on the Laguna Beach Arts Commission for two years, during which he not only evaluated other artists’ submissions for public spaces but also re-enforced in his own mind the educational aspects of the job.

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Gerard Basil Stripling

He advises artists wishing to submit proposals to “give more than what is expected for presentation; give as much information as possible. Presentation matters,” he says, suggesting that, if possible, every local artist should serve on the commission for some time.

Private Commission, Collectors and Galleries While Stripling has made a name for himself in the realm of Art in Public Places, having received commissions from Southern California cities and clients such as the medical conglomerate Kaiser Permanente, his somewhat smaller works can also be found in galleries and private collections. Salt Fine Art/Raw Salt gallery director Suzanne Walsh praises Stripling’s works for their graceful proportions, composition and balance. “One can ascribe surrealism and also magical realism to Gerard’s work,” she says. A series of bronze replicas of paper airplanes illustrates her point: One might perceive gravity, yet the lightness of the originals somehow prevails. The elegant Laguna Beach residence of Laura and Lou Rohl is home to several Stripling sculptures. Laura first encountered Stripling’s work while working as a Festival of Arts docent. “Work like his ‘Getting There’ spoke to me immediately,” she recalls. “We were transitioning from Northern to Southern California, so the piece had personal significance.” The Rohls are especially fond of “Innamorati,” a dramatic sculpture that speaks to their relationship and the journey they have been on for more than three decades. Some other Stripling pieces such as “Coupling” and “Vitae Por Unum,” for example, invite speculations as to how strongly his own relationships inform works that he creates for others. (Think of commissioned works titled “With You,” “Alive Together” and “Perspectives.”) On a light note, there is the bronze replica of a traffic cone inscribed “Mind the Art,” his lighthearted admonition to klutzes navigating others’ art collections. Laura Rohl also speaks for the couple when she says that she feels an emotional bond to Stripling’s work. “We collect Gerard more than any other artist,” she says. She sums up their collection philosophy thusly: “It is about beauty, surrounding ourselves with things that touch us.”

Following his Own Advice Stripling says that he believes that artists should create works that they think are great: “Create from feelings, emotions, ideas – even if they are crazy. Learn from failure; failures lead to good ideas. Reach out to people, create dialogues – look for validation as an artist, be ambitious, strive to be big.”

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Letter from the Publisher

ear writers, artists and advertisers,

First of all, I want to thank you for your valuable contributions to Art Highlights. Special thanks also to our esteemed readers and your enthusiastic response to our inaugural issue. It presents a milestone with 100 pages of engaging articles, artful advertisements and overall aesthetic appeal. Please keep this issue on your coffee table and on your bookshelves since it represents what we hope will become a new standard in magazine publication. With the unexpected upheaval in our lives during these past months, we have had to rearrange our priorities and practices to ensure both the integrity of the publication and its continuity. To assure our continuity, we are publishing the Spring 2020 edition online for now. When we, once again, have the proper printing capability and distribution infrastructure in place, we will go to press ASAP. Meanwhile, please enjoy this issue in the safety and comfort of your environs. The articles are skillfully written, the advertisers deserve your attention, and the artists appreciate your recognition. Together we can express the hope that art indeed can save our planet. My warmest wishes to all of you and your families and friends. May you find peace and happiness and stay healthy and safe.

Ludo Leideritz

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Catalina Island Museum

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A Spiritual Journey from Jamaica to the Desert, and in-between

by Chris Clemens Martello

was fortunate to meet Palm Springs-based artist Bernard Hoyes several times over the past few years during a few of his local endeavors, and our paths crossed again with his most recent exhibition on view at the San Bernardino County Museum. “Spirit of the Land through Climate Change,” which closed on March 8, presented largescale watercolor paintings that speak to the ecological life of our desert. As a topical exhibition that is on most of American minds these days, the opening reception was well attended. Being familiar with his work in other mediums, I was curious to learn more about how these watercolor paintings were born and the role they played as his talent evolved over the course of his career. Hoyes was raised in a family rooted in Jamaica’s revivalist church, with memories of religion and rituals heavily influencing his artistic productivity throughout the majority of his life. His celebration of traditional African religion and spirituality has excited audiences worldwide. Oprah Winfrey, Natalie Cole, Steve Harvey, Helene Galen, Keenan Ivory Wayans and the National Urban League are among his collectors.

From a young life of determination, Hoyes had many hurdles to conquer to become such a professional artist, and to notably be one of the most widely known and appreciated AfricanAmerican artists of Caribbean origin. His talents became apparent as a young boy. Due to religious reasons he did not attend school, and noted he sought ways to stay busy after his yard chores. He began creating watercolors and carvings from soap and wood that were taken to the Kingston marketplace where tourists purchased them as keepsakes to take home. Then at age nine he began formal art studies at the Institute of Jamaica’s Junior Art Centre. “It was a challenge to enter school at a much later age than other kids, and it created some hurdles later in my life,” Hoyes says, “but had I started school at the traditional age, my life may have taken a different course, and I would have missed the opportunity to explore my artistic side at such a young age.” When he was 15, his father, who lived in New York City, brought him to the United States to live with his new family in an effort to assist Hoyes in pursuing further education. While he never

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Bernard Hoyes

actively supported Hoyes’ interest in becoming a professional artist, Hoyes’ father was instrumental in instilling a discipline and in encouraging Hoyes to further his education. “My father told me that I would not be able to make a living as an artist,” Hoyes said, “and made an effort to refocus my studies, but I was committed to my calling and passion. However, I am forever grateful to him for bringing me to America, welcoming me into his family, and providing a foundation from which I could launch my endeavors.” Hoyes was invited to study art in Vermont through a summer Resident Program co-sponsored by The Art Students League of New York and the Ford Foundation. Under the apprenticeship of established artists such as Norman Lewis, Huie Lee Smith and John Torres, he excelled quickly as a painter and sculptor. That summer was a pivotal point for Hoyes. He received a scholarship to attend Vermont Academy, a private boarding and day school for grades 9 through 12 where students were required to pursue a strict academic and athletic program. Hoyes made efforts to create an option for the arts instead of sports and because of this, is credited with creating a formal art department which eventually became an accredited art program at the academy. For his efforts, he was later awarded the Florence Sabin Distinguished Alumni Honors. After Vermont Academy Hoyes relocated to California, where he earned his

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Bachelor of Fine Arts in painting and design at the California College of the Arts. He was now on his path to becoming a professional artist. However, he did have ulterior motives in coming to California: “I was very political at that time, as my father was a Pan-Africanist and his sensibilities influenced me. The civil rights movement Students for a Democratic Society was very much a part of the current events, and I was in that vein. Berkeley was ground zero for all of that, and I went right into the heart of it.” With a BFA, he moved to Southern California. His first studio was in downtown Los Angeles, and his work practice and process was to express some of the emotional and psychological disturbances of acclimating to the states over the years, as well as delivering the visual imagery of the civil rights movement and the prejudice and tumultuous political landscape of the time that accompanied it. Hoyes related that he made his first mark as an artist in embracing these thematic topics and bringing to life the emotional strife they instilled within him. While Hoyes was primarily working in oil paintings, he was greatly influenced by Noah Purifoy, John Outterbridge and David Hammons of then Studio Z – creating work utilizing recycled materials. In the ’70s, Hoyes’ acclaimed Rag Series was born, a compilation of 150 pieces in which the recycled material placed on canvas represented a metaphor for poverty, oppression, and being stifled. These works served as a vessel for personal and collective healing. “Creating the Rag Series allowed me to express my inner turmoil, of

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Bernard Hoyes

the challenges I experienced in my young life and the challenges of the times as well, giving me the opportunity to cleanse my soul and advance my artistic practice to take on other topics that would appeal to a broader audience,” notes Hoyes. “In order to move forward, I needed to filter the manic thoughts, bringing them to canvas as a visual document.” Another landmark of Hoyes career is his Revival Series whose works were actually created in Jamaica when Hoyes returned there for a few months to exhibit and reunite with his estranged family. Its paintings, which recall Hoyes’ Jamaican roots through rhythmic movement, vivid colors, and spiritual forwardness, have won awards nationally and internationally. “The only art that is really meaningful is of what has affected me culturally and personally,” says Hoyes. “The Revival Series was born of paying homage to

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my grandmother, who raised me for a time and was instrumental in my transformational years as a young child.” Hoyes was later commissioned by the Department of Cultural Affairs to create and produce a multidisciplinary performance based on these oil paintings. Seven of the Revival Series paintings came to life on stage at the Ford Amphitheater in Los Angeles in the show “Se7en Paintings, a Story in Performance.” Dance, pantomime, drumming, digital imagery and a chorus of chants were interwoven, with 45 performers delivering a tale rooted in Jamaica’s spiritual traditions and the Universal Prodigal Daughter. Hoyes has extensive career vitae, along with over 100 exhibitions, 30 of them solo and in several countries. As a multidisciplinary artist, his work includes not only paintings but sculptures, murals, serigraphs, etchings, and giclées. While his paintings have

primarily been in oils, his most current exhibition, “Spirit of the Land Through Climate Change” at the San Bernardino County Museum, is a compilation of his watercolors created during the past 25 years at his mesa in Desert Hot Springs. Through a personal lens, experimenting with form and narrative in the water pigments, Hoyes’ subjects are a portrayal of what he has witnessed transpiring in the natural desert life over the years. Large paintings from an intuitive perspective reveal a controlled recession of details, plane after plane, allowing the observer to wander into the picture space for a vicarious experience of nature. He addresses the ideology of loving the environment, and encourages the viewer to be the steward of change that impacts all living things positively. “The use of watercolors medium expresses the irony of the constant drought – dry and barren, but also the washes as metaphors of interconnectedness of

the flora and fauna,” says Hoyes. Of his local engagements and among his mural projects of late, he completed a large-scale mural on the exterior eastern wall of the Church of St. Paul’s in downtown Palm Springs in 2019, commissioned by the Church’s Pastor Andrew Green and the Palm Springs Art Commission. He has served on the Black History Committee as Art Curator organizing in 2015, “Evolving Abstractions” of African-American artists of Palm Springs working the genre, followed in 2016 by “Bridging Communities Photography Project” in collaboration with the City of Palm Springs and hosted at the Palm Springs Art Museum. As he enters a new phase of his mature practice today, Hoyes returns to his roots once again. In 2019 he spearheaded a group of artists to create murals in the Downtown of Kingston. Continuing efforts by the Kingston Creative group to revitalize the Capital through art engagements, he has now been ART-HIGHLIGHTS.COM

Bernard Hoyes 18

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commissioned to create a sculpture to be showcased on a historical business street at the Government Building Port Authority. â&#x20AC;&#x153;The Mating Dance of the Hummingbirdsâ&#x20AC;? will be a 12-foot-tall steel-braised aluminum and Lucite sculpture in a double helix spiral fashioned in steel ribbons, ascending to support a pair of flirting hummingbirds (the hummingbird is the national bird of Jamaica) casted in aluminum. The expected completion date for the sculpture is spring 2020.

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Coastal Modern Abstract

Steve Adamâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s approach creates art that immediately stands out on the wall, evocative and freshly contemporary. Like the ocean breezes that filter through his studio, Steveâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s art is a breath of fresh air.

Steve Adam Gallery (949) 294-9409 760 South Coast hwy. Laguna Beach, CA 92651

www.steveadamgallery.com

@steveadamgallery

#0659 Mixed Media on Canvas/Framed

AHM exclusive interview

A One-on-One with Edward Goldman by Laura Bleiberg

Whether as educator, critic or art expert, his brilliance and insights shine through "

t’s Edward Goldman with Art Talk on KCRW.” From 1988 to 2019, that was the sign-on for the weekly art musings of Edward Goldman, art expert, educator and critic.

opportunities. Los Angeles was the “wild west,” he says, and because of that, there was a willingness to accept a Russian refugee who had to work to make himself understood.

Alas, Goldman no longer Goldman visited exhibitions has his regular platform and attended performances on 89.9 FM. He continues t hroug hout S out her n to send out his newsletter, California for his deeply Art Matters with Edward i n for me d, home spu n Goldman, and teaches The reviews, delivered in his Fine Art of Art Collecting, trademark thick Russian a popular class for the accent. (His sign-off could general public. Goldman sound like, “Iz bin Edvard recently met Art Highlights Goldman with KCRW”…) contributing writer Laura He would directly address Bleiberg at Bergamot Station his listeners as “my friends.” A portrait of Goldman as commentator for KCRW. Photo by Theo Jemison to converse about a range He spoke knowledgeably of topics. This is an edited about artworks of any era, from ancient Greek and transcript of their discussion. Roman to cutting edge contemporary, and explained how to look at art, how to appreciate it. LB: Let’s start by talking a little about KCRW and Born in St. Petersburg, Goldman spent weekends as a youth roving the corridors of the famous Hermitage Museum and after getting his university degree, he worked in the museum’s education department from 1969 to 1977. When, the following year, he arrived in Los Angeles with his parents and sister, he told himself he would never stay in what he presumed was an artistic backwater. Instead, he found an explosion of institutional and individual artistic growth in Southern California and he became a noted chronicler of its significant developments. He taught at ArtCenter College of Design in Pasadena and Otis College of Art and Design; became an art advisor to international accounting firms, such as Price Waterhouse; and curated exhibitions in the offices of several prominent architects, including Tim Walker. He made close friendships within the arts community: artists Lita Albuquerque, Enrique Martinez Celaya and Manfred Müller; gallery owner Rose Shoshana; and architects Thom Mayne and Kulapat Yantrasast. And, of course, there was KCRW, which led to other

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how you came to do your Art Talk commentaries. I understand that you were appointed by public radio pioneer Ruth Seymour, who was then the station’s general manager. How did you meet her?

EG: I met with Ruth at the exhibition opening of an artist whom she was friends with. Someone introduced us. And she said, ‘Oh, I’m planning next week to interview [on the radio] a group of the Soviet refugees and emigrants and talk about what’s happening right now in the Soviet Union culturally. I’d love you to join us.’ So, here I am, coming to KCRW and being interviewed. After that, Ruth invited me and a few others to have a drink and coffee at her place and we continued to talk, (for) many years. And it’s interesting that now I finished doing my weekly art talks for KCRW, I realized that I’ve done it for 31 years and actually when I left the Soviet Union, I was 31 years old. So [the number] 31 means something very special. I’m just turning the page and making new challenges in my life. LB: What did the current KCRW management tell you about ending Art Talk?

Goldman’s critiques often include shows from important Los Angeles galleries, such as this one, L.A. Louver. Photo Edward Goldman

EG: They told me that we have a new kind of ideas about how to approach audiences, new format of the program. They want to have new voices. I said, ‘I’m surprised I have a chance to do it for 31 years.’ Nothing lasts forever, so to speak, yes? It’s OK – a new chapter, a new adventure. Los Angeles cultural life is so huge, so challenging. You know the proverbial expression if you want to peel the onion to get to the center, so I’m peeling the Los Angeles art onion and it’s getting bigger and bigger. The more I peel, the more I learn. My God, it’s amazing! LB: When was your last Art Talk? EG : In l ate Ju ly 2 019. It ’s amazing because through the 31 years (of doing Art Talk), Los Angeles art scene dramatically enlarged in scale. And it became not only an important American cultural center of art, but it became internationally renowned

art center. Just along the line with, I would say, Berlin and London. LB: What was your professional training and work experiences prior to the move to the United States? EG: I studied art and history at university in the Soviet Union, at State Leningrad University. I’d been an educator at the Hermitage Museum, doing lectures and tours of museum collections. That was my experience before I came here. In the United States, I was forced to learn to drive a car, to write in a foreign language, and to develop another way of connecting, of learning, another way of sharing with people my love and passion for art. LB: It’s so beautiful you say that because no matter what specific exhibition you were reviewing, you always communicated your passion for art. EG: In St. Petersburg, it was funny, by accident I was introduced to the Hermitage (when I was a child). One Sunday afternoon, my parents took me for a walk and it started to rain and we run into the nearest building, which happened to be

the Winter Palace of Russian czars, the entrance to the Hermitage Museum. My family was not the kind of family to take a 4- or 5-year-old boy (to an art museum), but it was raining. And it kept raining for the next couple of hours, so we stayed in the museum all day. Later, my mom told me that on another Sunday, we were planning where to go for a walk, and my mom said to me: ‘Hmm, you’ve been a good boy the last couple of days’ – which was, I guess, a surprise. ‘Would you like to choose where to go?’ And I said, ‘Yes, let’s go to the place where naked men and women are standing.’ When you are four or five years old, how can you describe Greek and Roman statues of gods and goddesses? LB: Talk a little bit about how you began your public classes about art and art collecting. EG: About 15 years ago, I was approached by the Otis College of Art and Design, ART-HIGHLIGHTS.COM

the examples of some artist who I know and respect – always challenging themselves, pushing their buttons. And not just looking for commercial success, but for climbing yet another mountain and yet another mountain. Going up and down, up and down. LB: What were your thoughts about the greater LA art scene back in the ’80s? Did you go all around the city to see and meet contemporary artists? EG: Absolutely. A number of the students who attended my A teenage Edward Goldman in the city of his birth, Leningrad, now St. Petersburg. Photo courtesy Edward Goldman seminars at ArtCenter College asking if I would be interested to do seminars for the students of Design, they invited me to their studios and I started to discover [young about the art scene in Los Angeles. And I said ‘Yes. But I hate artists]. I went to, like LA Institute of Contemporary Art, LICA – we’re to be in a dark room showing slides. I will be the first person to talking about ancient times – and I went to their library and looked at the fall asleep. It would nice to take people to see studios of artists, 35 mm (artist) slides. I called a couple of these people, like Lita Albuquerque, galleries, museums.’ They said, ‘How can you do that?’ I said, ‘Let’s everyone just get on the bus.’ They said, ‘Edward, legal issues, security!’ Anyway, I figure it out…. [That led to me] doing my seminars on fine art collecting [for the public], which is not about making these people build their collections. It’s about making them understand that collecting is not just about buying art. It’s about opening your mind and getting outside your comfort zone and looking at something that might amuse, amaze, annoy, inspire. LB: When you talk to people who maybe feel that they don’t understand art, what advice do you give them so they can find their way into the art and engage with it? EG: First, read my weekly sermon, my art sermon. [He laughs.] Go to a museum which has a variety of things, the way you would go to different parts of the world and look at a sunset and sunrise. You know, every sunset and every sunrise are different from what you see the day before and the day after, especially in different parts of the world. Are you affected – by (the artworks’) look and color, and by abstractions, by realism? Just see! Just see what color makes you happy, what color makes you nervous, what color just makes you very peaceful? And wonder why. And again, be aware that art and culture are the way that dozens of ancient and contemporary gods…are sending messages, universal messages to us. We might hear their noise; we might even hear the words and meaning of these messages through art. LB: We, as critics, view so much more art than the average person and it changes us. How do you think you’ve been changed by what you’ve seen in Los Angeles? EG: I believe that I became wiser, smarter. And I try to follow

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Edward talking with American painter and filmmaker Julian Schnabel. Photo courtesy Edward Goldman

The Visitation, 1528-1529 by Jacopo da Pontormo at The Getty Museum. Photo by Edward Goldman

a wonderful artist, and she said, ‘Sure, come on over to my studio.’ When I met her for lunch, she was pregnant with her first child. Those kinds of things. I went from one thing to another: galleries, openings. LB: Tell us a little about your family and upbringing. EG: I was born in Leningrad, now St. Petersburg. My mom was Jewish and my father was Jewish. My father was born in Poland my mother in Russia. My father, infamously, after Poland was taken by the Germans in 1939, he ran away – because he knew there is a danger – to the Soviet part of the occupation. He was only 19 years old. In a few weeks, he was arrested as a Polish spy, and sent to gulag for year. And, miraculously, he survived. It was freezing temperatures, and 12 hours a day, they were cutting the forest. One of the prison guards found out my father is women’s tailor. In Siberia, to meet a women’s tailor from Europe, it’s like meeting someone who lives on the moon. The guard said, ‘I want you to make a winter coat for my wife.’ My father said, ‘I can’t move my fingers.’ The guard said, ‘I’ll keep you inside.’ My father made a winter coat – do you know this wonderful German word zaftig [full, rounded woman]? And the coat made this solid woman

look a little bit thinner and a little bit taller. So what do you think a woman wouldn’t do for the man who can do this? Every wife of every other guard demanded that my father would do the same for her. My father set up the tailor shop inside the gulag. People ask me, ‘Was he paid?’ And I said, ‘Royally, with his life.’ And when he eventually was released, he met my mom who was a medical nurse. They married. My mom brought him to Leningrad, where the little prince was born. LB: When did your family leave St. Petersburg and how did that end up happening? EG: We lived there until 1977. We were in the second wave of emigration of Soviet Jews. Wanting to emigrate doesn’t mean you can. You applied for emigration and you waited for the government to say yes or no. Sometimes it would be months or years. LB: As a student, you knew you wanted to pursue some profession having to do with art? EG: When I was still student in high school, I was 15 years old, I joined this special club at the Hermitage for schoolchildren. I was going on my own on Sundays to the Hermitage and I ART-HIGHLIGHTS.COM

would join some kind of tour. One of the women who was conducting this tour noticed. ‘Oh, let me bring you to this club. Maybe they will allow you to join.’ I started to go on the weekends and that’s where curators take us on special tours, such as, to the storage facilities. It’s one thing when you look Edward discussing a sculpture at at a sarcophagus, it’s another when you the Getty Villa. Photo courtesy touch the surface, when you are allowed Edward Goldman to touch bronzes and other sculptures. My education of art was not the best, but it was very unique. Some people learn about art through books, which is very effective, or through the slides on the screen. I looked at the actual art in the Hermitage to learn about the history of art. I literally got to touch and smell it.

recently that you enjoyed.

And when I was 16, I was allowed to join the architectural excavation by the Hermitage scholars in the south of Russia, in the Crimean Peninsula [which was controversially annexed by Vladimir Putin.] In Soviet time, it was part of the Ukraine and at the same time, part of the history of ancient Greek settlement. And I dig for one month, a schoolboy digging for artwork of sixth-century BC settlements. And this way I would study. And after that…I went to university, department of history, and my specialty was Greek and Roman history and archeology. And after university when I became member of the education department of the Hermitage I had definitely to deal with the whole history (of art). They have a fabulous collection of Greek art but also a wonderful collection of Impressionism and postImpressionism. One of the best collections of Picasso and Matisse.

A year ago, at the (Los Angeles) County Museum, there was the installation of Robert Rauschenberg’s ‘The ¼ Mile,’ his series of paintings. It is absolutely fabulous – again, the way it was presented. As you know, it’s not only what you’re showing, but how you’re showing. In the same building, on the ground level, was an exhibition devoted to Merce Cunningham. The glory of American art in the 1950s and ’60s, collaborations between Merce Cunningham and John Cage.

LB: Did you want to leave Russia?

LB: Did you experience any anti-Semitism in Russia? EG: Not directly. I remember when I was kind of politely told that when one of the museum curators wanted to hire me, transfer me from the education department to be his assistant. He and I were told that, no, it’s not going to happen. ‘He [Edward] is an educator, lecturer, tour guide, yes, but as a museum curator, no.’ I understand that I hit the glass ceiling. To a certain extent, I have to be grateful; otherwise I would still be in the Hermitage. It’s an amazing thing to work there. LB: Talk a little bit about some of the recent exhibitions that you’ve seen

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The exhibition was not just informative. When there is a good informative exhibition, I thank you for that. But when it just allows you to step into this fourth dimension, it’s like you hear, you dream, you smell, you fantasize about that. LB: What do you think about the proposed new building for the L.A. County Museum of Art? EG: I did several (Art Talk) programs about that. I think he’s (Peter Zumthor) one of the most renowned European architects with very appealing projects. His work has exceptional details and sophistication. But he never had experience working on the scale of the project here. And in the several years working on this project, he has made some modification, from a dark palette of the buildings switched to the light palette.

Edward with his friend, the artist Enrique Martinez Celaya. Photo courtesy Edward Goldman

EG: You know, by Russian standards, we lived kind of middle-class family life, comfortable. But as a historian, learning more and more about all the shameful chapters of Soviet life, learning what government did to people like my father… And I remember I was just ashamed of the government and policies, but I didn’t have a choice. You are a part of it. You have to say some false statements trying to protect yourself. All of a sudden, there was the chance to emigrate on the first wave (Soviet Jewish) emigration in the early 1970s. People would wait for the government to give you permission or not to give you permission for a year or two, and meanwhile you have to resign from your job. But when some of our friends started to apply to leave and then started to leave – my mother’s cousin left – and we started to think about this.

EG: In the last couple of months, there has been an absolutely amazing combination of shows; they’re closing very soon. An amazing exhibition at the Norton Simon Museum, ‘By Day & by Night: Paris in the Belle Epoque.’ [Editor: Closed March 2.] The artwork is from the permanent collection. It’s full of scenes of cabarets, bordellos, Toulouse-Lautrec, Degas. It’s just absolutely delicious experience. And it’s just pure coincidence that across the city, at the Getty (Center) Museum, there is an exhibition of Edward Manet. [Editor: Closed in January.] I did a program about that. I took my class to see the curator. I’m taking my friends every weekend to see it. And after being there six times, on Sunday I’m going there one more time. And every time when I look at the pieces, which I already look at so carefully, I notice something else. And I think, How the hell I didn’t see that? But it’s like with your best old friends: you continue with the same conversation and it goes to another depth, another direction.

But I feel like aesthetically it’s not connected, either to the neighborhood or to the spirit of Los Angeles. And we are learning these days that this building’s exhibition space will be 10 percent smaller than exists previously. As I said in one of my Art Matters (newsletters), it’s like inviting architects to build a new house for your growing family – a new house with fewer rooms than the previous house. And not only is (the new building) smaller, the old museum is growing up and the (new building’s) structure will not allow for expansion. So the official budget is $600-plus million which was agreed upon, just accepted (by the county). Everyone knows when a project of this scale is finished it takes extra years and extra a few hundred million dollars. And, last year, the museum stalled in their (fundraising) attempts and on one of my last programs, I said, it’s interesting that there are so many museums in Los Angeles announcing that they are either already free… or recently Museum of Contemporary Art announced that the president of the board of trustees gave $10 million so MOCA is going to be free of charge. Hammer is free of charge. The Broad Museum is free of charge. And Getty free of charge.

And the public museum (LACMA)? The city of Los Angeles contributed $170 million in taxpayer money and LACMA is still charging $25 (admission) for adults – with some exceptions, but still. And I said, what if one of the trustees will be as generous and as wise to give millions so the museum can be free? And maybe it will change the whole spirit of the fundraising (for the new building). I don’t want to criticize, but just say there is a way to make it so people in Los Angeles say, yes, let’s do it. LB: After decades of talking to us about art, you have become something of a celebrity in Los Angeles and Orange County. EG: I became a Los Angeles art priest. People tell me, ‘Stop saying that you are an atheist. The way you are talking about art is like you’re delivering a sermon.’ I said, ‘OK, I can take it.’

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The ‘Amazing Feeling’ of the World Premiere by Laura Bleiberg

American Ballet Theatre and Segerstrom Center for the Performing Arts once again team up to create a new, original ballet

he Segerstrom Center for the Performing Arts has built a reputation thanks to its international dance series.

Since its doors opened in 1986, the Center has presented the world’s most prestigious companies: the Mariinsky and Bolshoi from Russia, England’s Royal Ballet, Paris Opera Ballet, New York City Ballet, and others of equally glittering prestige. The most frequent guest of all – nearly every season – is American Ballet Theatre. But the Center’s fame comes not just from these blue-chip groups – it comes, too, from the ballets they perform. And 35 of them – slightly more than one per year – have been world premieres, never before seen onstage. Not every new piece ends up being a keeper. But within the performing arts world, giving audiences the gift of an original, wholly fresh presentation is a bonus, a feather in a theater’s “cap.” Imagine yourself with the first crowd to experience “Hamilton” – or being the smart person that agreed to produce it. The Center’s 36th world premiere is now being readied: American Ballet Theatre’s “Of Love and Rage” (March 5-8), a full-length adventure-romance based on a 2,000-year-old Greek novel, “Callirhoe.” It will be the fifth ballet

ABT has debuted at the Center, and the fourth made by company Artist in Residence Alexei Ratmansky. His other Center premieres were “Firebird” (2012), “Sleeping Beauty” (2015), and “Whipped Cream” (2017). ABT’s first Center world premiere was Mikhail Baryshnikov’s production of “Sleeping Beauty” in 1988. The Center has had a close relationship with ABT, made even tighter with the establishment of ABT/William Gillespie School at the Center. But with the Russian-born Ratmansky churning out elaborate and splendiferous classical ballets, the Center has been able to step up and play a critical role that benefits ABT and rewards local ballet-lovers – that of offering itself as try-out theater. “Having Alexei Ratmansky, one of the great choreographers in the world, setting a work on American Ballet Theatre for the first time and to have it open on the Segerstrom Center stage, to me that’s the ultimate experience of beauty and joy,” said Judy Morr, the Center’s executive vice president and driving force behind the dance series. ABT does not have a “home” theater, like New York City Ballet does at the David H. Koch Theater (at Lincoln Center), and a new ballet requires extra time in a theater before the first performance. It takes a week just to unload and assemble all the scenery, costumes and equipment and set the lights,

Christine Shevchenko and Thomas Forster at the "Of Love and Rage" preview at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Photo by Paula Lobo

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Star Natalia Osipova in “The Firebird,” which premiered at the Segerstrom Center. Photo by Gene Schiavone

plus there are the extra days needed to rehearse because the production is untried, said James Whitehill, III, ABT’s Director of Production. “It’s really simple, Whitehill said. “It comes down to one thing: time. What Segerstrom gives us is the entire week, Monday through Sunday plus Monday of the second week (to set up). It becomes really apparent when you look at what our normal schedule is at ABT. Under normal circumstances, we would load in and set up everything in two days and rehearse and open it on the third day. That’s a ballet that’s already in our repertory.”

Consider the logistics of this opening It takes five 53-foot long trailers to transport the ballet to the loading dock of Segerstrom Center, arriving about two weeks before the first show. They will be filled with 227 individual costumes, set pieces, props, lights, flooring, and other equipment, coming from workshops in Manhattan, Bridgeport, Ct., and Newburgh, N.Y., where everything was created and built. On Monday, February 24, workers from ABT and Segerstrom began unloading the hundreds of pieces and assembling the scenery, a process that Whitehill described as “exciting and terrifying at the same time.” They’ve adhered ABT’s special dance floor to the stage and began hanging lights. (Of approximately 500 lights used in the production, about 460 are owned by ABT and the others, Whitehill said, are rented or owned by the Center.)

By the end of Tuesday, the scenery had been assembled, and throughout Tuesday and into Wednesday, all the ballet’s separate scenes were arranged onstage, the floor marked with tape to tell stagehands where to place pieces during performance scene changes. (The ballet has four distinct scenes in the first act and six scenes in Act Two.) Once the sets, backdrops and props have been put together and placed, the lighting designs can be finished. Final decisions on lighting cues and colors have to wait until the scenery is in place. The dancers are added into the equation and begin rehearsing the next day. Saturday, February 29, is a run-through of the first act. Sunday, March 1, is a much-needed day off. Monday – the beginning of week two – is a rehearsal for the second act. Tuesday is the first rehearsal of the complete ballet. On Wednesday, March 4, the Pacific Symphony joins ABT and rehearses with the dancers for the first time. (The score for “Of Love and Rage” is a compilation of music by 20th-century composer Aram Khachaturian.) Thursday afternoon, March 5, is a final run-through. Hours later, the ballet is unveiled. “The important takeaway is how valuable the time and the support are we get from (Segerstrom Center) and how that really changes the entire process for the company,” Whitehill said. ABT artistic director Kevin McKenzie will see the complete stage set up ART-HIGHLIGHTS.COM

for the first time at the Center, a realization of two years of planning. “One sees the sets in the theater in real scale days before the premiere (so to have this extra time in a theater that Segerstrom so generously gives us is invaluable!),” McKenzie said. “Adjustments galore proceed, as you thrill at the wonder of this giant thing coming to life.” The big reveal is just as exciting for the Segerstrom Center staff. The center’s John Oliphant, Technical Director and Production Carpenter, has known Whitehill for decades and has been his point person at Segerstrom. When ABT was at the Center in December performing “The Nutcracker,” Whitehill shared photos of the scenic pieces with Oliphant as they continued to plan how many stagehands and other workers would be needed to run the show. ABT dancers Catherine Hurlin and Aran Bell performed opening night, March 5, of the world premiere of “Of Love and Rage.” Photo by Erin Baiano

Scene from the finale of “Whipped Cream,” a new ballet by Alexei Ratmansky. Photo by Gene Schiavone

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Jean-Marc Puissant’s drawing of the costume for the Queen of Babylon in “Of Love and Rage.”

Diana Vishneva stars as Aurora in the premiere of “The Sleeping Beauty.” Photo by Gene Schiavone

“It doesn’t look complicated, but it’s big,” Oliphant said. “The scenery consists of fairly large pieces. So it’s going to be interesting. The set is wide and tall, and it’s got some pretty good size building and set-up pieces that have to be moved around the stage.” Events beyond the theater’s control have threatened to derail the theatrical magic of past world premieres. In 2015, a longshoreman’s strike left the “Sleeping Beauty” sets and scenery stranded in a cargo ship in the harbor, while everyone at the Center was biting their nails and coming up with a Plan B. A last-minute resolution of the strike saved the day. Oliphant said that while readying new ballets is challenging, he considers them a highlight. “I truly believe in what we’re doing,” he said. “Doing these world premiere ballets are important to the Center’s mission. I believe it’s the right thing

for us to do and from a professional standpoint, it does make the job more rewarding.” Morr has been an executive at the Center since before it opened and has been key in charting its artistic programming. She always knew that she wanted the presentation of new artwork to be an important part of the mix. The way it has developed, being able to be a partner with ABT and Ratmansky has been a realization of her own dreams, too. “I think he’s an extraordinary choreographer,” Morr said, “and I think ABT is very, very lucky to have him as their resident choreographer. And that enhances the Center’s relationship with ABT.” “We have a sort of rhythm between us and the crew and the house staff that works the production. It’s really like welcoming your family to create something on the stage, and it’s an amazing feeling.”

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College friends trading labor leads to a lasting legacy by Barbara Gothard

Careers of rock stars The Doors put Nettie Peña on a path to success, fame and a unique place documenting history

hen, as Nettie Peña tells it, her fel low UCLA classmate, Jim Morrison, asked her “to take still pictures and record him and the boys” at their first professional gig at the London Fog on Sunset Strip in Hollywood in 1966, neither of them could foresee where their practice of trading labor would lead. Peña did indeed take pictures of and recorded their performances and the works of art created by their fellow classmates. In exchange, Jim and the boys gave her unencumbered ownership rights of all of the photos she took, and the music she recorded, during that time-frame. Consequently, in addition to being the only photographer to capture The Doors’ first performance at the London Fog*, Peña acquired an extensive art collection – and, along the way, developed into an awardwinning photographer. Jim Morrison and Ray Manzarek were in Peña’s cinematography class at UCLA in 1964 and 1965, and the three became friends, hanging out at Venice Beach.

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Peña and the two members of The Doors were in distinguished company. Their classmates included Judith Aston, her roommate in the Dance Department, who became a successful movement therapist. Tony Berlant grew into an artist whose assemblages and sculptures are in museums throughout the U.S. Ben Sakoguchi’s paintings of World War II are exhibited nationally. Joan Churchill became an accomplished documentary filmmaker known for “Soldier Girls” and “Aileen: Life and Death of a Serial Killer” and who received the first award given by the International Documentary Association for Outstanding Documentary Achievement in Cinematography. And Peña’s own sister, Estela P. Halvorson, became a noted painter and was appointed by Hawaii’s governor as the CEO of the Kona Outdoor Circle Education Center. Peña received artworks from many of these noted creative personalities. Although they were a tight group, they lived their art, gallery hopping, partying together, protesting the Vietnam War in San Francisco, watching movies together, and working on each other’s projects, yet managing to retain their own individual art expression. Peña’s non-traditional introduction to photography began at age 20 when her boyfriend’s love of photography led her to take a photography class in hopes of better understanding the jargon he routinely tossed around – focus, ASA, F-Stop, Tungsten light, etc. Starting with a 35mm camera, Peña not only became familiar with the terminology; she began to shoot, develop and print her own images. Eventually, she became hooked on photography. Wanting more from her still photographs, she followed the advice of a designer friend and transferred from the art department to the cinematography department, where she completed a Master of Fine Arts. At UCLA she was influenced not only by the music of the ’60s but also by a plethora of monumentally creative individuals – still photographers, artists, filmmakers and writers, all of whose work carries a tremendous amount of historical influence: Still photographers Ansel Adams, known for his realistic sharpness; Edward Steichen (“Family of Man”); Edward Weston (the nude in perfect light); Dorothea Lange (migrant mother and workers, a precursor of Peña’s current project); Henri Cartier Bresson (“The Decisive Moment”); and Alfred Stieglitz (known for his street photography) have all made an impression upon Peña. The same can be said of ’60s Pop Art icon Andy Warhol, the works of Picasso, a wide swath of French Impressionism, and much of the decade’s art scene in both L.A. and New York; Italian filmmakers Federico Fellini and Michelangelo Antonioni; and writers Anaïs Nin, Henry Miller, Arthur Rimbaud, and Federico Garcia Lorca. The mixture of studying famous artists and being surrounded by art impacted Peña’s life and her goal to artistically capture the realities of life. For the first time in her academic life, Peña felt complete, and her identity as a “street photographer” solidified.

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Peña’s resistance to a cinematography class assignment to write an essay about other film directors of the past led her to propose an alternative to Professor Hugh Gray: Specifically, she asked to make a film on contemporary artists – her friends at UCLA. The result was “Call It Collage, 66,” in which she used still photos and music from the London Fog event. The project was developed with a hand-wind Beaulieu R16 camera. The sound was recorded on a reel-to-reel quarter-inch tape recorder (which, Peña notes, “weighed a ton”), then transferred to 16mm magnetic tape. Editing of the work print and soundtrack was done on a 16mm moviola editing machine which Peña described as “a machine that loved to eat film.” At that time films were edited in old World War II bungalows which had no heat or air conditioning. Peña recalled that Morrison “loved to visit me while editing the film, just to annoy me.” She remained friends with Jim and Ray, and Ray continued to communicate with her after Jim’s passing in 1971. That included Peña going

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to Ojai to pay Ray a visit – and the two picked up where they left off, talking like it was just yesterday. In 2011, Peña sold the rights to her Doors still photographs and the London Fog recording to The Doors Management. She is not involved with the Ray Manzarek & Jim Morrison Preservation Project (https://spark.ucla.edu/ project/14321). [During the special retrospective series 40 Years of UCLA Student Filmmaking: a retrospective of UCLA studentmade short films from 1949-1989 at the Billy Wilder Theatre in Westwood Village, Los Angeles, Peña’s film Call It Collage, ’66 was screened (on November 22, 2019) along with films made by Manzarek. The 2019 series was curated by Jan-Christopher Horak and Maya Montañez Smukler.] In addition, the UCLA Film and Television Archive (https://www.cinema.ucla.edu) invited Peña to include the films she had made at UCLA in the 1960s and have them archived at its new facility in Santa Clarita, Calif. – along with the more than 1,500 catalogued student works

that comprise the archives’ vast holdings. Peña was amazed that her films were in good condition, but also knew that her 16mm works would have to undergo conversion to digital format, which the archives did. Established in 1965, UCLA’s archive is a pioneer in preserving and showcasing moving image media and, after the Library of Congress, is the second-largest repository of motion pictures and broadcast programming in the United States. (A unit of the UCLA Library, one of the country’s leading academic libraries in research, groundbreaking discoveries and innovation, it’s also the world’s largest university-held collection.) Peña’s extraordinary film career includes serving as a videographer and documentarian for Soka Gakki President Daisaku Ikeda, traveling the world to capture the propagation of Nichiren Daishonin’s Buddhism globally. A practicing Buddhist, Peña said that when obstacles arise, she “spends a little more time on [her] spiritual life, chanting Nam-Myoho-Renge-Kyo and listening to Jim Morrison sing with Robby Krieger’s lyrics: ‘The time to hesitate is through / No time to wallow in the mire …Come on baby, light my fire / Try to set the night on fire’” [“The Doors,” an album by The Doors released in 1988 on Elektra (catalog no. 7559-74007-2; CD)]. Currently, Peña is continuing to pursue her dream of documenting the lives of the Mayan Women Weavers in Guatemala (artpatronmagazine.com). After centuries of producing woven items on backstrap looms, these women now face extinction from outside business forces. That fact has been driving Peña to complete a documentary and a book about the Mayan women, works that will serve as a symbolic shout out to the influence of Dorothea Lange – and to Peña’s commitment to street photography.

*London Fog 1966 is a live album by the American rock band The Doors, released on December 16, 2016 by Rhino Records. It contains a previously unreleased May 1966 live performance at the Los Angeles nightclub London Fog that was recorded by Nettie Peña, who was a spectator at that event, before the band’s January 4, 1967 release its highly successful debut album. Web links that tie in with this article: London Fog 1966 - Wikipedia en.wikipedia.org/wiki/London_Fog_1966 nettiePeñaphotography@gmail.com nettie-Peña.pixels.com/collections facebook.com/nettie.Peña ww.facebook.com/nettiePeñaphotography

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Arthur Taussig: A Man for all Arts by Daniella B. Walsh

The photographer and multimedia artist has zigzagged through life

uch has been said about the virtue of finding one’s path in life, especially when it comes to careers or occupations.

A photographer and multimedia artist now, Arthur Taussig not so much drew a path through his professional and creative life but zigzagged over multiple highways on which he continues to defy speed limits and, given his current chronological age of 78, with apparently undiminished vigor.

Take his latest accomplishment, “The Alchemical Visions Tarot: 78 Keys to Unlock Your Subconscious Mind,” an elegantly boxed set of Tarot cards that seemingly required research trips across ages and cultures to produce and, coffeeklatch fortune diviners beware, requires almost equal time for study and interpretation. The cards made their debut last January at the Philosophical Research Society in Los Angeles. Then again, as what he called a linguistic exercise, Taussig produced several reams covered with the sort of emojis used to sign off text messages. Ho w e v e r, f o r t h e classically inclined and really just for fun, he has produced entire passages from Shakespeare’s “The Merchant of Venice,” illustrating Shylock’s lament to Salarino, lets “Richard II” speak of “graves and worms and epitaphs,” gives pictorial voice to Anthony while eulogizing at Caesar’s funeral (“Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears…”) and, of course, Hamlet’s “To be or not to be, that is the question…” On a more serious note, Taussig also created illuminated books of “Hamlet,” as well as James Joyce’s “Ulysses,” Dante’s “The Divine Comedy,” Franz Kafka’s “The Trial” and, for a change of pace, Lewis Carroll’s “Through the Looking Glass” and “Alice in Wonderland.” However, these are not your medieval illuminated manuscripts, but Taussig’s interpretations of fonts and abstract forms to complement or suggest deeper meanings of content. Then again, he illuminated Supreme Court documents such as those of the landmark cases Roe v. Wade and Brown v. Board of Education.

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Often bereft of text but full of photographs or illustrations, his 39 books are for the most part self-published, elegant coffee table tomes, meant for keeps – for him or anyone in his large circle of friends.

Museums for Everyman and Woman Let’s stay with books and examine “Postcards from the Edges of America” (not to be confused with Carrie Fisher’s 1987 book “Postcards from the Edge”), which is the end manifestation of Taussig’s expansive The Museum Project. To put matters succinctly, it has nothing whatsoever to do with fine art museums. Instead, it delves into the vernacular of America, into places that individuals established for themselves and the like-minded. Since I’m at times inclined to read books from right to left, I opened Taussig’s “Postcards…” to page 79 and, voilà, “The Cockroach Hall of Fame,” Plano, TX. There I found preserved cockroaches pulling Santa’s sleigh, a dressed-up specimen channeling Liberace, and a family trio basking at a backyard picnic. Taussig explained that the museum celebrates the source of a nearby exterminating company’s livelihood. For a change of pace, he documents a “Salt and Pepper Shaker Museum,” Kaleidoscopic Alphabets or establishments dedicated to diverse personalities like Ava Gardner and Billy the Kid, a Walmart Museum, the Spam Museum, and one focused on Folsom Prison. Interspersed are establishments commemorating the War between the States and a variety of sports. Let’s not forget the Giant Shoe Museum. This book contains photographs but no text. Viewers have to find their own groove among offerings including The Oklahoma Jazz Museum. “Many of the places I photographed unfortunately no longer exist,” says Taussig. An interactive map on Taussig’s website shows 29 such museums in Texas alone; California has roughly three times that many esoteric museums, curated for, and by, Everyman or Woman.

Kabballah Illuminations ART-HIGHLIGHTS.COM

Arthur Taussig Tarot Deck â&#x20AC;&#x201D; published by Red Wheel/Weiser

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Into Science, Out of ’Nam, Out of Science and into Art “I started out as a scientist, but also studied anthropology and musical history, and photography,” he says. Starting out in Berkeley around 1963, Taussig got into folk music, playing and teaching guitar and banjo as Harry Taussig. When Taussig moved to Orange County in 1964, he worked as a physicist for Ford Aeronutronics Corporation, which earned him a draft deferment from the Vietnam War – but the work did not fulfill him, and he began to study art and photography with John Upton at Orange Coast College. Alas, being a part of the military-industrial complex still gnawed at him, so he continued his education at the UCLA Brain Research Institute, studied photography in the summer with Upton and Ansel Adams, and assisted Minor White. “I learned all I could about photography, about the non-linear relationship between light and dark,” he recalled. “I was going to teach science but wound up at OCC teaching photography – as a professor with a PhD.” Later, he also taught film at OCC, curated films at the Orange County Museum of Art (OCMA) and

Three of Taussig’s images of Alighieri’s The Divine Comedy

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Arthur Taussig Top center: Shakespeare Emojis. Top right and left: More Kaleidoscopic Alphabets. Second row, right and left: Six images from the Tondo series. Second row, center, and third row, left and right: Works from Vernacular Museums. Bottom row left and right: Jigsaw collages. Bottom row center: from Jewels and Botanicals series.

Whispers Series (all three)

made a name for himself as H. Arthur Taussig reviewing films (with parents of young moviegoers in mind). Meanwhile, take the period between 1971, when he received a master’s degree in biochemistry and a PhD in biophysics and also began to exhibit his photographs internationally and began to teach photography, and, say, 2012, when he cut his second album and performed to critical acclaim at the South by Southwest Music Festival in Austin, Texas. From the earliest beginnings, be it science or arts, Taussig looked for the esoteric, the roads uncharted – or barely charted.

Present and Past Remain Intertwined Currently, Taussig is into printmaking, but he also makes collages, photography books and countless photographs ranging in subject from versions of Michelangelo’s David (“Dave & Mona”) to what he describes as “China Still Lifes.”

photographs containing thoughtfully composed images that may appear commonplace individually but put together convey more complex messages. A selection was recently on exhibit at Coastline College. “They are explorations of ideas. There are no rules, no sense of gravity,” he says of creations that comprise an ongoing project. So far, he’s made 6,000. “I have ADD, AD, dyslexia, so I have trouble reading, but I pay attention to everything. To some, it’s debilitating,” he says. “I take advantage of it.” What he considers a compliment rather than a hindrance earned him, besides his advanced degrees in science, a National Endowment of the Arts (NEA) Visual Arts Grant in 1982. He says that he has a storage unit filled with his work and that showing it is not a big priority. “Every time I have a show, it takes time and money and energy. Serious or silly, for me it’s art for art’s sake and for self-fulfillment.”

“Ideas just keep coming,” he says, adding that while looking at art, images flow together into abstractions and then sort themselves out in his mind. Using his camera, he often turns his observations into “tondos” – circular shaped

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Diversity Drives Many an Orange County Theater Company A generous variety of programming by Cabrillo Playhouse, Chance Theater, La Mirada Performing Arts Theater and Stages Theatre enlivens the playgoing experience by Eric Marchese

Nearly every city in Orange County has a theater company, and some are even blessed with more than one. Each company and venue has forged a singular identity fueled by programming that challenges audiences while entertaining them. Were you to see just one or two productions per year from each theater company within this quartet of Orange County venues, you’d have seen some of the best live theater anywhere – so as in our inaugural issue, here are four more theater companies worth visiting.

1. Cabrillo Playhouse 202 Avenida Cabrillo, San Clemente Box office and website: 949 482-0465 cabrilloplayhouse.org

mong the oldest continuing theaters in Orange County, Cabrillo A Playhouse was chartered as San Clemente Community Theatre in March of 1953. For more than a dozen years, the company bounced among multiple venues in South Orange County, including the Elk’s Club, Concordia School, the all-purpose room at Las Palmas School, and the “Casino” that eventually became Sebastian’s West dinner theater. In 1966, the troupe purchased the Adair home, an Ole Hanson-style residence built in 1928 (Hanson is the city of San Clemente’s founder) on the corner of Avenida Cabrillo and Avenida Santa Barbara, and converted it into an intimate, 66-seat theater venue complete with lobby, box office and backstage area. Committed to its mission to provide the most entertainment possible for the best value, each season the playhouse and its board offered patrons a season series package of tickets: 35 years ago (1985), a six-show package cost $30; today’s five-show package runs $100, among the best live entertainment values anywhere in the county. For nearly 70 years now, Cabrillo Playhouse has developed into and maintained a rich tradition as a significant cultural asset in South Orange

Among the oldest continuing theaters in Orange County, Cabrillo Playhouse moved into its current 66-seat venue, a converted home, in 1966 – 13 years after the launch of its founding theater company. Photo courtesy Cabrillo Playhouse

County, providing an outlet for creative community involvement while presenting artists who excite, entertain and educate audiences through a variety of the performing arts. Each season offers plays, including comedies, dramas and musicals, as well as musical performers, magicians and more, all in a cozy setting. Best of all is that there’s not a bad seat in the house. This season’s shows include “Barefoot in the Park” (March 6-29), one of Neil Simon’s earliest mega-hits and still among his most popular shows and one of the comedies most in demand by theater audiences; “Sylvia” (April 24-May 17), A.R. Gurney’s dark comedy about the tensions that develop in a marriage when the husband brings home a female dog he names Sylvia – and grows too close to her for his wife’s comfort; and the musical “Gunmetal Blues” (June 5-28). Written by Scott Wentworth (book) and Craig Bohlmer and Marian Adler (music and lyrics), the 1991 show takes us to the Red Eye Lounge, where pianist Buddy Toupee tickles the ivories and serves up detective fiction-like plot points such as a private eye in search of a missing blonde in a smoky world of rain-slicked streets and scads of duplicity, all backed by a Chandler-esque Greek chorus.

The 2016 staging of “Man of La Mancha” typifies the artistry of Cabrillo Playhouse’s musical theater productions. Photo by Stephen Hill

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2. Chance Theater 5552 E. La Palma Ave., Anaheim Box office and website: 949 650-5269 chancetheater.org

hat is now a powerhouse among some of its more W storied peers has its roots in the most humble of origins as a fledgling storefront troupe dedicated to

staging previously unproduced works or, even more ambitiously, conceiving of, scripting, producing, directing and performing a slate of all-original plays, all from within its core of co-founders. That goal, and less-than-fortunate results, prompted a drastic overhaul that led to a dramatic reversal in terms of commercial and artistic success – which wasn’t immediate, but the writing was on the wall for all to see: “Spare Change Productions” was now Chance Theater, a name born of a high school student ensemble known as “The Theater Now in its 22nd season, Chance Theater blossomed from an obscure fledgling space in an Anaheim of Chance.” Hills industrial park to staking a claim as a theatrical powerhouse on the Orange County theater Co-founder Oanh Nguyen has said he and his colleagues scene. Photo courtesy Chance Theater “were interested in more opportunities, in taking risks, in seeing where the wind would take us – so Chance seemed to be the right name.” Soon, the company began attracting an enviable stable of first-rate directors, (April 10-May 10), a theatrically innovative 2009 play that meshes the performers and designers. With that came more artistic and critical acclaim, spectacle of professional wrestling with compelling characters and global which then led to more notice and recognition. That triggered a new influx themes. of monetary support from within the heaviest hitters in the top echelons of those who provide sizable donations to support the arts in Orange County. Two more Orange County premieres grace Chance’s 2020 schedule: “Yellowman” (April 24-May 24), an exquisite and provocative exploration Pushed ever-higher, in the mid-2000s, Chance began to be swept up in an of racism within the black community, and “Significant Other” (Sept. upward spiral as vivid as its initial years had been dire: Increased support 18-Oct. 18), about four young adult New Yorkers – a gay man and his has led to expanded resources, fostering more artistry and bringing more three gal pals – seeking true love. Younger audiences and their families, accolades – and these, in turn, have led to more support. meanwhile, should enjoy John Glore’s adaptation of “A Wrinkle in Time” From its first show through 2014, Chance leapfrogged around an Anaheim (through March 1), Madeleine L’Engle’s popular story of three teens taken Hills industrial complex, moving twice and expanding from 50 to 70 seats on an intergalactic adventure. to its present 99-seat main stage that’s complemented by a 49-seat black box space. Chance’s success has ignited a happy glow within many a local theater Chance Theater’s 2019 production of “Lizzie: The Musical” recently captured the enthusiast – and not just patrons and supporters but those within the award of “Best Production of a Musical (Intimate Theater)” at the 30th annual theater community rooting for it to continue on the path it has blazed. Ovation Awards – and was the only Orange County Theater to receive not just the Orange County and West-Coast premieres are fairly commonplace, and award, but a nomination. Photo by Doug Catiller, True Image Studios so is the consistently high quality level of each finished product. Chance has also rightfully been showered with awards, including Ovations and Garlands, the Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle and accolades from Orange County Arts. Now in its 22nd season, Chance Theater is ever poised to offer an intriguing theatrical mix. “Fun Home,” Jeanine Tesori and Lisa Kron’s musical of Alison Bechdel’s dark autobiography culled from her graphic novel, ran through March 1. Two major productions chart the journeys of young men in the process of discovering their identities and place in life: The justly popular, highly acclaimed “Billy Elliot, the Musical” (June 19-July 19), featuring Sir Elton John’s widely praised score, and the Orange County premiere of “The Elaborate Entrance of Chad Deity”

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3. La Mirada Theatre for the Performing Arts 14900 La Mirada Blvd., La Mirada Box office and website: 714 994-6310 lamiradatheatre.com

Since opening in 1977, La Mirada Theatre for the Performing Arts has carved a storied history for itself. Photo courtesy La Mirada Theatre for the Performing Arts

hough scarcely 43 years old (it opened in fall, 1977), it didn’t take long T for the La Mirada Theatre for the Performing Arts to catapult itself to the top rung of the Orange County performing arts scene.

Angeles area. For the occasion, the theater hosted the Los Angeles Theatre League Alliance Ovation Awards. Sharon Lawrence and Alfred Molina were co-Masters of Ceremonies, and Annette Bening and Carol Channing were given special presentations. La Mirada Theatre celebrated its 25th Anniversary in 2002 with another major special event. “A Salute to Hollywood Songwriters” featured such notables as Alan Bergman, Hal David, Lamont Dozier, Arthur Hamilton, Leiber & Stoller and Richard M. Sherman. Those familiar with the 1,251-seat venue know that large-scale Broadway musicals are its stock in trade, including numerous West Coast premieres and even a world premiere or two. That roster has included “Murder on the Orient Express,” “Carrie: The Musical,” “American Idiot,” “Billy Elliott,” “Mary Poppins,” “The Little Mermaid,” “Dreamgirls,” “Lend Me a Tenor,” “West Side Story,” “Ain’t Misbehavin’,” “Man of La Mancha,” “ L e s M i s e r a b l e s ,” “Floyd Collins,” “Rabbit Hole,” “Good People,” “Seven Brides for Seven B rot h e r s ,” “Spr i n g Aw a ke n i ng ,” “Miss Saigon” and, in early 2016, the world premiere of “Empire the Musical.”

For its celebratory opening weekend, the venue hosted the legendary Tony Bennett and Les Brown & The Band of Renown – and that was only the beginning. In 1978, “The Effects of Gamma Rays on Man-in-the-Moon Marigolds” became the first production of the theater’s Broadway series, starring Shelley Winters and, after its La Mirada run, transferring to Broadway’s Biltmore Theatre. Just a handful of years later (1982), the theater created “That’s Singing: A Celebration of American Musical Comedy.” The spectacular special event featured a raft of Broadway stars, including Ethel Merman, Nell Carter, Debbie Reynolds, Jerry Orbach, Anthony Perkins, Chita Rivera and Barry Bostwick – and was filmed live and later broadcast on cable television. Cary Grant made a rare personal appearance at the theater in 1985. The show, titled “A Conversation With Cary Grant: On Film and In Person,” featured stories from the mega-star’s life and career, thrilling the packed house. The ’80s continued to deliver memorable Coming to La Mirada in events, including a La Mirada’s 2018 production of the Golden-Age musical “South Pacific” washed over audiences like a spring of 2020: A Tribute refreshing wave, expertly directed by Glenn Casale with an unforced pace wholly suited to the material. m ont h - l ong Te nt h to Johnny Cash by James Photo by Austin Bauman Anniversary Celebration Garner (March 13), The featuring a special performance by Hal Holbrook as Mark Twain. Also in 1987: “A Salute to Righteous Brothers: Bill Medley and Bucky Heard (March 20-21), Engelbert Broadway,” co-presented by the La Mirada Symphony and the Whittier-La Humperdinck (March 27), The Benny Goodman Tribute Orchestra with Mirada Light Opera. special guests The Four Freshmen (March 29), Bossa Nova Wave: A night As the new millennium was about to arrive (1999), the theater received of world-class jazz (April 3), The Circus Science Spectacular (April 5), “The the Henry Reining Outstanding Organization Award for a public service Sound of Music” (April 17-May 10), The Brubeck Brothers (May 12) and organization that contributes significantly to the quality of life in the Los “Mamma Mia!” (May 29-June 21).

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4. Stages Theatre 400 E. Commonwealth Ave., Suite 4, Fullerton Box office and website: 714 525-4484 stagesoc.org

ew storefronts can lay claim to surviving FTheatre more than a handful of years, making Stages all the more remarkable. Since opening

its doors in 1993, the company, which in 1998 moved from an Anaheim industrial park into an intimate, 60-seat space in downtown Fullerton, has produced a mind-boggling total of 388 shows – 100 during its first four seasons. Led by Brian Kojac, the close-knit company developed its mission statement early on – as “an entity that is consistently evolving to provide actors, directors, writers, designers and artists with a creative environment that offers an eclectic and challenging variety of theatrical opportunities at all ‘stages’ of the process.” Stages delivers audiences a wide variety of theatrical genres – everything from the classics to newly written shows, mindful of providing opportunities for up-and-coming playwrights or those with a body of work written for the stage who haven’t gotten the exposure they deserve. Memorable shows from the company’s history include “The Miracle of Mary Mack’s Baby,” “Unrelenting Relaxation,” “The Last Drive-In,” “So Alone,” “Six Degrees of Separation,” “Hate,” “A Murder of Crows,” “Stalag 17,” “The King,” “Blood Wedding,” “Dirt Cheap Musicals,” “Speed the Plow,” “The Dinner Party,” “Rattlers,” “The Crocodile Sings,” “Richard III,” “Trailer Stages Theatre moved into its current, intimate 60-seat venue in downtown Fullerton in 1998 – and has, in its Park Musical,” “Bedroom Farce,” “An Absolute 28-year history, notched an astonishing 388 productions. Photo by Eric Marchese Turkey,” “Monuments,” “Urinetown,” “Kill Me, Deadly” and “Raised in Captivity.” This season brings the typical Stages mixture of brand-new shows being given their world premieres and a raft of comedy “Fly Me to the Moon” (June 12-28) is being unveiled along with contemporary plays both familiar and obscure. The annual productions Kate Danley’s new workplace comedy “Bureaucrazy” (June 5-28). of “The Twilight Zone” (July 17-Aug. 16) and “It’s a Wonderful Life: A Perhaps most intriguing is the unveiling of a “new” mystery by the fabled Live Radio Play” (Nov. 27-Dec. 20) are on the schedule, along with Steve Martin’s “The Underpants” (April 18-May 10) and Lucas Hnath’s “A Doll’s Agatha Christie: Her previously unknown play “The Stranger” was recently discovered and is being produced by Stages from Oct. 9 to Nov. 8 – just House, Part Two” (April 10-May 10). in time for Halloween. Among the newer plays are Qui Nguyen’s “She Kills Monsters” (Feb. 28-March 21) and the new one-acts “The Paper Hangers” and “Deanna Stages’ 30-year milestone is just around the corner, in 2022 – and you can bet this creative company will have plenty on hand to mark that special occasion. and Paul” (March 7-21). Local playwright David Macaray’s satirical

In 2015, Stages Theatre presented “The Book of Liz,” sibling playwrights Amy and David Sedaris’ cheerfully loopy 2001 satire. Photo by Kirk Schenck Huff

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LA ART SHOW

A Shining Silver Anniversary by Eric Marchese

This year’s LA Art Show is noteworthy for its eye-catching works and a thought-provoking panel on the subject of authentication

his year’s edition of the LA Art Show, the 25th annual event, not only delighted the eyes and the senses; it also piqued curiosity and challenged our assumptions about issues like the process of how works created by well-known artists are authenticated. Among the most visually striking artworks on display were the photo-realistic portrait sculptures of legendary historical figures and pop-culture luminaries created by Kazu Hiro. The artist, whose full name is Kazuhiro Tsuji, is an Oscar award-winning makeup artist and sculptor, and the show’s retrospective of his work featured pieces described in press materials as “eerily realistic.” Indeed, the entryway to the show tantalized us with stunning sculptures of Abraham Lincoln, Frida Kahlo, Salvador Dali and Jimi Hendrix, while the main floor offered contrasting visages of Audrey Hepburn: One in the prime of her movie career and the second of the star much later in life, when she began circling the globe, fiercely dedicated to helping UNICEF in impoverished locales in Africa, Asia and South America.

enver-based Walker Fine Art mounted the world’s largest collection of the work of M.C. Escher under the title “The M.C. Escher Experience,” a genuinely impressive array of the artist’s lithographs, wood cuts, engravings and mezzotints as well as some of the artist’s iconic custom furniture.

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The “rarest of the rare” Escher platform showcased incredibly rare objects, many of which were being seen in California for the first time ever. This fascinating and in many ways mind-boggling exhibit also gave patrons the opportunity to literally see themselves transformed into the Dutch graphic artist via a special photo booth that re-created Escher’s world-famous “sphere” self-portrait, with you, the viewer, in the reflection.

he mind-blowing visuals included innovative sculptures that have morphed easily recognizable sections of automobiles into lifelike creatures, including a large, bright red crab built from a Volkswagen bug that begs to be brought to life via robotics. Originally from Argentina, Cristian Castro runs a warehouse-sized studio in Downey, where he creates large-scale, full-metal sculptures sure to have viewers marveling at their incredible ingenuity. Castro’s creations include a fleet of 27 deep-sea angler fish featured at last year’s show; the world’s largest ceiling fan, built from the 35-foot-diameter rotor of an Airbus helicopter; and a 1958 Rolls-Royce jet engine that’s the basis of a conference table. Touches of sci-fi abound in his works, many of which bring to mind “The Transformers.”

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LA ART SHOW

he rock-and-roll album covers created by Roger Dean in the 1960s and ’70s (and beyond), notably for English bands like Yes and Asia and often featuring exotic fantasy landscapes, can only be described as visually splendiferous. Considering his celebrity, the 75-year-old Brit is incredibly approachable. A confab with the Art Highlights staff led to an impromptu lunch meeting in Japan town the following week. Results of that meeting will be detailed in our next issue in Daniella Walsh’s fascinating interview with the artist.

ow difficult could the process of authenticating paintings be? Those who visited Wyoming Working Group’s Jackson Pollock exhibit or attended the Zephyr Cove, Nevada-based company’s panel discussion on the subject learned that it’s a time-consuming endeavor fraught with more challenges than one might first suspect – not to mention a considerable amount of opposition and even antagonism from unexpected sources. Known as “J.T.,” WWG’s president, John T. Ravizé, said he and his wife, professional landscape photographers, first entered the world of art through a side door when asked to authenticate a small collection of Pollock works previously unavailable for appraisal. That was in 2002, and Ravizé reports that at the time, he erroneously believed everything connected with the process to be cut-and-dried. All these years later, he still self-deprecatingly calls that assessment a woeful underestimation of the mental, physical and emotional fortitude required when working to determine whether any given canvas was produced by the famed abstract expressionist, who never signed his paintings. Dr. G. James Daichendt moderated the panel, introducing Ravizé as a collector, gallerist, researcher and author in addition to his landscape photography. A professor of art history and dean of

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colleges at Point Loma Nazarene University, Daichendt curated "Revisiting Pollock" at Azusa Pacific University’s Duke Gallery, a 2008 exhibit subtitled “A Collection of Paintings Attributed to Jackson Pollock.”

ounding out the panel was the noted Los Angeles art critic Dr. Christina Valentine, art theorist and program director at Pasadena’s ArtCenter College of Design, lending her insights to those of Ravizé and Daichendt. All three provided the benefit of their knowledge and experience in their continuous efforts

to verify the creations of the reclusive, often enigmatic artist. The Art Highlights team on hand at the show connected with Ravizé, and we plan to bring you more details of his experiences authenticating Pollock’s paintings – so stay tuned to future issues. The show featured 100-plus galleries from more than 18 countries, lending the LA Art Show’s silver anniversary an international flavor.

Photos by Charles Michael Murray

LA ART SHOW 50

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Above and opposite page: More images from this yearâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s LA Art Show.

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Multimedia specialist blends abstraction with realism and color, shape and form with symbolism

Artist Finds Spiritual and Artistic Guidance in the Desert by Judy Sklar

ucca Valley artist and curator Michael McCall is a mid-career artist who works in several mediums: painting, sculpture, photography, performance and conceptual art. Blending abstraction and realistic imagery, he combines color, shape and form with the use of graphic symbolism. He has a quick wit, a spiritual nature and a rebellious belief in the “freedom to create, to challenge the rules and relish the journey.” Born in Hickory, North Carolina, McCall was interested in art as a child. He discovered as a first grader that he could impress his teachers and fellow students with his folded papers with cut-out designs. Showing his creations, McCall recalls thinking, “Wow, this is great!” In high school, McCall was making charcoal drawings and was confident that he could draw well. He took classes with John Brady, a North Carolinian artist who painted landscapes and who would become influential in McCall’s decision to become an artist. As an undergraduate, McCall attended the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. It was the 1960s, and the world was in turmoil. “Disobedience at school became part of the college experience.”

Twisted Initiatives 1987

He went to graduate school at the University of Illinois at ChampaignUrbana, completing his undergraduate and graduate work in merely six years. Along the way, he took a variety of jobs selling shoes and cutlery door-to-door and, later, worked as a residential remodeling contractor. “Money earned,” McCall said, “was money meant for art materials and time in the studio.” At age 28, McCall married Joan Hackett, an artist and photographer. They became a part of a group of artists, musicians and photographers who gathered in Key West, Florida to immerse themselves in the arts. McCall’s idea was to open a bar he called “The Tentacle Room,” a place that would allow him to network and to shed his six years of structured academia while exploring his new artistic directions. He earned the nickname “Captain Squid,” and his memoir, recently published, bears the title “Captain Squid and the Tentacle Room.” In 1977, McCall went to the Yucatán and explored the archaeology of ancient civilizations. He studied the Mayans, their culture and symbolism. In the Mayan archeological sites, he made rubbings from stone carvings, and in Tulum he created his first sand painting, mixing raw materials into wet sand. Years later, his sand paintings would become the centerpiece of major art events, with some as large as 60 feet.

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In & Out 2017

hig hly elab orate, mathematically based designs, while still allowing sections of the original writing to show through. In the midst of this process, McCall would break to meditate, immerse himself into favorite music and read his work in progress, highlighting words and passages that especially moved him. T he e nd re su lt s b e c ame “ Tao Te Spherico,” a humorous combination of the Tao Te Ching, the fundamental text of philosophical and rel i g i ous Ta ois m and, as he puts it, the “bastardized term I made up for a perfectly round geometrical obj e c t in t hre edimensional space.”

e was inspired and mentored by his friend, museum director Walter Hopps (1932-2005). After a 2004 interview with McCall, Hopps wrote: “McCall has been the first artist I know of to make beautiful image paintings of the I Ching symbols. I don’t know another artist who has done that.”

Tao Te Spherico 1994

McCall considers 2015 as pivotal in his life and career. He had just finished a performance piece at the Aqua Hotel in Key Biscayne during Art Basel, Miami in late 2014. It was a conceptional curatorial project that later developed into The Pearly Gates Collection, a tribute to Hopps. During that time, McCall met the Reverend Michael Beckwith, whose spiritual guidance has been a major influence in his life: “Beckwith teaches to believe in oneself and for me, the spirit in this body connects to the Divine source, to the infinite spirit, to love, tolerance and kindness. My artwork hopefully relays those qualities,” explains McCall.

Forms Orbit the Mind 2010

n the 1980s McCall married his second wife, Andrea McCall, with whom he has a daughter, Natalie. (They are now divorced.) He spent most of his career living and working in Los Angeles. Always a student of symbolism, he centers his work around what he describes as “the development of communication from gesture to icon.” He says that he walks a fine line between abstraction and realism, often using elements from Chinese philosophy and mysticism that “intrigue and amuse the viewer.” He achieved intrigue by attaching pages of the I Ching, the Chinese Book of Changes, onto a canvas. He then painted

It was also during this period that he discovered the magic and spirituality of the desert. Introduced to the Joshua Tree art scene, McCall was quickly hooked, and he returned many times to the desert before moving to Yucca Valley. In November 2017, the Hi-Desert Cultural Center of Joshua Tree hired him as the Executive Curator for its annex, the Yucca Valley Visual Performance Arts Center. Today McCall spends much of his time curating shows, fundraising and mentoring other artists. Getting to his own work can be frustrating, but he continues to work on large projects and will often work on smaller projects at the same time. A recovering alcoholic, McCall meditates most mornings, inspired by teachings of Taoism and Buddhism. As he ages, he believes he works smarter. When asked what he would advise a young Michael McCall, he replied: “I would say give it your best shot, persevere and don’t let anything stop you.” ART-HIGHLIGHTS.COM

Art Historian and Author John Seed Illuminates the Art of Our Time by Daniella B. Walsh

espite a lack of discernible schools and isms, painting is again becoming interesting with artists not only interpreting what they see but sharing what they feel

Discombobulation is an old word one does not hear a lot now, but brilliant figurative painter and art educator F. Scott Hess used it in a conversation with his colleague John Seed to describe a large segment of current art not only in the U.S. but worldwide. As Seed explains, Hess stated that there is a lot of discombobulation in the art world, meaning confusion and a degree of disorientation. From that, one might surmise that it means that there are no new, critically endorsed “schools” of painting, no touted “isms,” but a lot of simultaneous but diverse expression within the realm of realistic/figurative painting.

John Seed. Photo by Linda Seed

A younger generation of artists suggests that it’s no longer about conforming to a label, espousing a “concept,” or having to “say something,” but, rather, about the freedom to express thoughts and feelings through a mélange of images. They have also found individual ways of getting their work out there – “out there” being the internet. By going on the web, artists have come to know about each other, study each other’s work, correspond and form friendships without ever having met in person. A year after that seminal conversation, Seed wrote a blog titled “Interrupted Images: Discombobulation in Painting is Definitely a Thing” in which he described what he had noticed and pointed out a few representative artists such as Ann Gale and Alex Kanevsky.

Mia Bergeron - Sanctuary, 2016, oil on panel: 13.5 x 20 inches

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Evidently, Seed expressed something that many observed but could not quite articulate and also raised a few hackles, with some not agreeing with, or perhaps misunderstanding, the term. The ensuing debates set Seed on his path toward writing the book “Disrupted Realism: Paintings for a Distracted World.”

shared insights fed their own and other’s creativity, observing unfolding trends and watching new art communities springing up. A painter, inspired early on by the Bay Area Figurative movement, writer and educator, his response was instantaneous. He was not alone: After Stanek Gallery manager Vanessa Werring read his “Interrupted Images…” blog, she alerted Katharine Stanek, the Philadelphia gallery’s owner, to the possibility of a great show. Several email and phone discussions among Stanek, Seed and artists later, Stanek launched the first exhibition of paintings by 16 artists curated by Seed. A later, follow-up exhibition featured 17 more.

Seed says that artists are deviating from previously established norms of realism intentionally, improvising elements such as line, form and color in order to express themselves. They can refer to time or memory and experience and also incorporate what they are seeing in digital, cinematic or photographic form.

“I chose what I thought to be very good Perception prevails over “seeing,” subjectivity replaces objectivity. paintings – subjective, emotional, Representation melds with striking a nerve,” Seed says. He remarked Ryan Bradley - Untitled (Fabienne 1), 2018, Pastel on Arches abstraction, narrative veers into that at the shows’ opening, almost all the paper: 24.5 x 18 inches mysticism, time stands still or artists met for the first time but, thanks passes at warp speed, vision is to their internet connections, it felt as if singular or emerges in fragments resembling broken they had known each other a lifetime. cellphone screens. Boredom appears banished; there’s After representatives of Schiffer Publishing saw the first no time for that, not with the bombardment of images show, the firm commissioned a book. “The book has and implied ideas artists, like the rest of us, must process. been on the top of my list since I retired from teaching in 2017,” says Seed. “I could not have written it without Seed combed the internet, finding works by an the internet.” international cadre of new and exciting artists whose

Justin Bower - Colossus Id, (triptych), 2018, Oil on canvas: 9 x 12 feet ART-HIGHLIGHTS.COM

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Art Historian and Author John Seed 56

Disrupted Realism… The Book Seed says that a high school teacher described the art in “Disrupted…” as “the art of our time,” and he concurs. “There is something about our times that comes through in the book. I hope that people get a strong feeling of individuality, of feeling and incoherence.” He went on to say that the book does not describe a unified movement but something that seems to be happening across the globe: Artists have a strong urge to tell about feelings and perceptions. Paintings come across as a sort of meditation. Then he elaborates further: “The Renaissance was about This is what I see. Cezanne asked: Is this what I see? In this room (gallery) artists ask: What am I feeling? Every painting asks: Do you see what I am feeling? Dividing the text into chapters on abstraction, disruptive bodies, emotions and identities, myths and visions, patterns, planes and formation and the connection between painting and photography, Seed calls the book his gift to artists and viewers. The author chose 38 artists and let them speak about their art: He asked them about how it deviates from traditional realism, how it evolved and developed, about what influenced them, about interesting aspects of their backgrounds, and how they shape their work. Keeping text fairly minimal, he let the paintings speak for themselves.

Gage Opdenbrouw - Fading, 2016, Oil on panel: 16 x 20 inches

Included are Gale and Kanevsky, along with Radu Belcin, Maria Bergeron, Daniel Bilodeau, James Bland, Justin Bower, Ryan Bradley, Colin Chillag, Paul Cristina, Valerio D’Ospina, Zoey Frank, Santiago Galeas, Kirstine Reiner Hansen, Anne Harris, Karen Kaapcke, Catherine Kehoe, Stanka Kordic, Maria Kreyn, Aiden Kringen, Jerome Lagarrigue, J. Louis, Jean-Paul Mallozzi, Meredith Marsone, Alex Merritt, Joshua Meyer,

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Wyatt Mills - Waterfall, 2018, Oil silkscreen and mixed media on canvas: 48 x 60 inches

Gage Opdenbrouw - Fading, 2016, Oil on panel: 16 x 20 inches

Wyatt Mills, Alyssa Monks, Gage Opdenbrouw, Stephanie Pierce, Lou Ros, Nick Runge, Kai Samuels-Davis, Dorian Vallejo, Adam Vinson, John Wentz, Wendelin Wohlgemuth, and Zack Zdrale – perhaps not yet household names, but one is hopeful.

University, he was mentored by Bay Area Figurative master Nathan Oliveira and received a master’s degree in Practice of Fine Arts (Painting) from UC Berkeley in 1982. His work hangs in the JPMorgan Chase Art Collection and The Eli Broad Corporate collection, among others.

John Seed: Artist, Blogger, Author, Curator, Teacher

His resumé, too long to fully delve into here, includes a stint at the Larry Gagosian Gallery in Los Angeles, where his tasks included assisting a contentious Jean Michel Basquiat. He also managed L.A.’s Museum of Contemporary Art’s bookstore. Both experiences are described in his 2019 book “My Art World: Recollections and Other Writings.”

Seed began his teaching career at the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, taught Art History at Mt. San Jacinto College, and retired in 2017 from the Laguna College of Art and Design, where he had taught Theory and Criticism. He still paints. As an undergraduate at Stanford

A slim satiric tome titled Aiden Kringen - Emanate, 2018, Acrylic and mixed media on canvas: 30 x 30 inches ART-HIGHLIGHTS.COM

Art Historian and Author John Seed

Aiden Kringen - Mind's Eye 60 x 48in Acrylic and Mixed Media on Canvas

Joshua Meyer - Wild Blue Yonder, 2010, Oil on canvas: 38 x 42 inches

Dorian Vallejo - Reflections, Oil on panel, 2016, 18 x 24 inches

Paul Cristina - We Were Never Told the Truth About the Dying of the Sun, 2017, Charcoal, acrylic, oil on paper on canvas: 36 x 36 inches

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“Artist’s Statements of the Old Masters” will amuse anyone fed up with the pomposity put forth by artists aiming to add intellectual heft to work that may lack it otherwise. He has also been a prolific blogger producing more than 350 for the Huffington Post’s art page in seven years and, since 2014 has blogged for Hyperallergic, a Brooklyn-based blogazine. Counting Asian art among his specialties, he also writes for Arts of Asia Magazine.

Wyatt Mills - Flirt, 2018, Oil silkscreen and mixed media on canvas: 36 x 48 inches

Alyssa Monks - Tangled, 2018, oil on linen: 30 x 30 inches

Meredith Marsone - Lovers, 2016, oil on canvas: 19.7 x 19.7 inches ART-HIGHLIGHTS.COM

ARTIST DIRECTORY

Tom LAMB Cena CATERINE Robert HANSEN Lynn GERTENBACH Randy MORGAN Bernie ANDERSON Francis BADE Marsha GERTENBACH-MEERS

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”

"Looking toward earth, directing the pilot to spin around, dip the nose, fly sideways or backwards, and even cut the engines to float downward, all to capture the right image. With a helicopter and its pilot, it's like doing a dance – creating the abstract work is my dream state." — Tom Lamb

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CENA CATERINE paintings

ena Caterine was born an artist. She began drawing in grade school. Her father said a degree in art would never pay for itself, so she studied in other directions – but in later life, several art teachers pulled her heart back into art, where you can focus and paint for hours but it feels like only minutes have passed by. Miss Cena is known as a painter of Heavenly Places for her religious art based on a personal relationship with the Divine creator. Her commissioned Madonna on a 6’x4’ canvas hangs in the vestibule of Our Lady of the Valley Catholic Church in Yucca Valley. Every year, children have their photo taken with the Cena’s Madonna on their confirmation. “Kind Loving Jesus” belongs to the art collection of The Orange County Rescue Mission. My favorite story is when someone bought a shower curtain with Jesus on it. “Turn your eyes upon Jesus” is located in the museum collection of Forest Homes, which is located in the San Bernardino Mountains and is where Billy Graham dedicated his life to the Lord. “Bone fish” was done from a photo of a friend’s fishing trip but made a great purse.

“The Chippewa Dream Catcher” depicts the sacred ceremonies of early Indian Chippewa which relate to the spiritual and psychic life of tribes. The ceremonies include dream sharing and were conducted to reduce fear and increase pleasure. “Lorelei” is the legendary mermaid of German myth created in 1801 by Clemens Brentano. As the story relates, a beautiful maiden named Lorelei waited for her lover on a rock at the Rhine River. He never returned, so she plunged to her death. The legend is that the spirit of Lorelei remains at the rock seeking revenge against her unfaithful lover, singing softly and combing her long hair. Sailors are said to be so enchanted by her beauty that they crash their ships into the rock. The etymology of the lullaby of Lilith derives from Hebrew. Lilith, whose name first dates to 3000 BC, was Adam’s first wife. Because she refused to be subservient to Adam, she was cast aside for Eve. Demonized, she is responsible for stillborn babies, stealing their souls and seducing young men who were warned not to sleep alone. “Cacti bikini” and “Cactus girls” are based on a local desert legend produced by a photograph in the 1950s of a young woman dressed only in agave cactus. The legend is reproduced in paintings.

Cena-Caterine.Pixels.com • C21CENA@aol.com • 760 218.6637 ART-HIGHLIGHTS.COM

obert Hansen is a professional architectural photographer, artist and author who shares his expertise by also conducting photography workshops. He lives and works in Laguna Niguel and exhibits his work in galleries and art venues throughout Southern California.

Many of Hansen’s photographs, taken in the mid-1990s in southern Mexico, can be found in numerous private collections as well as permanent collections of the Huntington Library, the Santa Barbara Museum and the Laguna Art Museum, among others. In 2004, blackand-white selections from this seminal series were published in a well-received book titled “Yucatan Passages.” More recently, color images appeared in a catalog accompanying an exhibit titled “Mexican Color.” “My inspiration for my Mexican color photography comes from the rich layers of architectural history and visual interplay of light and vibrant color,” explains Hansen. “I use large format

cameras and print on watercolor paper. Individual prints are hand-made, revealing each minute detail of the subject matter.” “There is a quality of layered time that I strive to reveal in this work by concentrating on the combination of the region’s centuries-old European architecture and its Mayan roots. All of this exists in a state of organic deterioration which I find visually and emotionally exciting,” he says. Hansen’s use of a protective, archival varnish on the print brings out the subtle texture and vibrancy of the work, eliminating the need for protective glass altogether. His work is available at the Forest & Ocean Gallery in Laguna Beach and through The House of Photographic Art (HOPA) in San Juan Capistrano. During summers, he also shows at the Festival of Arts/Pageant of the Masters in Laguna Beach.

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LynnGertenbach@aol.com â&#x20AC;¢ LynnGertenbach.com ART-HIGHLIGHTS.COM

RANDY MORGAN

fter working over 30 years in the field of architectural art, Randy Morgan is coming more into his element, creating sculpted bronze doors, statues, bas-relief sculptures and installations that compliment the environment of those who commissioned his works, public art, the homes of celebrities, and resort developers.

Randy recently came out with his book, “The Creation Code,” which became an Amazon bestseller in five categories. The book details Randy’s life’s journey through the art world, his philosophy, and advice to artists as to how they can make a living through their creative expression.

He began his career working for the studios, and theme parks, creating many of their iconic structures. He moved on to design, producing decorative tiles classic to modern, and later began to develop his signature large bas-relief sculpted bronze walls which he titled his “Road Map of Art Walls.”These adorn many commercial and public art locales, from Cabo, San Lucas to Chico, California, and include the 40-foot-long “Waterman’s Wall” and the 70-foot-long “Laguna Panorama,” both situated in Randy’s hometown of Laguna Beach.

He completed the pilot production of his new TV show, which highlights his architectural creations in and on celebrities’ homes. A whimsical and entertaining series, it takes the viewer through his creative process amid the style and verve of the celebrity realm. The show will debut in spring, 2020.

Randy’s relationship with Ludo Leideritz of Forest & Ocean Gallery led him to create many more commissioned works, water features and free-standing sculptures, including the iconic Skipper Carrillo commemorative bronze “Have a Home Run Day.” The sculpture will soon be permanently installed in downtown Laguna Beach.

As Randy describes his credo, “God is the ultimate Creator; we are made in His image, that makes us all creators” and “Whatever you do in life, if you do it as an art form and endeavor to do it well, then YOU are an artist.” Randy is just getting up to speed; let’s see what comes out of his creativity next.

RandyMorganArt.com • Info@RandyMorganArt.com • 949 891.3274 ART-HIGHLIGHTS.COM

paintings

Calif., and on Facebook.

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FRANCIS BADE

illustrator

rancis Bade is a Laguna Beach-based artist who explores mediums as varied as paint, pastels, ink and, yes, wire. Digital works include graphics, animations, prototyping and creations of websites. “Creating the illusion of motion has been the foundation of most of my works," he says.

"I am inspired by the great masters, Leonardo DaVinci and Michelangelo, but also Edgar Degas, Android Jones and M.C. Escher. Their beautiful and dynamic work has helped me learn and hone my own creativity.”

Sandmanarts@gmail.com • 949 302.0623 ART-HIGHLIGHTS.COM

MARSHA GERTENBACH-MEERS scuplture

arsha's extended education was at UCLA, Santa Monica College, Otis Parsons School of Design, Orange Coast College, Rhode Island School of Design, and Palomar College. She also studied with Lathrop Bullini Gay in 1973, Martine Vaugel in 1980, and Richard Mac Donald’s Master’s Workshop.

into sculpting figurative works which she felt that she had really found her life’s passion. Her first job sculpting was for Silvestri Studios in Los Angeles, where she sculpted life-size mannequins for retail store display.

Marsha has always been interested in the creative field. She started out as a painter and exhibited her work at the Laguna Beach Festival of Arts in 1965 along with her noted painting sister, Lynn. She began her career in illustration and design, creating greeting cards, wallpaper designs, kitchen and beach towel and fabric designs. She also spent 16 years painting backgrounds for animation and worked for Hanna-Barbera, Filmation and several smaller studios. She also made pottery and eventually moved

Later she worked for two of the largest toy companies, Mattel and Hasbro, designing and sculpting dolls and other toys. She’s also done sculpting for the Danbury Mint and The Ashton Drake Galleries and now continues to do fine art sculpting as well as commissions. She is currently represented by;The D Gallery, Palm Desert & Carmel, CA, Forest & Ocean Gallery, Laguna Beach, CA

Marshasculpts@att.net 68

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amara Nelson is an internationally recognized artist specializing in commercial and hospitality projects. Tamara works “artist direct” with the design firms and hotels, creating original pieces for each individual project. Tamara works directly with the clients to create pieces to fit their vision of the room or public areas they are working on. Working from room concepts, fabrics and finishes, she creates art to fit the colors and personality of each individual project to make the vision come to life. Whether it is for one original piece for a collector, lobby or public area, or guest rooms with thousands of pieces, her unique approach adds color and movement to any space. Tamara produced 4,500 pieces for all of the guest rooms for the remodel of the iconic Stratosphere Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas. She is also in production on the guest room

art and corridors for Pala Casino in Southern California, with an additional 2,000-plus pieces and Tropicana Hotel 50 rooms with 1,500 more. Known worldwide, Tamara is featured in the May, June and July issues of World of Interiors magazine, GQ and Home and Garden. She was just awarded Best Gallery in Newport Beach 2019, and her work has been featured at Newport Beach California’s City Hall Art Exhibition, Sares Regis Seacliff Huntington Beach, Golden Gaming Corporate offices, Irvine Company Clubhouses, Tag Gallery Los Angeles, and numerous private and corporate collections. You can also visit her new gallery in Laguna Beach, Calif., located on Pacific Coast Highway.

Tamara Nelson Art Gallery

305 N. Pacific Coast Hwy., Suite E. Laguna Beach, CA 92651 | 949 510.6602 | Info@TamaraNelson.com | TamaraNelsonArt.com

ART HIGHLIGHTS The Team Ludo Leideritz – publisher Ludo Leideritz was born in the Netherlands, where his earliest education included an appreciation of the arts. Music played an especially significant role: At age seven, he began learning to play guitar and later explored other musical instruments, including the flute. The visual arts, including drawing and painting, also intrigued him and, over time he evolved into a painter and photographer. He’s also a furniture designer whose designs have been marketed worldwide during his 30-year career in the furniture industry. His education consisted of degrees in medicine and, later, in international business. Since 2006, Ludo has been a gallerist and, since 2012, the owner and director of the Forest & Ocean Gallery in Laguna Beach. The gallery was named “Best Gallery in Laguna” by the Laguna Beach Chamber of Commerce in 2016 and 2018.

Eric Marchese – editor Eric Marchese came from New England to Orange County, where he attended high school and college, starting his journalism career in 1978 as a freelance arts reporter for The Orange County Register. He continued providing local coverage of the performing arts as a freelancer while fulfilling various editorial pursuits with publishers of national trade magazines and worked as a feature writer and copy editor for The Register’s newsroom and a reporter-at-large for the advertorial department while also covering live theater. He covered theater for the trade paper Back Stage for seven years, has worked as an editor and writer for a wide variety of local publications and businesses, and currently covers the arts for the Voice of Orange County news website and the weekly Times OC.

Charles Michael Murray – creative and marketing director Charles was born in Motown (Detroit), moving to California to obtain BA and MS degrees from Brooks Institute in Santa Barbara. His skills include corporate and consumer graphic design, internet services, commercial photography, motion graphics, documentary filmmaking, and the promotion of local and international artists. He has supported a wide variety of industries, including the arts, the environment, food and beverage, commercial and residential real estate and high technology, and clients of his highly sought-after 6,000-square-foot photo design studio in Tustin have always appreciated his professional and creative approach. Charles’ personal artwork evolved into an environmental art gallery showcasing local and international artists and including staging eco-festivals such as one earth / one dream in Laguna Beach. His art is focused on intelligent preservation of land and sea through media communication and collaboration while embracing the arts as the international language of humanity.

Daniella B. Walsh – staff writer and assistant editor Daniella Walsh came to the U.S. from her native Europe, emigrating from Berlin to Washington, D.C. As she was still learning English, she resolved to communicate primarily through drawing and painting. That mode included after-school visits to the National Gallery, Smithsonian Museum and The Phillips Collection as well as explorations of the then-sparse cultural scene. While developing a reverence for Matisse, Kokoschka, O’Keefe and Rothko, she grew passionate about photography and stained glass. By 1994, while studying at Chapman University, she shifted from degrees in art and linguistics to English, with an emphasis on journalism. That led to work as a community reporter and, later, as an art writer and critic for The Orange County Register. She has since written for numerous art-oriented publications, including Art Scene, Art News and Art & Living, as well as a monthly art column for Riviera Magazine.

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Francis Bade Francis Bade is a Laguna Beach-based artist who explores mediums as varied as paint, pastels, ink and, yes, wire. Digital works include graphics, animations, prototyping and the creation of websites. “Creating the illusion of motion has been the foundation of most of my works,” he says. “I am inspired by great masters Leonardo DaVinci and Michelangelo but also Edgar Degas, Android Jones and M.C. Escher. Their beautiful and dynamic work has helped me learn and hone my own creativity.”

Laura Bleiberg Laura Bleiberg is a nationally known journalist and dance critic. She is a frequent contributor to the Los Angeles Times and her work has appeared in the New York Times, Boston Globe, Voice of OC, The Orange County Register, and other publications. She was a senior editor at Orange Coast Magazine and was a guest dance critic for public radio station KCRW-89.9 FM.

Barbara Gothard Palm Springs-based artist Barbara Gothard is known for her dynamic mystical realist paintings, which are exhibited nationally and internationally. Her articles in Art Patron Magazine include “Bringing the Past into the Present: Three Contemporary Photographers” and “Four Emerging Artists Intersect at Joshua Tree Highlands Artists Residence.” Gothard has served as curator and editor of Palm Springs Art Museum Artists Council Exhibition Catalogues and is an emeritus member and past president of the council’s board of directors; was on Joshua Tree Highlands Artist Residency’s advisory board; and was chairman of the board of directors of Space 4 Art in San Diego. Her works can be seen at barbaragothard.com and singulart.com.

Chris Clemens Martello Originally from the San Francisco Bay Area, Chris is a 20-year resident of the Palm Springs area. As a publicist and writer, she has both promoted and written articles for a wide variety of clients. In the art world, she has done so for Palm Springs Art Museum, Palm Springs International Film Festival, various Coachella Valley art galleries, local area artists, performing arts productions, and music festivals. She has had the honor of managing local media for visiting world leaders and major media personalities for the Desert Town Hall lecture series for more than 10 years. Another of her passions is working to create awareness for many non-profits and their annual events.

Pam Price Pam Price taught art in St. Paul, MN, and Izmir, Turkey, after graduating from the University on Minnesota. She is the author of three editions of 100 Best Spas of the World and co-authored seven editions of Fun with the Family in Southern CA (Globe Pequot Press). Pam served three terms as a commissioner on the Cathedral City Public Arts Commission.

Judy Sklar Judy Nemer Sklar is a professional artist, writer, educator and business owner residing in Palm Desert, California. She received degrees from Chapman University and California State University of Dominquez Hills. Along the way she has exhibited her art in numerous galleries, won regional and national juried art awards, sold her work in the United States and abroad and developed and taught creative art workshops in Los Angeles and the Coachella Valley, titled “Embracing a Creative Life.” Her art and writing have been featured in various magazines, and she’s currently researching a book based on interviews with mid-life successful artists titled “Artists Narratives” that explores the artist’s approach to aging and life’s transitions.

Jean Stern A recognized authority on California Impressionism, art historian Jean Stern has extensive experience in the field as an author, curator, lecturer and teacher. Through a noteworthy international series of books, exhibitions, lectures, articles and video documentaries over a 25-year period, he has established a national presence the fields of California art and history for the Irvine Museum Collection at the University of California, Irvine, where he is executive director. Throughout his career, Mr. Stern has presented more than 250 lectures, judged and juried some 100 art competitions, presented tours/lectures on California art at numerous museums, authored/co-authored numerous books, and written essays for more than 25 books and museum exhibition catalogues.

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