The Soldier’s Tale: Gorgeous Music and Devilish Visuals in La Jolla

 By Lonnie Burstein Hewitt.  Performance photographs by Ken Jacques.

A brilliant trio, playing The Devil’s Trill by Giuseppi Tartini, and even the harpsichord is gorgeous. Augustin Hadelich, violin; Inon Barnatan, harpsichord; Mackintyre Taback, cello.

It’s not often that there are major visual components to the concerts at The Conrad Prebys Performing Arts Center, home of La Jolla Music Society. But on July 26^th, opening night of their month-long SummerFest 2024, the performance of Igor Stravinsky’s L’Histoire du Soldat (A Soldier’s Tale), featuring Tony-award-winning actor Danny Burstein as the Narrator, included riveting visuals from a British group called The PaperCinema that added an extra dimension to the program’s theme: “A Deal with the Devil”.

There were terrific performances of all the musical pieces that evening, starting off with SummerFest Music Director Inon Barnaton at the piano and his thrilling rendition of Franz Liszt’s Mephisto Waltz. Violinist Augustin Hadelich brought the audience to their feet with a Paganini Caprice, but L’Histoire du Soldat (an old favorite of mine) was the pièce de résistance.

The Paper Cinema, with Nicholas Rawling as illustrator and artistic director, has made a reputation creating animated pen-and-ink puppets that turn music, film, and theater performances into special events. You can’t really get a sense of their darkly comic “moving drawings” in print, but here are the two main characters:

 

The Soldier. 

The Devil

Written in 1918 as a theater piece with a French libretto by Charles Ferdinand Ramuz, L’Histoire was meant to be performed by actors and dancers as well as musicians. It was based on a Russian folktale about a poor, tired soldier who trades his violin to the Devil for the promise of great fortune.

 

The Soldier and the Devil making a deal.

Needless to say, though the soldier gets plenty of riches and even gets to wed a princess, nothing lasts, and the Devil triumphs in the end. The lesson is: Don’t be lured into making deals with the Devil. Be happy with what you have.

 

Behind the scenes: the “puppeteers” at work.

Personally, I’m happy to have SummerFest here, and to have been at this wondrous opening. For more about SummerFest 2024, which includes many free events, see https://theconrad.org/summerfest

 

Even their brochure is terrific…with lots of interesting information and a cover photo of a Head with Flowers by artist Fred Tomaselli, from the MCASD collection. You can see it all at the link above.

Lonnie Burstein Hewitt is an award-winning author/lyricist/playwright who has been writing about arts and lifestyles in San Diego County for over a dozen years. You can reach her at hew2@sbcglobal.net

Great Looking: The Athenaeum’s 32nd Annual Juried Exhibition

 By Lonnie Burstein Hewitt.  Photos by Maurice Hewitt.

 

Opening Night: The Juror at the entry to the exhibition.

If you haven’t been to the Athenaeum in La Jolla for a while, now is a good time to drop by. Their just-opened juried exhibition, which received 900 submissions, is full of delights, and Armando Pulido, the young juror who chose the 51 pieces on view, spent days going through all the images.
 
A writer and curatorial assistant at the Lucas Museum of Narrative Art in Los Angeles, founded by filmmaker George Lucas to feature all forms of visual storytelling, Armando will be working along with the team curating the museum’s grand opening in 2025.
 
At the Atheneum, he was not just interested in showing a variety of media and styles. He also focused on the different emotional responses the artists were trying to evoke, and visitors are invited to do the same as they walk through the exhibition.  
 
Awards were announced at the July 19^th opening, and the First Prize winner was Luis Alderete, whose mixed-media tree “Welcome Home PAISANO” is the most
eye-catching piece in the main gallery. Alderate, born and based in Tijuana, is an architect and visual artist whose work has been shown around the world. Armando particularly liked the caged bird as an image of the piece’s theme.

 

“Welcome Home PAISANO” by Luis Alderete

It was great to walk around the sculptures and admire them from different points of view.

Here’s the attractive backside of “Melting Brick” by Yeba Kim, who works with ceramics and textiles. Born in South Korea, she is currently a pursuing an MFA in Furniture Design and Woodworking at SDSU School of Art and Design. 

“Melting Brick” by Yeba Kim.

 A colorful view of another side of the main gallery.

“Toreo de Tijuana” by Rodrigo Angel Jimenez, a bullfight portrayed in a style not usually seen in museums. The artist was raised on both sides of the border and has exhibited in both Mexico City and New York.

There was more to see on our way to the Rotunda, where the exhibition continues.

We were struck by Lee Puffer’s acrylic on canvas “Andromeda”- a powerful portrayal of the mythic Greek princess who was chained to a rock by her parents as a sacrifice to Poseidon but happily rescued by the hero Perseus. The multimedia artist, who has exhibited widely, is also an educator, currently on the faculty at Palomar College.

 

“Andromeda” by Lee Puffer 

“The Ruler” by Evie Maher - a brilliant piece by a young, self-taught San Diego artist.

“Altar to the Sacred”- a striking black-and-white print by mixed media artist Gaby Espina.

We couldn’t just walk past “Seven Suns” by Wills Howard, who besides being an artist is also a semiconductor engineer. When Armando first saw and admired the image of this piece, he had no idea that it was three-dimensional: a nice 3-D surprise for the juror.

“Seven Suns” by Wills Howard

 

“Ekstasis en Helio Kardia” - a contemporary take on transcendental painting by Francesca Isabella Towers, who combines art with her work in conflict resolution.

 

“Pattern Formation” - an inventive triptych by Annalise Neil, combining cyanotype, watercolor, and woven pine needles on Japanese paper mounted on wood panels.

 At the end of our walk-through, Armando Pulido mentioned how much he had enjoyed working with the Atheneum’s installation team: Executive Director Christie Mitchell, Jocelyn Saucedo Larson (Assistant Director of Exhibitions), Andrew Alcasid (Exhibition Consultant), and Adrian Diaz (Facility Assistant).

“It has really been a wonderful experience,” he said. 

Here’s wishing all visitors to the exhibition a wonderful experience too. And there’s time enough for several visits, since the show goes on through September 28.

Athenaeum Music & Arts Library  1008 Wall Street, La Jolla, CA, 92037.
Hours: Tuesday through Saturday, 10 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. 

Lonnie Burstein Hewitt is an award-winning author/lyricist/playwright who has been writing about arts and lifestyles in San Diego County for over a dozen years. You can reach her at hew2@sbcglobal.net

Fiber in 3D at The William D. Cannon Art Gallery in Carlsbad

 by Patricia Frischer

Angela Corson, Common Thread

Fiber in 3D at The William D. Cannon Art Gallery in Carlsbad
On view until November 30
Public Reception August 17 from 3-5 p.m.

We really enjoyed this upbeat exhibition of contemporary  fiber works by over 27 national artists juried by Fiber Art Now but curated by Cannon Art Gallery Director Alyson Benford for this showing. On view were installations, wearables, vessels, sculpture and floor and wall art. The space has been refigured which gives it a fresh, open look.

Fiber Arts Now is a quarterly magazine with Beth Smith as the managing editor and exhibition director. (You may remember Beth from Oceanside Museum of Arts and the Vision Art Museum now the Vision Museum of Textile Arts) This selections for Fiber in 3D are from the juried exhibition in the Spring 2024 issue. Each issue of the magazine includes featured artists and an international juried artist section.  They also explore artists studios, various mediums and artist's business concerns.

Below you will just some examples of the items included with a few videos to give you an idea of the details and the space. 

Susan Zimmerman, Passage  - inspired by 1900 immigrants to Ellis Island  

Hannah Demma, The Maker and Her Oddments  -
using past art works, cut and assembled during a daily meditation session. 

Terri Shinn, Douglas Fir with Chicken of the Woods
 - mushroom growing on a tree stump

Saskia Jordá, As Above, So Below - 200 soft denim disks representing the night sky

Gray Caskey, Magellanic - porcelain insulation tubes covered with graphite representing spiraling galaxies.

George-Ann Bowers, Mango Tango - inspired by natural lichen shapes

Joh Ricci, Tranquility (front) Christine Miller, Flourishing  (back) 

 

Barbara Osborne, Kelp Forrest

Jessica Beels, Animal Vegetable Mineral

Pamela Becker, The Edge of Night  - "There is a moment at the end of every day when the light is still there but still fading quickly."

Judith Content, Lava Cakes (Ragamuffin series)

Cecilia Lusven, Lavastone - made from bicycle rubber inter tubes

Jayne Tucker, Kimono - made from over 3000 tea bags!

Amy Genser, Hear Me Out

Gail Bower-Geist, Goin” to Hell in a Handbasket - after the ancient custom of letting a guillotined head drop into a basket, notice the sharp edged and blood red color.  

While you are at the show, have a go. Copy of magazine Fiber Art Now

Fiber in 3D at The William D. Cannon Art Gallery
July 20 to Nov 30
Public Reception August 17 from 3-5 p.m.
1775 Dove Ln, Carlsbad, CA 92011
Gallery hours: Tuesday, Thursday, Friday & Saturday: noon – 5 p.m. Wednesday: noon – 7 p.m.