Another Covid-time Christmas Brightened by Lighthearted Neighborhood Art

By Lonnie Burstein Hewitt. Photos by Maurice Hewitt.

Find Peace & Dancing Unicorns on Marisa Lane in Encinitas/Olivenhain.

Last year around Christmas I wrote about light art around our Encinitas neighborhood, then discovered another great location while the lights were still up. So of course we went back there this year to check out the current attractions, along with a return visit to last year’s light-the-block parties, all of them welcoming passersby to share their holiday spirit.
Hot tips for cold nights: Dress warm, do a quick drive-through to see what’s happening, then find a parking spot and go out on foot. That way you can spend time with your favorites, especially the ones that change colors and moods. And wherever you live, ask neighbors about the best displays nearby.

11^th Street, off Rancho Santa Fe Rd., Encinitas/Olivenhain.
This is the most widespread of local light shows, including offshoot streets like Marisa Lane, and it’s been going strong for years. The photos below were all taken on Marisa, but there’s elaborate illumination everywhere you look. 

Gitano Street, off Chapalita Drive, Encinitas.
Strings of colored lights link both sides of this neighborly street, 

What you see as you drive onto Gitano.  

Front-side detail.

One of our favorites.

Village Run East, off Gardendale Road, Encinitas.
There were many more houses lit up here last year, on Village Run’s east and west sides, but this is still one we love. I call it The House of Blue Lights, but it changes colors, and invites you to push a button to activate musical accompaniment—and maybe even do a little dancing.

A new star attraction on Gitano 

Here’s wishing us all a healthy, delightful holiday season…and many thanks to the homeowners who graciously light up our lives.

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

Wes Bruce: Wondersound Part 2 at New Children’s Museum

 by Patricia Frischer

Wes Bruce and one of the smaller visitors to existing Wondersound

Wes Bruce In conversation with Megan Dickerson from the New Children’s Museum about the new patio addition to Wondersound

Existing Wondersound

Wes Bruce is in the middle of creating a new space outdoors at the New Children’s Museum on the patio next to the existing Wondersound. that so many of us have enjoyed. You might also remember Bruce for his major installation at the California Center for the Arts in Escondido.

Megan Dickenson and Wes Bruce in conversation

Megan Dickenson and Wes Bruce covered in compost!

Wes Bruce and the New Children’s Museum discussed how this new space will create a place to pause made for adults and children to allow for both emotional and physical air flow. They spent the day before the talk compositing the site and seeing that job as a metaphor for turning over the trauma of the last 14 months. They want this area to contain a vessel for recovery and re-connection. Continuing the metaphor, the use of the word “sound” as a body of water between two bits of land creating an entrance for  the wind to blow, sun to shine, and birds to sing.  The new Wondersound is an expansion from inside the museum to outside which is a catalyst for healing and a sort of creation of a new sound body  

Beginning sketch for the patio

As an artist Bruce is a terrific graphic designer and the older installation is mainly animals, but the outside will have images of plants as well as the real thing with lots of poetry and words included. He describes himself as a professional mess maker. But ultimately, he works to knit the community together and empower them. This project is not a thing, but an experience. In planting this garden, he hopes to help people learn about what their heart needs.

The New Children’s Museum is open to member now and opening to the public again on May 21^st 
Ribbon cutting:  8:15 a.m. – 8:45 a.m.
Public access:  9:00 a.m. – 4:00 p.m.
The new Wes Bruce Wondersound garden space will be opening June 4th. 

If you want to listen to the entire talk or any of the other other artists' talks, they are available on the New Children's Museum website.

 2021 Re-imagining the Brave Look Book at the Children’s Museum shows many of the artists’ commissions at the museum

Trustees Connected - Virtual! Balboa Park Cultural Partnership

by Patricia Frischer

Diversity of activities in Balboa Park

On April 21, although we were sorry to miss the usual feast provided to the Trustees and Board members (past and present) of the Balboa Park institutions, we did learn a bit about the current and future plans of the Balboa Park Cultural Partnership (BPCP).

Todd Gloria gave opening remarks and mentioned many of the new developments within the park. There is lots of construction on the way and when the park is fully opened again, it will be an adventure to discovered new parts of favorite spaces. We were asked to welcome the Women Museum which will now now be hosted by the SD Historical Society and the Lux Institute soon to join the San Diego Art Institute in becoming the newly merged Institute of Contemporary Art.

Mayor Todd Gloria

Felicia Shaw, Women's History Museum of California

Andrew Utt, director Institute of Contemporary Arts

 

To stabilize this resource the Parks and Recreation Department of the City of San Diego is in dialogue with BPCP and are making a current push to conduct surveys of all sorts of aspects of the this cultural park within a park.  Then they want to create a framework to identify those needed projects, plan time lines and funding. A big aspect of that is mobility, access and parking in the area. All this has to be tied to benchmarking and best practices from other similar parks in the world on governance and funding.  

Original one vision for the California Exposition Experience

Steve Snyder, President & CEO for the Fleet Science Center, introduced a new vision called the One Voice Experience. They want to elevate and add to the visitors time in the park although there were no details developed as of yet. Guidelines for this experience include sustainability, strength of the experience and of course, be coming as inclusive as possible of the diversity of our communities. They are working with the IDEA group which stands for Inclusion, Diversity, Equity, and Accessibility as well as BIPOC = Black, Indigenous, and People of Color. We gathered that this means more collaborations between institution and putting the visitors experience first. Perhaps they are starting to think about being a cultural theme park for the city and what that might look like instead of individual institutions just inhabiting the same space.

Collectors during the Pandemic

by Patricia Frischer

In a set of interviews by Artsy: 19 Collectors on the Art They Bought in 2020 you can get a good cross section from around the world of how art collectors are reacting to the pandemic.

It was heartening to see that this group of collectors is either still collecting, collecting more, or collecting a bit less but investing directly to help artists.

Collectors are doing more virtual studio tours. They are looking outside of their geographical area. They are attending more art fairs as they can see them all instead of having to pick and choose which to attend physically.  They want personal connections.

Staying at home means they have time to look at, re-hang and access their own collections. This is therapeutic for them. They are researching more and filling gaps in their collections.  They are looking at how the artists are reacting to the pandemic…smaller and more introspective works are appreciated. 

As they are continuing to support large institutions, some are particularly supporting programs that support acquisitions by artist in order to help the artist survive. Inclusivity and diversity are terms that are used often when thinking about what donations to make. They are lending works for shows with those types of themes more and more. Some with big hearts and large properties are even opening studio space for artist or programs impacted by the pandemic.  

RAW alumni marries: Let the Joy Begin

Congratulation to our very own Alexandra Rosa who married her prince Lu Magdeleno. The nuptials were in Las Vegas but a splendidly attired gathering of friends all dressed in black and/or white enjoyed champagne and wedding cake at the Lei Lounge in University Heights for their reception. Ally and Lu were stars of the evening but the cake in the shape of aFabergé was as delicious as it was lovely. Philip Swenson who tells us he is working on a play about Lincoln was as always an entertaining MC for the evening. Congratulation to Lu and best wishes to Ally.

The Happy couple

 

Fabulous Faberge cake

Wonderful patio setting

changing lights

 modern fires glowing from a rock bed

Philip Swenson and Darwin Slindee

Stunning centerpieces

tent top projects that changed constantly during the evening.

East county panel discussion on the arts

Silvia Valentino and Carlos Castrejon of STUDIO C Contemporary are hosting: Artists, journalists, writers, university professors, critics, and business people who will discuss the role the arts play in bettering East County and its diverse population. The panel will be mediated by Justin Hudnall, creator and leading operative of The Far East Movement. Additionally, the panel discussion will coincide with the closing reception of The Black and White Show at Studio C, featuring 21 of Southern California's most prominent contemporary visual and music artists, who will also be in attendance. After the panel, we will have an experimental music performance by Chris Warren and The Bitwise Operators.

Panelists include: Seema Sueko from the (San Diego Regional Arts and Culture Commission), Felicia Shaw (The San Diego Foundation), Kevin Freitas (Art As Authority), Eldonna Lay (El Cajon Historical Society), and Patricia Frischer (San Diego Visual Arts Network).  Moderator: Justin Hudnell

We hope that you take this opportunity to contribute to our cause in making East County and El Cajon a better place for the arts to thrive!

Studio C Contemporary

140 E Main St., El Cajon, CA 92020

Friday, April 13, 2012 - 5:30pm

Art and Science needs new venue or sponsor

The Bronowski Art and Science Forum and almost 40 other arts organizations may be looking for a new home as.the Neurosciences Institute (NSI) was stepping out of its lease. These programs were funded by Performing Arts Program through it’s Minding the Arts event. The building is going back to the The Scripps Research Institute on Oct 1.. Stacy Rosenburg, their spokesperson says they will be asking for $1500 for each event rental and that her organization focuses on science, not the arts. She seems to have missed the point entirely that the arts and their creativity are the new economic driver for the sciences. She states "…. biomedical research is our mission, and we have to guard our resources." This short term thinking is one of the the things holding back San Diego from taking its rightful place as a city of innovation.

If you know of a venue in La Jolla or a sponsor to fund the Bronowski Art and Science Forum, please contact Ron Newby
ronnewby34@gmail.com

Daily Art Nag: REQUIRED VIEWING - "The Curse of the Mona Lisa"

Link to the following episodes:
http://c-monster.net/blog1/2011/11/04/biggest-unregulated-market/

Lois Stecker Leaves a Huge Hole in Our Lives

Our own sweet Lois Stecker died this month and she will be so missed. We know she is resting in peace after a fall and short illness. Born in 1919 she was at every event and intrepid to the very end. This is a very sad passing for the SD Visual Arts world.

"Spiral Jetty" lease, anyone?

from Jen Graves and the SLOG, Tyler Green and Modern Art Notes

"End of the line?" photo: K. Freitas

As reported by Tyler Green on his Modern Art Notes blog, Robert Smithson's iconic Spiral Jetty's lease is up and open to potential takers of which (at the time of this writing) there were three.  A quick glance at Green's blog just now reveals that DIA Foundation, the Jetty's owner, is "poised to retain Spiral Jetty- site lease" after apparently, missing a deadline to renew it earlier this year.  The three potential candidates were the DIA (the original lease holder), Greg Allen, "an art collector and former investment banker"; and Herbert Steiner, a "retired Seattle schoolteacher and arts-funder".

This has been a fascinating story to follow, not to mention an important one, and I thank Green for his informative and exhaustive coverage.  I had the opportunity to visit the Jetty a few years back.  Its indelible stain on my psyche, art knowledge, and general well-being has never washed away.  I've followed the Jetty's trials and tribulations ever since it came under attack (shortly after my visit) as a possible site for future offshore oil drilling.  I've been an advocate and supporter ever since.  I highly recommend visiting the Spiral Jetty as one thing you must do before you make a final pass through life.  You will not regret it.

You can read more of Green's reporting here and here.

You can also read about my visit to the Jetty here. 

Marianela de la Hoz

from the LA Art Dairy

It's getting harder and harder to do assemblage/found objects art, in a shadow box format without looking like you are only taking half a step away from Joseph Cornell or George Herms. Marianela De La Hoz does this well by incorporating tiny egg tempura paintings and pencil drawings. They add real impact to each piece, with their elegant craftsmanship and their sly social commentary.

Read more.

Marianela de la Hoz at Oceanside Museum of Art

Picked RIPE: Why soup? A theory unfolds

from Christopher Knight and the LA Times

Digital Image / The Museum of Modern Art

Why did Andy Warhol paint pictures of Campbell's soup cans?

Why not, say, cans of Chef Boyardee ravioli? Or B&M baked beans? Why not Alpo, one of the first commercially available canned dog foods? Alpo was manufactured in Allentown, Pa., across the state from Pittsburgh, Warhol's hometown.

Supermarkets stocked lots of canned goods, circa 1960. Any one of them could have signified the ubiquity of commercial imagery in contemporary American life. Any one of them could epitomize modern mass production at its most banal. Those are the usual reasons given for Warhol's full-bore move into Pop imagery, which began in 1961-62 with "Campbell's Soup Cans."

This weekend marks the 49th anniversary of their controversial public debut. Warhol's renowned suite of 32 small canvases was shown for the first time at a Los Angeles gallery, the only gallery willing to take a chance on the virtually unknown New York artist. The mundane commercial subject matter bewildered an art world more used to avant-garde abstraction, not to mention a public already skeptical of Modern art. Bemused, a neighboring gallery stacked a pyramid of actual soup cans in its window, along with a sign that boasted, "Get the real thing for only 29 cents a can."

Read more

RIP: Cy Twombly

from Randy Kennedy and the New York Times

Ferragosto IV, 1961, Rome*
© Cy Twombly

Cy Twombly, Idiosyncratic Painter, Dies at 83

Cy Twombly, whose spare childlike scribbles and poetic engagement with antiquity left him stubbornly out of step with the movements of postwar American art even as he became one of the era’s most important painters, died in Rome Tuesday. He was 83.

The cause was not immediately known, although Mr. Twombly had suffered from cancer. His death was announced by the Gagosian Gallery, which represents his work.

In a career that slyly subverted Abstract Expressionism, toyed briefly with Minimalism, seemed barely to acknowledge Pop Art and anticipated some of the concerns of Conceptualism, Mr. Twombly was a divisive artist almost from the start. The curator Kirk Varnedoe, on the occasion of a 1994 retrospective at the Museum of Modern Art, wrote that his work was “influential among artists, discomfiting to many critics and truculently difficult not just for a broad public, but for sophisticated initiates of postwar art as well.” The critic Robert Hughes called him “the Third Man, a shadowy figure, beside that vivid duumvirate of his friends Jasper Johns and Robert Rauschenberg.”

Read more.


* All images, where subject to copyright, are used purely for illustrative purposes and on the assumption that their reproduction at a lower resolution than the originals satifies the requirements for fair use and neither competes nor conflicts with the copyright holder's use of the original material.  Cy Twombly is represented by Gagosian Gallery.

Daily Art Nag: Sushi closes

from Kinsee Morlan and CityBeat

photo: San Diego CityBeat

Sushi gone

A local arts group is no more and I, for one, am ready to rant

Shame on me. Shame on you. Shame on anybody interested in keeping this city's cultural scene alive.

When The San Diego Union-Tribune reported last week that Sushi Contemporary Performance and Visual Arts is closing its doors, most people acted shocked and surprised, but as board chairman Indra Gardiner Bowers put it to me over the phone last Friday, "It's like, 'Really? How many times did you go to a Sushi performance? How much money did you donate?'"  For my part, I should have done a better job at covering Sushi's plight.

The story started writing itself the moment the once homeless, cutting-edge arts organization moved into its new East Village digs just as the recession hit.

Read more.

Daily Art Nag for June 10, 2011: Heath Fox goes to the Broad

from Mike Boehm and Culture Monster

Eli Broad's museum names veteran of San Diego museums -- and U.S. Marines -- as second-in-command

Heath Fox, a retired U.S. Marine Corps lieutenant colonel who made a second career helping to run art and photography museums in San Diego’s Balboa Park, was named Wednesday to serve as second-in-command at the Broad –- the downtown art museum that will house Eli Broad’s contemporary art collection and is expected to open in about two years.

As deputy director of operations, Fox, 57, will report to museum director Joanne Heyler. He begins June 27 and will spend the coming two years helping to devise the museum’s operating plan and management approaches. When the Broad opens, he’ll be responsible for planning and operations.

After retiring from the Marines in 1996 after 20 years of service, Fox became associate director of administration at the Museum of Photographic Arts from 1997 to 2001; he oversaw its $6-million expansion in 1999-2000, which increased the museum's size from 7,500 square feet to 31,000.

Read more

Daily Art Nag for May 30, 2011

Daily Art Nag for May 14, 2011: Sit in Solidarity

For Immediate Release


Leah Masterson, Communications Associate, 858.454.3541 x119 lmasterson@mcasd.org
Rebecca Handelsman, Senior Communications and Marketing Manager, 858.454.3541 x116  rhandelsman@mcasd.org

MCASD STAFF, PATRONS "SIT IN SOLIDARITY" FOR AI WEIWEI

24-Hour Sit-In Inspired by Ai Weiwei's Marble Chairs Featured in Current Exhibition

San Diego, CA- The Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego announces a 24-hour protest to call for the release of detained Chinese artist Ai Weiwei. On Thursday, May 19, a broad roster of MCASD staff, members, and community leaders will participate in a silent yet symbolic event.    

Beginning at 11 AM on Thursday, May 19 and continuing through 11 AM on Friday, May 20, volunteer participants will occupy two traditionally styled Chinese chairs for one-hour periods. This 24-hour sit-in references Ai Weiwei's sculpture series, Marble Chair, two of which are currently on view in the Museum's exhibition, Prospect 2011. These impressive yet haunting marble sculptures were acquired on May 11 by the Museum's International and Contemporary Collectors.

Internationally acclaimed Chinese artist Ai Weiwei was detained April 3 at the Beijing airport as he attempted to board a flight to Hong Kong. MCASD has stood alongside members of the international art community in voicing its disapproval and encouraging action from members, the community and the government to call for the artist's release.

Hugh Davies, the David C. Copley Director and CEO considers the silent protest a way to express the Museum's support of the artist, whose Beijing studio Museum supporters visited just months before Ai's detention.  "As the time of his detention lengthens, we grow more concerned for Ai's welfare and want to make a collective gesture in support of his release," said Davies. 

Members of the community are invited to participate by offering an hour of their time to sit in the replica chairs during the 24-hour demonstration. Volunteers can RSVP on Facebook at www.facebook.com/mcasd or by emailing mdaniels@mcasd.org with the subject line "Sitting in Solidarity," and will be contacted to confirm a time.

Daily Art Nag for May 13, 2011

from the SLOG News & Arts and Jen Graves

photo: John Lok/The Seattle Times

Derrick Cartwright is leaving SAM, he wrote on the museum's blog today.

This comes as a total surprise to me. I don't know what happened. Cartwright's statement says he will take time to refresh his love for art history rather than focusing on institutional administration, which he has been doing for several years, and to be with his family.

In Cartwright's short tenure here, he was very well-respected by artists, pretty much loved by staffers (even though he had to make layoffs due to the WaMu crash's aftermath), and colleagues enjoyed working with him. He arrived in summer 2009, less than two years ago. (Here is what I wrote about him then.)

Continue

Related here and here

Daily Art Nag for May 2, 2011: Former registrar at the La Jolla Museum of Contemporary Art (back when), leaves the Laguna Art Museum

from Culture Monster and Mike Boehm

photo: Ted Reckas



Bolton Colburn is leaving the Laguna Art Museum after 24 years — including the past 14 as its director.

His resignation, effective May 13, is voluntary, Colburn and Robert Hayden III, president of the museum’s board, said Monday, and reflects no internal friction at the seaside institution that’s devoted to California art and traces its roots to 1918, when a group of painters in the Laguna Beach art colony formed an association that eventually spawned a gallery, then a museum.

Colburn, 57, began his museum career in the early 1980s at the La Jolla Museum of Contemporary Art (now the Museum of Contemporary Art, San Diego) after testing the waters on the professional surfing circuit.

Read more and here - (while still at Laguna)