Patti’s Spirit Lives On

 by Lonnie Burstein Hewitt. Photos by Lonnie & Maurice Hewitt.

 

A still from the 10-minute video loop at the entry to the Patti’s Spirit Lives! exhibition at ICA Central in Balboa Park. Patti’s daughter Molli, who created the video loop, remembers her mom heading straight for the Y-site, saying: “Why not? We should always ask Y.”

 

Patti’s Spirit Lives! —a special exhibition celebrating the life and art of Patti Cooprider (1940-2021)—was recently on view through what would have been her 82^nd birthday weekend, April 27-May 1, 2022. Patti’s artworks may have left the walls of ICA Central, but her spirit remains in the hearts of all those who knew her. Here are some of the images you could have seen at ICA.

 Another Patti pose.

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Patti with her husband of 62 years, “Coop” Cooprider.

     

An assemblage of some of the thousands of hand-painted cards Patti sent to friends during her lifetime, sharing a wall with several of her son Kyle’s artworks (see below). Friends sent in their cards to be part of the exhibition.

 

Ten of Patti’s colorful paintings.

 There was a Patti’s Spirit Lives! Donor Preview on the evening of April 27, but none of the art was for sale. “What we were selling was Patti’s dream,” Cooprider said, quoting something he had heard his wife say many times: “My dream is that every child in the world experience the creation and love of art.”

Through ICA, a charitable fund has been established in Patti’s honor to provide free arts experiences to underserved young San Diegans with ArtReach, A Reason To Survive, Art Bus Xpress and other ICA partners. Many donations have already been made to Patti’s Spirit Lives KidsArtEdFund, and you can add your own by contacting Gaela Fernandez Florin, ICA’s Director of Advancement at gaela@icasandiego.org. It’s a lovely way to ensure that Patti’s spirit lives on.

 

The Great Wall of Patti’s Spirit Lives!

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. 

Hector Villegas, Business of Art Scholarship recipient and Art Reach Charity Auction Mission Fed ArtWalk April 30 and May 1, 2022

by Patricia Frischer

Hector Villegas

Hector Villegas, Business of Art Scholarship recipient at Mission Fed ArtWalk from April 30 and May 1, 2022 in Little Italy booth 334 produced by Art Unites and sponsored by SDVAN.  More info: Blanca Lucia Bergman

We are delighted with the professional display created by Hector with help from Art Unites. It is a beautiful day to get out and see so much art! Good luck to Hector. Pleases support him with a purchase to add to your collection or just stop in to have a look and say hello. 

We also director you to the Art Reach Booth. Art Reach Art Education Charity Art Auction of 100 vinyl records will be on display at the same time. Bids start at $100 and go up in $25 increments. 

Hector Villegas

Hector Villegas

Hector Villegas

Hector Villegas

Hector Villegas

Wonderful day at Mission Fed ArtWalk 2022

Art Reach Art Education Charity Art Auction: Patricia Frischer 

Art Reach Art Education Charity Art Auction : Patricia Frischer

Bloom Bash opening for Arts Alive at SD Museum of Art

 by Patricia Frischer

Arts Alive

Arts Alive (April 28 to May 1, 2022)  is the annual fundraiser for the SD Museum of Art which pairs floral creations with various paintings and sculptures on display at the museum. There are many events surrounding this necessarily short lived event. After all, flowers don't last long and so 4 days is the optimum time for viewing. They pack in lots and lots of fun, decoration and food.  I had a blast at the Bloom Bash but foremost in my mind is that this is about ART. The flowers in Arts Alive give you a chance to look more closely at the artworks. I went wanting to see the flowers, wanting to have fun but also wanting to see the Monet to Matisse; Impressionist Masterpieces from the Bemberg Foundation  (until Aug 7) exhibition and Wang Qingsong: Social Mobility  (until Aug 14) which I had previously written about at the time of the live interview with this impressive artist. 

The following is a small video selections plus lots of photos of all of the above. 

Arts Alive

Monet to Matisse; Impressionist Masterpieces from the Bemberg Foundation  - Kees Van Dongin perfect illustration of the revelry of the events.

Wang Qingsong: Social Mobility

Wang Qingsong: Social Mobility

Wang Qingsong: Social Mobility

Wang Qingsong: Social Mobility

Rotunda Floral Installation by Britton Neubacher: Organized Chaos using mixed moses

 

Glitter and Neon and many, many selfie opportunities

View from the Ferris Wheel

View from the Ferris Wheel

Bloom Bash entertainment

Bloom Bash entertainment

Bloom Bash entertainment

Museum entrance decoration

Museum entrance decoration

Some amazing guests

Some amazing guests

Some amazing guests

So much amazing food...about 35 booths and real taste of San Diego

The gift shop will a full array of head pieces

Featured in the guest shop and present on the night: Norma Hill

Norma Hill with one of her special commissioned silk scarves: a private history in photos of a client's family. 

The view from the Ferris Wheel finally gave us a view of the new outside terraces of the Mingei Museum. I hope this tempts you to make a trip to all the museums in Balboa Park. 

The Aging Magician Brings Multimedia Magic to San Diego

 by Lonnie Burstein Hewitt 

 

From a 2017 production at Arizona State University. (Jill Steinberg)

Detail: From a 2017 production at Arizona State University. (Jill Steinberg)

It’s safe to say you’ve probably never seen an opera like San Diego Opera’s West Coast premiere of The Aging Magician, an amazing piece of theatrical sorcery that includes live music, choral singing, puppetry and stunning stage design and will only be here for three performances before—like magic—it disappears.

Originally scheduled for March 2020 but postponed by an unimaginable pandemic, it promises to be an unforgettable auditory and visual experience for audiences lucky enough to see it on May 13 or 14 at the Balboa Theater in downtown San Diego.

It’s the story of Harold, an aged clockmaker in the midst of writing a book called “The Aging Magician” while trying to figure out how it should end and how to make sense of his own life and legacy. The opera was originally envisioned by composer Paola Prestini, the artistic director of a Brooklyn arts center and multimedia company who is known for her innovative collaborations with poets, scientists and filmmakers.

Inspired by a short story about an aging magician by Jonathan Safran Foer which she read in an anthology of writings honoring the box art of Joseph Cornell, she invited the multi-award-winning writer/composer/vocalist/actor Rinde Eckert to write the libretto for an opera; he would also take on the role of Harold. Her next invitee was Julian Crouch, a visionary director/designer who started out as a mask-maker and puppeteer in London and built an extensive career on both sides of the pond.

I was already a Crouch fan, having seen some of his work onstage, including Shockheaded Peter, which has been called “a sensational work of theater, dance, music, cabaret, puppetry and circus that bursts with exquisite design” and was based on one of my family’s favorite illustrated children’s books, a delightful piece of poetic and visual weirdness whose title back then was Slovenly Peter.

I’d also seen two of the operas he directed and designed for NYC’s Metropolitan Opera on the big screen in “Live at the Met”—Satyagraha (about Gandhi) and Doctor Atomic (about J. Robert Oppenheimer)—so I couldn’t wait to see what he would do with The Aging Magician here in San Diego.

 Of course, thanks to Covid, I had to…but now at last the waiting is almost over. 

Produced by Beth Morrison Projects, honored for its commitment to commissioning and producing   provocative new works of “indie opera” and music theater, The Aging Magician also features the Brooklyn Youth Chorus, a Grammy Award-winning ensemble of young singers conducted by Dianne Berkun Menaker, and the Attacca Quartet, formed at the Juilliard School and formerly Quartet in Residence at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. And Rinde Eckert will be center stage as Harold, the role he created.

All in all, it’s a show you won’t want to miss, no matter what age you are.

From one of the earliest productions at MASS MoCA Museum in 2016. (Jill Steinberg)

SanDiego Opera presents The Aging Magician
May 13, 7:30 pm; May 14, 2 pm and 7:30 pm.
Balboa Theater
868 Fourth Avenue, San Diego
Ticket prices start at $45.  

 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. 

 

Every Picture Tells a Story at Art Produce Gallery

 By Lonnie Burstein Hewitt

 

Marianela de la Hoz in the gallery with her latest work-in-progress. ( photo: Maurice Hewitt)

On April 3^rd, my husband and I drove south to North Park for what we thought would be a quiet chat with Marianela de la Hoz, who is doing Sunday paint-ins at Art Produce Gallery where, along with Helen Redman, she is half of the bilingually-titled exhibition Retelling/Recontar. 

We had no idea that, in the hour or so we spent in the small-but-mighty gallery, more than a few members of San Diego’s art world would show up to see what Marianela was up to. What she is up to is showing some terrific new pieces in an artistic dialogue with her co-exhibitor.

The two artists’ styles are vastly different. Marianela, born in Mexico City, is brilliantly meticulous, working mostly in egg tempera, a medium favored by 15^th-century European painters. She has a taste for surreal imagery and a sensibility that is wholly contemporary and usually satiric. Helen Redman’s style is bold and wildly self-expressionist, but the two share a love of symbolism and their artworks have a strong woman-centered perspective.

Marianela de la Hoz, Meme & the Influence (photo: Marianela de la Hoz)

Helen Redman, Monster Mama (photo: Helen Redman)

Marianela de la Hoz, Return to Infancy (photo: Marianela de la Hoz)

“We are both grandmothers, telling the same stories, but in different ways,” Marianela said. “How do we see the world and what’s happening in it—the world our kids are inheriting? We looked for the links between our artworks.” 

She pointed out the similarity of facial expressions in two adjacent paintings: her own MeMe & the Influence and Helen’s Monster Mama, which also has something in common with Marianela’s Return to Infancy, whose Spanish title translates as: “In dreams I return to my infancy, an ignorant baby.”

Marianela de la Hoz Sing Along ( photo: Maurice Hewitt)

Marianela de la Hoz Changing the Words Does Not Change the Condition (photo: Marianela de la Hoz)

The Missing Link: Marianela with Helen’s jigsaw-puzzle painting Puzzled and her catalog photo page. (photo: Maurice Hewitt)

What is particularly interesting about this show, curated by Art Produce owner Lynn Susholtz, is how the paintings are hung conversationally, making it easier for viewers to notice the similarities. In the accompanying catalog, with text by artist Bhavna Mehta, there are suggestions on How to Enter a Painting: “Paintings like repetition…They like having secret conversations. Surrender yourself in this exchange.” 

An excellent thought for this exhibition.

Impromptu gathering of art producers: Lynn Susholtz, Gail Goldman, Marianela de la Hoz, Katie Ruiz, Alessandra Moctezuma, Tom Noel, Teresa Mill. (photo: Maurice Hewitt)

Retelling/Recontar
On view through April 30.
Art Produce Gallery
3139 University Avenue, San Diego, CA 92014

Hours: Thursday 5-8 pm; Friday/Saturday 12-5 pm, or by appointment.
Sundays with Marianela: April 17 & 24, 12-5 pm. (You may catch her working on a painting)

www.artproduce.org/619-500-ARTS

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.