Design Faith

Postcard from New York

2012-02-07T08:23:00.000-08:00

The 9/11 Memorial

The 9/11 Memorial is incomplete. And that may be a good thing. No required video to watch, no precisely scripted experience. There is a long line even with a reserved ticket. In that way, it feels like a Disney park or a major historic tourist attraction. Security there is like a fast-paced version of a U.S. airport anywhere.

But once you’re inside the memorial, it is surprisingly barren on a winter day. The forlorn oaks still have a few dead brown leaves, and the surviving lawns are barely green. The memorial is a huge island-like plaza surrounded by buildings in various stages of completion. The construction noises are loud and at times hard to distinguish from the high level of city hum.

As you approach the two water-filled voids, the jackhammers, horns, bells, and sirens recede, and there is just the great sound of water falling. The voids occupy the spaces where the two World Trade Center Towers stood. Depending on the angle of the sun, the water dazzles or fades into a monochromatic sheet. As with Michael Heizer’s sculpture at Dia:Beacon, “North, East, South, West,” it is hard to see the bottom of the void. There is no end to sadness, to memory, to evil, to kindness. The metaphors can multiply and become intensely personal because of the abstraction the designers created.

Surrounding the voids are enormous bronze plaques with the names of the victims carved into each panel. Underneath the incisions lies darkness, although apparently, the names glow slightly at night. I was surprised by how large the letters are. I was worried that thousands and thousands of people would be lost in a litany of names. Where you look down, you can see an individual and think about his or her name and story. The names are organized according to the circumstances of their death, including Flights 11, 175, 77, 93; the first World Trade Center bombing on February 26, 1993; First Responders; World Trade Center North; World Trade Center South; and the Pentagon. Rather than arrange the names alphabetically, the victims’ families wanted them to be in proximity to friends or coworkers.

I was struck by the names of women followed by “and her unborn child.” In the corner of the north pool is the name of Berry Berenson Perkins, the wife of actor Anthony Perkins and sister of Marisa Berenson. Almost everybody takes photos, and some point to a name of someone they presumably knew. Couples hold up their iPhones at arm’s length to photograph themselves. The typical response is to smile, but then people stop themselves: is it OK to smile here?

As far as I’m aware, nobody I knew directly perished in any of these disasters. But I felt a need to recognize one person among the thousands. There are several helpful guides who can locate a name, and at computer stands, you can print out a map locating a name you have requested.

I entered my own name, Kenneth Caldwell. Kenneth (Marcus) Caldwell can be found on panel N-65. He was born in Philadelphia on February 8, 1971, lived in Brooklyn, and worked for a company called the Alliance Consulting Group. His survivors asked that his name be placed near that of Larry John Senko. I said a prayer for him.

The 9/11 Memorial is one place in the United States where design and faith come together without a predetermined narrative. The place lets each person contemplate an event that can never be understood. Right now it is about the water, the void, the names of those who died, and then all of us who are fortunate enough to be standing there looking for meaning, looking at each other.

For more information:
http://www.911memorial.org/
http://www.nytimes.com/library/national/met_MISSING_0925_caldwell.html

Slowing Down at SFMOMA

2012-01-02T14:11:00.000-08:00

Richard Serra Drawings: A Retrospective
Sharon Lockhart: Lunch Break

Earlier this year, we saw “Richard Serra Drawing: A Retrospective” at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. It was sparsely attended compared to the Alexander McQueen extravaganza in the gallery next door, which was breaking records. Seeing both exhibits in the same day was a kind of mental jujitsu.

The Serra show moved to the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art this fall, and it works better here because of the generous space each piece is given and the daylight from the uncovered skylights (my favorite detail in the Botta building). The curators have placed a complementary if very different show in the adjacent gallery. Sharon Lockhart’s “Lunch Break” draws from some of the same roots as Serra—the ironworks and the shipyard.

Sharon Lockhart, Lunch Break
(Assembly Hall, Bath Iron Works, November 5, 2007, Bath, Maine)
(still), 2008; 35mm film transferred to HD, 80 min.;
courtesy the artist and Blum & Poe, Los Angeles;
© Sharon Lockhart

Both artists might be labeled conceptual, but that’s just an easy term for someone playing with concept over object. Lockhart’s piece is an 80-minute film that stretches out a ten-minute walk through a corridor during a lunch break at Maine’s Bath Iron Works. There are also a few stills of the evidence found along this walk.

Serra’s show focuses on several large drawings made with ink stick as well as some sketchbooks and selected sculptures from SFMOMA’s collection that were not in the New York presentation.

Richard Serra was born in San Francisco, and his father worked in the shipyards here. Serra himself worked in steel mills as a young man. As America’s industrial age reached its height before the space age, great ships, submarines, and other structures were some of the country’s mightiest accomplishments. Both artists use this as a source for their work, albeit in different ways.

In his early sculptures, Serra placed pieces of lead against a wall or each other, defying their apparent weight. Molten lead flung into the place where the wall meets the floor feels both liquid and solid. Something as heavy as Cor-Ten steel or lead can feel almost weightless. Think of an enormous battleship at the moment it is launched. It floats. This apparent contradiction speaks to the central condition of many of Serra’s experiments. Likewise, black ink stick can help you see light and space.

Richard Serra, The United States Government Destroys Art, 1989;
paintstick on two sheets of paper; 113 x 215 ¼ inches;
collection of Eli and Edy L. Broad, Los Angeles;
© 2011 Richard Serra / Artist Rights Society (ARS), New York;
photo: Dorthy Zeidman

Richard Serra, Solid #13, 2008;
paintstick on handmade paper; 40 x 40 inches; private collection, New York;
© 2011 Richard Serra / Artist Rights Society (ARS), New York;
photo: Rob McKeever

The recent Serra sculptures that I saw this fall at the Gagosian Gallery in Manhattan convey, at first, a kind of somber heaviness, but they also inspire children to run in delight. After spending most of an hour wandering through and around them, I relished the feeling of being lost. I was giddy. I have actually begun to dance inside the sculptor’s “Torqued Ellipses” at Dia:Beacon.

All of the works in the current drawing show are black. But I felt that the color was not symbolic. Many of the drawings work like sculpture, using edges to define and redefine space and alter the perception of volume. Within the space of the piece entitled “Union” (recreated for the specifics of each space where it is shown), I moved back and forth, trying to place myself. Self-generated movement is also a key part of Serra’s work. If you let him, Serra can slow you down long enough to really experience your body in space.

Across the way, Sharon Lockhart’s film also slows the viewer down. Few people can sit through all 80 minutes of her film at one go. I viewed the film for a few minutes each time I was at the museum during the last few months. Film, that medium that has speeded up our lives, can also be used to accomplish the opposite. Lockhart never condescends to the ironworkers, but rather cherishes them. Workers with these skills are also helping to create Serra’s sculptures. Both exhibits give us a fuller picture of our contemporary life, even as both the picture and the memory transform into a memory.

Both shows are only up until January 16.

Richard Serra, notebook: Double Torqued Ellipses;
Guggenheim Bilbao, Spain, 2005; paintstick on paper;
sheet: 12 ¼ x 14 ½ inches; collection of the artist;
© 2011 Richard Serra / Artist Rights Society (ARS), New York;
photo: Rob McKeever

Best of 2011

2011-12-22T17:39:00.000-08:00

The greatest thing about 2011 has been Occupy Wall Street. At last, the lie that everybody will be rich has been exposed: the one percent is getting richer and everybody else is getting poorer. The government is subsidizing the wealthy. Corporate welfare is worse than we ever imagined. The cost and deception of late capitalism is too high. Now the truth is out. We woke up! Some of the highlights of the year were visiting the Occupy protests at UC Berkeley, Oakland, San Francisco, and of course Wall Street. Interestingly enough, the catalyst for all this good work was a communications publication based in Canada called AdbBusters.

So let’s start there!

Favorite magazine
Adbusters
Culture jammers!
www.adbusters.org

Favorite protest
Occupy Wall Street!
www.OccupyWallStreet.org

Favorite political blog
Clinton’s former secretary of labor just nails it.
www.robertreich.org

Favorite local policy wonk organization
Great programs, policy discussions, and parties.
www.spur.org

I know, enough with the politics. What about the art, design, writing, food, and libations?

Favorite new restaurant (SF)
It was a tie.

Cotogna
The décor is beautiful and the food subtle and incredibly fresh. Pricey but worth it. We also ate next door at sister restaurant Quince, but it was over the top.
www.cotognasf.com

La Ciccia
Sardinian. I know it’s not new, but I had never been there. No pretense, no décor really, but excellent food at a fair price.
wwww.laciccia.com

Favorite new restaurant (NY)
The Dutch
Fresh food and someone is paying attention. Rustic décor with a hint of the modern.
www.thedutchnyc.com

Favorite new bar
Bar Agricole’s drinks are as inventive as the light sculptures by Nikolas Weinstein. Like an update of Richard Lippold’s piece in the Four Seasons. Check out the short video “Cut and Polish” on Nik’s website after you find the Bar Agricole project.
www.baragricole.com
www.nikolas.net

Photo: Matthew Millman

Favorite old bar
The bad juju at the House of Shields is gone and so is the smoke. Too loud, but that’s part of the fun.
www.thehouseofshields.com

Courtesy House of Shields

Favorite new hotel (outside US)
We didn’t try that many this year, but we loved the Château Carbonneau for its shabby chic quality and incredibly personable matron, Jacquie. Should you be near Bordeaux, it’s a great place to rest for several days.
http://www.chateau-carbonneau.com/EN/accueil.htm

Favorite new hotel (inside US)
If you are going to Healdsburg and Sonoma County without a lot of dough, H2Hotel by David Baker + Partners is great fun. And while you are there, try Scopa restaurant.
www.h2hotel.com

Favorite edge
We loved the way this house designed by Craig Steely in Hawaii met the lava field.
www.craigsteely.com

Favorite new museum
José Luis Sert’s Maeght Foundation in Saint-Paul-de-Vence reminded me that modernism can be very local. One of my favorite museum experiences ever.
www.fondation-maeght.com

Miro Mural at Fondation Maeght in Saint Paul de Vence

Favorite solo painting show by living artist
Thanks to our buddy John van Duyl, we saw Kevin Bean’s show at Stanford, and it was a standout. His paintings work in concert or alone.
www.kevinbean.com

Favorite solo painting show by nonliving artist
Some blockbuster shows are worth all the hoopla. The Willem de Kooning retrospective at MoMA was overwhelming at times and then poignant in the way it shows him disappearing.
http://www.moma.org/visit/calendar/exhibitions/1149

Willem de Kooning. Pink Angels. c. 1945.

Favorite show by living sculptor
Richard Serra may not be the friendliest of artists, but his work continues to redefine the concept of art. Although the show at SFMOMA is called “Richard Serra Drawing: A Retrospective,” it works like sculpture. We were able to see it at the Metropolitan and at SFMOMA. It works much better in San Francisco.
http://www.sfmoma.org/exhib_events/exhibitions/421

Favorite show by nonliving sculptor
Seeing “Edward Kienholz: Five Car Stud 1969–1972, Revisited” at LACMA was deeply disturbing. The dark side of all the other Pacific Standard Time shows. Although this piece has not been seen in public since the 1970s, the artist reminds us that racism is still a cancer in the bones. None of us have escaped.
http://www.lacma.org/art/exhibition/edward-kienholz-five-car-stud

Favorite fashion show
Truth is we don’t see that many fashion shows. But Alexander McQueen went far beyond fashion. Maybe it’s a new model for making conceptual art.
http://blog.metmuseum.org/alexandermcqueen/

Courtesy of Alexander McQueen.
Photograph © Sølve Sundsbø / Art + Commerce

Favorite design show
You can feel optimistic about California again. Or at least its design legacy. Check out “California Design 1930–1965: ‘Living in a Modern Way’” when you are in LA.
http://www.lacma.org/art/exhibition/californiadesign

Favorite newly discovered artist
We found out about Joe Downing, an American who lived and worked in the South of France. A lot of Klee-like marks on wood, canvas, and even buildings. I hadn’t heard of him, but our South of France expert (and part-time resident) Michael Bernard had met him. There is a small garden in Downing’s memory across the street from the house of Dora Maar.

Sculpture by Joe Downing in his memorial garden

Blind window in Menerbes with drawing by Joe Downing

Favorite new/old retail emporium
The new Marimekko store on Fifth Avenue in the Flatiron district is just joy.
www.marimekko.com

Favorite actor on British TV
Tom Ellis. We watched him on a show called “Monday Monday,” and now I keep bugging Paul for anything new where he is featured. If you like guys with curly hair….

Favorite ruin we won’t be able to visit soon
Jack London State Historic Park
The state is planning to close this great Sonoma park in 2012. A sure sign that the end is near.
http://www.parks.ca.gov/?page_id=478

Favorite memoir
Joan Didion’s Blue Nights breaks your heart.
www.joan-didion.info

Favorite diary
The Sixties: Diaries 1960–1969 by Christopher Isherwood
He had a few blind spots (as this reviewer also points out), but Christopher Isherwood remains one of the most important writers in my life.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2010/nov/20/christopher-isherwood-diaries-review

Favorite design-related online magazine
The must-read online magazine is Design Observer. One of the publications under this large umbrella is Places. Editor Nancy Levinson dares to publish magazine-length pieces that are among the best in the business.
www.places.designobserver.com

Favorite blog about living outside the US
This year, my favorite personal blog comes from our friend Ann Moore’s daughter, Charlotte. She splits her time between Italy and France. In her blog, “The Daily Cure,” she is “healing the soul one detail at a time.”
www.thedailycure.wordpress.com

Favorite new funny spectacles, another useful blog and a wedding!
We have to see clearly to face the challenges ahead. So when we needed new spectacles we took John Cary’s advice and turned to Warby Parker!
www.warbyparker.com

And while we are talking about John Cary he launched a new blog this fall and married a great lady, Courtney Martin, a few days ago! Congratulations John!
www.publicinterestdesign.org

Favorite car that goes forward and backwards at the same time.
That sort of captures 2011!

Happy New Year! Hoping for more good change in 2012.

A Week of Loss

2011-12-05T17:02:00.000-08:00

Joan Didion, John Gregory Dunne and Quintana Roo Dunne
in Malibu, California

A great deal of the meaning in Joan Didion’s work can be found in the space between the words, in what is not said. Her detached, fragmentary style leaves the reader a whole lot of room. Like a scrim piece by artist Robert Irwin, you see the shadows, but you don’t quite know where you are, until the scrim parts and the moment of loss is sharp and clear.

Didion’s writing is precise, taut, yet elliptical. What is not told is purposeful. Her new book Blue Nights is about losing her daughter. The day after I finished the book I started reading it over again. I started to write a blog.

And then I got stuck.

Paul rushed to the bedroom, “Josh has been killed in a motorcycle accident.” Of course I didn’t believe him. It’s just what the mind/body does. Josh was Trudi’s son, who would have turned 30 on Christmas Eve. Trudi and Paul went to Dunsmore School together in Rugby, England, had lost touch (last contact 1978), but had reconnected on Facebook. She was from a group of kids who knew they were “other” and were going to find another way. Eventually Trudi and her family got out of Rugby by moving to a small town in France. We visited them in Ste Foy la Grande this past summer.

Josh with his mum, Trudi, August 2011

Josh loved his motorcycle. He had posted on his Facebook page a few photos from a beautiful road trip he took a month ago. When we met him this summer, he was so kind to us, so sweet, so full of promise, with so much left to realize. Paul had started looking for a job for him in the French schools in San Francisco.

Josh's motorcycle

When we had barbequed duck on the patio at his parents’ house near Bordeaux we tried to engage Josh in conversation, but he mostly listened. A few days later, we went to lunch at a fancy restaurant at one of the local chateaux. It was out of his way, and he would be late back to work, but when Trudi declared it important, he was present. There seemed to be a lot of latitude in Trudi’s childrearing, but family came first.

The view from the restaurant where we had lunch
with Trudi and her family.

Joan Didion writes about illusion and loss, and perhaps the gift of loss is that illusion can be stripped away. Can we stay revealed and protected simultaneously? Today, I think not.

In her previous book, The Year of Magical Thinking, Didion examined the loss of her husband, the writer John Gregory Dunne. Her coolness balances the intimacy required to share the experience of losing a long-time partner – in life and work. But as Didion herself has pointed out in interviews, she doesn’t feel that she caused her husband’s death. She is less certain with her daughter, Quintana Roo, the subject of this new work and maybe much of her earlier work as well.

Quintana Roo Dunne died at 39 of natural causes, a flu that got worse and worse. Those are the facts. But what of the memories? What of all the scraps, the school uniforms, the early attempts at writing? One of the most quoted lines from the book (thus far) is “when we talk about mortality, we are talking about our children.” The death of Didion’s child foreshadows her own demise in a way she wasn’t prepared for. Nobody could be prepared.

There are Payard cakes; smart hotels (“on expense”); famous actors; homes in Malibu, Brentwood, and the Upper East Side; and lots of cashmere. Despite the relative comfort that success and privilege bring, it does not ease the loss of a child. There are also fears of bogeymen (here called “The Broken Man”), depressions, and alcoholism.

Every child who suffers from depression wonders how to measure this? How to gauge where it comes from? The fault of the individual who happened to be the parent, or the mix of genes that make up the self? One wonders how much influence the parent actually has anyway, short of physical or verbal abuse.

When someone dies, Quintana advises her mother, “Don’t dwell on it.” But she does. What decent parent wouldn’t?

On Sunday, I saw the obituary for the painter Barbara Winkelstein, the wife of architect Peter Winkelstein. She was a close friend of Al Baum, one of my oldest friends. For years, the portrait she painted of Al has hung in his home. Although Al is almost always smiling when we are together, she captured him in a moment of sadness, which I found interesting. He also had several paintings she did depicting Stinson Beach, one of my favorite places in the world. She was 82.

Barbara Winkelstein painting

Days later Tim, my good friend from New York, came to visit. His high school buddy Greg Klein had just moved to Florida with his new bride and was killed in a pedestrian accident. Greg was 53.

Donna Kempner and Greg Klein
in Tim's NY apt. early 1980s

I returned to the first paragraph of Didion’s The White Album: “We tell ourselves stories in order to live.” At the end of the paragraph, she elaborates: “We interpret what we see, select the most workable of the multiple choices. We live entirely, especially if we are writers, by the imposition of a narrative line upon disparate images, by the ‘ideas’ with which we have learned to freeze the shifting phantasmagoria which is our actual experience.”

All this loss.

The sky outside has a few clouds, but it all turns to steel wool. Paul tries to work on his opera. We wait for a friend to arrive to teach us about Twitter. I go to UC Berkeley to protest, to remind myself that something matters.

Joan Didion and Quintana Roo

More info:

You can see Griffin Dunne’s video of his aunt Joan Didion here:
http://joan-didion.info/2011/10/griffin-dunne-film/

You can see a recollection of Greg Klein here:
http://www.27east.com/news/article.cfm/East-End/405411/Remembering-the-Madhatter

You can see some of Barbara Winkelstein’s work here:
http://sites.google.com/site/bwinkpaintings/

Postcard from the Mario Savio Steps at Sproul Plaza

2011-12-01T08:32:00.000-08:00

Mario Savio

It has been a long time since I saw Sproul Plaza so full of cheering patriots. It was like this when I was in graduate school at Berkeley in 1984 celebrating the 20th anniversary of the Free Speech Movement and later protesting against the university’s investments in South Africa. History has shown that most of UC’s board of regents and administrators have been on the wrong side of the significant social justice issues of the last half century. Even they must be appalled by the recent police brutality exhibited by their own force on the UC community. But they seem confused, as do the many mayors of cities across the country, about what the Occupy movement stands for. Professor Robert Reich laid it out for them, and for the nation, Tuesday November 15 at the annual Mario Savio Memorial Speech on the Mario Savio Steps.

One thing I love about Reich is that he maintains a sense of humor—which the left sometimes forgets. You have to be able to laugh at the absurdities and the contradictions. Otherwise you risk getting engulfed by rage.

He began his talk by saying, “I’ll be short.” He only spoke for about twenty minutes, but I could have listened to his reasoning long into the night.

He spoke about the Citizens United decision at the Republican-dominated US Supreme Court. About the falsehood that money is speech and corporations are people, he said, “I will believe that corporations are people when Georgia and Texas execute them.”

He argued that we must protect the First Amendment rights of regular citizens who don’t have money and do not constitute a corporation. He continued that sometimes the First Amendment is messy, but it is more important that we go out of our way to honor it and pay the price of a democratic system of government. Mayors across the country and the UC administration seem to have missed the point. It is critical that the 99% without resources can join together to make their voices heard.

It is absurd that the one percent in cahoots with the government have privatized human rights like education and healthcare. The cost of rising fees at UC now makes a public education out of reach of a broad swath of the public. But Reich pressed a larger point, and this is really the main point of the Occupy movements everywhere. The increasing concentration of wealth in our society means that a few hundred of the wealthiest Americans own more than a few hundred million of the least wealthy.

This intense concentration of wealth means that we no longer have equal opportunity by any stretch of the imagination, and the very very rich are controlling the political system.

Reich said, “We are losing the moral foundation stone on which this democracy is built.” He pointed out that over the last thirty years, the economy has doubled in size, but most Americans have not seen the gain.

And he went on to ask, how can we be the wealthiest nation on earth and provide so little? “Where did the money go?” I think we know where it went.

It’s time to get it back. I hope some radical Santa hears my wish.

Mario Savio went to Freedom Summer in Mississippi in 1964 before he became famous on the steps of Sproul Plaza that fall. Robert Reich concluded his talk by remembering his childhood friend (and protector) Mickey. Mickey (Michael Schwerner) also went to Freedom Summer in 1964, but he never came back. Freedom can cost lives. We have to remember that when those in power are threatened, they stop the media from covering events, let loose police on nonviolent protestors, and even torture and murder people. All we can do is resist in the best way we can. Yesterday I found out that my cousin’s kids were at UC Davis camping out. I am so proud of them for standing up—and lying down—for freedom!

You can see Robert Reich’s speech here:
http://robertreich.org/post/12897195437
or
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7xM67eImqdc&feature=related

Kevin Bean: Journey to the Edges of Color

2011-11-18T16:07:00.000-08:00

My friend John van Duyl introduced me to the work of Kevin Bean, a local painter who taught at Stanford and has exhibited at the Charles Campbell and John Berggruen galleries. Bean’s work is often contradictory. His earlier figurative work felt incredibly personal, but the faces were erased. Throughout his career, he has changed the subject of his paintings; he is restless, but the work remains calm, studied. Recently his work shifted from figurative to semi-abstract. But the pieces in this most recent show at the Thomas Welton Stanford Art Gallery on the Stanford campus are shorn of all representation. The palette of forms consists of small geometric shapes, minimal if you will, but the colors have no limits.

Unfortunately, the show only lasts through November 20, but you can see much of his work at www.kevinbean.com. What is so striking about this show is how so many of the geometric experiments are hung next to each other. Bean is teaching us that one expression can have a singular life as well as a communal life. There are just a few of his large works presented here. I focused on the many smaller pieces, which are grouped together in three different ways. The arrangement of the paper pieces (which are behind glass and not so immediate) is not as successful as the painted pieces either placed near each other on one wall or, on the opposite wall, butted up next to each other without any space in between. These pieces support one another and speak to one another, but each has a strong voice of its own. Although the smaller works could be interpreted as studies for the few larger paintings, they don’t feel like maquettes. Perhaps one day there will be an enormous museum filled with several of his large canvases, all creating something truly enormous.

This work of Bean’s is both a distillation of his earlier work and also an explosion.

Postcard from New York

2011-11-11T08:57:00.000-08:00

This was the Brooklyn trip. Went out there three times. We got to try some great restaurants, including Franny’s, James, and Prime Meats. But it was either nighttime or snowing (in October, thank you), so I never really saw the neighborhoods. But the rents are much lower than they are in Manhattan (unless you live in Brooklyn Heights, of course). No wonder most folks we met out there are under 50. My buddy Andrew Blum took me for a ride around some of the neighborhoods before we had dinner, and I see I have a lot to explore!

Occupy Wall Street had not thinned out since the first snow. Perhaps there are fewer homeless than our local Occupy camps. My impression of Wall Street was less pot, more activists. The place was very orderly, with walkways, a library, a kitchen, and other places to congregate. Sure, there are some nuts, but the place had a very peaceful air. One fellow put a rainbow peace symbol over my head and barely bothered me for a donation.

Best restaurant meal was at The Dutch. An expense account kind of place, but the service is attentive and personal, and someone really cares about the food. The recipes are not extravagantly complex, just fresh and well executed. They also care about their cocktails. The sure sign is that the Manhattans are stirred in a crystal beaker, not shaken. The décor is a mix of mod lanterns and old-style wood enclosures. Perfect fall kind of place.

For the more adventuresome (and bargain) diner, there is Han Bat at 53 West 35th between Fifth and Sixth. Unremarkable but inoffensive interior. Lots of kimchi. I was surprised when what looked like eggplant turned out to be mackerel. I noticed that they brought the Asian patrons glasses of hot tea and white patrons cold water. The Gobdol Bi Bim Bad was very filling and warm. The best bit is the cooked rice at the bottom of the clay pot. But be careful about your dental work.

Stopped in for a drink with my long time editor pal Kristen Richards at The Brasserie on the opposite side of the Seagrams Building from The Four Seasons. This was one of the designs that made Diller Scofidio & Renfro’s reputation. As you walked down the grand stair a delayed image of you entering the restaurant was projected on the screens above the bar. Andy Warhol’s idea turned into a restaurant - you get to be famous on TV for a few seconds! Brilliant idea, but it wasn’t working. Just static TV on the screens the night we were there. The bar was crowded, but the restaurant was almost empty.

When the winter doldrums kick in, the place to go shopping is the new Marimekko on Fifth near 23rd (surrounded by Mario Batali’s mad Eataly Emporium). It was full of young folks looking for the stuff their moms used go on about—and their moms! I even popped for a crazy pair of Marimekko Converse tennis shoes. And got the very same shoulder bag I bought in high school at Design Research. Jack Spade for the D/R set. The other recent big retail opening was Uniqlo near the Museum of Modern Art. You couldn’t go two feet without seeing a white bag with the store’s distinctive red chop. But I think it’s all bright T-shirts and cashmere sweaters for the young skinny set who are bored with the monochromatic tendencies of Muji. We favor bright caftans.

On the art front, there is more than one man can do in a few days. The blockbuster show for contemporary art lovers is the de Kooning retrospective at the Modern. You almost need two trips, it is so overwhelming. Watching him almost disappear at the end is heartbreaking. I have never been a huge fan of the “Women” series. But I loved the early abstractions. It’s up until January 9, 2012. Go.

A review can be found at http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/16/arts/design/de-kooning-a-retrospective-at-moma-review.html?pagewanted=all

Fred R. Conrad/The New York Times

For the die hard Richard Serra fan, there are two new monster pieces at the Gagosian Gallery. I have never seen so many guards in a private art gallery! They seemed to be there to tell kids not to run through the sculptures. If you are eleven, I think that would be the natural response to the towering bending curving fluid hard objects. Overheard comments included “We’ve been in this open space,” “No we haven’t,” “Yes we have”; “Is this one or two pieces of art?”; “No running, this is an art gallery.” The signed exhibition posters are sold out. The pieces put me in a kind of trance. What I want to see is a YouTube video of them installing these pieces. The show is up until November 26. You can read the review here: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/06/arts/design/richard-serras-sculpture-at-gagosian-gallery-review.html

For those of you who read my post on Justin Spring and Sam Steward on my other blog, you might enjoy a visit to the exhibit entitled “Obscene Diary: The Secret Archive of Samuel Steward, Professor, Tattoo Artist and Pornographer” at the Sex Museum. The place definitely has a kind of illicit vibe—like a high-end peepshow. I wasn’t crazy about the muslin wall treatment over Steward’s sketches, and the videos were placed too close to each other, so it was hard to concentrate on any one tape. I really wanted to hear the older Sam Steward interviewed in his Berkeley cottage. Despite those criticisms, it was great to see his index cards, notebooks, and other ephemera. Sam was one compulsive guy – and perhaps unintentionally, an artist. His famous stud file is enclosed in a thick acrylic box as if there were jewels inside the box within a box. There was also a fine sketch of Steward by Don Bachardy, which I had never seen. I am not sure that the show will interest people who have not read Justin Spring’s excellent biography or who don’t at least know of Steward, aka Phil Andros and Phil Sparrow.

As tattoo artist Phil Sparrow, Sam taught a young Don Hardy, now known as Ed Hardy. And some of Hardy’s tattoo prints were on display at the annual International Fine Print Dealers Association’s Print Fair at the Park Avenue Armory at the Shark’s Ink booth (www.sharksink.com).

The Park Avenue Armory’s main space is wonderfully run down, but the anterooms have been restored to their Louis Tiffany glory. This year there was a lot of Louise Bourgeois to be seen. Besides the Tauba Auerbach prints at Paulson Bott’s booth, (www.paulsonbottpress.com), some of the highlights of the show were the Richard Serra prints at Gemini G.E.L., the perfect little Kiki Smith flowers shown at Harlan & Weaver, the bright Polly Apfelbaum flowers at Durham and the milky world of Dan Brice at Tamarind. After the opening night, we had dinner at JoJo, the Upper East Side outlet of Jean Georges. Friendly but incompetent service. Great décor. If you go late, try the $38 prix fixe!

Somehow we found time to see the second leg of the High Line, which is quieter than the first. More long boardwalks, many raised above the bed of the railroad track. It takes you all the way to 30th Street. The complete walk now stretches 1.45 miles. This would be at the top of my to-do list for any trip to New York. Check out www.thehighline.org.

We will have to wait until the next trip to see the 9/11 memorial. I think I want to see it when all the landscaping is in. Should you want to go, book your tickets well in advance at www.911memorial.org.

Postcard from Oakland

2011-10-27T15:18:00.000-07:00

This morning the helicopters stopped hovering. Frank Ogawa/Oscar Grant/Occupy Oakland Plaza in front of City Hall was mostly empty. A few tents, maybe a dozen people meeting, a few dozen milling about. No fences that I could see. A woman handed out donuts to whoever wanted them. The aroma of strong marijuana filled one corner. There were more television cameras than cops. No windows broken, no trash, just city folks fixing a water pipe. This was the epicenter of a riot that made international news?

Some have criticized the larger Occupy Wall Street movement for not having a clear message. I think this is one of its beauties. As with an abstract canvas, you can see what you need to see. Like the early abstractionists, the protestors share an overarching vision: the current regime won’t last. And I don’t mean Obama. I am talking about a society that puts money ahead of human beings.

Occupy Wall Street and its sister occupations are really about something quite simple, if global. We have to stop seeing money as God. It’s just another bead, another system of trading. It has no intrinsic value. Like any system of trade, the tool is only worth what we perceive it to be. The larger truth is that human life (after birth, in case you were wondering) is what matters here. It comes first. The Occupy movement exists to stop the world from spinning around a money axis and get it spinning around a human axis.

One day, corporations will ask if a decision is best for the communities they SERVE, not for the quarterly returns. By the way, “publically held corporation” is a misnomer. It is a way for the one percent to take advantage of the resources of the 99 percent. All of us need to ask, whom are we serving? How is our work of service? Not whether we make maximum profits or have enough to look richer than our brethren.

It is easy to walk around the Occupy SF or Oakland camps and see mostly homeless folks. Admittedly, some of them don’t seem mentally balanced. Some of them smell. But they are the foot soldiers of this chapter of an evolving revolution. At night, after we protest with them (and then go shopping at Whole Foods before going home to our comfy nests), they sleep on benches or, for a few weeks, in tents in front of City Hall. I admit that I am not inclined to engage with them personally, but I am no longer afraid to walk among them. And they may be leading us to a promised land where people come before profits.

Our prayers go out to Scott Olsen, a veteran who served two tours of duty in Iraq and was injured by a police projectile Tuesday night. Today his condition was upgraded to fair.

Jeremy Mende Interview

2011-10-24T09:00:00.000-07:00

Visual artist and designer Jeremy Mende recently returned from spending eight months as a fellow in design at the American Academy in Rome. His project “100 Years from Now” was launched on February 20, 2011, to coincide with the 102nd anniversary of the publication of the original Italian Futurist manifesto. English signs with five phrases were installed in four neighborhoods in Rome, provoking readers to think about their anxious future. The five phrases were:

the clock
to be a machine
despite the denials
100 years from now
a kind of panic

A website (www.100yearsfromnow.info) is part of the project. One of the comments a visitor to the site left a week ago was, “I’ll be dead in a 100 years (hopefully).”

We caught up with Jeremy on his return to find out what he was up to.

Q: What was the essence of the idea you took to the American Academy?

Jeremy Mende: We live in a time where we’re inundated with information that shows how contemporary society is exhausting our resources – peak oil, climate change, extreme water shortages, the population explosion – and yet we seem to be unable to generate any real momentum for societal change. These crises remind us that our global system has limits, yet our lifestyle is based on the assumption of no limits. I think this paradox is generating a growing sense of anxiety about a future that will likely be determined by forces beyond our control. Unlike the Italian Futurists who demonstrated an overwhelming confidence in their vision, our is an uncertain look into the future – a kind of anxious futurism.

The project in Rome was an attempt to capture a sense of this anxiety; to ask the question what is it like to live in a time where critical change is necessary but potentially impossible.

Q: Why is it called “100 Years from Now?”

Mende: It’s impossible to read the phrase and not generate at least a partial vision of the future. At the same time that vision is beyond the reach of any one lifetime so I found that incongruity compelling.

Q: Why the intense interest in the Italian Futurists?

Mende: The values the Futurists celebrated—speed, ego, technology, industrialization, power—still somehow define us. We have a much more ambivalent sense of these things but we are, in many ways, living in a version of the world the Futurist’s dreamed of.

Q: What was your process when you got to the American Academy? What were you doing in that huge studio?

Mende: The work was really a search for a viable visual language. I created a number of form and content studies however it bothered me that as a designer I had no clear context for the work I was making. If I saw what I was doing as “design” there was no client to make use of it, and if I saw what I was doing as “art” there was no gallery to show it.

This ambivalence lead me to look outside the studio for inspiration. In Rome messages on the street are everywhere: inscriptions, signage, advertising, graffiti. It is probably the most written on city in Europe. I began to pay close attention to street advertising and how people interacted with it. I became interested in the possibility of hacking this system. Once I decided the street would be the site many of the other decisions fell into place.

Q: Did any of the people that you met influence the direction of the project?

Mende: The biggest influence came from interacting with writers and poets. The project is really based on the idea of creating poetic fragments that provoke personal interpretation – very, very short poems that refuse to resolve themselves.

Q: When did the idea begin to coalesce?

Mende: The Futurists identified the idea of ambientazione emotiva – that certain forms of visible language, concrete poetry for instance, compel the reader to perform the poem and thereby create a powerful personal space of interpretation. They believed that this type of individual signification happens organically, working on us before the more ‘mechanical’ processes of traditional reading. 100 Years From Now was an attempt to orchestrate a contemporary ambientazione emotiva on the scale of the city.

Q: Did you have dozens of phrases and edit them down to these five?

Mende: Yes, I wrote hundreds of phrases. I was looking for a finite set that would underscore the cultural tensions that I think produce this sense of anxiety. Roughly speaking:

time and time limits
the ever-narrowing space between human and machine
the impossibility of truth in an over-mediated world
visions of the future
a growing undercurrent of anxiety

Q: What is the relationship between the five questions posed on the website and the five statements on the posters?

Mende: The five questions on the site were a way to focus the ambiguous nature of the phrases on the street. For those motivated enough to go to the site I wanted to reward them with a more literal way to get at the bigger ideas that drove the project. For each phrase the site presents a question that adds context.

I was, however, concerned about putting a URL on the signs. It was very important that the signs be as blank as possible. To avoid the need for a URL the individual phrases were tagged in AdWords, Google’s online advertising platform, so that users performing online searches would find announcements for the project in the form of online ads. These ads created an immediate way for users to link directly to the website.

Q: Was this a graffiti kind of project? You just put them up at random spots around Rome? Or was there a map of Rome?

Mende: The installation was highly planned. I worked with the municipality of Rome to produce the project in the four most youth-oriented districts of Rome—Trastevere, Testaccio, Pigneto, and San Lorenzo. These zones have a high concentration of politically engaged, English-speaking, technologically aware people. The municipality supported the project with a cultural grant which allowed me access to a large amount of media space – 1000 placements for 30 days.

Q: Did you go out and observe people’s reactions?

Mende: Yes. The project launched on February 20th – the anniversary of the original 1909 Futurist Manifesto – and ran for 30 days. When the signs first appeared on the street people would do double-takes, and then approach them looking for more information. After the first week the Roman cultural blogs lit up with images and related interpretations of “Il bianchi manifesti” (the white posters), as they came to be called by media. Flickr and Facebook pages were populated with images of the signs and grafittied responses began to appear on the posters themselves. The interpretations on the blogs ran the gamut but in general people read the blank tone as both existential and political; that as much as the issues presuppose an oppositions between the engaged vs. the disengaged, people understood we are simultaneously part of both groups.

In terms of numbers the site recorded 19,000 hits and over 700 comments in 30 days. And as much as there was variety in the responses, three themes came up repeadtedly: a nagging fear that our technological development is coming at the cost of human values like intimacy, and authenticity; faith in the social consciousness of the individual but extreme skepticism as far as governments and commerce; and most disturbingly a sense that real change will only occur as the result of large-scale disaster. This fatalism was one of the larger conclusions – that we are accepting paralysis as a response to the magnitude and complexities of the global issues in front of us.

Q: Given that you are a designer known for striking visuals, why did you decide to use such a minimal graphic approach?

Mende: It was actually very hard to work so minimally. I looked at more formal approaches but these directed the resulting interpretations too much. They either pushed the project into the subjective territory of street art or the commercial zone of advertising. Minimalism was a strategy to project the phrases as pure messages—semantic blocks hanging in space, demanding a reading but refusing to give much away.

Q: The project combines the Web and this old method of street poster. Can you comment on that?

Mende: Contemporary media and technology make it very easy to select what we want to see and what we don’t want to see. Producing the project in real space made it much more difficult to ignore. Multiple exposures worked to penetrate the cognitive firewall we have all learned to construct in order to protect us from messages we find uncomfortable, even if those messages are personally relevant.

Q: Is this project tilting over to art?

Mende: Yes, it is art.

Q: Do you know how this project or your time in Rome might influence your practice once you return to San Francisco?

Mende: I’m increasingly interested in the idea of public interventions. Creating opportunities for people to make positive, personal sense of issues that are determining our world – to realize that they have a vote in the creation ‘the now’– that is empowering, and essential if we want a participatory culture. San Francisco is not Rome and the opportunities for access to outdoor media are much more controlled here. We do, however, have far greater access to technology. I see a version of this project in SF but figuring out the actual/virtual interaction will be more challenging. Billboards are an obvious choice and their authority and monumentality appeal to me, but that will require partnerships that are more difficult to create. Rome proved that cultural, commercial, and civic partnerships can happen, but then they have a very long history of reconciling these interests. My hope is to use the Rome project as an example, and then to build partnerships that allow a more truly interactive version to be produced here.

For more information please visit Jeremy's website www.mendedesign.com.

The Rest of the News from Monterey

2011-10-21T10:44:00.000-07:00

Asilomar Gateway

I wrote a blog for The Architect’s Newspaper about the Monterey Design Conference. They wanted it short and sweet. So I decided to post some of the long and sour here.

Although I attended almost all the programs, I struggled to find a theme. In some ways, it was a relief that the conference organizers didn’t impose one.

If architecture is going to survive, it needs both research and humility. To initiate research, often without payment, takes a lot of confidence. But confidence is rendered more believable when mixed with humility. The media machine, of which I am a card-carrying member, has put too much emphasis on fame and notoriety. Students entering architecture school think they have a chance of becoming famous. If you look at the numbers, I think they have a better chance of becoming a movie star.

I have a lot of regard for young architects who try to carve their own path without too much focus on fame. That was the case with most of the “Emerging Talent” sessions. Only one of them seemed to have been plucked from the magazines.

All four of the “Emerging Talent” sessions shared a theme of research. I am still wondering whether the robots of Andreas Froech (of Machineous) can make wall facades. But the mysterious wall at SFMOMA created by Andrew Kudless (of Matsys) changes depending where you stand. [both images] I also loved the straw exhibition building and simple graphics presented by the two partners of Rael San Fratello, even though I wasn’t quite sure what they were up to.

IDEO Fellow Liz Ogbu

Although some architects, like Minnesota’s David Salmela, have very modest practices, and others are growing their firms with international commissions, like Jeanne Gang, there was, for the most part, a refreshing humility. Salmela’s slides couldn’t be seen because of poor lighting, and he is not a sparkling lecturer, but his Midwest roots and sure hand were reminders that a very small practice can produce exquisite work. Very importantly, he read two poems as part of his presentation. For him, place is not just the physical locale where you work, but the emotional place your work emanates from. He reminded us that architects cannot live on design alone.

Jeanne Gang must have the reputation of being the kindest world-famous architect. Having won a MacArthur “genius grant” has not changed her style at all. The humble speakers are often the funniest too. Although she anchors her work in research, her academic explorations result in some powerful completed projects, like the famous Aqua tower in Chicago, where her firm employed topographic studies to create unexpected views from freeform balconies.

Dr. Dickson Despommier from Columbia, who spoke about Vertical Farms, looked like a well-rehearsed TED lecturer. But he seemed to follow an unspoken theme that all of us are feeling: “Where do we go now?” He claims that 80% of available land is already being farmed and that the runoff is destroying our rivers and oceans. His solution to the world’s food crisis is to create vertical indoor gardens. There were a lot of statistics presented in his well-paced presentation, but the audience didn’t seem convinced. Perhaps because he didn’t relate it to design?

Communications consultant Yosh Asato was very convincing about the possibilities of social media. She anchored the panel with a very concise and practical exploration of the possibilities, using real-world examples. Moderator (and frequent MDC attendee) Cliff Pearson, deputy editor of Architectural Record, told the group that the panel wanted to focus on the implications for practice, not marketing. Certainly there are several obvious uses in planning and public participation. But there is still scant evidence that social media impacts design. Although, as Asato pointed out, one housing developer and architect team did use it to test design options in the marketplace. Kelsey Campbell-Dollaghan, content director for Architizer, was clear that social media won’t create design, but may enable it.

Bill Leddy with Cliff Pearson

Tim Culvahouse and Sam Lubell at Gibson Beach

Maybe Los Angeles design star Michael Maltzan didn’t quite follow the “humble” theme, but his range of work, from San Francisco State University’s new performing arts complex to an interior-focused house next to an exposed Neutra house to his numerous and extremely varied projects for Skid Row Housing in LA, did delight the crowd. You could feel the audience perk up when he showed the glowing band shell in Playa Vista Park. Certainly this is one architect who is unafraid of the power of design, even if the project’s budget is very modest.

But the highlight of the show came on Sunday morning. Landscape architect Peter Walker’s presentation about the design process for the World Trade Memorial was beautifully organized, open, and moving. To accomplish such a simple and powerful design on such a contested and complex site required someone with a full, rich career behind him and all the wisdom and patience that brings. He is the only Monterey lecturer that I have ever seen receive a standing ovation.

One of the happy accidents of the conference was to pair Walker’s inspiring wisdom, the result of his long arc, with the inspiring optimism of Borja Ferrater, a young Spanish architect who studied biology in the US and practices with his father, sister, and brother-in-law in Barcelona (a real family affair). Over the years, one of the successes of the conference has been its ability to bring in international talent to shake things up. Ferrater is the son of the well-known architect Carlos Ferrater. When Borja joined the practice, it was reorganized into the Office of Architecture in Barcelona. Ferrater’s occasional mispronunciations did nothing to deter from the work; indeed it added to his humility and humor. He proudly presented the work of his father and was always careful to state whether he had been involved in a project or not.

The scale of housing ranged from camps for children with special needs to a mansion to Olympic housing to a botanical garden. He mentioned that his father often spoke of buildings working like machines. Borja said that their buildings are like Swiss watches, but not as boring. One his most important phrases was “optimistic engagement.” Ferrater is one those rare architects whose work and manner seemed indistinguishable, and that’s why he was so popular. Most of the attendees were looking for a reason to just feel better, to be optimistic. And this rigorous work, grounded in place and geometry, seemed to fill the bill.

The Asilomar setting remains beautiful, even though there were the usual grumblings about the poor quality of the food and the rising cost of the rooms, which are approaching resort prices for rudimentary accommodation and nonexistent service. The lack of enough meal tickets for attendees was just one of the many logistical oversights.

The Post Party overlooking Gibson Beach

Invariably, the technology at the awards program fails. Some say it is Julia Morgan’s ghost exacting revenge for so few women architects being recognized. This year’s event acknowledged some of state’s best architects, but the presentation was unbearably long. But these mishaps add to the comical DIY camp quality of the affair. Unfortunately, due to the relatively high cost of the event (and housing), there are too few young practitioners in attendance. A few folks told me that there are far cheaper rooms down the road and on Air BnB. This is something future conferences might address.

Jill Pilaroscia with the author just before the bust.

Perhaps the weirdest moment of the conference for me was when a staff member threatened one of the many drinking parties with arrest and fines. We all felt like teenagers again. While the for-profit operators don’t seem to understand the deep beauty of the place, the good news is that the Phoebe Hearst Social Hall is being renovated by Page & Turnbull with interiors by BraytonHughes Design Studio. Next time perhaps we will be able to gather in the original Julia Morgan tearoom without fear of prosecution. Nah, they will close too early. See you in two years!

Gibson Beach

The Foundation Maybe Kinda Funky

2011-10-18T10:55:00.000-07:00

We had every intention of going to the San Francisco version of the Occupy Wall Street rally Saturday afternoon before going to dinner in the city. But we were waylaid by an extended weekend nap. Not wanting to miss the start of the revolution, I took BART downtown on Sunday to check out Occupy San Francisco. (This was before the police cleared away the tarps Sunday evening.) The protest continues in front of the Federal Reserve Bank. There were perhaps two dozen protestors and only three policemen. Over at the camp itself in the south end of Justin Herman Plaza, there were several more people mostly hanging out. The north end of the park is being turned into the holiday ice rink. Dividing these two sides is an avenue of craft merchants. Overhead a zip line whines and patrons fly like Tinkerbell.

At first sight, the encampment is not exactly welcoming. There are piles of clothes and sleeping bags. One man rakes the sand like a monk while another woman uses a large broom to brush away garbage. The site didn’t smell bad, but it wasn’t a Boy Scout camp either. A woman in rainbow tie-dyed pants was making peanut butter sandwiches for the hungry. A man pedaled a stationary bicycle to power a laptop. In many ways, it looked like the homeless camp that used to be at UN Plaza, but without the orderly rows of tents.

The question is, can this ragtag band of homeless folk form a movement? So far, it does not look like this will be the epicenter of the revolution that will overturn the banking industry. The heart of the movement is in New York in the belly of the beast, Wall Street. Equally important are the live lines of resistance that are not emanating from the left coast. No, they are in surprising places like Buffalo, Atlanta, San Diego, and Austin, as well as international cities like Rome, Toronto, and London.

I would have felt more comfortable yesterday surrounded by other middle-class professionals in button-down shirts, jeans, and sensible shoes. But when we return to our homes, the fort is being held down by a lot of folks who don’t have anywhere else to go. I might not relate to them, but maybe they are the authentic foundation of this movement.

At the dedication of the Martin Luther King Jr. memorial in Washington, President Obama said that King would have approved of the Occupy Wall Street movement: “Dr. King understood that peace without justice was no peace at all.” I have been concerned that this memorial and the corporatization of King’s memory have reduced his fundamental radicalism. Obama returned him to the fiery pulpit of social justice. Of course, King drew great inspiration from another radical preacher. It is helpful to be reminded that the bearded, long-haired guy in sandals would recognize those funky folks at Occupy SF as His people.

President Obama’s remarks on Occupy Wall Street begin at 15:45.

September 11, 2011: Snapshots from a decade ago

2011-09-11T15:09:00.000-07:00

"Twin Towers, Twin Peaks"
Collage by Adrianne Wortzel, 1981

Twenty years ago, a friend of mine gave me a piece of her art called Twin Towers, Twin Peaks, a title that links her city, New York, to my city, San Francisco. Slightly larger than a postcard, the image superimposes the bustling area around the World Trade Center towers over two Egyptian pyramids. I have always treasured this enigmatic gift that time and experience have imbued with a particular significance.

The events surrounding our September 11 story began in the city of Toulouse, a miniature and rosier Paris, in the deep southwest of France towards the Spanish border. We had had a honeymoon-like trip exploring the town’s sites, eating rich French foods like cassoulet and braised kidneys, and looking over the river from our garret terrace in a beautiful old nouveau-ramshackle hotel (the elevator didn’t go all the way to our room). For a day or two, we wandered through the open parks and along the canals, basking in the sunshine and recovering from the jetlag.

Kenny in Toulouse September 2001

We drove a few hours from Toulouse, heading for the small town of Couiza in the Lot Valley, green with leafy trees just about to turn. On the way, we stopped in Limoux, but it was too early in the day for their local champagne, so we bought nougat and wandered aimlessly along the river bank before heading on our way. We were checking into the hotel (formerly a castle) where the wedding of Paul’s cousin James was to take place when the patron of the establishment came rushing in, barking in rapid-fire French that something calamitous was happening in New York. All we could understand was “kamikaze” and “World Trade Center.” On the way up to our room, the matron said there had been a lot of trouble in the Middle East in the past few days. We scurried along behind, expecting some trifling incident at JFK that the owner had misinterpreted.

Kenny and Paul at the entrance to the hotel
in Couiza shortly after arriving

We turned on the television, and from that point on we were, like Americans all over the globe, glued to the screen for hours. In the late afternoon, we walked around the village and realized that we might not return home for a long time. Paul’s aunt and uncle, soon to arrive from England, would have room for us, and we could hitch a ride with them, so we would just go back there if need be. We wouldn’t be homeless or without family, and we could probably stay there as long as necessary.

Before the arrival of any of the other wedding guests, we were strangely isolated in a little French village in the era before ubiquitous instant communication. There was only one thing to talk about, to think about, and only each other to talk to. Over dinner, we found it hard to find anything to say.

We woke on September 12 and drove to the next village, Rennes-le-Château, to find the Internet café above the bookshop. Like everything French, it opens and closes on its own schedule, so we waited out the hour with coffee on a gravel terrace. The Internet point wasn’t exactly a café, but a room with two computers. We wrote to our friends in Manhattan, hoping that they were OK. One of them had witnessed the event and had been part of the rush uptown but was not injured. As we sat in this strange room, dealing with the frustratingly counterintuitive French keyboard in this unfamiliar place, we found out that the man at the other computer, who lived in New Zealand and was also trying to track down his family and friends, owned the house across the street from Paul in San Francisco. We later discovered that Rennes-le-Château is notorious for paranormal events, and that the bookshop we were in stocks exclusively New Age and psychic activity titles.

The view from Rennes-le-Chateau on September 12, 2001

Paul’s relatives wouldn’t be arriving for a few more days, and so rather than spend hours in front of a television, growing more numb, we decided to drive up into the Pyrenees and possibly all the way into Spain. Our first stop was a town called Ax-les-Thermes, where the town square consists of a basin of constantly running warm mineral water, heavy with salt and as rejuvenating as a long nap. We bought a couple of sandwiches, rolled up our pants, and soaked our feet together with the locals. Nature was expressing its love by cleaning our feet.

The town square at ax-les-Thermes

Driving on, we eventually reached the Cavernes de Niaux, marked by a great Corten bull-like sculpture/entrance pavilion designed by Italian architect Massimiliano Fuksas. I remembered having seen the design in an architecture journal, and so we drove up to the entrance and stopped. We had no reservation but were able quickly to join in the last tour of the day. We paid the fee, donned our miners’ helmets, and rushed into the dark cool caves, understanding little of what the French tour guide said. In a few words of English, she told us that scholars now believe that the paintings were created as art, not as a symbol for something else. That the bison, deer, and horses were painted between 13,000 and 14,000 years ago, apparently without definition or purpose, was deeply reassuring. In the face of so much pointless and cataclysmic destruction, I felt like we were connecting with a long and reassuring arc of human history.

Entrance to the Cavernes de Niaux

Niaux cave

Recently, Paul has been talking about Iris Murdoch, one of his favorite writers. Murdoch, a philosophy professor who wrote novels, felt that patient attention to art is a form of prayer and that art is a sacrament. In her book Metaphysics as a Guide to Morals, Murdoch writes, “A sacrament provides an external visible place for an internal invisible act of the spirit. The apprehension of beauty, in art or nature, often in fact seems to be like a temporarily located spiritual experience which is a source of good energy.” That day in the caves, it was apparent that the arc of that sacrament had stretched over fourteen millennia. This was a good sign.

The wedding that we had come to France for took place on September 15 in the courtyard of the castle where we were staying. It was a simple ceremony illuminated by candles and the slanted afternoon light. The party afterwards included many courses, skits from Pagnol films, music, poetry, and lots of dancing. During dinner, the bridegroom’s father, Paul’s Uncle Graham, offered a toast that mentioned us and what we were experiencing as Americans. In response, I thanked Graham and said that there was no meaning in what happened in America. The only way forward is to take what filled that very room, what this very celebration was about, and share more of it, because love is all we have. I still feel that way.

James and Chloe getting married on September 15, 2001

Art Mind: Kurt Schwitters and "Create" at the Berkeley Art Museum

2011-09-07T09:09:00.000-07:00

Kurt Schwitters: Mz 601, 1923; paint and paper on cardboard; 17 × 15 in.;
Sprengel Museum, Hannover, loan from Kurt and Ernst Schwitters Stiftung.
© 2011 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn.

My favorite art shows remind me of an open mind, a mind that is, at least for a time, not distracted by finances, traffic, children, and what author Walker Percy called "everydayness." A mind apart, completely focused on expression, on arranging or rearranging a small part of the universe. Some might call it a child’s mind. It is the purity of childhood combined with a lifetime of seeing.

The other night, I went to an opening at Creative Growth, an art center for the developmentally disabled a few blocks from our home in Oakland. Architect Anne Fougeron has guest curated a show called "Opposition/Composition." Most of the pieces had an architectural angle, but only as an organizing principle. Most of the pieces felt fresh, the result of an open mind at work.

Artist: Natascha Haehlen
Sculpture at the Opposition/Composition show
at Creative Growth curated by Anne Fougeron

Over the weekend, I went to see the Kurt Schwitters show at the Berkeley Art Museum and found that there was a concurrent show, "Create," with art from Creative Growth and two other similar art centers, Creativity Explored in San Francisco and the NIAD Art Center in Richmond. Mounting both shows simultaneously makes this small museum exciting. On the one hand, "Create" explicitly shows what are often referred to as outsider artists. Schwitters is now part of the canon, but he was also an outsider for most his life.

Kurt Schwitters: Untitled (okolade), 1926;
collage of cut printed, and marbleized papers on paperboard;
image: 3 7/8 x 2 7/8 in.;
the Menil Collection, Houston.
Photo: Janet Woodard, Houston.

Kurt Schwitters MERZ 1926,3. Cicero, 1926;
paint on wood nailed on wood; 26-7/8 x 19-5/8 x 3-1/8 in.;
Sammlung NORD/LB in der Niedersächsischen Sparkassenstiftung,
Sprengel Museum Hannover
Photo: Michael Herling / Aline Gwose,
Sprengel Museum Hannover © ARS New York.

Kurt Schwitters: Untitled (Silvery), 1939;
collage, silver paint and cardboard on paper on transparent paper;
7 7/8 x 6 1/8 in.;
Kurt und Ernst Schwitters Stiftung, Hannover.
Photo courtesy: Kurt Schwitters Archives at the Sprengel Museum Hannover.
Photographers: Michael Herling / Aline Gwose,
Sprengel Museum Hannover © ARS, New York

Although the structure of the Berkeley Art Museum has been compromised by necessary seismic interventions, it remains one of my favorite modern buildings in the Bay Area. It opened as I entered middle school, and I visited a number of times throughout the 1970s. The whole family took a rare outing together to see the Claes Oldenburg show in 1971, which opened my eyes to what modern art might be. (Melting electric plugs!) For several years, a few of us from high school made almost weekly trips to see the baffling Hans Hoffman canvases on the top floor. The gentle ascent on ramps between galleries allows the viewer to slow down, focus on art, and then reconnect with the shared space occupied by other viewers. You can also take the elevator to the top and work your way down. This is a perfect way to move between the Schwitters show and the "Create" artists to see if they create a dialog. Both shows are both up for a few more weeks.

Installation view of Create, curated by Lawrence Rinder with Matthew Higgs.
On view at the Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive (BAM/PFA)
from May 11 through September 25, 2011.
Photo: Sibila Savage.

Berkeley Art Museum

Schwitters lived from 1887 to 1948. He enjoyed some recognition and success in his career in Germany in the era following World War I. However, after Hitler’s rise to power in 1933, Schwitters was ostracized and shown only in exhibitions of deviant art. Eventually he moved to Norway and later England, but was unable to rebuild his famous three-dimensional Merzbau or coalesce a movement around his ideas.

The artists participating in "Create" are mostly working at the beginning of this century and are considered outsiders because of their disabilities. Despite the decades separating Schwitters and these local artists, there are many commonalities. In some pieces, it is the juxtaposition of found objects or the surprising combinations of color and words or letters; in others, it is the apparent randomness that results in a balance just short of chaos. But all of the pieces show the unconscious at work. That moment when deliberation or intent gives way to pure action, pure joy—that moment when time is lost. I think this is what art philanthropist Dominique de Menil was after in her many curatorial projects. A hint of the divine. No surprise that the Schwitters show was organized by the Menil Collection.

Lance Rivers: Richmond San Rafael Bridge, 2010;
ink and ballpoint pen on wood; 8 5/16 x 14 1/2 in.;
courtesy of the artist and Creativity Explored, San Francisco.

Mary Belknap: Untitled, 2006;
acrylic on fabric; 27 3⁄4 × 16 1⁄2 in.;
courtesy of the artist and Creativity Explored, San Francisco.

James Montgomery: Untitled, 2007;
correction fluid pen, ink, and acrylic on paper; 22 × 29 1⁄2 in.;
courtesy of Creativity Explored, San Francisco.

Rarely do two shows speak to each other this well about unconscious motivations without trying to make literal connections. While it may be unlikely that many of the artists in "Create" know about Schwitters, they evidence a similar desire to make order.

In the lowest gallery is the most ambitious aspect of the Schwitters show, a rebuilding of his much loved (and forever lost) Merzbau, a three-dimensional collage environment that existed in Schwitters’ Hanover flat. (It was destroyed by Allied bombers in 1943.) It has been reconstructed from historic photographs. Not every piece is there, but the essence of the room envelops a few people at a time and transports them. Wandering through the space, I kept thinking this space was timeless. All of the artists are part of one great all-encompassing art mind.

Peter Bissegger: Reconstruction of Kurt Schwitters's Merzbau,
1981-83 (original ca. 1930-37, destroyed 1943);
154-3/4 x 228 3/8 x 181 in.;
Sprengel Museum Hannover.
Photo: Michael Herling / Aline Gwose,
Sprengel Museum Hannover (c) Peter Bisseger.

For more information:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kurt_Schwitters
www.menil.org
www.creativityexplored.org
www.creativegrowth.org
http://niadart.org/
http://www.bampfa.berkeley.edu/

Staying with Art: An interview with Seattle artist Jenny Fillius

2011-08-25T11:31:00.000-07:00

I first met Jenny Fillius when she transferred to our high school in 1974. She was the tallest and most stylish student I had ever seen. I couldn’t quite believe she was a student. Her family’s home on the bay in Point Richmond was like a bohemian refuge. By the time we graduated in 1976, we were pals and went to Mexico with another close friend of ours, Cherie. Somehow we all returned in one piece. I remember attending her first wedding in Point Richmond in 1980, but we lost touch later in the decade. Subsequently, she moved to Seattle, remarried, and had her daughter, Montana. When Paul and I were planning a trip to Seattle for a concert, I wrote to her and we met at Zeitgeist, where she was showing her artwork.

Q: When we first met in high school, you were already doing a lot of drawing. Would you say you were then self-identified as an artist?

Fillius: I don't know. When I was in kindergarten I wanted to be an artist. People would say, "What do you want to be?" "I want to be an artist." Drawing was just an integral part of my life.

Q: Did your parents encourage it?

Fillius: Oh, my mother did. When I was a little older and stayed up all night smoking cigarettes, drinking coffee, and drawing, I could wake her up at 4 a.m., and say, "Look what I did," and she'd be very excited. When I was in high school, she bought a membership to the Museum of Modern Art, and I could get out of school if there was a lecture that she thought I should go to.

Q: What happened with your art after high school?

Fillius: From high school I went to junior college and took drawing, but I wasn't good at school. Then I decided I'd go to L.A., and I did extra work on TV commercials. Then I had to get out of there because it was really bad. I came back to the Bay Area and I got married. I went to the California College of Arts and Crafts and took life drawing, but not really.

I signed up for the class, and our first assignment was to draw our own genitals. We were even told how to sit against a wall and position a mirror between our legs. I decided I wasn't hip enough for that, and I wanted out of the class. Because I was a day late, I only got $400 back, and I had to write a four-page essay about why I wanted out of the class. Then I took color and design, and I was in there with all these young kids, and even though I was in my early 20s, I felt out of place.

Then I was hooking rugs, still drawing, just doing all kinds of different things. I was hooking rugs when I came up here, and nobody respected them, because they went on the floor, and I didn't want them to be wall hangings.

They were really great, colorful, 100-percent wool. I was collecting skirts from Goodwill and the Pendleton outlet. I would dye the wool on the stove. I sold a few, but they took me forever to do. I thought, "Well, I do these designs that go on the floor, I might as well be doing paintings, if people think these rugs could be on the wall."

So then I started painting, and then I took a class doing oil sticks, and I loved it. I was cranking out paintings right and left and having shows. My first show, I sold 14 paintings, and so an artist friend said, "You need to up your prices." So with each show I was upping them, and then I priced myself out of the market.

The paintings were just okay. They weren't great, a lot of dogs and cats. I guess it would be considered lowbrow. So then I burned out my shoulder.

Q: Doing repetitive work?

Fillius: Yeah, and taking care of my daughter. I felt that if I had a show, I couldn't show anything I'd shown before. I had to have new work, and I would have four shows a year. I'd show anywhere, I didn't care. I still will show anywhere. Any place that wants to hang my work, I am there.

Eventually I had to get a job. I sold real estate for four years, and I was terrible at it. I'd take somebody to a house, and I'd say, "Oh, you don't want to buy this house, do you?" I did this before I had my daughter.

One day I was sitting in the living room of our house, I guess it was 2007, and I had an empty Diet Coke can in my hand, and I thought, "I should be able to do something with this." So I had my sketchbook, and I took a piece of paper, and I made a little bird out of it. I figured out how to make a little model for a bird. Then realized that if you fold the aluminum, it breaks.

I knew I had to make stronger wings. A friend gave me all her Neiman Marcus cookie containers, so I'd make tin wings, and then I could cut out the bodies and make the beak and the tail, and I figured all that out and put them on Etsy, and as soon as I put them on, they'd sell.

Then I was having all this tin left over from the wings. I already had a tin collection, which I started probably when I first moved here in 1986.

Q: So this was just whatever tin you came across?

Fillius: Oh, no, English coffee tins or tea tins from Holland and England, the really decorative ones.

Q: You were collecting a very particular kind of tin? But you didn't know what you were going to do with them?

Fillius: Well, I put things in them like chess pieces or Bingo pieces. Now they are holding buttons, palm trees, and little rubber dogs for the little assemblages I am making. Sometimes I'll take one off the shelf and cut it up, if I think I can use it, but I don't like to.

Q: How did you get into this medium?

Fillius: A friend of mine, Bill Herberholz, was teaching a two-day workshop on tinwork. He is a former Trappist monk and the youngest of 16 children, and his tinwork is about the childhood he never had. So he does a lot work with toys, really colorful toys.

I went to the class, and it was just like, "Okay, wow, this is just too good," and I just started. It took off. I dreamt about tin every night for three weeks.

Q: Do people give you tin?

Fillius: Oh, yes. The residents at the retirement community where I work give me a lot of tin. Then there are people that leave tin in my driveway or at our gate.

Q: What tools do you use to do this work?

Fillius: I have this really nice, big, rubber mallet that I whack the tin to flatten it out. Before that, I used to put it in the driveway, and I would back over it with my car. The neighbors would see me going back and forth in the driveway flattening it, because I didn't know how else to do it.

I have some really good tin snips. I bought every pair of tin snips I could find, from aviator tin snips that are two feet long, to little things. Then I'd go through awls. I'd break the points off. That's what I use to make the hole in the tin and the wood, before the nail goes in.

Q: Do you have to wear gloves?

Fillius: I don't. I get cuts.

Q: What about goggles?

Fillius: My glasses work, but sometimes things do shoot. I find it in my bra, or I'll track it into the house, and I'll be in the house, and I'll see something shiny, and I'll think, "Oh, heck," and then I go pick it up. Tin is really hard to cut, and I try to stay away from the really heavy-duty stuff, like a tray.

Q: Do you go in search of tin?

Fillius: Last summer, I took a trip to Ohio to go the world's longest yard sale. I drove through Ohio, Kentucky, and Tennessee down to Chattanooga buying tin and dollhouses. I shipped it. Cost more than buying it. But I was so pleased when I got it home, because dollhouses are great. The deer jumping through the window and the one about a turtle, they came from dollhouses.

Oh Dear

Q: Are there a lot of little tricks that you taught yourself about making these?

Fillius: (Removes Look What I Found from the wall.) I took copper tubing and a pipe cutter, and that's what makes this 3D. This one's fun because the goldfish looks like it's floating, and that's pop-riveted. See the little things in here? It turns out that I couldn't find my pipe-cutter one day, so I was just taking metal and rolling it into little tubes to keep it afloat. I also had to come up with a way to finish the edges so they aren’t sharp.

Look What I Found

Q: So, talk to me about the imagery, and do you sketch these pieces out?

Fillius: Yes, I sketch them out, but the ideas come not only from the tin itself, but from everywhere. Here are the drawings for Shakespeare Kick in the Rear. That idea came from a game at school. It was just like Charlie Brown, Lucy, and the football. You knew something bad was going to happen, but you did it anyway. A kid comes up and says, "Shake," and you'd shake their hand, and they grab your hand and pull you around, and then say, "Spear, kick you in the rear," and they'd kick you in the butt. And you'd laugh about it, but then you'd think, "Oh, that was dumb."

Shakespeare Kick in the Rear

Somebody said "elephant in the room," and instantly I had this image of an elephant in the room. And then I thought of a couple sitting in overstuffed chairs, somebody knitting and somebody reading the paper.

Elephant in the Room

I've got a lot that are about making the most of your time, because that's a real issue, you know, after almost dying. So this one is, "You're gonna die some day." It’s a good message. People should be aware of it.

Same thing with the cakes. The cakes are going to say, "Your time is running out," you know, "Don't waste your time."

You're Gonna Die Some Day

Q: So, where did the swimmer come from?

Fillius: The swimmer was actually a box that I did years ago. Annie Lamott wrote a story about her son Sam, and she talked about having a God-box, and so I started making these elaborate boxes that have secret openings where you could put your prayer in. The idea for me wasn't necessarily prayer, but it was positive thoughts.

So, this was a box with this clay woman with her big feet. Her feet were huge, because the idea was that it was underwater and it was magnified. Then there were all these rubber sharks that went around the box, and I loved that.

The Swimmer

And I still have it, and I love it. I got a game that had sharks, and thought, "I'm doing it again," 'cause boy, if anybody knows, you can prepare all you want, and the morning you get up and you have that car crash and you die, when you got up that morning and you were having your coffee, you didn't know it. You didn't know you were going to die that day.

Devil's Pie Hole

Q: How long does it take to do one of these pieces?

Fillius: Days and days. First there's all the collecting. Then there's finding the right pieces. Then there's cutting it up, and then there's putting it together and deciding whether it's okay. Cutting out letters takes me a long time.

Sometimes I'll do something and then I'll think, "No, there's got to be an element here." Then I have to find that. Then if I’ve already nailed it all down, I have to pry it up and not scratch the piece, so they take a long time.

Q: Do you work at a long stretch?

Fillius: I like to have blocks of time. So typically, I don't see my friends. I see them on Friday nights – that’s it. Sometimes I get up an hour before I have to go to work, and I will go out there and cut things out. On my day off I will go out there until the day is done.

Q: What part do you enjoy the most?

Fillius: I like figuring things out. That's the fun part, like figuring the deer coming out the window, and showing the window broken, and then figuring out her flippers, or attaching that little metal bug to that one, and you figure, okay, you've got to pop-rivet it in such a way to a piece of tin, and then you've got to nail down that tin. But then you've got that little nub in the back, so what are you going to do about that? So, little sorts of things, that's where it really gets exciting, because it's a puzzle from my brain that isn't like any other part of my life.

Q: So, are people buying these pieces?

Fillius: Oh, yeah. I've had them sell within three hours of being on Facebook. I sold a big one. It was really sad, because I had just finished it. But it's all about ego. "Look what I did." And I put it on there, and then somebody says, "How much?" And I tell them. They say, "Okay," and then it's gone, and nobody's even seen it. I don't even know that people look at my stuff that much on Facebook, and then I've shipped it off and it's gone from my life. I would have liked to have had it for a show so other people could have seen it.

It's interesting because they're not what you think of when you think of recycled material art. To me they are the equivalent of my paintings, but better, and the craftsmanship is really good on these pieces.

Part of it is that it's my sense of humor. These are my stories. This comes from my imagination, my sketchbook. This isn't something that somebody could look at and go home and do. You might be able to copy a painting, but not these. You've got to have a lot of tin. Not everybody's going to be able to find this tin.

Emerald City

Q: But why is this expression more successful for you than paint?

Fillius: Because in this town, you can't swing a cat without hitting a painter. Everybody paints. In fact, when I was little, I thought that's what you did when you got old, because both of my grandmothers were painters. Not everybody is cutting up tin.

Q: So some of it is scarcity, but don't you think there's something else?

Fillius: The transformation is a big part. I had this tin, and it was so awful and so tacky. But once you cut those cats out of the tin and took them away from the horribleness, they transformed. Suddenly, these were some pretty good kitties. Then they were looking through a window with some birds.

Q: I am interested in the critical eye. The tin pieces seem visually complex.

Fillius: They are smaller than the paintings. I'm already using material that's pre-designed. It has designs on it. Maybe I'm lazy?

Liar Liar

Q: There’s something fabulous about taking things that are broken and almost worthless and giving them a new life.

Fillius: Sometimes I get stuff that's pristine. I'll leave it outside for a few months, and it starts decaying. It fades, and gets rusty, and funky, and then you back over it with your car--

Q: And you're done. How do people find you?

Fillius: Well, if you Googled tin artwork, or recycled tin artwork, for some reason, and I swear to God I did not pay for this, I'm one of the first four people that come up.

Q: Are you in conversation with the other tin artists?

Fillius: I am in a group show in an office building. I like those because they don't take a commission. The space was too big for me to fill. So, I asked two other tin artists to take part.

Q: Tell me about the woman and the birdcage piece.

Fillius: I was working on it, and my husband and daughter weren’t there. I thought that she'd come home after college, you know, from being at school. She didn't come home, and I kept listening for the gate, and I thought, "Oh, my God, this is what it's going to be like when she's moved out." And so I was thinking of empty nest and no one's home. They've all flown the coop.

For more information on Jenny and her work please visit www.jennyfillius.com

Re-arrangeable Flowers

Finding the Right Line

2011-07-01T10:04:00.000-07:00

A Conversation with Jenny Phillips

Jenny Phillips is showing her encaustic artwork at the Inclusions Gallery in Bernal Heights from July 8-August 14. Although her pieces retain traces of her background in graphic design, they reveal multiple sensibilities at play.

Q: When did you start making art?

Phillips: Before high school. I have been painting for a very long time. Some of the work was figurative and some was spare and abstract—I haven’t really developed much, have I? In college I combined photography and printmaking, but it wasn’t terribly interesting. I also did a lot of silk screening, which led me to graphic design and away from fine art. Recently, I’ve been working with issues of scale, changing the scale of details, most often those found in nature.

Q: Where are you showing your work?

Phillips: At a small gallery in Bernal Heights called Inclusions. I had been in a group show there and they asked me to do a solo show. But I can’t produce a lot of work with the graphic design business and family obligations, so I suggested a joint show with another encaustic artist.

Q: What’s your goal with this work? Why do you do it?

Phillips: My goal? To do more and more art. I do it for the pure joy. It’s embarrassing to talk about it. When I am into it I just love the process of creating. I try to get everything to its most simple state, and derive energy from the work’s silence.

Q: Which artists inspire you?

Phillips: I feel connected to Agnes Martin and Robert Ryman, but I don’t have a complex theory about their work. I remember walking into a Ryman exhibition and hearing the ocean. When art moves you, several senses come into play.

I think Martin’s work is akin to textile in its simplicity, which I love. Yet, it’s also mysterious. The historical context of when she was working is inspiring; at that time, abstract expressionists like Motherwell were pursuing just the opposite. I think she was brave.

I also really love Ben Nicholson.

Q: But didn’t he do a lot of figurative work?

Phillips: He did a lot of pieces that are just linework. It is simple, but he layers. I think he influences me.

I work a lot on paper. There is no conscious intention when I am making a piece. I mostly want to feel that line, and have the confidence that I know where that line should go. When I don’t sense that, the piece doesn’t work out well. But when it comes together, I feel it inside. That’s where the confidence comes from.

Q: How did you start working in encaustic?

Phillips: I attended a workshop at class at the Kala Institute in Berkeley. Besides the luminosity, I love the sensuous, tactile nature of the material, and the way it smells. I used to worry about all those odors but then I just opened the windows and told the family to get used to it! Every sense is going when I am working in this medium.

Q: Is it hard to work with?

Phillips: It isn’t hard, but it depends on what you are trying to do with it. You have to understand what it can and cannot do. I am impatient so I don’t like the heat gun, and will use the torch instead. Like when I am cooking dinner, if it says put the oven on 150, I’ll put it on 450. The time thing gets in my way.

I like the material’s inconsistency but I don’t like the bubbles which develop if you rush encaustic. This piece in front of me isn’t working; I have put on 40 layers because I can’t get what I want.

I am also trying a more sculptural piece that has a lot of texture, to get away from this smooth surface. I built up this piece, white on white, and just lines. I want it to be very tactile and emotive. But I am not there yet.

In all my encaustic work, I really care that the surface feels good.

Line Weave 16 x 20

Works on Paper

Q: Did you get going right after the workshop?

Phillips: There was a studio in Santa Cruz where you could do this kind of work, but that was too far to travel, so I started working in my office. That was not OK. You need to stay super clean for graphic design, and I was getting wax on my comps and my tools and everything was getting smudged. I had to separate the two kinds of work. The studio space just got finished; I am taking over the family room!

Q: Did you practice art while you were a graphic designer?

Phillips: Whenever I finished a job I would take a few months off and take another art class. Every break from graphic work meant time for painting.

Q: So what drew you to graphic design in the first place?

Phillips: When I graduated from college I came home and my mother asked me what I wanted to do. The only thing I liked was making stuff, and I didn’t think I had a natural talent but I said, “graphic design.” I looked in the Times and there was an ad for an entry level graphic designer at the Brooklyn Academy of Music. She said, “You don’t know a thing, you’ll be perfect.”

I had no portfolio just silkscreen posters from college and it wasn’t a great interview. Then the woman asked me my birthday. When I said, “December 18th,” she said, “Oh you’re a Sagittarius. That’s perfect.” And so I was hired.

She showed me how to use an X-acto blade. I thought you were supposed to change it every time you used it—it was just laughable! But it worked. The Brooklyn Academy of Music was the best. We got free tickets to every show in the city and I went to theater every night.

Q: What drives your minimalist approach in your work?

Phillips: I am really attracted to the spare. I am obsessed with stones. I collect them at the beach. I am just trying to find the simplicity and complexity of this one rock in this painting. But again, I haven’t quite gotten it yet.

I am not a draftsperson, and cannot draw well. My whole life I wanted to be an artist and wanted to draw well. I have taken more life drawing classes than you can imagine. I’ve made a little progress, but I never feel exhilarated the way I do when I am painting or using encaustic.

Chalk Spine 12 x 24

Wave (16 x 20 each)

White Lines on Black 6 x 12

Q: Joan Mitchell didn’t draw well either. It’s not necessary. What about color?

Phillips: Right now I am working in greys, whites, blacks, and browns. But I work with eight shades of white. Every time I try to use color I don’t like it. I have some pieces with dark saturated color, but that’s not where I am going right now so I have put them aside. Eventually, something will happen and they will be useful.

Q: Is your minimal palette a response to all the color in graphic design?

Phillips: Maybe. In one piece I thought one red line would bring it all together but oh my God, it didn’t work at all. I do use color in the paper pieces, but not in the paintings.

Q: Can you describe your process more?

Phillips: I use an encaustic base with many different whites and some yellow. I used to use string, but I kept burning it. I use X-acto blades to carve into the surface, and make many of my lines with an X-acto blade. I love my X-acto blades. I have all these blades that have been worn differently and which make different kinds of grooves. I cut the line, then I cover the board with oil paint and wipe off the excess. It’s like printing. I brush on some more wax and then torch it. After each layer you have to fuse the wax. I also work with India ink, and graphite.

Right now I am working on this really simple piece and I cannot get it right. One day this week I worked for five continuous hours on this one concept: A white line. But I couldn’t get what is in my head. So I melt the whole thing down and start over. The thing is, my pieces are extremely simple and when I start to overwork them they start to fall apart. If the piece is going to happen, it happens quickly.

Q: What do your kids think?

Phillips: Well, they lost their playroom. My youngest one says, “Don’t you think you can get away from scribble scrabble? I can do a better job!” But my son connects with the sensibility and he hangs out with me and does some work. He is totally into it and has good suggestions. Quite often he will say, "When I grow up I want to be an artist," and my response is always, "me too."

Jenny and Fin at the beach.

Looking for Light in the Darkness

2011-06-27T10:47:00.000-07:00

Joan Mitchell: Lady Painter
by Patricia Albers

I’ve been on a bit of Joan Mitchell bender. Recently I finished the new biography Lady Painter by Patricia Albers. Also saw the documentary from 1993, Joan Mitchell: Portrait of an Abstract Painter, reread the catalog from the 2002 Whitney retrospective, and trawled the Cheim & Read Gallery website.

The lady took up all the oxygen in a room. In art and apparently in person. If there was another star in her presence, it was a celestial explosion. When I saw her work at the Whitney several years ago, it was breathtaking. Really, she just took your breath away.

At the Whitney, each gallery could only handle a few paintings. If you are serious about looking, they command all your attention. There were the usual comments overheard: “My five year old could do that….” But these are always the viewers in the fast lane. Mitchell, like most abstract painters, gives more the longer you stay with the canvas. Yet I rarely found myself contemplative. I felt anxious and exhilarated at the same time. Jumpy like a kid, zinging back and forth between galleries.

UNTITLED
1991
Pastel on paper

UNTITLED
1980
Oil on canvas

Childhood has everything to do with Joan Mitchell. This is what I took away from the biography. Most of her early years, after her unhappy childhood, read like one long bar brawl. Her later years were filled with trying to cope with side effects of the early years. The author recounts that Mitchell’s longtime lover (and abuser), the painter Jean-Paul Riopelle, said that the artist “destroyed everything that came near her.”

The biography is highly detailed but detached. A rape while visiting a friend in a mental hospital and beatings by her partners are treated as everyday kinds of occurrences, not as the aberrations they were. What is the link between the great beauty of the work and the violence of her life? If the author were more in the middle of the turbulence, it might have just read like a litany of broken plates and black eyes. After 400-plus pages, I still didn’t really understand the effect of alcohol or violence on the work. Given the seriousness of her alcoholism, it’s amazing she lived until the age of 66.

As a longtime patient of psychoanalysis, she wasn’t exactly a poster child for the effectiveness of treatment. Following her move to France, she found an analyst in Paris and began to see herself as “little Joan” and “big Joan.” This is how she explains her personality in the most moving scene of the documentary.

Yet she was a consummate editor. She knew how much paint was enough and which color could hide behind and then dance in front of another. Often she painted indoors at night, and yet she created light.

SUNFLOWERS
1990-1
Oil on canvas diptych

YVES
1991
Oil on canvas

RIVER
1989
Oil on canvas diptych

Lady Painter is a fine biography, but Mitchell was not terribly forthcoming about what went on in her work. Perhaps the most interesting biographical information related to the art comes early in the book, when we learn that Mitchell experienced what is called color-graphemic synesthesia, a condition in which letters or numbers are seen as colored. Albers suggests that Mitchell also had personality-color synesthesia, where people feel like colors. She also had something called eidetic memory. Albers has written, “She did not so much remember as relive the past.” She did not paint outdoors but memorized so intently the places and emotions of her life that she could recall them as a kind of catalog. According to Albers, Mitchell was unaware of these special perceptions as a named condition. These ways of perceiving may have been both a freeing agent and a burden.

In Mitchell’s work, a fearlessness in color and form like those found in the work of the best abstract expressionists combines with the near abstraction of late Monet. It wasn’t either/or. She painted barely perceptible forms, like Monet did at the end of his life, spun them apart, and caught them, for a brilliant moment, in the middle and latter half of the 20th century.

UNTITLED
1991
Pastel on paper

All paintings © Estate of Joan Mitchell
Courtesy Joan Mitchell Foundation and Cheim & Read, New York

For more information on Joan Mitchell:

Please check out the Cheim & Read Gallery website:
www.cheimread.com

A few paintings are reproduced in the biography, but I would recommend acquiring a copy of The Paintings of Joan Mitchell to provide a visual accompaniment. The 1993 documentary Joan Mitchell: Portrait of an Abstract Painter can be purchased from Amazon. You can see her at her sly seductive and cranky crude best. There is also a lengthy interview transcript from the Smithsonian available at http://www.aaa.si.edu/collections/interviews/oral-history-interview-joan-mitchell-12183.

A more esoteric connection might be found in Mark Doty’s poem “To Joan Mitchell,” which you can find in his volume Fire to Fire: New and Selected Poems, or you can listen to the poet read it at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dCefcM289iY.

Squeak Carnwath

2011-06-20T09:57:00.000-07:00

Squeak Carnwath
© 2009 Peg Skorpinski

I met Squeak Carnwath in the early 1980’s through her husband, architect Gary Knecht, who belonged to the same preservation group I was in. Gary and Squeak lived in Alameda in a rambling Victorian full of Squeak’s work. The confusion was wonderful.

Over the years, I’ve followed Squeak’s work at John Berggruen and elsewhere. Sometime in the ‘90s, I bought one of the early prints she made at Paulson Press, entitled “Pysch 101.” The Dick & Jane characters spoke to me from childhood.

In April 2011, I interviewed Squeak at Paulson Bott Press as she was finishing four new prints. Our conversation turned to painting and teaching. Although her loyal dog, Vermeer, kept vying for attention, Squeak had no trouble concentrating on the topic at hand.

Interviewer: Do you paint every day?

Carnwath: Yes.

Interviewer: Even while you travel?

Carnwath: Well, it depends. I had a little travel book that I filled while on a three week train trip in Russia. I'll do it on a long trip like that, but if it's a short trip, no.

Interviewer: Do you think you'll ever go back to ceramics?

Carnwath: No, not at all. I don't want to make sculpture. I love sculpture but it’s too real, it’s something you can bump into. I'm on a mission to prove that painting is the queen of the arts.

Interviewer: What do you mean?

Carnwath: I think that painting is a philosophical enterprise in that people believe that what they’re seeing is a real thing, even if it's abstract. In other words, even though it’s just a thin film of paint on a flat surface, people believe in a painting’s reality. Even a Rembrandt portrait is on a flat surface.

Painting is not 3D, like sculpture. You can't walk into it, you can't pick it up. You have to make that leap that what's happening on the surface holds some kind of reality you're willing to believe in.

Ideas, 2009
Oil and alkyd on canvas over panel

Sampler, 2010
Oil and alkyd on canvas

Like Science, 2009
Oil and alkyd on canvas over panel

Interviewer: But I would say your painting is questioning reality all the time.

Carnwath: It’s questioning a different reality, though, like the reality of how we navigate the world. Is that real, or is that all in our imagination? Maybe it’s more of a Buddhist line of questioning: Are we actually occupying a body, or are we all an illusion?

To me, painting is about this line of questioning, rather than replication or illustration.

Interviewer: Your paintings contain a luminescence.

Carnwath: Yes. I strive for that. It’s one thing you can't get with printmaking, where you’re dealing with the available light of the paper, which is already there. It’s what lends the print luminosity. But prints are always going to be flatter, and be more graphic—they have lines, and drawing.

They will never be like a painting. In a painting, there's no available light. You have to build light. You can’t do that in printmaking, unless you do a monoprint, but then you're basically doing a painting.

Marked, 2010
Oil and alkyd on canvas over panel

Painting Is, 2010
Oil and alkyd on canvas

Interviewer: Do you find that frustrating?

Carnwath: Just different. And it proves my point that painting is the queen of the arts.

Interviewer: What would be the king of the arts?

Carnwath: There is no king. It's only a matriarchy. There's no prince, either.

Interviewer: There are prints, but no prince!

Carnwath: That's right.

Interviewer: You retired from teaching, correct?

Carnwath: Yes, but I'm volunteer teaching a painting class at Berkeley in the fall. I also work with some grad students. I told the department I would volunteer if they needed me to because the department has no money. They can use that money to do something else if they get me for free.

Interviewer: What drew you to teaching for so long?

Carnwath: I needed to make a living while being able to do what I wanted in the studio. Teaching allowed that. And it helped me develop better social skills. I'm basically really shy, and teaching has helped me become less shy and introverted.

Also, I wanted to teach people things that I was never taught. When I was starting, I always heard people talk about how painting is all about light, but nobody really described what that meant, in terms of how you did it, or its philosophical value. I wanted to be able to impart valuable knowledge that I have learned along the way. I would do painting demonstrations and assign projects based on techniques used by painters like Rembrandt, and then combine techniques in the assignments.

I also wanted to encourage people to be more brave so that they could do what they wanted to do, whether as an artist or as something else.

Interviewer: Have students changed over the years?

Carnwath: Students are less creative than when I started teaching.

Interviewer: Why do you think that is?

Carnwath: Because their parents are helicopter parents. Kids haven't wandered around and gotten lost because everybody is worried about them getting kidnapped. And also they are more risk averse. They are afraid to fail or make mistakes. Art making is all about making mistakes to come to something successful.

Interviewer: And the technology they grow up with?

Carnwath: They don't learn how to do things. Or they learn how to do things so well that they just copy, and want people to like what they do. It's not interesting.

Interviewer: They want approval?

Carnwath: Approval is really important to them. If they show a skill set, even though it's not serving them, they want to hold on to that skill set instead of realizing that it’s just a means to an end, a way to further enhance or develop a conceptual idea.

A Little Crazy, 2010
Graphite, pastel on paper

Face Recognition, 2010
Oil and alkyd on canvas over panel

Interviewer: Do you talk to them about your personal stories?

Carnwath: Well, I sort of feel like my life is everybody's life, and my particular stuff is not that different from how everybody else feels. My story is the way for the viewer to access their own story.

Interviewer: So when we see things in your work like a map of the heavens or quarters or Dick and Jane…

Carnwath: Yes. It transports you to something in your own past or narrative. One of the great things about artwork is that it’s personal. Even if somebody's doing still lifes, the way they touch something is unique.

But you have to be careful because some of it's tricky. For example—and I'm going to get in trouble for this—I can't stand the touch of Gerhard Richter's work. I think it's cruel, the way that he makes the felt surface, it is the way he handles the paint, the way he makes his art. To me the feeling of his paintings is mean spirited. To me his paintings lack empathy.

Interviewer: As if the human being wasn't there?

Carnwath: No. I think it's a cruel human being that is there.

Interviewer: That’s interesting because I’ve found that his dexterity leaves me cold.

Carnwath: Me too. I went and saw his work twice in New York, and two, maybe three times in San Francisco—and really felt like it was oppressive. It just creeped me out.

Interviewer: There was a kind of Aryan perfection.

Carnwath: Yeah. I really hated it. There are things I love about his work, for instance, in the Baader-Meinhof series. There’s something about the struggle of the people involved in that work. And the beautiful tender paintings of the typewriter or the roll of toilet paper.

Interviewer: There's ambiguity.

Carnwath: Yes, there's a little ambiguity.

Interviewer: But there's not much ambiguity in his other work?

Carnwath: Take, for instance, the Speck murders. I thought it was really, really repellant to me the way he was using something to manipulate the viewer in some way while blaspheming these dead nurses. It pissed me off. I'm one of the few people who don’t like him; most everybody I know thinks he's great.

Interviewer: Well, I came away from that show just annoyed, but I didn't know why.

Carnwath: You should pay attention to that.

Interviewer: Yeah. Did you see the small Eva Hesse show at the Berkeley Art Museum?

Carnwath: I love her work. It's fabulous, it’s so intuitive. It tries to find the name in the object or the heart in the object or whatever you want to call it. She is trying to uncover something and doing it in a really elemental way. Her pieces are beautiful.

Interviewer: Are you encouraging students to access their own narrative?

Carnwath: Yes, I think that's really important. It could be totally abstract, like Anne Appleby or Robert Ryman, whose work is driven by his interest in what material will do to a single color. I love his work. It doesn't have to be recognizable imagery.

Fenestration, 2010
Oil and alkyd on canvas

No Proof, 2010
oil and alkyd on canvas over panel

Interviewer: Do you feel like you have so many ideas that you don't have enough time to paint all the paintings you want to paint?

Carnwath: I don't have that. I'm fairly patient. I hope I have enough time. I figure I must.

Interviewer: How do you keep track of all your ideas? When we spoke about your prints you mentioned that you like to get all your Artist Proofs up front. That’s pretty organized.

Carnwath: When I did the Chronicle book, we worked a lot on the arrangement. We started organizing the paintings, the slides, everything, in a database.

Now, I have everything from the beginning organized in binders. I keep all the notes that I write about paintings in their binder page. I have drawers full of these binders. Sometimes, I will frame the pages and keep them in a suite of drawings.

In addition to the print archive, I have also archived the studio notebooks I’ve saved, with all the little weird notes and scrawls. I just save all this stuff.

Interviewer: Where will it end up?

Carnwath: I would like to find a place to sell it to. Now, all my stuff in the building is going into something called the Artists’ Legacy Foundation, which I started. When I started it, it was going to be the Squeak Carnwath/Gary Knecht Foundation, but Viola Frey said, "Well, can I be a part of that?" I said, "Sure," and then realized we had to have a general name for it so that other artists could put their work and estates into it. Then, the foundation can manage their estate and give cash awards to other artists to do their own work. Anyway, Viola’s work is in the Artist Legacy Foundation now.

Interviewer: We haven't talked very much about her. She was a great ceramic sculptor. Did you two have a dialogue about this queen of the arts idea?

Carnwath: No. I think I came to that later, maybe even after she died.

Interviewer: How did she encourage you?

Carnwath: Around ’68, I showed up at CCAC to look it over after I'd been over to look at the Art Institute. At the Art Institute, everybody was really cool— they wouldn't talk to you or say hi or anything. Things were closed.

But at CCAC, building doors were open and you could wander around. I wandered into the ceramic studio because I'd taken some ceramic classes and had every intention of continuing to take classes. I found this woman loading a kiln. And we just talked for three hours.

By the time I left, I had decided I would go to CCAC. So I went to register. Back then they didn't have computers; the faculty set up card tables for each department in painting, print making, and ceramics etc.. You'd go talk to one of the teachers in those departments and they would put your name on the list for whatever class. The chair of the ceramics department, Vernon Coykendahl, was manning the card table. He said, "No. There're no classes left. We're all full… but go talk to that woman over there." I look over, and it's Viola, so I go over to talk to her, because I thought she was another student. She said, "Yes. I saved three classes for you." I signed up and took those classes.

Viola always encouraged me by making sure certain opportunities were available. She let me into grad school without an undergrad degree. I had dropped out, and I still see no reason for an artist to get an undergrad degree; the only thing it's going to do now is get you into grad school, and we're cranking out way too many grad students. Liberal arts education can make someone a better critical thinker and problem solver and those abilities are good for life and for art making.

But, I wouldn't have been able to teach if Viola hadn't let me into grad school. She gave me other opportunities as well; she would let me work in the studio during Christmas break.

Interviewer: Did Viola encourage you to pursue the personal narrative?

Carnwath: The first thing I did in grad school was write a series of stories about different towns and cities that I'd lived in as a child that had influenced my becoming an artist.

They were called the “I Stories.” I recorded them all and made a record that would tell you when to turn the pages. I had Viola and Charles Fiske come listen to it. They were encouraging. She never was discouraging.

But when I was in grad school, she was also not very verbal. She would say, “you know, on the thing, on the thing.” That was the extent of her critiquing.

Interviewer: On the thing?

Carnwath: Yeah. It was the weirdest phrase. She would grunt and point. I'd go, "Yeah. Okay. Fine. Yeah." For some reason, it made sense to me. I can't even say why.

After Viloa had a stroke, a bunch of us took her to the neurologist They did an MRI, and they saw that she had had in the past, maybe years before, a brain stem stroke, which she didn't know anything about. When she was saying “on the thing,” it could have been that she had already had the stroke pictured in that MRI.

Interviewer: It seems that Viola was a teacher by example, not by complex theory.

Carnwath: No. Her teaching wasn't complex. But it wasn’t simple either. She was very bright and complicated. In fact, she didn't even finish her MFA, but nobody knew that until after she died. So in retrospect, it made sense that she let me into grad school without the undergrad degree.

Interviewer: Did the recent survey show at the Oakland Museum feel like a painting memoir of your work?

Carnwath: No. I have these sheets of paper that live next to my paintings that serve as their memoirs or diaries.

Interviewer: You mentioned those earlier. Explain them to me.

Carnwath: Well, I keep little notes next to my paintings to remind me of what I want to do next, or I write something down that's going to go in there that's not ready, or that I've painted over and I want to put it back in. It is like a memoir of the painting. I think of the papers as the crazy papers because of the way they look, with crude drawing and scrawls. For me they are my drawings.

Interviewer: But when you see a group of paintings, they don't feel like a memoir of your life?

Carnwath: No. I don't see them like that, I just see them as individual objects that I experienced and worked on but that are part of a bigger picture or a larger process. I mean, it would make sense given what's in the paintings.

Interviewer: Does it bother you that when your paintings are purchased you will never seem them again?

Carnwath: No.

Interviewer: It sounds like you document them fairly well.

Carnwath: I document, but when I finish a painting, I finish it. That's it. I let it go. I keep paintings, but I don't keep paintings until they've been out, and people have had a chance to see them.

Interviewer: Either in a gallery or in a show?

Carnwath: Yes. Sometimes, they go to different galleries, so there are many chances for people to see the piece. Then, if I'm lucky, the one I really want comes back. I have those paintings that I hoard.

Interviewer: When you saw the Oakland Museum exhibition were there surprises?

Carnwath: I was surprised by how well it worked together, and that the paintings held up. That was surprising to me. I don't know why.

Interviewer: In other words, you saw a thread?

Carnwath: There were things that I have abandoned, techniques for instance, that I thought I would pick up again, but I don't know if I actually have. There were things that had evolved into something else that I could revisit and use again.

Interviewer: Revisit?

Carnwath: Maybe on some level, but not entirely because I like to move forward. I don't like to go backwards. When I'm done, I am done. And I don't like to fix paintings either—in fact, I really dislike fixing paintings. It's like being thrown down a dark hole.

Interviewer: You mean, if it's damaged?

Carnwath: Yeah. I don't want to fix it. I’ll get a restorer. If I start scraping it off and go down to the bottom, I'll have to start all over again.

Interviewer: And that would be a different painting.

Carnwath: Yes, and I don't want to do that. It’s in the past. It's not the present.

Thought and Pleasure, 2010
oil and alkyd on canvas over panel

All painting images courtesy Squeak Carnwath.

For more information please visit:

www.squeakcarnwath.com
www.berggruen.com
www.artistslegacyfoundation.org
www.paulsonbottpress.com

Finding Platner at Princeton

2011-06-14T08:50:00.000-07:00

Warren Platner endures as a bright (if occasionally shiny) light from the 1960s and 70s. As an architect, he is best remembered for interiors and furniture design. Interiors tend to disappear, but furniture endures. Since his chairs for Knoll cost so much to make, the tables are the ones that most designers can readily identify. But it’s time to look at him again for his architecture too.

courtesty dwr.com

KnollStudio®
Platner Lounge Collection

KnollStudio®
Platner Dining and Low Tables

Like his former employers, Eero Saarinen and Kevin Roche, he was trying to break out of the ubiquity of corporate modernism—American style. Sometimes he could go overboard, but the excesses of postmodernism make his explorations look disciplined, if not exactly restrained.

His own house in Connecticut runneth over with multiple level changes, window seats, nooks, and luxurious materials. Makes me think of Christopher Alexander gone modern baroque. Like an excited kid sketching, he didn’t know when to stop. The living spaces suggest that he might have gotten too generous a discount at the furrier.

Alexandra Lange, one of my favorite design journalists, has written about Platner in Design Observer. A few years ago, her long piece used Platner’s bold use of brass as a jumping off point (see http://observatory.designobserver.com/entry.html?entry=12047

and

http://observersroom.designobserver.com/alexandralange/post/in-dwell-platners-opulent-modernism/21868/)

Platner was on my mind in early May when we were invited to venture out to Princeton for a Mother’s Day brunch. Oddly enough, we could not locate a map when we got off the train. Since we were early, we decided to wander around until we found our destination, the faculty club, guessing that it would be in the center of campus.

Thanks to an abundant landscape, Princeton University is still a beautiful campus. Just walking around, I got the impression that the school seems very conflicted about its architectural identity. This is a school that loves its history—in any era. A lot of revolutionary war events took place in the modest structures near the town/gown edge. Over time, commissioned architects borrowed heavily from the neo-Gothic and neo-Tudor. Sort of a U.S. university straight from central casting impersonating a (stone) British university.

Photo: Princeton University, Office of Communications.

Whitman Hall
Photo: Princeton University, Office of Communications.

Photo: Princeton University, Office of Communications.

Occasionally that conflict gets resolved beautifully, like when Gwathmey Siegel, in its moment of modernist glory, repaired the Greek Revival Whig Hall after a fire by inserting a sculptural intervention (1972). For years, the school’s favorite architect seemed to be Venturi Scott Brown, who navigated the tension between old and new with a heavy tilt towards old. Brick with stone graphics.

More recently, the university seems to be looking forward with new buildings like Rafael Viñoly’s Icahn Laboratory (2002), Fred Fisher’s Sherrerd Hall (2008), and another engineering building on the boards by Tod Williams Billie Tsien Architects, But then at the same time, it just looked way backward with a neo-Hogwarts dorm and dining commons (2007). The monstrosity was built largely with funds from eBay zillionaire (and failed Californian gubernatorial candidate) Meg Whitman and of course is named for her.

Icahn Laboratory by Vinoly
Photo: Princeton University, Office of Communications.

Robinson Hall by Yamasaki
Photo: Princeton University, Office of Communications.

Earlier buildings such as Feinberg Hall by Williams-Tsien (1986) and Marx Hall by Kallmann McKinnell & Wood (1993) negotiate this tension of building modern in a neo-everything-goes context with grace, finding a thoughtful middle way. One of my favorite buildings was I.M. Pei’s unapologetically modern dorm, Spelman Halls. The interesting geometric plan offers the pedestrian a kind of dense walking experience drawn from the spatial experience, but not the literal forms of European universities.

Of course there are the usual starchitect suspects sprinkled throughout the campus: the requisite Gehry silver lump, in this case the recent Lewis Library (2008); the squat and ungainly Pelli (a pool from 1990); some bizarre Yamasaki affairs (1965, 1966); and a much-needed lightening of the dour 1960s architecture school by Architectural Research Office (2008). I am eager to return to see all that I missed.

Lewis Library by Frank Gehry
Photo: Princeton University, Office of Communications.

Our destination turned out to be the highlight of our tour. We came around the backside of Prospect House and saw the glass and concrete dining room in all its bold modern glory. I remembered it from Platner’s book Ten by Warren Platner. At the point in the late 1960s and early 70s when modernism held sway, Platner was commissioned (in some kind of collaboration with Pietro Belluschi) to renovate the school’s faculty club, which is housed in Prospect House (c. 1850), the university president’s house from 1979 to 1968. Platner didn’t make much of an effort to relate to the “context” or reflect the existing architecture in his addition. Instead, he just attached a concrete trellis to the back of the Victorian mansion to create a kind of grand screened porch for dining. He also refurbished many of the antique public areas with his own trademark furniture. Judging by our casual observation, that groovy early 1970s decor has been banished and returned to a vague historic blandness, but the dining pavilion remains largely intact. What a simple elegant joy it is.

Princeton Faculty Club, Location: Princeton NJ
Architect: Warren Platner
© Ezra Stoller/Esto

The waffle slab ceiling has punched openings along the outermost trellis and along the one wall that attaches to the house. The balanced light, which can be modulated by the sliding wood shutters, provides a wonderful daytime dining experience. We were seated in the center of the room at a large table but could easily hear all of our dining companions. Looking out over the beautiful Prospect Gardens, the room nearly disappears. The building seems to be a mini-me of Platner’s Kent Memorial Library in Suffield, Connecticut (1973), which apparently has been saved.

If you’ve got a friend on the Princeton faculty, go have a meal there. (The corner glass detail alone is worth a visit!) Have your generous host take you on a walking tour of the campus afterward. Then you can go back and look again at Platner’s bold humility and be inspired.

p.s.

The Mother’s Day buffet was really good!

Different Perspectives on Julius Shulman

2011-05-11T18:30:00.000-07:00

Julius Shulman Los Angeles: The Birth of a Modern Metropolis

When Sam Lubell, the West Coast editor of the Architect’s Newspaper, told me that he was working on a new book on Julius Shulman, I thought he was crazy. We already had several titles, and is there a lot more to say? He began mining the archive at the Getty Research Institute for a different narrative, and indeed, the story turns out to be much larger than we imagined. In this interview, Sam tells us his thinking behind the new volume, entitled Julius Shulman Los Angeles: The Birth of a Modern Metropolis.

I enjoyed the essays that begin each chapter, but there is not a lot of text in this book. What was your role?

I did write a fairly lengthy introduction providing background about Julius’s work in Los Angeles, his photographic approach, his love of storytelling and of Los Angeles, and his concurrent blossoming with the city. Julius’s daughter, Judy McKee, also wrote a foreword that’s a more personal reflection on her father’s career and his relationship with Los Angeles. The bulk of the work, though, was curating Julius’s photographs. There are well over 100,000 photos in the Getty archive, and we had to somehow narrow it down to about 220. That took over a year and a half of visiting the Getty Research Institute and bringing the pictures into a coherent and fresh body of work.

How did the project evolve?

Rizzoli originally wanted to do a book on Julius’s interiors. But we realized early on that we wanted to differentiate it from the many other Shulman books out there. Anne Blecksmith at the Getty Research Institute pointed us in the direction of his lesser-known photos, which in the archive are the higher numbered boxes of contact sheets. When we started looking through those, we knew we had uncovered another side of Julius’s work that we thought needed to be shared. Most of this work was in the Los Angeles region, so we decided to focus on that. And we were most intrigued by the work from the 1940s to the 1960s—sort of the glory days of Los Angeles and of Julius. So that’s how we started to narrow it down.

You met him fairly late in his life. What were your impressions of him?

Even with diminished faculties, he had an amazing charisma and presence. Just his smile and his direct manner of speaking kept you in a sort of spell. Not many people have that effect. And he always made you feel welcome. He would welcome anyone who loved architecture into his home and made them feel like part of his life. You could tell how much he loved what he did and where he lived. And he never hesitated to show off his work. When you look at all of these factors, and the sort of legend he built up for himself, it’s not surprising that he was as successful as he was.

As you point out, Shulman had an eye for composition but also an ability to spin a tale. Do you have a favorite tale?

It’s really difficult to narrow it down, because there are so many. I loved talking to him about the picture he took of Neutra’s Miller House in Palm Springs. The shot shows Mrs. Miller sitting in front of a large window that shows off the expanse of the desert. He was telling a story not just about the beautiful architecture, or about Mrs. Miller (who he pointed out had “nice legs”), but also about the majestic expanse of nothingness that both were now part of. That’s what made the picture stand out, and what grabbed people. It’s funny because now that house is completely surrounded by development, and that magic effect is gone. Sort of like much of the region.

© J. Paul Getty Trust,
Julius Shulman Los Angeles: The Birth of a Modern Metropolis
by Sam Lubell and Douglas Woods, Rizzoli New York, 2011.
Poolside at Richard Neutra’s Kaufmann House, Palm Springs, 1947.

© Craig Krull Gallery, Santa Monica,
Julius Shulman Los Angeles: The Birth of a Modern Metropolis
by Sam Lubell and Douglas Woods, Rizzoli New York, 2011.
A machine-age detail of the Sixth Street bridge, Los Angeles, 1933.

What were some of Shulman’s biases?

Julius had an eye for visual drama. With modernist buildings, he loved capturing the strong lines stretching toward the horizon, the merging of inside and outside, and the often heroic exposed structures. Some of his earlier shots, in more enclosed, traditional buildings, lack this sense of visual drama. In my opinion, he was of course an amazing photographer, but he also found a style of architecture that really matched his sense of optimism and excitement, and it showed in his pictures. His less “architectural” pictures were able to hook you in the same way. He again used strong lines and diagonals that could “suck you in.” He often framed pictures like a filmmaker. And he knew what it was about each shot that would make you stop in your tracks.

One visual bias I have noticed is that Shulman favored the horizontal image. I suppose that is a chicken/egg kind of question. Los Angeles was a horizontal city. Do you agree?

Yes, I think that’s correct. My instinct is that it’s a function of what he shot. The majority of the houses and landscapes he visited were horizontal—a jarring contrast with the verticality of traditional cities like New York and Chicago. He was capturing that sense of expanse and sprawl. When he did shoot in vertical cities, you’ll notice that most of his shots were vertical. So I think he was just taking in what he saw and maximizing its effect.

You write that most of Shulman’s archive is not architectural. Are you trying to reposition him as a recorder of culture as much as modern architecture?

It’s certainly not one or the other. He recorded architecture as well as culture and development together. Of course most of his assignments were to shoot buildings. But they were not all precious and “architectural.” Most of his work was the bread and butter variety that really filled up the city. And it’s looking at those works in their urban and suburban contexts that gives us a much fuller perception of the city.

© J. Paul Getty Trust,
Julius Shulman Los Angeles: The Birth of a Modern Metropolis
by Sam Lubell and Douglas Woods, Rizzoli New York, 2011.
Mobil Gas Station, Smith and Williams, Anaheim, 1956.

© J. Paul Getty Trust,
Julius Shulman Los Angeles: The Birth of a Modern Metropolis
by Sam Lubell and Douglas Woods, Rizzoli New York, 2011.
A view of the Biltmore Hotel, Schultze + Weaver, downtown Los Angeles, 1959.

Why did you select the very architectural image of Frank Lloyd Wright’s Freeman House living room for the cover if you were trying to get away from the architectural?

We start with what people expect from Julius: a beautiful piece of architecture. But then as you look at it, you become sucked into the scene of the city outside straight ahead of you. You see the streetscapes of Hollywood and you want to venture outside to see what it’s all about. It’s an arresting picture (always important for selling books!) that also tells the story of the book. His work was about architecture but also about the city around the architecture.

Is this book going to open up a new interpretation of Shulman?

I don’t think it will transform people’s impression of Shulman, but it will certainly give people a more complete idea of his legacy. Of course he still took shots of the most famous modernist buildings in the world. But he also took shots of every other piece of architecture imaginable.

Did he throw out much work? By that, I mean did he edit his archive before he filed the image?

That’s an excellent question. It’s unclear how much of his archive was self edited. Even the curators at the Getty don’t know the real answer to that. But given how many pictures are in the archive, and the variety of images in each shoot, I would have to guess that he kept most of the stuff that he shot. He certainly wasn’t afraid to put in duplicate images or images with crop marks or other edits on them. Some even have doodles on them, such as an image of Greta Grossman with glasses and a moustache drawn onto her. I have no idea what that was about. I wish I could ask him more about it.

When his house by Soriano was new, he had a view out over the canyons and the city. Over time the garden became quite overgrown, like a jungle. Was it his fortress against the city that was choking on its rapid growth?

That’s another question that I’d love to ask Julius. I know that the thing he loved most about Los Angeles was its combination of urbanity and nature. The fact that his garden became overgrown I would imagine had more to do with his single-minded focus on his photography. But he loved the respite that the house provided him. From what I could tell, it was his favorite place in the world.

© J. Paul Getty Trust,
Julius Shulman Los Angeles: The Birth of a Modern Metropolis
by Sam Lubell and Douglas Woods, Rizzoli New York, 2011.
Julius Shulman’s home designed by Raphael Soriano, 1951.

When you were preparing this book, what surprised you the most?

I was surprised by the sheer magnitude of Shulman’s work. His log book is amazing. He shot something basically every day of his life. And when he wasn’t working, he was shooting things on vacation.

What’s your next project?

Ha! It’s a good project. Nothing is official, so I hesitate to share. But I’m working on an exhibit and book about projects that never came to fruition in Los Angeles called Never Built: LA. I’m also talking about a book about one of Shulman’s contemporaries, Marvin Rand. We’ll see where those go!

Julius Shulman, courtesy LA Times

Looking at French West Africa

2011-05-04T11:18:00.000-07:00

A Conversation about the Work of Photographer Seydou Keïta

Seydou Keïta
1921-2001

In May 2010, my niece Maya Caldwell graduated from UC Santa Cruz with a degree in history and the history of art and visual culture. I asked her about what had really interested her, and she sent me a paper she wrote on an African photographer, Seydou Keïta. I had never heard of him, but was interested in how an invention of the colonial world could be used by postcolonial Africans to define their contemporary times. What follows is my conversation with Maya about Keïta’s work.

Why are you interested in the use of photography in colonial Africa?

I was struck by the way that photography was used as a tool of colonization, particularly in French West Africa. The French maintained a presence on the Western coast of Africa from the 17th century onward, and by the 19th century they ventured inland in search of resources, battling the Muslim conquest empires that stood in their way. They began to take photographs of the native people that they encountered, which were then sold as postcards. Over 8,000 different postcards were produced in colonial West Africa from 1901 to 1963. Often these postcards were intended to document racial “types,” as the French called them, or illustrate the progress of French development projects. The postcards were sent mainly by European merchants and members of the French military. These postcards circulated throughout Europe, received by friends and families back home.

What do the thousands of postcards tell us?

The postcards reveal the way that the French colonizers viewed themselves and the people they were subjugating. Printed and handwritten captions on the postcards often highlight the racism inherent in the imagery. For example, one postcard of a bare-chested young woman carrying a bowl of water has a handwritten caption in French which translates as, “Young virgin. Very naïve.” Another has a typed caption that translates simply, “West Africa. Dioula Type.” When indigenous settlements are portrayed, they are made to look chaotic and dark in comparison to the light, linear, and orderly depictions of French buildings.

How did contemporary photographers change this dynamic?

In the 20th century, African photographers appropriated the colonizer’s aesthetic, using similar techniques and modified visual conventions to recapture the agency that had been taken from the previous generation of Africans by European colonists.

Beginning in the 1940s, Africans turned the colonizer’s tool on its head, using the photograph as a visual means of resistance. Early African photographers like Seydou Keïta and Mama Casset strongly influenced succeeding generations, including Malick Sidibe, Samuel Fosso, Philip Kwame Apagya, and many others.

Why did you focus your studies on Seydou Keïta?

Seydou Keïta (ca. 1921-2001) is a very well-known photographer today, both in Africa and internationally. Keïta is almost never mentioned without reference to the French collector André Magnin, yet the photographs that made Keïta famous were taken decades before his meeting with Magnin, in a small studio in Bamako, Mali. He was one of the first African photographers in Bamako. His studio was a business, and the photographs were taken of or for private clients to “put bread on the table.” They were not made as art objects. This is not to say that the photographs aren’t artistic. If there was one word for Keïta’s photographs, it would be captivating. The composition, the light, the pose, every detail is painstakingly perfected.

How did he get his first camera?

In 1935, when Seydou was around 14 years old, his uncle Tiemoko brought home a 6 x 9 Kodak Brownie camera from a trip to Senegal. Tiemoko explains that he didn’t originally intend to give it away, but Seydou was so fascinated by the contraption that Tiemoko gave it to him. Seydou’s father gave him some land behind the main prison in Bamako Koura, and that is where Keïta opened his studio in 1948. By then, he had over a decade’s experience taking photographs for his own enjoyment.

Can you explain applying the Foucault argument to Keïta’s subjects dressing like the colonizers?

In Keïta’s photographs, subjects often opted to wear western-style clothing and use props indicative of European influence, like radios, glasses, sewing machines, and cars. By displaying these symbols of “Frenchness,” the subjects may have felt that they were showing their advanced social and economic positions. The photographs seem to reflect a desire to partially assimilate, but they are also an assertion of control over that assimilation, and the degree to which it will take place.

Julie Doring, a scholar who has written about Keïta’s photos, drawing on the work of Foucault, argues that these photos reflect a kind of colonial ambivalence that “may ultimately empower the colonized.” Foucault suggested that appropriation could function as a means of empowerment. It may seem incongruous that after centuries of subjugation, African people would choose to don the accoutrements of the colonizer. These photographs represent a time and a feeling that cannot necessarily be categorized as one thing or the other, but I do think there are empowering elements in these photographs. They were taken by Africans of themselves, which in and of itself was a dramatic shift from colonial representation. The ability to imagine and create one’s own image is a very powerful thing.

How did the political turbulence in Mali impact Keïta’s work?

Seydou Keïta closed his studio in 1963, when he was asked to work exclusively for the new socialist government in Mali. Keïta says that he first got the job because he was related to the new president, Modibo Keïta. Throughout the turbulent political goings-on of the era, Seydou worked as an official government photographer. Despite his relation to Modibo Keïta, he stayed on under the Traore dictatorship. Keïta hints at political reasons for his departure, but does not elaborate, saying only, “Around that time, I had a misunderstanding with some of the military people, and I decided that I was tired of the job.” After he quietly retired from his government position, he worked as a mechanic.

Tell me about the meeting between André Magnin and Seydou Keïta.

The very first exhibition of Keïta’s photographs took place in New York in 1991 at the Center for African Art. They were part of a show called “Africa Explores: 20th Century African Art,” and the author was listed as “Unknown photographer, (Bamako, Mali.)” Curator Susan Vogel claimed that she had collected the photographs while on vacation in Mali and had neglected to save the name of the artist. Soon after the “Africa Explores” exhibition, André Magnin went to Mali to search for the artist at the request of collector Jean Pigozzi. The story of their meeting is told differently by Keïta and Magnin. The discrepancies between these two versions are full of significance. André Magnin, widely lauded as Keïta’s discoverer, paints a beautiful picture, describing Keïta’s Muslim garb, a boubou and fez, his pose in the doorway, the light in the window. Keïta, on the other hand, pokes fun at Magnin and his colleagues, claiming that they did not initially recognize him. Instead of being dressed up for the mosque, Keïta remembers that he was working on his engine. It is impossible to know what exchange actually took place that first day, but it is how they each remember the incident that underscores the controversy that later ensued.

What happened?

Whatever the real story of their meeting, Magnin and Keïta met and arranged a deal during Magnin’s visit to Bamako in 1991. Magnin selected 1,300 photographs to be enlarged and made into high-quality prints. The prints were sent to Keïta for signing, which verified the authenticity of the print and substantially increased the eventual price tag. The large sums of money at stake may have led to the discord that arose in the relationship between Magnin and Keïta. Apparently, their initial agreement had been a verbal one, as is customary in Africa. Towards the end of Keïta’s life, when it became clear that the artist’s health was failing, Magnin suggested to Keïta that he should entrust him with his estate. While specific details are hard to come by, it is clear that Magnin’s proposal upset Keïta. In October of 2001, just before his death, Keïta handed control of his estate over to his agent Jean Marc Patras, who helped him establish the Seydou Keïta Association in Bamako. The association eventually sued Magnin for the return of the negatives in his possession, but as of the latest media coverage, they have not been returned.

How do these images change when they move into the museum or gallery?

Since being featured in numerous museum and gallery shows, Keïta’s work has been the subject of some scholarly debate. Much of this debate centers around issues of authorship. At first, it seems obvious that Keïta is the author. After all, he took the photographs, he owned the negatives, he was (eventually) given artistic credit for the images. However, since these photos were created as a commercial product, the client had a collaborative role. Now, it is the viewer who collaborates with the finished product. When Keïta’s photographs are relocated to the museum or gallery context, they function differently. They are aesthetic objects available to the public for artistic interpretation and criticism, a use for which they were never intended. The audience often has little background on Keïta himself, and information about the subjects of photos, including their name, is usually nonexistent. In the museum or gallery setting, Keïta’s images take on new meanings, which may or may not reflect the intentions of Keïta and/or the subject.

Are they transformed from a commercial product into fine art?

I suppose it depends on how you define “commercial product” and “fine art.” Once again, there is no easy answer, and really it is up to the viewer to decide. One of Keïta’s most striking works is a photograph of a very large man dressed in a light-colored boubou, holding a tiny baby on his vast expanse of lap. The boubou is central to the image, and the man’s size only serves to underscore this focus. In addition, the size of the man and the size of the baby seem to play off of one another in a humorous way. The man’s good-natured smile shows that he is in on the joke. This man is one of the few clients whom Keïta remembered by name. Looking at this photograph during an interview, Keïta noted, “That big fellow there is Billaly.” Underneath this photo the name Billaly replaces what is usually the caption in the gallery or museum space. But while many of the works do not have names, the original subjects and viewers knew who they were. This is not the same kind of forced anonymity inscribed by colonial photographers. With Keïta’s photographs, it is only in the museum and gallery context that a name becomes a title or lack thereof. In the production of this image, Billaly was an integral part, and the image was made as an expression of his identity for personal use. In that sense, Keïta’s works are very different from works created for display in an institution. But does that mean they are not and should not be viewed as art in another context?

Are we participating in a kind of colonialism by promoting this work as art?

That is possible. It really depends on our perspective as viewers. What we create often has a life of its own that we cannot completely control. The viewer has the ability to place Keïta’s work in various contexts, and thus his work may take on a unique meaning for each individual viewer. I believe that it is also possible that through art we can promote understanding and develop something entirely new—that is not a kind of colonialism at all. The manifestation of that vision will require an ongoing global dialogue, which these questions are part of. By being displayed as art, Seydou Keïta’s work becomes a part of that dialogue. In any case, Seydou Keïta’s story is a testament to the power of images to both reflect and shape our perception of the world.

All photos courtesy seydoukeitaphotographer.com.

A little break to Patmos

2011-04-27T11:02:00.000-07:00

An Island Sanctuary: A House in Greece
by John Stefanidis

I have been reading a lot about the writer Bruce Chatwin recently. One of his many obsessions was the idea of the nomad. He imposed a nomadic life on himself, unable to stay in one place for very long. He was always in search of the perfect place to write. But he would stay a month and get bored. He found one such place in Greece with a friend from his time as art expert/wunderkind at Sotheby’s, Teddy Millington-Drake, and Millington-Drake’s partner, the interior designer John Stefanidis.

Teddy Millington-Drake's former studio is now a guest bedroom

The garden

Their home was on the island of Patmos in Greece. In 1964, they bought a run-down house below the monastery of St. John in a village called Chora for the sum of one thousand pounds. Now it would probably cost that much to order a new slipcover for one of the chairs.

Dining room

Last year Rizzoli released Stefanidis’s book about the house entitled An Island Sanctuary: A House in Greece. Most of the time, I give these books a pass, as they are an excuse to promote an interior designer’s oeuvre and are not much more than a hardbound shelter magazine printed on thicker paper. But in this volume, the images by Fritz von der Schulenburg and the text by Stefanidis and coauthor Susanna Moore tell a richer story of a region from the terraces, rooms, and gardens of one home. Perhaps interior design reaches its apogee when it feels like there was just a light touch. Like the Bay Area architect William Wurster wanting his houses to feel like a very talented carpenter built them. So it is with Stefanidis’s house; it feels like an erudite collector stored a mix of indigenous materials carefully in a rambling white cave. It’s worth a break.

The view from the upper terrace toward St Johns monastery
as painted by Teddy Millington-Drake

Shawls to keep warm

All photos courtesy Rizzoli.

It’s Easter and I have a secret: pink.

2011-04-22T10:00:00.000-07:00

Pink is my favorite escape color.

When I was a kid and older people asked me, “What is your favorite color?” as a way to make conversation, I always answered, “Red.” Bold, distinct, a little revolutionary, different from what other little boys replied. But like your name, or your athletic ability, it seemed permanent. When I started my own business, I decided red was too much of an architect cliché and went for orange. And over time I have favored Pantone 021 in all kinds of things. My favorite hotel beach towel is the same shade.

Mark Rothko
The Museum of Contemporary Art

Hotels have a way of claiming you. If red is like my birthright favorite color, orange is my modern business favorite color. But my favorite holiday color is actually pink. Pink is like a vacation or a confection. It’s an occasional affair, not an all-the-time color.

Hotel Bel-Air

Las Brisas, Acapulco

Our favorite regular hotel (that we can afford) is the Arizona Inn. Its pink is deep, inspired by the colors of the desert that used to be right next door. But I also like that silly, lighter, luxury pink of LA’s Hotel Bel-Air. I have to be honest, I have never stayed there. But my friends Wendy and Ira got married there, and another friend had her first honeymoon there. When I lived in LA, I went for drinks there as often as possible. A few years ago, buddy Kenwood and I went for drinks and snacks when we were in LA for the AIA convention. Not another architect in site! The fire burned in the lounge no matter the time of year. It was always a world apart. You had no idea you were in LA. Even an hour spent there is an hour on a special mission. Another friend, Jon, is involved in the renovation, and it should look even better when it reopens later this year. Perhaps the owners will invite design bloggers on a special tour. A few miles away, the Beverly Hills Hotel on Sunset Boulevard is also silly pink, but that place always seemed a little exhibitionistic, a little too preening.

Arizona Inn

In sixth grade, we did a report on Mexico. We had to research travel, and of course our little team chose Las Brisas in Acapulco. Every casita came with its own pool. I have never been to Acapulco, but I loved the idea that the jeeps that climbed the hill to your room used to be pink. The gift shop is called the Pink Shop. Another favorite is the Royal Hawaiian on Waikiki. If you don’t look too hard, you can imagine it’s before Pearl Harbor and high-rise development. The recent renovation makes you feel like you are holding down the last remnant of grand era. I have to say your skin looks better under a pink umbrella. My three days there a few years ago were just bliss.

Royal Hawaiian entrance

Royal Hawaiian

Royal Hawaiian pool

Royal Hawaiian

Back in San Francisco, at the corner of Taylor and Sacramento Streets on Nob Hill, there is a slender tower that used to be pink. Many years ago, it was painted beige. I suppose it fits into the city better, but it lost its identity. It’s not special any more. I wish it were pink again.

Happy Easter!

The author in a pink shirt, which he wears occasionally.

Swinging Against Competition

2011-04-20T14:00:00.000-07:00

Building at the Headland Center for the Arts

Went to the Headlands Center for the Arts Open House on Sunday. The lot was full, and I parked outside the old gym. I wandered in and saw ten people swinging. Five on each side facing each other. Heavy rope reached far above our heads, bolted into the ceiling. Unlike the chain swings of childhood, these seemed to swing more slowly. Instead of yelps of delight, there was mostly silence.

The artist, Paolo Salvagione, entitled the piece “Competitive Swinging.” His beautiful letterpress explanation says, “It lifts the curvilinear markings from the floor and renders them in space. And it renders them with the weight of the seated human body. It sets five of these bodies against another five, two rows of nearly invisible bleachers suspended in the air. Each body traces a pendulum in the air, ten flesh clocks marking time.”

As a child, I hated physical education class, except that I could run very fast. Beginning in elementary school, I advocated against games, saying that competition led to war. What the artist accomplished here, whether he intended to or not, was a slowing down, a victory over competition, an event where everybody contributed by moving independently.

Radcliffe Bailey House

2011-04-19T16:14:00.000-07:00

I was interviewing the artist Radcliffe Bailey for Paulson Bott Press, and the conversation drifted from art-making towards architecture and his house, which was designed by the noted firm Mack Scogin Merrill Elam Architects, Inc. I thought it would be interesting to share his thoughts and some of Tim Hursley’s beautiful images.

Interviewer: How did you meet Scogin and Elam?

Radcliffe Bailey: In Atlanta, the arts community is so small, and they were involved in a magazine and a museum. The magazine is called Art Papers. They were on the board. I went through like six architects, and I got tired of them bullshitting me, and I looked back at my notes and I said, oh, they’re here. So I just called them and went to meet them. I went in with my slides and showed them my work. And then they did their thing.

I didn’t give them any “I want this,” “I want that.” The studio that I had in Atlanta was about 7,000 square feet, and it was like a truck—an 18-wheeler could go through it, and I loved the space. So they came in and measured the dimensions—the width and ceiling height. And they came in with that space. I didn’t want windows. The Plexiglas comes right up under the rafters so the light bounces in. They just have this way of working that’s just like making an omelet. It’s like I commissioned them to do a sculpture.

Interviewer: So they just did a sculpture that you moved into?

Bailey: Right.

Interviewer: Did you even say, I need so many bedrooms, or I need a living room, or I’ve got so many kids?

Bailey: They met my family, and we just let them do their thing. You wouldn’t get the best if you just gave them all these restrictions.

Interviewer: Does it feel like the house is an extension of you?

Bailey: It does. It changes during the seasons. I can set it up in different ways where I can get closer to the studio. But also there are days when I won’t go in the studio.

Interviewer: But are you still making art even if you’re not in the studio?

Bailey: Yeah, I am.

Interviewer: Where is the house located?

Bailey: It’s on Civil War ground. There’s a road that went to a mill, and the troops camped out in these woods. So it was never marred.

Interviewer: Do you spend most of your time in your house then? Or do you travel a lot? I always think if I had a great house like that, I would never leave.

Bailey: I have a hard time being there by myself.

All photos courtesy Mack Scogin Merrill Elam Architects and Timothy Hursley, Photographer.

Design for Deception?

2011-03-18T14:54:00.000-07:00

Fukushima Daiichi nuclear complex in 2009.
courtesy latimes.com

The images and news from Japan continue to reach us – faster than the radiation, I hope. But despite the advanced technologies that allow us to remain hyper-informed, it is easy to feel helpless. You make a donation to a charity, you write to people who know people, you even pray. To make sense of such a nightmare—so incomprehensible in its scope—we begin to narrow in on the details. News clips that focus on a single house far offshore, a beautiful fishing boat far inland, a baby born, an elderly person found in the rubble, collectively seem better able to convey a reality that is difficult for most of us to imagine.

Ever since the Vietnam War, my generation (and those that followed) simply don’t believe what the government tells us, Republican or Democrat. Most of us on the Left don’t believe what corporations tell us, either—they have even more resources than the government to create campaigns of deception. (Remember BP = Beyond Petroleum? Now they are “shrimping again.”) In the 1970s I remember attending anti-nuclear meetings at SF State and writing letters of protesting the dangers of nuclear power. One of the anti-nuke arguments was that the government and industry were in cahoots to deceive the public. But in 1979, it was the release of the movie China Syndrome and then the Three Mile Island accident that truly dampened enthusiasm in this country for nuclear power. The lesson was the same as the war: those in power lie to the citizenry. And they do so in different ways.

Fukushima Daiichi nuclear complex in 2011 after tsunami.
courtesy latimes.com

It is this detail that I focus on this afternoon. It’s pretty clear by now that Tokyo Power, or TEPCO, has not been transparent with the Japanese government, the Japanese people, or the nuclear power regulators about what is going on in Fukushima. Of course, this isn’t the first time TEPCO has been in trouble for deception. In September 2002, five executives resigned after it was discovered that thirteen of the company’s sixteen power plants had inaccurate records regarding their reactor core structures.

The Fukushima nuclear power station in Japan.
courtesy vancouversun.com

But the deception that caught my eye today, like the odd boat in a landscape, was the graphic design on the side of the four reactors closest to the water. What do the powder blue and white fragmented square patterns suggest? A serene future? My first thought was a vending machine at an Asian airport. Then a container of disposable diapers. Or perhaps a cardboard container of milk or baby formula. Look at those disintegrating forms. Or do are they in some strange way prescient? They are just strange.

The number 1 reactor building is seen before an explosion
at the Fukushima nuclear power plant.
courtesy thetelegraph.co.uk

Perhaps TEPCO wanted to diminish the scale of the structures against the water and the sky? More likely the design was, like most advertisements, an attempt to suggest that nuclear energy is clean and pure, like a baby after a bath. The most telling pictures so far have been the before and after juxtapositions of the pristine, light blue and white ‘gift boxes’ with the now-destroyed structures that hold the seemingly melting panels.

The number 1 reactor building is seen after an explosion
at the Fukushima nuclear power plant.
courtesy thetelegraph.co.uk

Frankly, I prefer the concrete monolith that is the Diablo Canyon Power Plant. (Never mind that the plant was not designed with an Earthquake Emergency Plan according to Huffington Post’s Chris Kirkham: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/03/16/california-nuclear-emergency-response_n_836751.html?ref=fb&src=sp). The structure is not decorated like a tissue box—it looks like the bearer of mass destruction that it may well be. For once, the much-maligned utility Pacific Gas & Electric engaged in some truth in advertising. While I admire the Japanese tendency to impose a little aesthetic improvement on the most banal objects, the decorative touch at Fukushima just seems cruel now. And while design so often reflects our ideals and not our worst fears, I prefer design to not disguise the truth of what we build.

The Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant
in San Luis Obispo county, California.
courtesy slocounty.ca.gov

Placewares: A Big Well-Designed Circle

2011-03-02T12:14:00.000-08:00


Maynard Hale Lyndon and Lu Wendel Lyndon

Maynard Hale Lyndon and Lu Wendel Lyndon were integral parts of the famous Design Research (D/R) store before they founded their own firm, Placewares. They are part of the history of modern design in the United States. When they moved up to Sea Ranch, retirement wasn’t in the cards, so they set up a small shop and gallery in Gualala, the town immediately north of Sea Ranch. It is very much like an updated but miniature version of Design Research, without all the furniture. It is one of my favorite stores anywhere, and I wanted to know the Lyndons’ story. When you look at Morley Baer’s photographs of MLTW’s early Sea Ranch houses, you see they feature a lot of Marimekko fabrics, one of the mainstays of D/R and now Placewares. It’s a wonderful big circle.

Maynard and Lu thought New Year’s Day would be quiet and a good time for a conversation. But design devotees are a loyal bunch, and customers began calling almost as soon as we sat down. The seasoned shopkeepers slipped in and out of conversation with grace, and it was only later I realized they had sold a fair amount of merchandise during our interview.

Interviewer: How did you get started in design?

Lu Lyndon: When I was out of college, I moved from San Francisco to Cambridge and discovered D/R. And like many people, it’s where I went on Saturday, what I did for recreation. I would just go hang out in the store because it was so beautiful.

Maynard Lyndon: This was the original store in the wood frame house on Brattle Street?

Lu Lyndon: Right. This was in the early 1960s. A year later I moved back to San Francisco and worked as a legal secretary. A woman I worked with said to me one day that her sister was coming to visit. She told me that she worked for Design Research and that she was scouting a location for a store in San Francisco. And I said, “I have to meet your sister.”

The sister didn’t think I was tall enough, blond enough, whatever enough, and sort of said she didn’t think she was interested in my working at D/R. And I said, “Well, I’d be happy to come and help. I know you need hands to set up the store. I’ll do anything you need.” I just wanted to be there. So I helped set up the store. And then I managed to worm myself into working there on Saturdays. I had a fulltime job during the week, and on Saturdays I put on my Marimekko dress and went to work at D/R. Over time I was given a fulltime job and then became the assistant store manager. When the Beverly Hills store lost its manager, I worked there temporarily before being promoted to be part of the buying group in Cambridge—talk about a big circle!

Ben Thompson's D/R store in Cambridge.
Courtesy Chronicle Books

Interviewer: Did you have a design background?

Lu Lyndon: I never really had much design training. I was an English Lit major in college. But my passion is design. And so it’s been a lifelong career and love for me. And I met this guy. That helped.

Interviewer: Did you meet in Cambridge?

Lu Lyndon: No, I actually met Maynard after I was given the position in Cambridge, while I was still in Beverly Hills. The president of D/R at the time said, “You need to find a replacement for yourself and train that person before we can move you, because we can’t let Beverly Hills flounder.” Meanwhile Maynard was interviewing for a position as product development director. D/R was trying to put together a team of three people to develop new products— Ristomatti Ratia, the son of Marimekko’s founder, Armi Ratia; Craig Hodgetts, an architect from Los Angeles; and Maynard.

Maynard Lyndon: One of us being in Boston, one of us in Los Angeles, and one in Helsinki. That was the plan.

Craig was designing a new building for D/R to be built in Beverly Hills, which never happened.

While D/R was setting up this department, they needed a store manager for Beverly Hills. They said, “You might as well learn the culture of this company directly by managing the Beverly Hills store; when the board gets the funding together, we’ll begin the design department back East.”

Lu Lyndon: So a year later, Maynard came back to Cambridge. But by then things started going really awry with D/R. Once Ben Thompson was out of the picture, there was a succession of different people who were in charge, and the heart and soul went out of the company.

We both left and started our own business, which was a design-build firm. We did graphics. We did space planning for lawyers, for medical people, and for people in their private homes—whatever work we could find. This was 1973—there wasn’t a lot of work.

Maynard Lyndon: Annual reports, a whole series of things. Wielding hammers, paint brushes, Letraset—whatever was needed to get the job done!

Lu Lyndon: We were very poor.

Maynard Lyndon: We called that company Placemakers. We were making places for people.

Lu Lyndon: One of the projects that we had was for a couple who owned the train station building in Concord. There were a number of little stores within the train station, but there was no system for moving people through the building, so we came up with a signage scheme. At one meeting, the owners were all down in the doldrums, and we asked, “What’s wrong?” They said, “Well, our major tenant just stole away in the middle of the night, leaving the main store space empty.”

Maynard and I looked at each other and thought, well, we know a little bit about retail. So we put together a store for them. The arrangement was that they would put up the money, and we would do the store—the concept, the layout, the build-out, the buying, the displays, the necessary backroom systems, hiring and training staff—and we would run it for six months or so and then we would leave. It was called Plum Loco.

Plum Loco store in Concord Train Station designed by
Maynard and Lu Lyndon
Photo by Steve Rosenthal

Maynard Lyndon: After three years there, we said, “We’ve got to do our own store.” We came up with the name Placewares and opened our first store on January 11, 1978. So this January, it is 33 years since we started the original Placewares.

Lu Lyndon: By that point, we had already put together a unique collection of products that we had sourced from all over the world.

Maynard Lyndon: Our tagline for that first store was “a newfangled hardware store.” We got a lot of attention at the time, because our store was the first to focus on storage and organization as a category. From our design/build days, we had learned that most people have plenty of living space; they simply don’t use it very well. What we offered in our stores were products that could help people use their spaces better. Our tag line changed to “specializing in places to put things” and then to “the storage and organization resource.”

Lu Lyndon: We opened our first store in Concord, because we knew the Concord customer from our years at the train station store.

Maynard Lyndon: As we expanded—at one time we had seven stores—we would literally count the number of Volvos in the parking lots.

Lu Lyndon: That was the qualifier. Volvo owners were people who were sensitive to design and function and durability—and had a degree of disposable income.

One of the Lyndons' Placewares stores in the Boston area.

Interviewer: And the name of your own store was Placewares?

Lu Lyndon: Yes. We coined that name, meaning “wares for your place.” Because we advertised fairly heavily in Boston Magazine, people would come out to Concord. When the 1979 gas shortage happened, customers said, “You know, you have to have a store in town.” We decided that if we opened a store in Boston, we had to go to the premiere shopping area, and that would be Newbury Street. So the second store was on Newbury Street.

Maynard Lyndon: We were there for 26 years.

Interviewer: What did you sell?

Lu Lyndon: The same product mix as the store in Concord—storage and organization.

Interviewer: Tell me about LyndonDesign.

Lu Lyndon: We started LyndonDesign, which is the second part of the name of our store/gallery here in Gualala, in 1983. We were designing product largely in response to our customers’ wishes and requests for things that they couldn’t find to fit their needs.

We didn’t want to be the manufacturer or the marketer or distributor, so we’ve always worked on a royalty arrangement.

But since we’ve moved here, we’ve downplayed product design and are doing the gallery instead. We combined the names when we reopened here—Placewares+LyndonDesign—to enable us to still design some things if someone asks, but we’re not pursuing product or interior design like we used to. In the gallery, we’re developing a coterie of artists who are doing special things in different materials. The whole focus of the gallery has been architecture and landscape.

The gallery wing of Placewares+LyndonDesign in Gualala.

Maynard Lyndon's recent collage constructions on exhibit.

Maynard Lyndon's recent collage constructions.

Interviewer: Which of course is what Sea Ranch is about. Maynard, let’s go back to how you got into the design world. I know about your father’s practice in Los Angeles.

Maynard Lyndon: Yes, Maynard Lyndon, FAIA, was my father (that’s why I use all three names, Maynard Hale Lyndon), and my mother, Jo Hale Lyndon, was a consultant to my father’s architectural practice. She did all the colors for his buildings. She also opened a store in Detroit that she and he designed together, called Contemporary Backgrounds.

My mother had gone to the New York 1938 exposition at MoMA of Alvar Aalto’s work and was so taken with all that collection of things—the glass and the furniture—that she became the second importer and retailer of Aalto pieces in America. In Detroit, my father was doing very modern, award-winning schools.

Contemporary Backgrounds opened in 1940, and it wasn’t so far away from Cranbrook and what was happening there. It was a very exciting time. I don’t remember it personally, but of course I have some photographs. (My brother, Donlyn Lyndon, FAIA, did an exhibit at UC Berkeley and then at UC Santa Barbara about Contemporary Backgrounds.)

Contemporary Backgrounds
Photo by Maynard Lyndon, FAIA

We still have some original Aalto pieces from that store in our house here. This type of design was engrained in my childhood.

Dad went to an exposition of new housing ideas in the early 1940s in Los Angeles where he saw a house that Richard Neutra designed. It was a 1936 plywood house, two-story, a very early use of plywood, partially demountable. You could take it apart in sections and move it. My father came back to the office in Detroit and called Neutra and introduced himself as an architect. They became friends and collaborated together later. Dad bought that house from the exposition over the phone. Meanwhile, he bought a lot in West Los Angeles outside of Westwood and had the house moved to that site. As a young child, I grew up in this house; it was amazing. We lived in that house until Dad designed his own house out in Malibu in 1949. You can see Julius Shulman's photos of it in Barbara Lamprecht's book on Neutra.

Malibu House designed by Maynard Lyndon, FAIA, 1949.
Photo by Maynard Lyndon, FAIA

Maynard and Donlyn Lyndon, FAIA
at exhibit of Maynard Lyndon, FAIA's work in Los Angeles.
Pictured here is their family home designed by Maynard Lyndon, FAIA from 1949.

I went to architecture school at Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo, and then to painting school at the Chouinard Art Institute in downtown Los Angeles.

Interviewer: What was your first business?

Maynard Lyndon: A toy store on Wilshire Boulevard in Santa Monica I founded in 1967. I called it Colorform. I designed and built the store, designed the toys, made the toys. I started a little manufacturing company called ColorformLine, making a line of children’s furniture in three garages in Santa Monica.

After two or three years, I was getting a lot of attention in the press, and unbeknownst to me, the president of Creative Playthings, which was in Princeton, appeared on our doorstep. I didn’t know who he was; I didn’t even know Creative Playthings particularly. We walked around the block several times that day, and by the end of that conversation, he said, “We want you to come back East and head our product development for Creative Playthings.”

Creative Playthings had been bought by CBS, the television network. They were buying these little companies thinking that they should branch out. So within very few months, I sold my store to one of my customers and moved to Princeton to head the product development for Creative Playthings, which was an amazing experience.

I had I think 17 designers and engineers under my umbrella and a secretary. This corporate world was very new to me! Eventually, CBS rid themselves of all of these fun little companies. But it launched me into a totally different world of understanding how things are made, how designers work with manufacturers, and how things are distributed.

Interviewer: How old were you?

Maynard Lyndon: I was in my 20s. It was a fantastic situation. Later I returned to California, where I became product development director for Forms+Surfaces, Santa Barbara, an architectural hardware and finishes company.

And again, I got into another whole layer of things that was a great learning experience. But the owner had never had somebody besides himself doing the design. And finally I just said, “This isn’t going to work. There can’t be two of us.” And I begin looking for something else. I responded to an ad by this company, Design Research, and ended up meeting with then-CEO Peter Sprague.

Interviewer: He had done the takeover?

Maynard Lyndon: Yes, and Phil Doub was then president. I met with them in San Francisco and Los Angeles. And they said, “Well, we’re trying to convince the board to start a product development team of our own.” And that’s when this whole idea started, but they didn’t have the money put together.

It’s odd the way the world happens. And so there I was. Lu trained me at D/R Beverly Hills for about two weeks before D/R moved her back to Cambridge.

Beverly Hills was a totally different world than Princeton or Cambridge. And I had this staff of 15 to 20, all women except the stock boy. I had to learn how to deal with their various quirks, and they had to learn to deal with my quirks. About a year later D/R moved me back to Cambridge, where I managed their flagship store for a while.

Interviewer: How did you get from Placewares in Boston to here?

Maynard Lyndon: Both of us have been coming to Sea Ranch since the 1960s even before we knew each other. In 1997 on a trip to visit my brother Donlyn (the “L” of MLTW), we thought, “Well, just for fun, let’s see if there’s any property available that seems right and that we can afford.” We always wanted to be out here. We found a lot, bought it, and went back to Boston and continued to work. But we began designing our house with Donlyn. He did the siting and shaping of the house and we did the interiors. Matt Sylvia built it; it was the last house he finished. Interestingly—in relation to your big circle notion—Matt used to build Neutra houses in Los Angeles before Sea Ranch invited him to come build up here. He built over 150 homes at Sea Ranch. Our house was finished in 2000, and for four years after that we commuted back and forth to Boston.

Maynard and Lu Lyndon's Sea Ranch house.
Architecture by Donlyn Lyndon, FAIA

Inside the Lyndons' home at Sea Ranch.

The view over the sheep meadow.

By the 26th anniversary of Placewares in 2004, we said, “We’ve done this long enough. It’s time to move on.”

We gathered all our employees together at our Boston headquarters and told them we were closing the stores down and we would help them find other employment. And that’s what we did. Every two weeks, we closed a store and consolidated the merchandise and whatever remaining staff. The last location to close was our first store, in Concord. On the very last day, there were just the two of us, just the way we had started 26 years earlier.

Within months, we were out here at Sea Ranch full time with the idea to continue the design practice, because we still had various royalty arrangements. We thought that would sustain us, but we missed all the contact with people.

And so we began asking ourselves and family and people we were meeting up here, “What does this town need?” People said, “We need a quick photo place. We need a drycleaner. A messenger service.” In Lu’s Mini Cooper, we could have the Mini Messenger Service. Lu thought about a madeleine baking company.

But finally we said, “Why don’t we just do what we know how to do? But let’s change the LyndonDesign part, and let’s do a gallery because there are so many talented artists up here.”

So now we are back doing what we love and talking with people directly. And Lu, you should take over talking about it. You haven’t had a chance to say a word.

Lu Lyndon: I used to tease Maynard when we interviewed prospective new employees. When you do an interview, you’re supposed to let the interviewee do the talking. I used to have to nudge Maynard because he was the one who was doing all the talking, describing Placewares to the interviewee!

Interviewer: So do you feel like this is the essence of what you were about, getting to the pure designs and art, without the huge overhead and delivery and operations and finance?

Lu Lyndon: When we were planning this store, the big question was, what is really needed here? What kinds of things do we know about that would resonate in this community? I first found Sea Ranch in the late 1960s while I was working at D/R—I didn’t know Maynard or Donlyn then. People would come to D/R to furnish their houses up here.

On my first visit I just fell in love with Sea Ranch. And I said to myself, “Someday I’m going to live here.” And luckily for me, someday happened. But the store really is a response to the community. It is a way for us to give something back and to be able to continue our love of sourcing new products and finding interesting, good, well-designed things. And sharing them with our customers.

I have always been very careful that whatever I acquire is well-designed and beautiful and enduring. I have this attitude that that’s the way we need to live. It’s hard to be sour about the world if you’re surrounded by beautiful things—and interesting people! It’s also a very sustainable approach to living. If the things you have are things you love, you’re not throwing them away and replacing them every two years.

Placewares+LyndonDesign in Gualala.

The Finnish designer Kaj Franck designed a line of dishes for Iittala in 1952. They are the dishes I bought from D/R for my first apartment; we still use them today at home, and we sell them in our store. His whole attitude was to keep things simple. Buy things that you love and use them every day. Don’t put them in a cupboard for special occasions. They’re part of your life. I feel very fortunate to have known both Armi Ratia, who founded Marimekko, and Ben Thompson, who was D/R. And to be able to continue what they began, in some small way in this little outpost in Gualala….

Maynard and Lu Lyndon
at their first Placewares store in January 1978.

All photos courtesy Maynard Hale Lyndon and Lu Wendel Lyndon except as noted.

Further information:

Placewares+LyndonDesign
http://www.placewares.com/

Design Research Book
http://www.chroniclebooks.com/index/main,book-info/store,books/products_id,8937/
http://www.archpaper.com/e-board_rev.asp?News_ID=4886&PagePosition=4

The Sea Ranch
http://www.papress.com/html/book.details.page.tpl?isbn=9781568983868

Watching Over Point Lobos, Watching Over Us

2011-01-31T13:12:00.000-08:00

Cynthia Criley Williams
November 1, 1915–January 29, 2011

Cynthia in August 2009

Cynthia Williams’ work, in the 25 years I knew her, was her web. And I don’t mean the electronic kind. She was like a friendly spider from some children’s book, catching almost everybody who wandered up the path to her ramshackle mid-century redwood house overlooking Point Lobos and the ocean. She could be a little aloof at first, but after you were part of the circle, her love was constant. But she wasn’t overly expressive. You just knew. When folks had problems with their parents, they could sit near the fireplace or on the wire ice-cream-parlor chairs and feel her special kind of unconditional love. On all but the rare warm days, there was a fire burning in the fireplace, and everybody was welcome for dinner. Some days there would be only a few, and other nights a dozen or more. Nobody really seemed to plan: Cynthia’s house was like Carmel Highlands’s very own special soup kitchen. Around age 90, she declared she was retiring from cooking and expected others to figure out how to stretch a dinner for two into a dinner for 20. And they did. You might sit next to a famous folksinger, an actor, a judge, an anarchist, a brilliant mathematician, a therapist, a technology millionaire, an out-of-work carpenter, a painter, or somebody’s nephew travelling from a faraway land. Generally, the dull didn’t stay.

Bird Rock at Sunset

Cynthia lived her life on the Monterey peninsula because her father, the painter Theodore Criley, settled in Carmel around the turn of the last century. He was the real deal, one of the original bohemians. His studio faced north for the light and looked west toward Bird Rock. Amazingly, the little wood building has not fallen off the cliff into Gibson Creek. Criley died young, in 1930, and the family sold off some of the parcels of the land overlooking the water. On the high point of the property that remained, Cynthia and her then-husband Russell commissioned a house from her brother, Ted Criley, Jr., a well-known Southern California architect. In this simple home, she brought up her family and helped an enormous number of wayward children of all ages. This most modest of modernist houses provided comfort and a roof to literally thousands of people. The living room was perfect for four or 40 if they spilled onto the terrace.

A typical evening

A few years ago, Cynthia was studying Greek to keep her mind nimble. As I grew portly in the last few years, she would nag me each time I showed up that I needed to lose a bit of weight. She softened the criticism by adding, “We want you around here for a long time.” In her last year, she said, “You look great.” I knew things had gotten fuzzy.

When I saw Cynthia in the fall of 2009, she spoke quite openly about death and said she wasn’t afraid of it. She treated it very matter-of-factly, the way she treated most things. She told a story about an out-of-body experience and said when she came to, she no longer feared death. I never heard her explore the mystical or talk about pop psychology, but she had some kind of faith in what was beyond the visible world.

Around Christmas 2009, she took ill and thought that was the end. Old friends flew in from all over, and the living room was full again. Cynthia rallied through Easter (always a favorite for generations of children looking for eggs). The built-in sofa in the living room was removed and a hospital bed was installed. The parade seemed to keep going. Even though she no longer recognized everybody in the room, she wanted to be where the action was. She wanted to go on experiencing the web she wove. She lasted another year or so, coming in and out of focus.

Cynthia with her presents

Cynthia with her daughter Molly and composer Paul Crabtree

This Christmas a complete stranger, a young man from Canada, wandered into the living room. After he’d learned he couldn’t camp at Point Lobos, someone suggested he ask if he could pitch his tent at the Williams’s. There was always an extra place for the unexpected wayfarer, and within minutes, he found himself first a guest of honor at a birthday party for our friend Laura and then, the next night, part of the regular Christmas eve caroling and eggnog party. He stayed through the holidays. Cynthia’s way continued even as she faded.

On Christmas Eve during a break in the caroling, I walked past the living room and ran into her son-in-law, Tom. He had been watching Cynthia through her bedroom window. The curtains were open to the view. He remarked how her shallow breathing was like the nearby ocean.

The constant presence of the sea’s rhythm smoothed out some of life’s tragedies. She shared this place and would always say, “It’s not mine. I am just a tenant here.” That was her business acumen showing at the same time as her spiritual side. I was lucky to know her. She was everybody’s favorite grandma.

The view from Cynthia's terrace

Verda Alexander: Artist & Designer In Dialogue

2011-01-28T09:52:00.000-08:00

Verda in her studio
Photo: Jasper Sanidad

This morning Verda Alexander and her husband Primo Orpilla were named Designers of the Year by Contract magazine. They have ridden a few technology waves providing office spaces for all kinds of high tech companies. Their work often has a surprising edge, whether it is a form, a color, a mural. Part of that edge comes from Verda’s personal explorations as an artist. She moves between the functional and the aesthetic all the time. I thought it would be interesting to find out more about her work.

Q: What did you study in school?

I got a Bachelors in art, then a Masters in landscape architecture. After several years of practicing interior design I went back and got an MFA.

Q: Can you recount some of that process?

When I got my bachelors my heroes were artists like Michael Heizer, Robert Irwin, and Mary Miss. I was interested in earthwork artists and artists who engaged the public. I liked how Mary Miss used plywood and made these great geometric shapes in the landscape.

I thought that the way to follow that interest was to get an architecture or a landscape architecture degree. The portfolio I submitted for graduate school was all art projects that I had done at San Jose State. Then I got my landscape architecture degree, and it seemed like I'd gotten even further away from the art thing, because once you go down the practical and professional path you aren’t seen as an artist.

Verda with her husband and partner Primo
Photo: Jasper Sanidad

Q: Can you tell me more about that professional path?

The priority was starting and growing our business. That took most of my time for close to ten years. When the dot com bomb happened, I found myself with some extra time and thought, all right, seize the moment. So I went back for my masters in fine art at the San Francisco Art Institute.

Before that I was doing art on my own. When I was travelling I would be sketching nature, and then I started doing these little pattern drawings of the leaf patterns and repeating them. I was looking for pattern in the environment or some sort of motif that's taken from nature and used architecturally.

Q: Did you decide to reverse your emphasis and make art the more significant practice and have the design work be less important? Or were they influencing each other?

They were influencing each other, but I didn't realize that they were. At first I wanted them to very be separate. But after getting my MFA, I thought, well, at some point it would be great if they did come together. For example, I could design patterns for a carpet company. But there are very few who can blur the line between art and design like Jorge Pardo. I don't know if I want to do that exactly, but it's an interesting idea.

Verda's studio work surface
Photo: Jasper Sanidad

Verda's sculpture on table
Photo: Jasper Sanidad

The Orpilla/Alexander Living Room
Photo: Jasper Sanidad

Q: So talk about some of the things you started to explore when you were at the Art Institute.

My first projects had a lot to do with my landscape architecture -- I guess studies would be the best way to put it, like thinking about notions of the picturesque and landscape architecture history and trying to incorporate those in my art.

I made a garden fountain that had a virtual component and a sound component. I was interested in playing around with, how you might create public art, but more subtle public art, where you'd be walking and you'd hear something or you'd see something in the landscape, but it was very subtle. I created a Mary garden.

Q: A merry garden?

A Mary garden, which is a medieval garden form type, a garden that's based symbolically on the Virgin Mary.

Nativities
Courtesy of verdaalexander.com

Q: Where was this?

It was installed inside.

But I got frustrated, because it was like two layers -- first of all, art is difficult to understand, and then you've got all this landscape history that nobody knows anything about at all.

So I took away the layers. What I found was that I was really interested in a lot of the forms, the architectural shapes and forms, motifs, and, again, pattern. Many of them remained consistent over time. I took those shapes or patterns or motifs and mutated them or abstracted them and then transformed them into some other form. You could tell what they were, but it was actually a completely new and almost, futuristic shape or motif.

Q: Can you give me some examples?

I took some medieval window moldings in profile and put them in a 3D architectural program and rotated them on the axis so they were 3D objects. And they were just bizarre. You couldn't put a finger on exactly what they were. They could look like bombs and baby toys at the same time. But they started as an architectural feature from the Middle Ages and ended up looking quite futuristic.

I found that the idea of a picnic, which was probably a17th century idea, had several motifs to work with like the checkerboard cloth, and fleur de lys. I took it from a two-dimensional shape and made it three-dimensional installation. I was reimagining a flat still life.

The Picnic Installation
Courtesy of verdaalexander.com

Medieval Mouldings Installation View
Courtesy of verdaalexander.com

Victoria's Desk
Courtesy of verdaalexander.com

Q: And making the still life less still?

Yes. I love history, architectural history, and landscape architectural history. I took one of Thomas Jefferson's round buildings and extruded it and turned it into an art piece.

Recently I have been working with more mundane things like hazard stripes and traffic stripes and turning those into sculpture. You can tell where it came from but again, you get something radically different.

Run A Way
Courtesy of verdaalexander.com

Freeway Sign
Courtesy of verdaalexander.com

Q: First tell me about the project I saw on exhibit about Brittany. Architecture, interior design, and place seemed like significant influences there.

I was in Brittany for about two weeks, and I researched where people lived and how many of the homes were laid out in a similar manner.

Q: Were these fishermen’s homes? What century were they?

The 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries. And they hadn't changed over the years, in a lot of cases. They belonged to average people.

Q: What was the project?

I recreated the logic system of the furnishings. I maneuvered to certain shapes – most if was furniture, including tables, beds, and wardrobes. They didn’t have chairs, they all sat on benches. I looked at every house plan and created volumetric sculptures. They had a modernist feel to them. But nobody got the historical component, which is fine.

Q: The origin may not matter.

Brittany Homes
Courtesy of verdaalexander.com

Goethe's House
Courtesy of verdaalexander.com

Q: Your more recent work seems to be about more contemporary American settlements. They are like puzzle pieces of city life.

I worked with the skyline you see at night. I did all kinds of abstractions of a building window grids. I silk-screened them onto a kind of stiff paper. I glued them into an assemblage sculpture. It’s called “Berg.”

Berg
Courtesy of verdaalexander.com

Q: Like a town in Europe?

And an iceberg, because it looks like a crazy city growing out of an iceberg. It also reminds me of ‘40s graphic novels.

I also love airports and all the markings. I've been playing with and studying airports and redrawing different airports. And what I ended up finally coming up with was taking the center stripe of a roadway and creating a logic system for how I'd construct these pieces. A box with an end, a telescoping kind of idea, but it's rectangular, and just making them over and over again, and connecting them with the stripes so once it's done, it’s trying to warp it to its extreme.

Control Tower
Courtesy of verdaalexander.com

Hut for Ro Cham
Courtesy of verdaalexander.com

Q: So you're warping cardboard?

A box made out of cardboard.

I put them together and stencil on the stripe. And so it would go from big to small, to small to big. And I'd make them whatever lengths I wanted. And then I'd twist them and turn them and tweak them, and it became kind of this crazy, three-dimensional roadway system.

Q: Are you controlling the chaos?

No. The crazier the better. And really, the limitations are just the materials, and how much I could work and tweak them.

Q: How did you know when you were done?

Well, I might never have finished. It was whenever I ran out of time. So when I installed the piece at the San Jose Museum of Art, I just made them until my deadline, till I had to ship them over there. I had three days to install it, and I worked on it till I was out of time.

Q: So does it matter if you ever sell any of these?

No, because I have my day job, which most artists do.

Orpilla/Alexander Home
Photo: Jasper Sanidad

The artist walks from her studio to her living quarters.
Photo: Jasper Sanidad

Q: Does that free you to then make something that doesn't have to be marketed or commodified?

Yes. Or archival. One of the original runaways, that’s what I call the road pieces, broke in the heat. The glue melted on a hot day and it collapsed!

Q: How has your young son Apolo been influenced by your being an artist?

He has a very broad idea of what art might be; he never dismisses anything. Some of the best moments at the last Venice Biennale were with him. We had just left one of Scarpa’s buildings and we walked into this plaza where somebody left a bunch of toys to ride in a little group. They were fairly far apart from each other in this weird perfect circle, but Primo and I hadn’t noticed it. Apollo saw it and he was absolutely positive it was a work of art.

For more information:

www.verdaalexander.com
www.contractmagazine.com

The Toys in Venice

Alexander Girard: Deep Modernist. A Conversation with Ruth Keffer

2011-01-19T09:19:00.000-08:00

One of Ruth Keffer's hand-drawn patterns

A few years ago, my friend the architect and NorCalMod author Pierluigi Serraino took me to see a house designed by Don Knorr with interiors by Alexander Girard. It was almost perfectly intact despite being 40 years old. Girard’s exuberance fit perfectly into a timber Miesian dwelling. We suggested that it might make a great story for Interior Design. A few months later, Eric Laignel photographed the project, and Edie Cohen authored the article. You can see it here at http://www.interiordesign.net/article/484672-Welcome_to_1969_pix.php?intref=sr.

(For the online version of the issue, Pierluigi and I had our own conversation, which you can see here: http://www.interiordesign.net/article/483940-Conversations_with_Pierluigi_Serraino.php?intref=sr)

Front doors designed by Alexander Girard
Photo by Eric Laignel
courtesy Interior Design magazine

Photo by Eric Laignel
courtesy Interior Design magazine

More than 20 years ago, I visited the Museum of International Folk Art in Santa Fe and was dazzled by Girard’s collection and display. When I lived in Los Angeles, my friend Elaine Jones gave me a few samples from the years she worked with Girard, George Nelson, and Charles Eames at Herman Miller. These little pieces of fabric are among my favorite mementos.

But somehow I missed the exhibit at SFMOMA in 2006–2007. Recently I was having lunch with Ruth Keffer and found out that she was involved in the show. Looking for any excuse to talk about Girard, I asked her some questions. Her answers give us some further insight into the legendary designer.

Girard exhibit entry
Photo: Ruth Keffer

Entry sign on freight elevator
Photo: Ruth Keffer

Q: What was your role in the Girard exhibit?

I was the curator. That role fell to me because Joe Rosa [SFMOMA’s curator of architecture and design] had decided to move to the Art Institute of Chicago in 2005, so his exit timing became my opportunity. Most of the pieces in the show were accessioned by Joe, except for the Three Passenger Sofa and the La Fonda Chair, which the museum had acquired during the Paolo Polledri era. The pieces that Joe accessioned all came from one donor, a local collector named Carl James, who had been the manager of the Herman Miller showroom in San Francisco back in the day. Carl had lots of textiles, obviously, and many pieces from the La Fonda del Sol restaurant in New York, and a cache of ephemera that mostly wasn’t in the show but resides in SFMOMA’s library archive.

The exhibition was intended as a showcase of that accession, with a few other pieces thrown in. It was small, but there was enough for me to create what I felt was a meaningful survey of the high points of Girard’s career: Herman Miller and the textiles, the work for Braniff Airlines, La Fonda, and a smattering of graphic design.

Girard patterns Photo: Ruth Keffer

Girard exhibit title wall
Photo: Ruth Keffer

Girard exhibit gallery
Photo: Ruth Keffer

Gallery exhibit detail
Photo: Ruth Keffer

Q: Did you know about Girard before you started working on the exhibit?

More or less. Mostly less. I think I lumped him in with the other biggies of midcentury design. I knew more about Herman Miller in general than I did him. When the Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum did their show in 2000, I remember being very excited to see the images from that exhibition (although I never got to see the show itself), because I’m a huge textile fanatic. But I was still not processing who he was in relation to the company or to Eames and Nelson, or his real stature as a designer. And it’s funny, because I think my confusion had something to do with the way we think of textile designers as a step or two below furniture designers, who are a step or two below proper interior designers, who are a step below architects.

Photo: Ruth Keffer

Fabrics with three passenger sofa
Photo: Ruth Keffer

Three passenger sofa with pillow
Photo: Ruth Keffer

Q: Had you been to Santa Fe to see the Museum of International Folk Art?

I had not and have not seen the MoIFA. But I have studied Girard’s work there—the layout of the collection, the contents of the collection, his philosophy of taxonomizing things, etc. And that is where I run into trouble with my easy analysis of Girard, for as much as one can rhapsodize about the extraordinary innovation of his textile designs, when it came to his relationship to folk art itself, to the objects that inspired him as a collector and an artist, he was rather formalist. Or should I say, strictly formalist. He had no interest in cultural anthropology. No interest in folk art as a domain of academic inquiry, and likely no awareness of questions about appropriation or imperialism or any such thing. Up until I started looking at the MoIFA work, I had been thinking of him rather breezily as the father of postmodern design, the first to embrace non-Western influences and celebrate outsider art. But now I’m inclined to think he really didn’t have that kind of vision. What I do think is that as an artist he had a keen attraction to and a sensibility for other artists’ work, for their craft, their color sense, for their own joy present in the objects they created. And I think that’s what made him such an obsessive collector. (Truly obsessive!) And it’s no wonder that toys were his principal passion as a collector.

Photo by Eric Laignel
courtesy Interior Design magazine

Q: Even if Girard didn’t have an interest in the larger philosophical or political aspects of collecting, don’t you think he saw cultural threads?

Definitely he saw cultural threads. I think he was always looking for, and firmly believed in, the idea of cultural commonalities, of the Family of Man. One of those commonalities is the idea that physical objects are vessels for memory and feeling. Girard thought this was a crucial idea to remember and incorporate when designing a space, but he thought that modernism, as a design agenda, had left this notion behind, to its detriment. Ironically, modernism was looking for a way to be global and cross-cultural, but by being abstract. So it’s effacing all those elements that have culture-specific, or what could be defined as narrative, references. But for Girard, storytelling was the whole point, since it is the core activity of every culture. Design is storytelling, and design elements—whether objects or motifs—are dramatic players in the “theater” that one creates when designing.

Photo by Eric Laignel
courtesy Interior Design magazine

I got very excited by this idea when studying Girard, because it’s the same rhetoric that Kandinsky used when describing his compositions and his relationship to the elements in his work. It is formalism, but it’s not superficial or lacking in political relevance, as the academics would argue. It’s a search for, and a celebration of, something deeper and more immediately human. In the case of Girard’s geometric patterns, the forms are not really abstract but abstract-ed—each adapted from their original context to serve a specific two- or three-dimensional design context, such as the folds of a curtain or the contours of a chair. So the feathers on the surface of an Incan ceremonial cloak become the repeating pattern of the 1957 “Feathers” textile, and in each case the feathers are both a formal and a narrative element, wielded deliberately by the artist for evocative purposes.

Photo by Eric Laignel
courtesy Interior Design magazine

Q: Do you think that George Nelson ends up raising Girard and thus other textile designers to a much higher level of appreciation?

It’s really hard to say when this happened or if it really happened at that time. It’s true that Eames and Nelson and other designers who worked with Girard spoke openly about their reverence for him—he was considered the true genius with instincts they envied. He was prolific and aggressive and very confident. (At one point he was also called a “design automaton.”) And he embodied the Bauhaus principle of the Gesamtkunstwerk, creating the total design environment as an architect, interior designer, and textile designer.

Photo: Ruth Keffer

Q: Do you feel that you got to show that sense of the Gesamtkunstwerk in the exhibit at SFMOMA?

I certainly tried to, though it was a challenge given the limited number of pieces we had to show. But I thought I touched on his holistic approach in each of the various projects: the way the Herman Miller textiles work with the furniture; the idea of a totally branded environment for Braniff; and for La Fonda del Sol, a complete design package: graphics, tableware, fixtures, the space and light of the interior.

Photo: Ruth Keffer

Checkerboard cloth
Photo: Ruth Keffer

La Fonda del Sol tableware
Photo: Ruth Keffer

Q: Girard has been getting a fair amount of attention these last few years. But his works were not always popular?

In the 1950s and through the Kennedy era, his patterns did not sell well. He could not convince Herman Miller customers to surround themselves with cheerful, playful patterns at the same time they were purchasing minimalist furniture. The Textiles and Objects store—where Herman Miller sold folk art objects alongside the textiles—was a failure.

Photo by Eric Laignel
courtesy Interior Design magazine
Front door detail

Photo by Eric Laignel
courtesy Interior Design magazine

By the time he left Herman Miller in 1973, though, the situation had shifted. The hippie culture embraced non-Western influences, and Pop artists had been doing their thing, and Girard started to look prescient. Designers who followed Girard’s lead in borrowing motifs from other cultures were selling, and they were getting attention as designers. But I think Girard recognized that this new trend, and the growing celebrity of designers in the mainstream culture, had everything to do with marketing and the search for novelty and little to do with his heartfelt quest to plumb the mysteries of the human condition. He remarked, in an interview in 1974 with the curators of a Herman Miller show at the Walker Art Center, that he had recently gone into a Miller showroom in New York and been dismayed by what he saw, or didn’t see, there. He said, “There’s no more religion.”

Girard chair in front of Girard fabric
Photo by Eric Laignel
courtesy Interior Design magazine

Photo by Eric Laignel
courtesy Interior Design magazine

Which I think reveals the way in which Girard truly was a modernist himself — he believed that design should serve the greater good.

Photographer Eric Laignel and Interior Design editor in chief Cindy Allen graciously loaned the photos from the story that ran in Interior Design.

For more info:

www.ruthkefferdesign.com
www.ericlaignel.com
www.maximodesign.com/
girard.houseind.com/
www.internationalfolkart.org/about/girard.html
www.interiordesign.net

One of Keffer's digital patterns