Posts filed under 'Los Angeles'
In this week’s LA Weekly cover story Patrick Range McDonald investigates whether there is any meat behind the Donald T. Sterling Homeless Center ads. Our campaign to stop the ugly ads gets a little mention in the article. But the amazing thing about the Homeless Center ads is that real homeless service providers don’t know much about the homeless center, there have been no plans presented to the city about the homeless center, and, in fact, apparently Skid Row doesn’t really need another homeless center. I sorta mentioned this back when I first whined about the service center ads, “Donald Sterling is Homeless and Needs your Help.”
Now we find out that the ads are not just ugly, confusing and self-aggrandizing. They don’t really exist. But I’m sure Mr. Sterling is not intentionally keeping thousands of homeless people waiting for services. He is too busy designing his own ads.
This article is truly the best compendium of Sterling knowledge assembled to date and it gives us a window into how STERLING HIMSELF DESIGNS THE ADS!
“A business associate who often visited Sterling in his penthouse office in Beverly Hills in the 1990s says Sterling actually cuts and pastes many of the flamboyantly unattractive ads himself, with scissors, tape and marker. He has spent hours getting just the right look, sometimes elongating the images of buildings to look more Sterling-worthy. For years, Sterling paid half the going rate for space in the Times, according to the associate.”
(Check out the Weekly’s fantastic archive of Donald T. Sterling ads.)
March 19th, 2008
I’ll be doing a little demo at Pico Artists at Work! The day after my big art opening is a great walking tour of Santa Monica’s Pico Blvd based artists’ studios. Pico Artists at Work takes plase on Sunday October 14, 12 - 5 pm. Jennifer Joyce’s Pottery Studio will be open and my art will be on display!
I’ll be there from 12-2 and I’m going to do a little demo from 1-2. I’ll throw some shapes on the wheel and show how I connect them together and distort them to make my funky vases.
There hasn’t been much info online about it, but this showed up today. I don’t think this event has become too huge yet, but it sounds like a lot of fun. There are specific events for kids and children always enjoy watching artists in action. Hope to see you out there.
October 8th, 2007
Wow, the big pottery show is this week. Preparing for this show has been fun in so many ways.
Having a show has been a great incentive to make some nice new pieces. The new ones I’m completing this week are the best so far — though I shouldn’t say a thing until they come out of the kiln! I have some very large pieces that came together really naturally, from sketch, to wheel to glazing. I still can’t wait to see them after they are baked. And then I get to share them!
And this has been a great chance to invite people to a party and talk to all kinds of people about something I’ve been having fun with for a while. Putting this together has forced me to think about what I’ve been making and has helped me realize that there is a lot of intention behind it. I actually do have some kind of vision behind what I’m making. And since people are enjoying it, I have even more reason to make more.
So I’m looking forward to seeing friends and meeting some new people a the big opening this weekend — Saturday night at Jennifer Joyce Pottery Studio and Gallery. You can see the official unearthed pottery show site here. And read some blather about the pottery here.
October 8th, 2007
You’ve got to come check out my first solo art show! I’ve been doing ceramics for a couple of years now and I guess people have been diggin’ it, so Jennifer Joyce offered me a show at her gallery!
Working in clay has been so satisfying — plunging my fingers into something substantial, away from the computer, in real life. And being able to create things that just ooze out of my brain. No flow charts, no code, no organization, no usability testing.
So, with complete disregard for utility or what anyone else thinks, I’ve somehow been making some nice pieces that people like. I don’t want to whine… I’m not quite satisfied with the work I’m producing. I feel like I’m just now starting to control the clay more than it controls me. But I’m pleased with enough that I’ll be able to fill a small room with some interesting stuff I’ve made.
Anyway, the show is called ‘unearthed’ and you can check out a few pieces of pottery at www.quixo.com/unearthed. You can give each piece a little spin with the fancy interactive-online-art-spinning-widget. And I hope you’ll join me at the opening Saturday, October 13, 5-8pm.
I try not to analyze it too much, but I like to think of it as punk pottery, all spiky and pock-marked. But, you know, not the punk rock of pure oblivion, destruction and fury, but more the throw out the rules, start over from scratch, anti-pop punk. And I’m sure you can see the other influences banging around in my head too. It is abstract but with enough direct connection to the natural world that the forms are sensual, grotesque and maybe a little humorous. The kind of thing you might find in the forest or under a microscope or possibly just after a meteorite has made landfall delivering artifacts from a lost or future civilization. Or whatever. I’m just making this stuff up. Come on out and you can take from it what you like…
Oh, and the art will surely be upstaged by the yummy munchables crafted by Stacy TenHouten who is firing up her new business, Butterlove Bakery.
September 19th, 2007
Just a little reminder that the Eva Zeisel exhibit at the Los Angeles Craft and Folk Art Museum is starting September 9 and running through the end of the year. There is more on Eva Zeisel and the Los Angeles exhibit here in my previous post.
We just returned from the opening and this exhibition is set up differently from the San Diego show. In San Diego the work was grouped thematically, but here Zeisel’s work is laid out chronologically. This made for a great tour led by Pat Moore, my step-mom and the founder of the Eva Zeisel Forum. I had heard all the stories before but never all at once, in order and with examples laid out so beautifully. While I’ve long appreciated the work, Zeisel’s biography really hit home tonight. Highlights of the tour include hearing her history including traditional apprenticeship in Hungary, imprisonment by Stalin and a conscious move against the coldness of Bauhaus and modernism. Gonna have to break out some of her books (listed here). Anyways, check it out before the end of the year. (and the circus exhibit, also now showing, is great fun!)
September 8th, 2007
The crows aren’t the only ones coming out for fall in Los Angeles. Huge, beautiful (creepy?) orb spiders have come back. Every evening in a couple of choice locations around the yard, about 15 feet in the air, they start weaving. Before bed I can usually spot a couple not far from where they were the night before. These orb spiders have huge bulbous bodies and, unlike the many jumping spiders, cobweb spiders, house spiders and other crawly friends around here, these guys make big old classic webs. They shoot out long strands between the trees and the eves of our house and then make the circuit, around and around, filling them in for a couple hours. And it looks like they capture big old moths. I hope so, for all that work. Frequently they are still hanging there in the morning with their webs slightly broken, and they seem to hide out during the day.
Lots of good info and photos can be found at the Natural History Museum’s Spider Survey page. You can even participate by dunking your spiders into alcohol, filling out a form and sending them to the museum. (I prefer to leave them in my yard). And we love this book, Insects of the Los Angeles Basin
for all of our figuring-out-what-bug-this-is needs, also written by folks at the Natural History Museum.
September 5th, 2007
Well they’re back, whoopin’ it up at dusk in huge numbers in the local trees. I refuse to believe summer is over, but the flocks of crows that like to party around here have started their antics. Last month it was a very very loud mocking bird making some kind mating call through the warm summer nights. Now it looks like the crows are getting together for some nice fall roosting.
For a few years I had wondered about the raucous crow festivities here in LA, so in January I asked asked Kimball L. Garrett of the Natural History Museum a few questions about crows in Los Angeles. He has some insights into crow behavior and some perspective on why they seem to take over urban areas. Basically, we’ve replaced the native scrub habitat with crow-friendly trees. And we don’t shoot them like farmers do (it is against the law, so don’t try). Read the article to learn more.
And I’m sure we’ll hear more complaints about the flocking crows this year. I’m still betting that someone here in Santa Monica will come up with a bazillion dollar crow birth control program. So stay tuned for that….
August 26th, 2007
Eva Zeisel’s body of work will be on display in Los Angeles in celebration of the industrial designer’s 100th birthday. The exhibition will run from September 9 to December 30, 2007 at the Craft and Folk Art Museum on Museum Row at 5814 Wilshire Blvd between Fairfax and La Brea. The show is coming from a run at San Diego’s Mingei Museum of Folk Art.
Zeisel is an industrial designer who, throughout the last century, has produced ceramic dinnerware for mass production. Approaching her 101st birthday, she continues to work from her studio in New York. Her strikingly simple organic shapes are so unique and personal, they are being presented at the Folk Art museums (unusual for mass produced items). In addition to dinnerware, Zeisel designs furniture and decorative pieces, crystal and tea pots, many on view at the exhibition.
I’ve come to admire Eva Zeisel’s work through my parents whose collection appears in the exhibition. Years ago they fell in love with some everyday china that had been used in the family in the 1950s. They got curious and, just a little naively oblivious to the fact that Eva Zeisel was already an icon in industrial design, contacted and befriended her. After years of crawling Ebay, thrift stores and estate sales they’ve amassed an extensive collection of her work and a brilliant network of Eva enthusiasts. They even started the Eva Zeisel Forum (formerly the Eva Zeisel Collector’s Club). (They have a Forum site and a site where they post their latest Eva collectibles up for sale).
There are some excellent books on Eva Zeisel. Eva Zeisel, designer for industry
is a beautifully produced book with amazing photography. It is out of print but available through Amazon sometimes, so grab it if you can. Eva Zeisel
by Lucie Young is a lighter read with a good amount of biographical information. It is a much smaller book but fun. If you want to hear it straight from the designer’s mouth, Eva Zeisel On Design
is a much deeper look at the craft of industrial design, presented through various essays and articles by Eva Zeisel herself.
Yea, she’d an icon, she’s in museums and she is producing some very high end work that nobody can afford. But you can still buy her latest work. Nambe is currently selling a very sheik line including polished metal bowls, vases and various wine glasses and goblets. You can see them here.
The one I’m gonna pick up for is the Eva Teakettle
, mostly because I really need a tea kettle.
Eva attended the opening in San Diego (which I missed) so I’m hoping she’ll make the LA event!
August 13th, 2007
I take weekly classes with Jennifer Joyce in her Santa Monica ceramics studio. It is not easy being a traditional potter in Los Angeles. Amazed at the variety of work she produces I thought I’d share her work through a little interview. Jennifer creates all kinds of amazing sculpture and functional items in here studio. She hosts wine and clay parties and even helps Girls Scouts get their badges in pottery. But some of her most intriguing projects are larger scale works she produces for home construction and interior design. Check out this interview with Jennifer Joyce to learn a little more about the difference between creating small ceramic forms and large pieces for architectural use.
If you have any comments or questions, this is a good place for em.
July 23rd, 2007
Ok, I’m a little obsessed with outdoor showers right now. I mentioned a couple of fine showers you can buy from Amazon in a previous post on showering in your backyard. And now this nice little shower design book has come to my attention to help you design and build your own outdoor shower.
I had no idea that outdoor showers are becoming the hot new luxury item. I just know that my significant-other has a soft spot for them because as a kid she would visit their family’s homestead shack out in the Mojave desert and use an outdoor shower. Years later we visited Costanoa, a luxury fake camping resort where you sleep in tent cabins under electric blankets and use shared camp style deluxe bath facilities. The bath house floors are heated with radiant heat and you can shower (in private stalls) under the open sky. And now we are renovating our decrepit bathroom with that style in mind. Most of all I just remember as a kid, some of my favorite times were coming home covered in dirt, mud or sand so that I needed to be hosed off outside. Now I just need the time and energy to build a shower to make it more fun.
Beware– I’ve found that you may need a permit to build an outdoor shower. My plumber warned me that in Santa Monica (where we have a lot of very good strict building requirements) it is technically illegal to build a shower without proper drainage and permits. I need to find more info, but this action by the City Council points out that outdoor showers are really supposed to be used for recreational purposes like if there is a pool or sauna. But it shouldn’t serve as the primary shower for a granny flat. Who knew it was so complicated to hose off in your own yard? You have to admit though, it is important to keep untreated water out of our ocean! It is contaminated enough. So get your permits!
Anyway, this shower design book has received some nice reviews and I’ve got to order mine.
July 17th, 2007
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