Scripps Fine Arts Foundation Lecture

The Fine Arts Foundation of Scripps College listened to Williamson Gallery director Mary McNaughton give an erudite and interesting (a lecture can be both, as rare as that sounds) on "Clay's Tectonic Shift." Professor McNaughton, an art history professor at Scripps, described how ceramics went from a craft to a major art form during the 1950s and 60s under the guidance of Southern California artists John Mason, Ken Price, and Peter Voulkos. Scripps College, an acknowledged leader in promoting ceramics since the 1930s under the dynamic direction of Millard Sheets, was part of this revolution. The lecture was given on Wednesday, December 14, 2011 in the Hampton Room of Malott Commons on the Scripps Campus. The exhibition opens at Williamson Gallery on January 21, 2012 with an Opening on Saturday evening at 7 PM. The exhibition is part of the Pacific Standard Time initiative sponsored by the Getty Trust.

In short, ceramics evolved from pottery towards sculpture, from the beautifully designed utility of practical ceramic pottery to large and increasingly abstract sculptures comprised of fired pieces of clay fitted into large objects.

There's One in Every Marriage

Theater. On Wednesday night, November 9, students from the Claremont Colleges previewed three scenes from their upcoming theater production of "There's One in Every Marriage," a farce by French playwright Feydeau, that debuts Thursday night November 17 at Seaver Theater on the Pomona College campus.

The presentation was made at a dinner meeting of the Scripps College Fine Arts Foundation in the Hampton Room of Malott Commons. My wife and I had the delight of sitting next to the young lady playing the cocotte in the play for dinner, and I must say she was in delightful form.

The play's producer and director, Professor Leonard Pronko, got off the table's best line: "my fuel is dark chocolate and red wine." Fun evening. Later he gave another of his fascinating little introductory lectures on French farce--they're always about sex in some form. An eternal dramatic interest.Link to Pronko interview

Attached is an interview with Professor Pronko.

Fine Arts - Scripps Luncheon on Sam Maloof

Hal Nelson of the Huntington Library gave a powerpoint preview of the exhibition "The House That Sam Built: Sam Maloof and Art in the Pomona Valley, 1945-1985" to the Scripps College Fine Arts Foundation in the Hampton Room of Malott Commons on a beautiful spring day on the Scripps Campus (Wednesday, May 11, 2011). The late Sam Maloof is the world renowned furniture maker who lived nearby in Alta Loma with his artist wife Frieda. Both were students under Millard Sheets at Claremont Graduate University and Scripps College in the years after the Second World War when Sheets guided several dozen of that generation's finest young artists into a Golden Age of Art in Southern California. Several of the artists or their family members attended the luncheon, which at 72 persons for lunch was a season-high success.

Nelson's talk was well informed and quite interesting. The Huntington exhibition, which opens September 24, features Maloof's furniture and some of his art plus selected works from 35 other noted artists across several artistic modes, such as ceramics, sculpture, painting, crafts, pottery, weaving. The exhibition provides a stunning mosaic of the art produced in this notable era.

The Fine Arts Foundation will be heading off to view the exhibition by bus on Wednesday October 5 (call Paul Myers 9090-908-2877 for additional info).

Fine Arts - Scripps Senior Art Exhibition

My wife Minche and I attended the Scripps College Senior Art Exhibition Opening last Friday night (April 29) at Ruth Chandler Williamson Gallery on the Scripps campus. In February, we had toured the student art studios with the Fine Arts Foundation and got previews of the students' ideas for their projects. The quality of the art last Friday was impressive, and, possibly even more so, was the striking originality of many of the young women's artistic vision. You can see imaginations at play!     And the wine and cheese were excellent and the band playing on the terrace was superb: a modern rendition of a sound seemingly coming from the classic 1960s. Fun!

Fine Arts - Trip to Getty Villa

Minche Myers at Getty Villa

Paul Myers at Garden of Getty Villa

On Wednesday April 20, Minche and I went with the Rembrandt Club of Pomona College on their bus trip to Getty Villa at Malibu. We saw the exhibition of "In Search of Biblical Lands" featuring 19th century photographs of the Holy Land, particularly Jerusalem, curated by Kathleen Stewart Howe of Pomona College. The Holy Land became the first big international tourist destination in the 19th century, partially as a result of extensive photography of the region. The British in particular explored and mapped the region prior to World War I, and this work served as a basis for drawing borders up after the war and laid the basis for the way the Middle East is today. The museum itself is always a treat. Minche and I spent several hours exploring the exhibitions of Greek and Roman art. Then we had a delightful lunch on the upstairs veranda overlooking the museum and the valley it is nestled in with its vistas of the Pacific ocean in the distance. The bus ride back through rush-hour Los Angeles to Claremont was made pleasurable by the Rembrandt ladies pouring generous libations of red or white wine and passing out snacks. Nice museum trip.

Fine Arts - Ceramics Center at Scripps College

It was my pleasure to attend a beautiful luncheon on Tuesday April 12 held on the patio of the Scripps Art Department as part of the dedication of the new Joan and David Lincoln Ceramics Center facing the Art Department quadrangle. I and several board members of the Fine Arts Foundation ate lunch with several of the art faculty. After the dedication speeches--Joan Lincoln's was especially charming--we all took a tour of the new ceramics facility. I was fascinated by the kilns because they are very serious looking industrial-strength machines. Inside, there is an extensive work area featuring potters wheels for shaping the "mud" and other work areas for finishing and sculpting the pieces. The facility will be used by both Scripps and Claremont Graduate University, which are two of the leading academic ceramics programs in the nation.

Fine Arts - Scripps Dance Concert 2

Minche Myers at Garrison Theater

Reception at Garrison Theater

 My wife Minche standing in front of one of the beautiful tapestries in the lobby of Garrison Theater at Scripps College after she had completing some of her work on the refreshments for the Wednesday April 13 Preview Performance by Scripps Dance of its Spring 2011 Dance Concert. Connie Layne and Corinne Gallman had earlier assisted. The second picture is after the Preview when Fine Arts Foundation members, several of the dance students, and others gathered for refreshments and talk. A very fine afternoon.

Fine Arts - Scripps Dance Concert

Wednesday April 13. Scripps College Fine Arts Foundation sponsored a one-hour preview of the Scripps Spring Dance Concert at Garrison Theater Wednesday afternoon. Dance Professor Ronnie Brosterman introduced each student dance piece starting off with several solos and then moving on to group ensembles. After the last dance, the students sat on the stage and took questions from the audience on dance, life at Scripps, and their future plans. Professor Brosterman explained that dance was the use of the body moving through space to give expression to emotions and feelings. Costume and lighting often significantly enhance the visuals. She also explained that it is a physically demanding art form. Another key point she made was that in a professional dance troupe your body belongs to someone else while at Scripps Dance your body belongs to you--a very nice distinction.

Fine Arts - Pacific Standard Time cocktail party in Claremont - Fun!

Peggy Carlson Vice President of Rembrandt Club

Ellen Litney President of Rembrandt Club

The Rembrandt Club of Pomona College hosted a cocktail reception at a beautiful home in north Claremont last Saturday afternoon where over two hundred art supporters gathered. The subject was the Getty Foundation's project "Pacific Standard Time: Art in L.A. 1945-1980." Getty is supporting over 60 cultural institutions across Southern California with $10 million in grants to put on exhibitions starting next September and running through mid-2012. Joan Weinstein, the Getty director, provided an overview while Kathleen Stewrt Howe of Pomona College Museum of Art, Mary MacNaughton of Scripps College Ruth Chandler Williamson Gallery, and Rebecca McGrew, Pomona Museum curator spoke on exhibitions being hosted by the local college museums.

Our own Scripps College Fine Arts Foundation (where I am co-president) is hosting a luncheon May 11 where representatives of the Huntington Library will discuss their PST exhibition opening in September entitled "Sam Maloof and Art in the Pomona Valley." Scripps College was of course right in the thick of things in that Golden Age.

The overall goal of the Pacific Standard Time initiative is the truly laudable one that shows that Los Angeles and not New York was really the Big Fish in art after the Second World War. New York was, sniff, sniff, somewhat derivative of Picasso and Matisse and the Paris School while Los Angeles was more vibrant, truly original, and much more diverse. Hear, Hear!

Fine Arts - A Walking Tour of Downtown Los Angeles

Wife Minche with Claremont tour group Bradbury House.

Walking Tour of Downtown Los Angeles by Claremont Foundation. Bob Herman, a retired Pomona College professor, led a group of about a dozen of us on a train ride on Metrolink down to Union Station on Saturday March 19. We visited the square in front of Olvera Street and then went up and went through the new Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels. The exterior edifice lacks elegance in my view but its contemporary art boxiness makes a strikingly beautiful interior possible, which makes a nice trade. We did admire the statue above the entrance of Our Lady, which is simple, elegant, and quite beautiful. The interior of the cathedral is beautiful to behold, quite original, and I simply loved the tapesties on the wall. The had an exceptional refinement and were made possible using modern computer-driven tapestry techniques in Belgium. The people portrayed in the tapesties were "everyman" and "everywomen" selected from across the Southern California multicultural landscape.

The pictures are from the inside lobby of the Bradbury House on South Broadway. The building was constructed in 1893 and has been completely renovated. The lobby is simply beautiful to behold and to stand in. Very interesting and it has a fascinating story.

We had lunch in the Grand Central Market, virtually all Hispanic. We had delicious Persian food made by a very talented Hispanic family!

Other stops on the tour were the Biltmore Hotel, the Los Angeles Central Library, and the lobby of the Fine Arts Building, another artistic masterpiece of architecture. Then we took the subway back to Union Station and the Metrolink back to Claremont. We are going to do this trip some more. There is a lot to downtown Los Angeles.

Lobby Bradbury House 1893 Downtown LA

Fine Arts - Rembrandt Club Arts Lecture



Seaver House - Pomona College


On Thursday March 3, 2011, members of Scripps College Fine Arts Foundation were guests of the Rembrandt Club at beautiful Seaver House at Pomona College for tea and refreshments. The tea followed an informative lecture on a new exhibition just opening at Getty Villa in Malibu entitled "In Search of Biblical Lands: from Jerusalem to Jordan in Nineteenth Century Photography." The lecture was given by Pomona Art History Professor Kathleen Howe who was the guest curator of the exhibit for the Getty. Professor Howe had a fascinating collection of photographs and discussed the irony between intense worldwide interest in the Holy Land in the nineteenth century with the stony, arid landscape of Palestine and the primitive and impoverished city of Jerusalem. Nevertheless, the photographs of the time stirred intense interest and tourists from around the world flooded into the Holy Land in one of the first occurrences of mass tourism.

More information is at the Getty Villa website.
http://www.getty.edu/art/exhibitions/biblical_lands/index.html

Fine Arts - Visit to Scripps College Senior Art Studios

The Scripps College Fine Arts Foundation had more than 30 members visit the Senior Art Studios at the Art Department on the afternoon of Feb 14, 2011. Treasurer Mike Layne handed out checks for seven expense grants to those students participating. Professors Susan Rankeitas (the blond lady in the center of the following picture) and Ken Gonzales-Day guided the members through the galleries while Professor Nancy Macko was in the studios explaining and greeting. We saw a preview of an animation project by student Isabel Anderson in the animation studio (she is kneeling in front of Professor Rankeitas). Other students were Candace Kita, Shayna Friedman, Sarah Dick, Jordan Mopstein, Suzanne Calkins, Bailey Busch.

The tour consisted of a lot of ladies speaking with and having the various projects explained to them by the students. So it was a very nice afternoon of pleasant interaction and seeing these vivid young imaginations at the work of play, or the play of work.

Also shown below are simply some snapshots of some of the art hanging on the studio walls picked out of my photos of the day for their colorfulness and aesthetics. At the bottom is a very interesting use of cutouts placed in a vacant studio space. Two of our members are standing inside.



After the studio tour, we all met out on the balcony of the Art Department and had delicious cupcakes, cookies, and coffee and bottled water prepared by our Refreshment Committee of Minche Myers and Joyce Lamphere and ably assisted by Jeri of the Art Department office. The students and professors joined us for a pleasant interlude of talk. Professor Day got the Williamson Gallery to open up and many of our members went and saw the Ceramics Annual, the national recognized show currently "up" at the Gallery.

We look forward to visiting the exhibition of Senior Art projects in May at the end of the school year. My personal observation is this has been our most successful interaction with the Senior Art students over the past half dozen years.

Fine Arts Foundation - Visit to John Svenson some photos

Photos from our visit to artist John Svenson's home and studio yesterday. At the top, my wife Minche stands next to "Deep Sea Madonna." In the next photo, Paul stands next to "Sea Sprite," another of John's impressive sculptures in wood. At the bottom, Paul and Minche are with John Svenson in front of a relief carved into redwood of an octopus.

Fine Arts - A visit to John Svenson' house by Scripps Fine Arts Foundation

Scripps College Fine Arts Foundation. We had 35 members and guests for a tour of artist John Svenson's home and studio today Saturday Jan 29, 2011. We raised more than $1,000 for our Senior Art Grants program, which will be awarded to the students on Monday, February 14 during our visit to the Lang Arts Studios at the Scripps College Art Building. Seven senior art students are slated for grants. The tour was followed by a buffet lunch served on John's beautiful patio in brilliant California sunshine in San Antonio Heights overlooking Upland. Minche Myers, Connie Layne, and Marci Stewart put on a beautiful spread of salads, sandwichs, chips and salsas, desserts, coffee, fruit salads and a beauitful cheese plate. The artist's son David and his wife, sculptor Reese Williams, and the mother-daughter team of Norma and Cindy provided docent talks on John's magnificent collection of art that he and his late wife collected from around the world plus his many own original works. The singular striking thing about John's work is its originality: it is rare in my experience for so many pieces of art to just get inside your head and heart and imagination the way John's work does.

Fine Arts - A visit to John Svenson's house

Yesterday, I and several other board members of the Scripps College Fine Arts Foundation went up to sculptor John Svenson's house in beautiful San Antonio Heights overlooking Upland. Above is a view from his patio towards Cucamonga Peak. We are planning an open studio tour and buffet lunch for the last Saturday of January. Details to be announced later.

It is always nice to see John, one of the colorful characters from the Claremont Golden Age of Art after the Second World War and that runs up to the present. He and his wife built the house and it is simply loaded with charm. Besides many examples of his own art, he has a fascinating collection of artifacts from ancient Peru, the Far East, Alaska, and Europe. He and his wife travelled the world.

What makes visiting the house so unique is that the tremendous originality and uniqueness of his art sort of bowls you over. To sit and take tea in that magnificent living room is to sit in the middle of a visual feast. This "ain't visiting the museum."

I also got a copy of John's new book, a beautiful story of his life and his art spanning the eight decades or so of his life. This is also one of the best art books by one of the art greats of Claremont.

Attached link to a recent exhibition of John's gives a good view of some of John's distinctive works over the years.

John Svenson exhibition at Oceanside Museum of Art