What's New
Friday, April 09, 2004
BOATING ON NEW YEAR'S MORNING
The Inverness marina where I keep my 16-foot rowing wherry is part of a motel complex, and early New Year's day while walking from the parking lot to my slip, I noticed a car in every parking space. The "No Vacancy" sign was out, but not a soul was in sight, Well, it was, after all, the morning after a big night. Folks were sleeping in.
At the time, I had owned the boat about a month, and was still trying to adjust to the change. The previous boat, also 16 feet, was a home-built, wooden, flat-bottom dory. Very slow and very stable. The new, fiberglass boat has outrigger oar locks, a sliding seat, and with it's shallow, rounded bottom, it is fast, light, and as the old salts say "tender."
I was about to find out exactly what that meant.
For winter rowing, I wear a pair of ski pants with suspenders over a turtle-neck jersey and a thick, cotton sweat shirt. I also had a Baklava, a cloth cap, thick socks, rubber boots and was carrying a pair of gloves.
Soon after I got in the boat and pushed away from the dock, I began donning my gloves. One glove fell over the side. My quick grab for it was just enough to unbalance the equilibrium. Whoosh! The boat turned over.
Tender indeed!
Sputtering, I righted the fully-swamped boat and began recovering the oars, bilge-pump and other gear. I spent little time searching for lost glove.
With a high tide, the water was about chest high, but my boots had a tendency to sink in the muddy bottom. I worked them off before I even tried to pull myself onto the dock. Then, at the first attempt, it was clear that some of the heavy, water-saoked clothes had to go. Because the suspenders, the ski pants were shucked first. Then I got rid of the sweat shirt.
I still could not pull myself up. Not until after removing the turtle-neck and making a great effort was I able to pull myself onto the dock. The effort, however, pulled myself right out of my boxer shorts.
So that's how I started the year, shivering on the marina dock at 7 a.m., wearing nothing but a pair of muddy socks and surrounded by nearly a hundred people who, luckily, remained innocently asleep.
It was much colder in the January air than it had been in the water, but I struggled into my wet clothes, pumped out the boat and drove the deli for a cup of much-needed coffee.
"Your money feels wet," Dan remarked.
"It is." I said curtly.
Now when I go out rowing, I wear boating sandals and, of course, a life jacket. So far, however, the boat has yet to capsize again.
PLEASE SCROLL DOWN
The Inverness marina where I keep my 16-foot rowing wherry is part of a motel complex, and early New Year's day while walking from the parking lot to my slip, I noticed a car in every parking space. The "No Vacancy" sign was out, but not a soul was in sight, Well, it was, after all, the morning after a big night. Folks were sleeping in.
At the time, I had owned the boat about a month, and was still trying to adjust to the change. The previous boat, also 16 feet, was a home-built, wooden, flat-bottom dory. Very slow and very stable. The new, fiberglass boat has outrigger oar locks, a sliding seat, and with it's shallow, rounded bottom, it is fast, light, and as the old salts say "tender."
I was about to find out exactly what that meant.
For winter rowing, I wear a pair of ski pants with suspenders over a turtle-neck jersey and a thick, cotton sweat shirt. I also had a Baklava, a cloth cap, thick socks, rubber boots and was carrying a pair of gloves.
Soon after I got in the boat and pushed away from the dock, I began donning my gloves. One glove fell over the side. My quick grab for it was just enough to unbalance the equilibrium. Whoosh! The boat turned over.
Tender indeed!
Sputtering, I righted the fully-swamped boat and began recovering the oars, bilge-pump and other gear. I spent little time searching for lost glove.
With a high tide, the water was about chest high, but my boots had a tendency to sink in the muddy bottom. I worked them off before I even tried to pull myself onto the dock. Then, at the first attempt, it was clear that some of the heavy, water-saoked clothes had to go. Because the suspenders, the ski pants were shucked first. Then I got rid of the sweat shirt.
I still could not pull myself up. Not until after removing the turtle-neck and making a great effort was I able to pull myself onto the dock. The effort, however, pulled myself right out of my boxer shorts.
So that's how I started the year, shivering on the marina dock at 7 a.m., wearing nothing but a pair of muddy socks and surrounded by nearly a hundred people who, luckily, remained innocently asleep.
It was much colder in the January air than it had been in the water, but I struggled into my wet clothes, pumped out the boat and drove the deli for a cup of much-needed coffee.
"Your money feels wet," Dan remarked.
"It is." I said curtly.
Now when I go out rowing, I wear boating sandals and, of course, a life jacket. So far, however, the boat has yet to capsize again.
PLEASE SCROLL DOWN
Thursday, April 08, 2004
BUSY, BUSY, BUSY
Agatha has so much to do
She hasn't time for me and you.
She rushes here. She rushes there.
I think she rushes everywhere.
Busy, busy, busy everyday,
But what she does, I cannot say.
Rick Lyttle 4/8/04
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Agatha has so much to do
She hasn't time for me and you.
She rushes here. She rushes there.
I think she rushes everywhere.
Busy, busy, busy everyday,
But what she does, I cannot say.
Rick Lyttle 4/8/04
PLEASE SCROLL DOWN
BLUMENTHAL AT WORK IN THE TALKING PRESS STUDIO
Joe Blumenthal's Wall series of Monoprints is now showing at the Bolinas Museum, and there will be a reception from 3 to 5 this Saturday, April 10. The museum hours are 1 to 5 on Friday and noon to 5 on Saturday and Sunday. The show runs through May 9.
With a few exceptions, this is pretty much the same show that hung in the Dance Palace Gallery in Point Reyes in July. Here is the review I wrote for the Point Reyes Light for that show.
Old walls prove to be an ideal vehicle for a natural colorist the likes of Inverness's Joe Blumenthal.
His nine large, highly textural monotypes depicting surfaces abused by age, sun, rain and vandals are currently on display in the Dance Palace Lobby in Point Reyes Station.
The artist is able to combine magentas, greens, reds and yellows in soft shifts of value with apparent ease. These are seemingly improbable combinations but they work. These walls have validity. And the graffiti gives them an international flavor.
Blumenthal embraces the theory that graffiti take pretty much the same form everywhere. The symbols of New York Subway and the Mexican pared have similar spirit if not calligraphy. The current show certainly endorse this theory.
The artist himself has been around, as they say. Born in South Africa, he emigrated to London as a young man and arrived in the USA in 1962. He has been living in the Bay Area since 1966 and in Inverness since 1988. Meanwhile, he has traveled extensively.
He has long been a compulsive sketcher and has carried drawing materials on all his travels, but he did not receive any formal training until 1982 when he became a student of Elaine Badgley Arnoux at the EB/A School of Art. There he specialized in printmaking and painting. Later he studied monotypes under Stan Berning in Santa Fe, New Mexico.
Blumenthal's previous solo exhibits have been at the Bridge Gallery, the University Club and the Chacun A Son Gout Gallery, and he has been in group shows at the Somarts and Bridge Galleries, all in San Francisco.
He is a member of the Point Reyes Open Studios and a guest artist at the Talking Press Studio in Inverness Park.
PLEASE SCROLL DOWN
Joe Blumenthal's Wall series of Monoprints is now showing at the Bolinas Museum, and there will be a reception from 3 to 5 this Saturday, April 10. The museum hours are 1 to 5 on Friday and noon to 5 on Saturday and Sunday. The show runs through May 9.
With a few exceptions, this is pretty much the same show that hung in the Dance Palace Gallery in Point Reyes in July. Here is the review I wrote for the Point Reyes Light for that show.
Old walls prove to be an ideal vehicle for a natural colorist the likes of Inverness's Joe Blumenthal.
His nine large, highly textural monotypes depicting surfaces abused by age, sun, rain and vandals are currently on display in the Dance Palace Lobby in Point Reyes Station.
The artist is able to combine magentas, greens, reds and yellows in soft shifts of value with apparent ease. These are seemingly improbable combinations but they work. These walls have validity. And the graffiti gives them an international flavor.
Blumenthal embraces the theory that graffiti take pretty much the same form everywhere. The symbols of New York Subway and the Mexican pared have similar spirit if not calligraphy. The current show certainly endorse this theory.
The artist himself has been around, as they say. Born in South Africa, he emigrated to London as a young man and arrived in the USA in 1962. He has been living in the Bay Area since 1966 and in Inverness since 1988. Meanwhile, he has traveled extensively.
He has long been a compulsive sketcher and has carried drawing materials on all his travels, but he did not receive any formal training until 1982 when he became a student of Elaine Badgley Arnoux at the EB/A School of Art. There he specialized in printmaking and painting. Later he studied monotypes under Stan Berning in Santa Fe, New Mexico.
Blumenthal's previous solo exhibits have been at the Bridge Gallery, the University Club and the Chacun A Son Gout Gallery, and he has been in group shows at the Somarts and Bridge Galleries, all in San Francisco.
He is a member of the Point Reyes Open Studios and a guest artist at the Talking Press Studio in Inverness Park.
PLEASE SCROLL DOWN
Tuesday, April 06, 2004
TEST YOUR APHORISM
Lorraine Almeida of Marshall writes:
"I laughed out loud when I read your "Hell is where everyone tells the truth."
Thank you Lorraine, but read on.
Michael Howard Manning of Durham, Northumberland, UK, who says he has made a career of collecting aphorism, epigrams, and such, writes:
"It's difficult enough tracing these things to their source without you amateurs roiling the waters. ‘Hell is where everyone tells the truth' is too cynical to gain coinage, and your Seattle contributor's ‘The greatest houses have the most closets' is simply too obvious to hold one's interest. I assume Ms. McPherson means ‘water closets,' but perhaps you Yanks have found some provincial meaning for the word ‘closet.' If so, please don't tell me."
Thank you Dr. Manning.
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Lorraine Almeida of Marshall writes:
"I laughed out loud when I read your "Hell is where everyone tells the truth."
Thank you Lorraine, but read on.
Michael Howard Manning of Durham, Northumberland, UK, who says he has made a career of collecting aphorism, epigrams, and such, writes:
"It's difficult enough tracing these things to their source without you amateurs roiling the waters. ‘Hell is where everyone tells the truth' is too cynical to gain coinage, and your Seattle contributor's ‘The greatest houses have the most closets' is simply too obvious to hold one's interest. I assume Ms. McPherson means ‘water closets,' but perhaps you Yanks have found some provincial meaning for the word ‘closet.' If so, please don't tell me."
Thank you Dr. Manning.
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Monday, April 05, 2004
IS THIS IDIOT WORTH SAVING?
I shot an arrow in the air.
It's feathers tangled in my hair
And pulled me up along with it.
(It's a lucky thing that I'm so fit.)
Up we soared above the town,
Made an arc and then dame down.
I landed head first in some hay.
How deep I went, I cannot say,
But if you should hear a haystack shout,
Just trot along and pull me out.
PLEASE SCROLL DOWN
I shot an arrow in the air.
It's feathers tangled in my hair
And pulled me up along with it.
(It's a lucky thing that I'm so fit.)
Up we soared above the town,
Made an arc and then dame down.
I landed head first in some hay.
How deep I went, I cannot say,
But if you should hear a haystack shout,
Just trot along and pull me out.
PLEASE SCROLL DOWN
Sunday, April 04, 2004
MR. SOCKO, a recent 4 by 2.75-inch mezzotint, celebrates a family member of long standing, having survived four generations of Haldemans and Lyttles. How can someone with such bad knees face the world with so much confidence? Well, he was loved by grandparents, parents, children and grandchildren. This copper plate was inked with vine black and printed on German etching paper in a edition of 50 and is available for $65.00.
AT THE GALLERIES
Sharon Morgan Blakley, Bruce Mitchell, Patricia Bannerman, Lynn Sawyer and Marj Burgstahler Stone
The new gallery space at Toby's Feed Barn in Point Reyes Station is open at last, and sculptor Bruce Mitchell, well-known both locally and nationally, and Sharon Morgan Blakley, a new-comer to the art scene, have given it a spectacular inaugural.
The work of these two Inverness residents certainly has the strength to stand alone, but together the rich wood of Mitchell's forms and the pastel-like images of Blakley's abstract landscapes produce a resonance that is nothing short of stunning.
The space alone is going to make all future shows look polished and professional. Long known as "the Music Room," thanks to the baby grand that still occupies it, the new gallery is more than double the size of the adjoining old gallery. Natural light from the southern windows combined with overhead, tungsten floods gives the space an airiness that is both warm and welcoming.
The surprise of the show is Blakley's landscapes, actually not pastels on paper, but acrylics, used with a broad dynamic range. Generally, they are warm paintings with lots of yellows and earth tones, and she uses metallic pigments effectively to heighten the feeling of deep, atmospheric light.
It's hard to believe that she started painting less than five years ago.
"When I returned to Inverness in 1999, I enrolled in Tony Littlejohn's ‘Wild Carrots' class, and I've been her student ever since," Blakley said.
This was after a career as a design and engineering consultant for airports. And she still isn't sure if art is going to be a new career for her. "We'll see."
She has certainly been productive. There is much to see. My favorite is "Apparent Horizons," a 19 by 25-inch painting in which the central land form is laid down with several thick coats of paint with the sky and the bay represented with thin washes. It's her most recent work.
Most others in the collection aren't as realistic. Her "Wave Form" series is more concerned with motion and atmosphere rather than actual waves.
Blakley says everything in the show is based on what she sees from her Sea Haven Window. The biggest painting is actually three views of Tomasini Point, one on top of the other. There are many small pieces in the 6 by 9 to 9 by 8 range, but the big paintings, of course, take best advantage of the airy space.
Mitchell's craftsmanship combined with a superb aesthetic produces an impact that makes you gasp. The dominant wood in this show is curly redwood which has an intricate grain and takes a magnificent, rich finish. "Deco Dream," a large table of black walnut with polished steel, Art Deco legs, is the dominate horizontal form while "Tall Grass," a cluster of redwood blades takes vertical honors.
There are enough pieces in the show to make you aware that Mitchell is conversant with many varieties of wood. There is red gum, black acacia, maple, madrone and even a buckeye burl as well and redwood and walnut.
Mitchell, who studied art in various Bay Area Colleges, apprenticed under the late J. B. Blunk of Inverness. He credits Blunk with launching his career. That was some thirty years ago. Now Mitchell's work is in many private and public collections across the country, including the Smithsonian, in Washington, DC.
The old gallery space at Toby's this month is showing Lynn Sawyers large, realistic paintings and Patricia Bannerman's small but fascinating colored photos.
For Sawyer this show is a first and Bannerman has never before shown her talent for abstraction.
Technically, Bannerman's nine photos, all printed from slide transparencies, are based on real things, but the reality is elusive. The rusted dent in an automobile, for instance, shot close up, seems at first to be pure abstraction. The same is true of party balloons. You have to look twice to see that this is not an image of some strange, winged creature.
"I can't tell you how many times friends say: ‘Why are you taking a picture of that?' This show should answer the question."
Some of the images are fairly easy to figure out. An overhead view of a pedestrian walking where the pavement has been decorated with a large peace symbol simply proves that Bannerman has an excellent eye. The same can be said for a close up of a leaf or another of graffiti on a brick wall.
"There's no deep, spiritual meaning," Bannerman said. "I just go after arrangements of light and shadow which please me." She also has a wicked sense of humor.
The one "arrangement" that fooled me flat was a full view of a gorgeous, very life-like, pinch-able, tusche. Of course, I asked if it was anyone I knew.
Bannerman shrugged and chuckled. "Could be. It's a marble statue I saw in Rome. Don't ask me which one."
Sawyer's large, figurative paintings are so skillful, it's hard to believe that he is a self-taught artist. "I studied every painting book I could find, and I worked."
Some of the paintings in his show, do indeed seem to be studies based on photographs or arrangements intended to challenge his talents.
"This Man Nose Tomatoes," for instance, has more much content than a casual glance can handle. It centers on a man sitting on the step in front of the entrance to a closed restaurant. The man is wearing the Groucho glasses with bushy brows and mustache along with the "nose" of the painting's title. The man is holding a tomato seed packet in one hand and has a small tomato plant on the step beside him. Suspended overhead is a Raggedy Anne doll, and there is the silhouette of a bicycle either on or beyond the glass door of the restaurant. It almost seems like a challenge to other artists. "Okay," Sawyer seems to say. "Paint this if you can." Mainly, however, it is just fun.
Sawyer's whimsical nature is apparent in almost all the paintings. The major exception is the large "Never More" which depicts a Negro in a scarecrow pose, surrounded by ravens, both perched on the arms and flying. It is a dark painting with very little color, and brings to mind the stark photos of lynchings of our not so distant past.
Sawyers sense of the whimsical absurd, however, generally prevails. "Arkansas Sushi" depicts hunters with their guns standing proudly before not the expected deer carcases but a scattered catch of fish.
"Period Piece," if not a direct Daumier copy, is certainly painted skillfully in Daumier's style. Again, the artists seems to be honing his talents.
Sawyers, however, has certainly already mastered his craft. He also does fine portraits as evidenced by four small paintings of local residents. His technique is consistent and polished. The paint in almost all the work is applied thinly enough so that you can still see the texture of the canvas. Only exception is "Joe" which was painted over an earlier image.
Sawyer, whose studio is in Point Reyes, paints nearly every day. If he keeps at it, the show at Toby's will undoubtedly be the first of a long series of successes.
All the above shows will continue at Toby's through April. Hous are 9 to 5 every day except Sunday when the hours are 9:30 to 4.
Also this month you can see two of Inverness sculptor Marj Burgstahler Stone's dramatic, white birds in the Dance Palace lobby. These swan-like creatures are dynamic enough to represent flight. However, there is also a stillness and serenity that speaks of peace, even death.
Sharon Morgan Blakley, Bruce Mitchell, Patricia Bannerman, Lynn Sawyer and Marj Burgstahler Stone
The new gallery space at Toby's Feed Barn in Point Reyes Station is open at last, and sculptor Bruce Mitchell, well-known both locally and nationally, and Sharon Morgan Blakley, a new-comer to the art scene, have given it a spectacular inaugural.
The work of these two Inverness residents certainly has the strength to stand alone, but together the rich wood of Mitchell's forms and the pastel-like images of Blakley's abstract landscapes produce a resonance that is nothing short of stunning.
The space alone is going to make all future shows look polished and professional. Long known as "the Music Room," thanks to the baby grand that still occupies it, the new gallery is more than double the size of the adjoining old gallery. Natural light from the southern windows combined with overhead, tungsten floods gives the space an airiness that is both warm and welcoming.
The surprise of the show is Blakley's landscapes, actually not pastels on paper, but acrylics, used with a broad dynamic range. Generally, they are warm paintings with lots of yellows and earth tones, and she uses metallic pigments effectively to heighten the feeling of deep, atmospheric light.
It's hard to believe that she started painting less than five years ago.
"When I returned to Inverness in 1999, I enrolled in Tony Littlejohn's ‘Wild Carrots' class, and I've been her student ever since," Blakley said.
This was after a career as a design and engineering consultant for airports. And she still isn't sure if art is going to be a new career for her. "We'll see."
She has certainly been productive. There is much to see. My favorite is "Apparent Horizons," a 19 by 25-inch painting in which the central land form is laid down with several thick coats of paint with the sky and the bay represented with thin washes. It's her most recent work.
Most others in the collection aren't as realistic. Her "Wave Form" series is more concerned with motion and atmosphere rather than actual waves.
Blakley says everything in the show is based on what she sees from her Sea Haven Window. The biggest painting is actually three views of Tomasini Point, one on top of the other. There are many small pieces in the 6 by 9 to 9 by 8 range, but the big paintings, of course, take best advantage of the airy space.
Mitchell's craftsmanship combined with a superb aesthetic produces an impact that makes you gasp. The dominant wood in this show is curly redwood which has an intricate grain and takes a magnificent, rich finish. "Deco Dream," a large table of black walnut with polished steel, Art Deco legs, is the dominate horizontal form while "Tall Grass," a cluster of redwood blades takes vertical honors.
There are enough pieces in the show to make you aware that Mitchell is conversant with many varieties of wood. There is red gum, black acacia, maple, madrone and even a buckeye burl as well and redwood and walnut.
Mitchell, who studied art in various Bay Area Colleges, apprenticed under the late J. B. Blunk of Inverness. He credits Blunk with launching his career. That was some thirty years ago. Now Mitchell's work is in many private and public collections across the country, including the Smithsonian, in Washington, DC.
The old gallery space at Toby's this month is showing Lynn Sawyers large, realistic paintings and Patricia Bannerman's small but fascinating colored photos.
For Sawyer this show is a first and Bannerman has never before shown her talent for abstraction.
Technically, Bannerman's nine photos, all printed from slide transparencies, are based on real things, but the reality is elusive. The rusted dent in an automobile, for instance, shot close up, seems at first to be pure abstraction. The same is true of party balloons. You have to look twice to see that this is not an image of some strange, winged creature.
"I can't tell you how many times friends say: ‘Why are you taking a picture of that?' This show should answer the question."
Some of the images are fairly easy to figure out. An overhead view of a pedestrian walking where the pavement has been decorated with a large peace symbol simply proves that Bannerman has an excellent eye. The same can be said for a close up of a leaf or another of graffiti on a brick wall.
"There's no deep, spiritual meaning," Bannerman said. "I just go after arrangements of light and shadow which please me." She also has a wicked sense of humor.
The one "arrangement" that fooled me flat was a full view of a gorgeous, very life-like, pinch-able, tusche. Of course, I asked if it was anyone I knew.
Bannerman shrugged and chuckled. "Could be. It's a marble statue I saw in Rome. Don't ask me which one."
Sawyer's large, figurative paintings are so skillful, it's hard to believe that he is a self-taught artist. "I studied every painting book I could find, and I worked."
Some of the paintings in his show, do indeed seem to be studies based on photographs or arrangements intended to challenge his talents.
"This Man Nose Tomatoes," for instance, has more much content than a casual glance can handle. It centers on a man sitting on the step in front of the entrance to a closed restaurant. The man is wearing the Groucho glasses with bushy brows and mustache along with the "nose" of the painting's title. The man is holding a tomato seed packet in one hand and has a small tomato plant on the step beside him. Suspended overhead is a Raggedy Anne doll, and there is the silhouette of a bicycle either on or beyond the glass door of the restaurant. It almost seems like a challenge to other artists. "Okay," Sawyer seems to say. "Paint this if you can." Mainly, however, it is just fun.
Sawyer's whimsical nature is apparent in almost all the paintings. The major exception is the large "Never More" which depicts a Negro in a scarecrow pose, surrounded by ravens, both perched on the arms and flying. It is a dark painting with very little color, and brings to mind the stark photos of lynchings of our not so distant past.
Sawyers sense of the whimsical absurd, however, generally prevails. "Arkansas Sushi" depicts hunters with their guns standing proudly before not the expected deer carcases but a scattered catch of fish.
"Period Piece," if not a direct Daumier copy, is certainly painted skillfully in Daumier's style. Again, the artists seems to be honing his talents.
Sawyers, however, has certainly already mastered his craft. He also does fine portraits as evidenced by four small paintings of local residents. His technique is consistent and polished. The paint in almost all the work is applied thinly enough so that you can still see the texture of the canvas. Only exception is "Joe" which was painted over an earlier image.
Sawyer, whose studio is in Point Reyes, paints nearly every day. If he keeps at it, the show at Toby's will undoubtedly be the first of a long series of successes.
All the above shows will continue at Toby's through April. Hous are 9 to 5 every day except Sunday when the hours are 9:30 to 4.
Also this month you can see two of Inverness sculptor Marj Burgstahler Stone's dramatic, white birds in the Dance Palace lobby. These swan-like creatures are dynamic enough to represent flight. However, there is also a stillness and serenity that speaks of peace, even death.
