marshallastor.com

They’ve done gone let me jury again

A few months back, I was asked to co-jury (along with LBCC gallery director Michael Daniel) the annual Palos Verdes Library District art show (download .pdf program here). It’s the type of show that anyone can enter, where the role of the jurors is simply to award prizes to the artists, as casual and easy as a jurying gig can be, really. The coolest thing about the gig was that I would get to be involved with the Peninsula Center Library, which was the library that I grew up visiting as a child.

The jurying was on Friday and the show opened yesterday. I will say that there were some really outstanding entries that it was a pleasure to recognize. Coming to a consensus with Mike was easy - we had many of the same ideas about who to award prizes to, and we added a 2nd honorable mention, awarding prizes to five artists in total. Like the Works on Paper exhibition I juried for Long Beach Arts earlier this year, it ended up being a lot of fun. It’s really great to be able to let artists know that you appreciate their work.

We chose a really minimal ink on vellum drawing by Deborah Laurin to receive first place, for her piece Looking at the Grid and it was the source of some discussion amongst the conservative crowd. The piece was exceptionally well done and presented, and it was the kind of work that provides low-key, lasting visual pleasure. Second place went to a oil painting, Duarte Ghetto, by Hao Li. Li made great use of light and a limited colour palette to capture his subject, and didn’t carry the painting too far into realism, which is a mistake that many amateur painters make - often for their whole careers. Third went to Fisherman’s Cove: XXV, a coloured pencil drawing by Sherry Ford. It’s an illustration of three conch shell varieties - she’s been doing hundreds of these drawings, at 100% scale (they’re tiny), complete with their scientific labeling. I’m a sucker for that sort of thing, and hers were really well executed.

We gave two honorable mentions. One went to Susan Stott, for her piece House on a Hill, which is sort of a minimal “house shape” sitting on top of a series of dome like hills. Once again, great example of an artist staying away from realism to capture the feeling of the painting. It had great brushwork, too. The other went to Bruce Burr, who seems to exclusively paint and draw cars. It was a great realistic painting of the front end of a Rolls with a terrier sitting in front of it. Not the most stimulating subject matter to me, but the work was exceptionally skillful, especially all of the chrome and reflective details on the car.

Return to the Palos Verdes Library

It’s weird working with the PVLD. I grew up in that library, I remember plowing through whole sections of books. I could probably navigate around the pre-remodel library blindfolded. I’ve got mixed feelings about Palos Verdes, in general. On one hand it’s a place I hold dear because of the geography and the people who I have lifelong connections to because of growing up there. On the other, it serves as a constant reminder of financial crisis that led to the loss of my childhood home and the bullshit I went through in high school. I find it tremendously humorous that I’ve gone from being the subject immense derision to being an “arbiter of culture” in Palos Verdes.

I miss the old library. It was filled with memories - kids books, pouring over the illustrations in the reference section, researches on architecture, a chocolate easter egg melting in my pocket during storytime (I was very confused about the nature of Easter for a long time, I only knew that it had something to do with getting a ton of chocolate, and as a Jew I wasn’t in on the action). My friends and I got into a fair amount of mischief in the old library, nothing to serious, but just enough to make me feel like I know a secret. I now realise that the old library was where I fell in love with Brutalism, and cast concrete in general. All of my bunker and ziggurat fantasies date back to the building, especially the hollow cast concrete shapes of the interior ceiling.

Myrna Shiras

In the offices of the library there are two very strange paintings. They have an amateur or folk art look, and they are extremely dated in terms of their style. They definitely exist somewhat in kitsch territory. Because they were in the children’s section when I was a child, I have profound memories of them, especially the painting below, which you should clickify to see at maximum, as the thumbnail doesn’t begin to show the detail of the piece. I don’t have a lot of deep feeling for the top painting, but the image does a much better job at showing the style of her work.

Sorry about the glare, but the combination of low light and the amount of gloss on the painting made it really hard to shoot - I’ll probably return to the library to shoot it again in the near future. Basically it’s a painting of a strange nighttime processional in a forest. It’s surreal and it used to hang in the children’s section. I’m magnetised by the imagery in this painting, it’s surreal in a way that arouses everything that’s good and sacred about the secrets and mysteries that night brings. Perhaps because it’s done in a style which has no art world relevance, I can see the story. It’s like hearing someone’s description of a strange dream and actually feeling what they’re feeling.

One of the societal trends I’ve noticed is that artwork and imagery that’s intended for children has become more mundane and “reality oriented”. I think television has a lot to do with that, but that’s a whole rant unto itself. When I was a boy (enter up-a-hill/in-the-snow/onion-on-my-belt anecdote here), the books and movies I remember had less to do with reality and more to do with fantasy. Not fantasy in a “dragons and elves” way, but fantasy in a fantastic way. Maybe it’s because I read so much as a child that I wandered into territory that kids weren’t supposed to and it had an effect on me. Childhood was a world when the barrier between dream and waking life was very thin - so thin that things and feelings very easily passed through from one to the other. It was a scary and thrilling time when anything could happen and forces much larger than yourself were in definite play. Today, as an adult, that barrier is thicker in general, but weak in places - things still get through.

The library staff were exceptionally helpful in pointing me towards the artist - Myrna Shiras, a former Library Board trustee. They had no contact info on her, though, so other than her identity, I couldn’t find out more. I think they removed it from the children’s section as it might be kind of scary and because it appears so outdated.

Coincidentally, I was talking with Angles Gate Board Member Rae Wyman later on Friday and she knows, and in fact is almost neighbors with Myrna. She confirmed my suspicion that Myrna was the wife of David Shiras, my 5th grand science and social studies teacher - 5th grade was a very, very important point in my life - possibly the time at which I most aggressively defined who I was and was not going to be. David didn’t leave much impression on me as a teacher, but I remember him being very “science teachery”. He was sort of absent minded, and I remember that all kinds of mischief was gotten into in his class. There was one incident where several of the “held back” (In Palos Verdes there are always students who couldn’t keep up with the high academic standards and were held back, usually becoming oversized bullies or jocks, and prone to cruelty) students put a small amount of pencil shavings in his coffee, which he then drank while the whole class watched tensely. The other thing I remember about Mr. Shiras was that he once came to my house (I think it was a year or two after I had his class) to sell my family a set of encyclopedias, World Book, I think.

Rae told me a bit about Myrna, and promised to see if she could find some way for me to contact her. She told me that Myrna was a “staggeringly great beauty” which intrigues the hell out of me because she is married to David, my apparently boring 5th grade science teacher, and that she did paint quite a bit, and those paintings were on the surreal side. So now I’m determined to meet and interview Myrna, as I want to get to the bottom of this mystery. So more on Myrna later, hopefully with more images.

This is one of those “I had to share” posts, so if you don’t care for that sort of spiel, move along, move along.

On my recent trip to Portland I had the pleasure of flying on Alaska Airlines - a way better airline than I’m used to, at least in terms of awesome “breakfast cookie” quality and seat comfort. I got to fly on Alaska a few times as a kid, when I’d get to go on “working vacations” with my dad to Spokane and Wenatchee, Washington. I think I’m fond of Alaska because I associate it with flying over the Pacific Northwest, which has to be one of the most beautiful and amazing places to fly over, and I’m the kind of asshole who insists on flying in the window seat so I can press my face to the glass and stare out the window, sometimes for whole flights.

Anyways, on to the poking. I’m one of those people who doesn’t listen to the safety talk or thoroughly read the pamphlet. I figure that I’ll have plenty of time to look over the essential details as the plane is descending to get the gist of what I’m supposed to be doing. But there was no Sky Mall to read while we were taxiing, and the free magazine sucked, so I picked up the safety instructions instead.

Although most of the images just served to remind me of “calm as Hindu cows“, two in particular have been tickling my instructional diagram fancy since I saw them. Good thing I’ve got my own copy to feed to the scanner. On to the images and the bleeding sharp edge of my wit.

Above - The emergency hatch operation diagram. You open it, drop the bouncy ramp and jump out. Basic, boring, etc…

Above - I hope that it’s the product of some overactive illustrator’s secret joy, but the body positioning of the jumping passenger seems so full of childish joy, as if he drew her in the “on a swing” position, sans swing. And then look at how we end our journey, jumping down an inflatable slide into a picturesque alpine meadow. That mountain is probably echoing with the blare of an alphorn fresh from a Ricola commercial 24/7, it’s so damn picturesque. Crash landing in that alpine meadow probably puts you in a better destination than the place you paid them to move your meat and/or goods to.

Above - Five things they don’t want you to do on the airplane. These certainly aren’t the only things they don’t want you doing on an airplane, but they see these as significant enough to merit their own icon with slashed circle no-no indicator.  Basically they don’t want you broadcasting any “waves” or smoke” while you’re on the plane. I get that. I think we all get that by now. I can’t believe they even have to put the no smoking warning on planes anymore - if there’s been any distinct sign of evolution in human culture in the past fifty years it’s been the decline on smoking in enclosed areas.

But the thing that piques my interest is the remote control sports car. Was there ever an incident or situation that merits that warning? Has anyone ever operated a remote control vehicle while traveling in a passenger aircraft? I’m imagining some trifecta of asshattery wherein some hydrocephalic misanthrope inflates one of those remote control blimps by secretly exhaling his cigarette smoke into it in the bathroom (after disabling the smoke detector - does that ever really happen?) and then swings the tiny door wide open, sending his remote control smoke bomb floating down the aisle in a desperate protest against “the man” and his “system”.

Given that I can’t even take a properly sized container of toothpaste/lubricant/water/soap onto a plane these days, do you suppose that it’s still cool to carry on a remote control. You might as well try and go on the plane wearing a faux bomb vest made out of Hickory Farms summer sausages, it’s just not going happen, man. If it’s not cool to have a proper Leatherman in my bag, or to have a sealed canister of soda - could it possibly be kosher to enjoy your dose of security theatre while transporting a remote control Ferrari?

Anyways, that’s my totally meaningless rumination on the finer points of Alaska Airlines aircraft Safety Information. I’m sure the dudes at Alaska do a great job and their information is no more or less informative than any other airlines’, and I’m eternally grateful to them for the view of the Northwest, the breakfast cookie (salty bagged airplane snacks suck) and the decent seat.

Recently I spent three great days in Portland, Oregon meeting with some artists for upcoming Angels Gate shows, most specifically Bean and Dan Gilsdorf, who are coming down to do the next Gallery A show, about which I am extremely excited, and I will no doubt write about more it the future. But on to the sucking.

I’ve become addicted to big museums lately - if only for the historical artifacts and decorative arts wings. Both Bean and Dan warned me and my traveling companion, Michele, that the Portland Art Museum is all cocked up at totally skippable. They told me about the contemporary expansion that is 80% rental hall and fundraising space and 10% multi-story, crammed art hallway. We probably weren’t going to go after their warning, but on the last day we were in town, neither Michele and I could resist - we had to know.

The Building(s)

I don’t think you can even begin to discuss the collection of this museum without first explaining the buildings in which they are housed. Some museums, like the excellently designed Asian Art Museum of San Francisco are defined by their collection and some museums end up having their collection defined by the limits of the buildings that house them. The Portland art museum is definitely of the latter species. The museum consists of two buildings, occupying the better part of a block, with an underground level that spans the footprint of both buildings and the connecting plaza between them. The main building, the Belluschi Building, was purpose built as an art museum, and the contemporary arts wing/building, the Mark Building, was converted over recently from a Masonic hall that the museum acquired in 1991 and converted in 2004.

The Belluschi building is a reasonably laid out art museum, with hallway spaces connecting to interconnected, themed rooms. There is a large special exhibition space in the center of the building with the bulk of the museum’s permanent collections wrapping around it like a U. The space has a maze-like quality, more so than other museums, but not so much as to be ridiculous. If this building has any great flaw is that it’s almost impossible to locate a restroom. There isn’t one in the entrance area of the museum, I ended up finding one in the basement after getting lost twice.

The Mark Building, also known as the Jubitz Center for Modern and Contemporary Art, is a disaster. It can only be entered by going into the basement area of the Belluschi and then traversing the underside of the plaza. This is despite the fact that the Belluschi building has a secondary entrance/exit that directly faces the Mark building. In fact it faces what appears to be an entrance to the Mark, doors and all. But those doors appear to be permanently roped off. That was how we first attempted to penetrate the Mark building. We walked around to the side, where two “regular guys who didn’t look like museum employees” were guarding the street entrance to the Mark. They wouldn’t let us in (which is fine as the bulk of the building isn’t open to the public) and pointed us back the way we came in a vague and uninformative matter. That was when we hit on the idea to go back into the Belluschi, take the elevator back down to the basement, and attempt to tunnel our way across the plaza into the Mark Building.

It should be mentioned that we were still confused as to the location of the Mark Building in general, as the map that the museum provides at the front desk in no way clearly indicates the relationship between the buildings, and the map (.pdf download)of the Mark Buliding/Jubitz Center only shows the part of the building that houses the modern and contemporary collections, and as the building is actually shaped very differently than the map indicates, it’s more than a little confusing. We were only really able to ascertain that the building across the plaza was the Jubitz Center by comparing the architectural facade of the building to the one shown on the map.

The only real indication on the map that the Belluschi Building is connected to the Jubitz Center is an arrow on the underground level of the map pointing to the mysterious “CMCA”. What the fuck is the CMCA? I’m looking for the Jubitz Center, not your employee used, internal acronym for the “Center for Modern and Contemporary Art”. Give it one name guys - is it the Mark Building, the Jubitz Center, the Center for Modern and Contemporary Art or the CMCA? If your going to lay out your buildings in a idiosyncratic and viewer-unfriendly way, you could at least decide on a stable descriptive moniker for your building.

Anyways, we got into the Jubitz Center, which I will now critisise further. The floorplan of the Mark Building itself is basically a box. The floorplan for the Jubitz Center is like a narrow strip of that box, on the side facing the Belluschi Building. A large percentage of the building, let’s say 80%, is offices and rental hall space, leaving what is basically a 30 foot wide hallway for the display of the modern and contemporary collections. A hallway which is further reduced by the presence of a massive staircase and sizeable elevator that pinches down the center third of the hallway to about 10 useable feet and the areas around the building hardware. The collections in the Belluschi museum were a bit on the cluttered side, but this arrangement actually creates a situation in the Jubitz Center where there is art obscuring art. As in there was literally a huge sculpture sitting about 3 feet in front of a painting. More on that in the collection section, though.

One of the other interesting artifacts of the building’s design is that there’s apparently an emergency exit/connecting double door between the ground floor of the Grand Ballroom and the fourth floor of the Jubitz Center. Sound from the event taking place in the ballroom carries right into the gallery - on the Wednesday morning we visited the soundtrack to that floor of the gallery was an evangelical Christian prayer meeting, which is just what I want to be listening to while I’m trying to focus on a really amazing piece of art in an environment that is already distracting. To add some irony to the situation, the door, if opened would open into a narrow space housing several works involving photorealistic male nudity, and the awesome homo-eroticism of a really nice Tom of Finland drawing.

The Collection

Note - PAM is one of those facilities that has a no photography rule, as they don’t want you snapping something on loan. Therefore there will be no photos, which further sucketh. I’ve never understood the purpose of these rules, and although I can see why museums will make their “special exhibitions” off limits to photography, I can’t see any reason why you can’t hold lenders to some kind of boilerplate “if you’re going to show in our museum, people may take pictures” language in the loan agreement. They’re only photos - the worst thing that’s going to happen is that more of the public might get to experience and fall in love with works they might otherwise never see.