Paintings are ready - hooray

Today is an auspicious day, both the paintings I commissioned are ready. I sent checks off today to pay for them both and now I have to wait until they arrive, either by UPS or by me going to pick them up.

The first painting ordered is an impression of the Arneson River Theater and Rosita’s Bridge in San Antonio. It is by Henry Cardenas and it was commissioned when Patricia and I visited San Antonio several weeks ago. This scene, the bridge and the arched pathway to La Villita have special meaning for me and it is wonderful to have a painting that will bring back wonderful memories of visiting La Villita and exploring the art shops and galleries.





The second painting is actually a series of three that are designed to be hung vertically. Patricia was the instigator behind this purchase. She recognized that the paintings will match well with the large Bosco painting already hanging on the green wall in the living room. The particular paintings we liked were sold before we could get back and buy them on the second day of the Winter Holiday Art Market, so I commissioned Marcela Bonini to recreate the paintings she had sold and this is the result.

Firestone Vineyard, Los Olivios, CA

Approximately 40 miles north west of Santa Barbara on Highway 101 or via the more direct route of Highway 154 is the Santa Ynez grape growing region. There are a dozen or so wineries in the area and wine tours are offered by several operators in Santa Barbara, but on this trip we elected what is arguably the most famous winery in the region – The Firestone Winery and Vineyard.
The drive to or from the winery is through beautiful country on either road. Highway 101 is the Pacific Coast Highway and for almost two thirds of the drive the road hugs the coast with spectacular views of the ocean and beaches. At Gaviota highway 101 turns sharply north and winds through pretty mountain scenery. The drive down highway 154 winds through mountain passes and across valley floors, reminding Patricia of the scenery around her home town in Cali, Colombia. We drove to the winery on Highway 154.
The Firestone family did an excellent job of building a winery that architecturally fits with the surroundings. The Firestone family (of Firestone tire fame) no longer owns the winery having sold it to a title company magnate a couple of years ago, but there are still many pictures of the Firestones in the tasting room and small museum.
As with many wineries tasting is no longer free. At Firestone, for a $15 charge you get to taste three white and four red wines and keep the large engraved wine glass. My palate is not good enough to discern the nuances of blackberry and apples and tannins in the wine that the tasting notes described, but we agreed we liked the Sauvignon Blanc white and the Cabernet Sauvignon red and bought a bottle of each to bring back to Houston.
Since there was little going on at the winery because of the season, the winery tour was short and succinct, but still quite interesting. The tour guide was knowledgeable and personable and gave out lots of facts that kept the tour interesting.

We drove back to Santa Barbara on Highway 101 with a stop at the Firestone Walker brew-pub and restaurant.

Reagan Library and Museum, Simi Valley, CA

Whether or not you are a fan of President Reagan, the Reagan Library and Museum should be on your list of places to visit before you die. The museum collection is humdrum and most of us have little interest in the library, but the price of admission is worth paying just to walk through the Boeing 707 that Reagan used as Air Force 1 – the Presidential jet.

The second reason for visiting is free of charge and that is to drink in the view that the mountain top retreat provides. On a clear day the lemon and orange groves around the town of Moorpark are clearly visible in the valley below. At this time of the year – in early winter – the slopes of the Santa Monica are bare and the lushness in the valley is less evident than in spring when the valley takes on a green coat of many hues, yucca plants proudly poke their single flower stems high into the air and the sight and smell of the orange and lemon groves waft softly up the hillsides.

A third reason to visit is to see a piece of the Berlin wall proudly displayed in the garden close to Reagan’s tomb. Many places purport to have pieces of the Berlin wall, this one is undoubtedly authentic.

Venice, CA

I have not yet investigated whether the canals came before the name or if the canals were built because of the name, but west of Los Angeles and south of Santa Monica is the town of Venice. And in Venice two or three blocks east of the beach are five parallel canals and two connecting cross canals.

The canals are a haven of tranquility. Each canal has a pedestrian path alongside, there is no commercial development, no restaurants, stores or souvenir shops and no traffic. Houses in many architectural styles line the paths and the canals, most with small yards just big enough for a patio table and chairs and a barbecue grill. Vehicular access to the houses is provided by single lane roads serving two rows of houses on the west bank of one canal and the east bank of a second canal.

This is a quiet place to walk – there are few places to sit – talk with your companion and enjoy the peace and quiet, the ducks and the beautiful urban surroundings. This is how city life should be lived.

So we walked and talked and laughed and took pictures and admired the houses and watched the ducks and gently wound down from the traumatic events at work. It was delightful.

After walking the canals, we walked the three blocks to the beach and enjoyed the bracing air blowing in from the Pacific Ocean.

Getty Center, Los Angeles, CA

Before last year I would have prefaced this note with a trite phrase along the lines of “it takes a lot to interest/excite/fascinate/amaze me” (choose the adjective that best fits the circumstances) That is no longer the case. Lots of things interest me, many excite and fascinate me and I am constantly amazed.

The Getty Museum, accessed from a special off ramp on Interstate 405 just north of LAX airport, interested, excited, fascinated and amazed us, and the whole experience cost less than $30 and that was only because we had to have refreshments. We could have done it for the parking/entrance fee of $10, but during the afternoon we had to sit – once for a latte and the second time for a lollipop.

http://www.getty.edu/


Patricia and I visited the Getty Center twice in four days and still only saw half of the exhibits and the garden. On the first visit we rented the audio tour guides and then spent two hours listening to detailed and fascinating descriptions of paintings on the upper floor of the North building, a section dedicated to paintings before 1700.

It was a beautiful day so we spent the next couple of hours walking through and enjoying the beautiful gardens. This was the highlight of our first days visit. The colors – even in December – were stupendous. There were hedges in two shades of green in circular patterns in the middle of a circular pond, bright red bougainvillea grew in a canopy through giant umbrellas fashioned from steel rebar, yellow, white and red roses with beautiful scents flowered profusely and bright yellow giant trumpets hung magically suspended from a large shrub that I haven’t yet found the name of.

We sat for a while and absorbed the beauty of the garden and the surroundings.

Our second visit was shorter and filled in time on the way to the airport and there is no better place to while away an hour or two. This time we quickly traversed the Carleton Watkins photo exhibit and a delightful room showing a progression of landscape photographic studies from the dawn of photography in the early 1800’s to the present day. Then we went upstairs and spent a very enjoyable hour amongst the Impressionists and Post Impressionists – Monet, Manet, Renoir, Degas, Cezanne, Van Gogh and Gauguin – admiring wonderful paintings with a degree of depth and detail that is amazing. This is a section we will come back to and spend more time looking at and – next time – listening.

San Antonio, Texas

Winter never really comes to the Texas Gulf Coast. Certainly there are those of us who actually like the hot and humid Houston summer and who complain when he temperature drops below 70 degrees F. In late November 2008 the temperatures have routinely been in the 60’s during the day and in the 40’s during the night – temperatures too cold to put the top down on the Flying Carpet. But occasionally we get a beautiful day that warms up to 77 or 78 degrees and stays that way until dusk falls.

A day like this occurred on the Wednesday before Thanksgiving so Patricia and I took the day off, put the top down on the Flying Carpet, and drove to San Antonio. We arrived a little before lunch, parked just north of the Alamo and walked down to the River Walk for lunch at Casa Rio (see a review at: http://pebblelisciously.blogspot.com/2008/12/tx-san-antonio-casa-rio-mexican-foods.html) After lunch we strolled along the River Walk, past the Arneson River Theater and up the arched walkway leading to La Villita Historic Arts Village. La Villita was San Antonio’s first neighborhood and today it has become a thriving art community that stands as a monument to San Antonio’s past.

Our mission today was to find an original painting of San Antonio – in any medium – for my library.

We started at the River Art Gallery and the Monte Wade Fine Art Gallery. Excellent paintings, but few originals, most of the paintings on sale were limited edition prints and this was not what I was looking for. The Starving Artists art gallery has original paintings, jewelry and pottery but nothing caught our imagination. In Galleria II we found a mural that was perfect but it was a limited edition print, so we took a break and walked through Scentchips smelling the many different assortments of scented wax they concocted for sale.

The owner of Scentchips suggested we check the San Antonio Visitors Center by the Alamo for other art shops, so off we went. The visitors center suggested a visit to the Blue Star Arts Complex in Southtown, so we hopped on a blue route trolley at the stop next to the Torch of Friendship red metal sculpture that is 30+ feet tall and impossible to miss at the junction of South Alamo and Commerce Street.

The trolley took us a couple of miles down South Alamo to the south end of Southtown to the Blue Star Arts Complex and Brewing Company. Unfortunately much of the artists workshop area was closed so we did not see anything to buy but we enjoyed visiting Stone Metal Press where limited edition prints of artists works are produced, and the Blue Star Contemporary Arts Center where a string of works by graduate students from the University of Texas art program were on display.

Frustrated in our quest once again, we decided to walk back so we could stop at El Sol Studios on the way and check them out. Interesting paintings, once again, mostly abstract, but not what I was looking for.

Somewhat discouraged we walked back to la Villita and had almost decided to buy a print when we spied the Little Studio Gallery and the Nueva Street Gallery we had somehow missed the first time around. There were a couple of oil paintings in Nueva Street Gallery that were close to what I was looking for but not quite and the owner of the gallery suggested we might like a painting hanging in the lobby of the San Antonio Chamber of Commerce. Determined, by this time, not to miss an opportunity, we walked out of La Villita and across the road to the Chamber of Commerce and looked through the window of the closed building. We were getting closer, but it was still not quite right so we headed back to la Villita for one last chance at the Little Studio Gallery.

Unfortunately, once again, it was not to be. The gallery had several interesting originals but either the size or the composition were wrong. Our good fortune, however, was that the person manning the store, Henry Cardenas, was one of the artists whose work was on display. He told us that the five artists who sold art in the store took turns in being the store salesperson.

I explained what I was looking for and Henry showed us some small pieces he had painted and we agreed he would paint something on commission for me. We explained we would like a painting of the Arneson River Theater in oil or watercolor and that the size should be 11’ x 13”. He agreed to the commission and said it might not be ready until Christmas which was OK for me.

To celebrate we walked to the Azuca Nuevo Latino for a beer and a coffee. (see a review at; http://pebblelisciously.blogspot.com/2008/12/tx-san-antonio-azuca-nuevo-latino.html ) After the beer we discovered we were quite weary so we caught the Blue Route trolley back to the Alamo, walked around the Alamo to the Flying Carpet and drove back to Houston with the top up. The air temperature had dropped considerably when dusk fell.

The Winter Holiday Art Market

The Heights district of Houston is divided into four roughly equal parts by the east-west traverse of Interstate 10 and the North-South run of Studemont Street. Three of the four quadrants, contain residences that have become desirable places to live because of the proximity to downtown and the ‘gentrification’ that has taken place in the area. The fourth quadrant, the South East part of the Heights, is the closest to downtown, and is the area containing warehouses and factories (including the Sunbeam bread factory) that provided work to many of the working class citizens who used to live in the Heights, before they were priced out by the young professional who wanted a house close to downtown in an affordable area.

One of the vacant warehouses has been bought by the Spacetaker, a non-profit Artist Resource Center in Houston’s First Ward, to provide young, emerging and mid-career artists with resources and tools that help them advance and manage their professional careers. Through their Artist Resource Center at the warehouse (2101 Winter Street) and via their websites, they give artists access to practical, professional services, including bi-weekly newsletters, low cost/high value PR and marketing, digital photography services, current technology, online portfolio space, and other career–building resources.

The warehouse was converted into a series of studios that artists can rent. The first weekend in December, on Friday, Saturday and Sunday, the wide corridors and open spaces alongside and between the studios on the first floor are occupied by artists displaying and offering for sale, a variety of art-works. There were artists selling pottery and ceramic bowls and tea pots, one artist selling wooden bowls and rings made from a variety of woods he had turned on a lathe, three or four artists selling brooches and necklaces and earrings and other jewelry and a dozen or so artists selling paintings in a variety of mediums.

Perhaps this is symbolic of the art market in Houston, but in all the paintings on show there wasn’t a single landscape or portrait or still life. Every painting on display and for sale fell into the abstract category. Some of the abstracts bore a passing resemblance to flowers or an occasional face, but the vast majority could not be tied to any tangible form. This is not a criticism, just an observation, though admittedly I went to the Art Market looking for a painting or paintings depicting Houston for my library.

I am not qualified to judge whether or not abstract art is good or not. There were some pieces that provided interesting contrasts of color and other pieces that had nice form and layout. It was a very interesting evening looking at the art and talking to the artists and we found a series of paintings that we thought would go perfectly with the Bosco Curich abstract in my den. So I took the thought home and thought more about it overnight, then next morning sat and stared at the Bosco and the space beside it on the wall and made a decision to go back and get the three paintings we’d seen the night before.

WHAM opened at noon on Saturday and we arrived at about 12:30 and walked straight to the artist’s table with the paintings. The paintings were not there. The artist told me a lady had bought them at 12:05 today after seeing them last night and then measuring the space on her wall.

I was, however, convinced I wanted those paintings so the artist – Marcela Garcia Bonini – offered to paint me three more that would be very similar. So once again I am to get paintings painted specially for me. These are called Time Lines VII, VIII and IX. Each painting is 9” x 12” and the three paintings should be mounted on the wall in a vertical line.

The adventure continues.

These are Time Lines III, IV and V. My paintings will be similar. I'll post the actual paintings when I receive them.