Day 2 and 3: Claremont and Pasadena

Day 2: Claremont and Pasadena

Pics: Fitness center and non-defunct elliptical, Duchamp repeated, lots of Voulkos, including the worst piece he ever made, a great Bennett Bean piece at AMOCA, our group practicing standing on one leg, Orozco and Lebrun murals, DB demo’ing how to sit in a Maloof chair, THB’s fave piece from the Norton Simon,

By now, you’ve figured out that THB got help solving the internet connection problem: Late last night, THB takes the HP Mini to the front desk where they diagnose the problem: IE works for connecting, Firefox does not work for connecting. Ah, it is a Microsoft world out there.

Fitness center and breakfast (huevos rancheros for THB, oatmeal and double latte for DB, included. First stop: American Museum of Ceramic Art IAMOCA, see pic). DB and THB were here a few years ago with S&M, it has moved since then into much larger and nicer quarters, including a huge (HUGE!) mural by Millard Sheets running the length of the main gallery. Millard was big in these parts during the 30s, 40s, and 50s, and many of the artists highlighted in PST got their start from his encouragement from his base at Scripps and other art schools, his running the art side of the LA County Fair (a big deal), and his stature as an artist.

While the work on display is not exactly scintillating, it is an extensive overview of the early work of important artists. From AMOCA we head to Claremont and Scripps College for a curator-led tour of a show highlighting early work by Voulkos, Mason and Price. Not a lot of work, most of it exceptional (see pics of mostly work by Voulkos, including one awful early piece Peter might wish had never been found).

Lunch at Walters, THB and DB share fish tacos and a Mediterranean salad and THB gets the chocolate chip cookie for dessert, included. From lunch we continue on to Pomona College and a tour of of their current PST exhibit (they are going to have three separate shows, each covering just a few years), a review of work from the early 70s and the influence of Hair, hippies, and happenings are all over the walls. A strong show, and a bunch of artists THB was not familiar with.

We then tour campus to see two huge murals, one by the now-everywhere Rico Lebrun (see pic) and the other by Orozco (see pic); there’s a cute back story to Orozco, it’s in the dining hall and at one point both the men and women objected).

We dawdle until around 5 and then hang out for over an hour at the Turrell (see prior posting for pics); we are starting to build up such a collection of Turrell viewings that THB is going to have to put together lists similar to those for the national parks and baseball parks. Several other people wander over during the showing, looks like some of them might come often (one brought a towel to support her back on the stone benches…truly a veteran).

We dine at Maison Akira in downtown Pasadena: French miatress d and Japanese chef. Food is pretty good though THB orders chicken in a wine sauce so he can’t really pick up that Japanese fusion thing. DB has salad (definitely Japaness-influence) and tuna tartare with sashimi, one glass of wine, approximately $45/person (there were three others with us).

Day 3: Pasadena

Pics: see above

Fitness center and shredded wheat with berries for THB and yogurt parfait and latte for DB, included (note: we are given coupons for breakfast, a value of $21, and this allows us to order just about anything on the menu…today, the Langham definitely makes money as they get reimbursed for $26 to cover food, tax, and tip no matter what we have for breakfast).

Our first tour of the day is at the Huntington Library, and the curator leads us through a show of Sam Maloof furniture (note: here’s how connected Millard Sheets was: he and his wife look like the guests of honor at Sam’s wedding, if there can be such a thing). The show is extremely well displayed: they have set up little household tableaus with Sam’s furniture and art and craft from the period on the furniture and walls.

Hal, the curator, has arranged for us to have lunch at The Athenaeum, where he is a member. It’s huge, and easily swallows up our group. It is so big, they don’t mind if we order off the menu. THB has a Vietnamese pork and chicken sandwich (Banh Mi) and DB goes slightly more traditional with a cheese sandwich and tomato soup (both excellent, and DB’s soup is definitely not the canned Campbell’s of our youth). Included

Off to the Norton Simon, formerly the Pasadena Art Museum (we seem to be collecting former sites of this museum as well); this time a paid docent led tour of the lithography exhibit. In this case, the connection to PST is through the legion of printers trained by the Tamarind Lithography Workshop so many well-known international artists are represented. Included is a work by Keinholz that is in part a print of the Five Card Stud. There were five made, and it turns out the Oakland Museum owns one as well.

Next up: a visit to a private collection where the couple has amassed several collections that will/have ended up at the Huntington Library. What they have in the house is an interesting mix of a few very high quality pieces (Kaneko, Woodman, Akimori), Native American pottery, Thiebaud lithos, large ceramic work by a relative, British woodcuts, a Maloof rocker. Not too many of anything, all displayed well, and no real clutter.

Closing dinner at the Langham: THB has a bad steak, poor salad and semi-decent dessert, DB has gnudi, decent salad (though it is the same as THB had, views differed on quality), and a semi-decent dessert (in this case the views aren’t different: DB doesn’t know, THB had half of each dessert). Included