Contemporary Collectors Council of Laguna Art Museum

Contemporary Collectors Council Los Angeles Trip

2011-11-15T11:44:00.000-08:00

photo courtesy of Lindsay Tognetti

The Contemporary Collectors Council inaugurated summer with a visit to nearby Los Angeles to view some of LA's many art offerings. The council began their trip with a morning visit to Simon Rodia's Nuestro Pueblo, as Rodia affectionately referred to his creation. The name translates to "our town" and it perhaps reflects the journey and ethos of builder turned sculptor Rodia, who immigrated to the U.S. from his native Italy. Rodia had the desire to build something monumental. Today the seventeen interconnected structures he built are commonly known as the Watts Towers.

photo courtesy of Lindsay Tognetti

Shells and 7-Up bottles adorn the tower spires and exterior.

photo courtesy of Lindsay Tognetti

Rodia labored on the towers for 34 years between from 1921 until 1955. At age 75 he gave the property to a neighbor and moved away never looking back on his creation.

photo courtesy of Lindsay Tognetti

Black silhouettes in the Tower's Noah Purifoy Gallery.

After lunch CCC members attended the Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art's exhibition, "Art in the Streets," one of the first major U.S. museum exhibitions to tell the history of graffiti and street art from Los Angeles to New York, tracing it's development from the 1970s to the global movement it has become today. The show focused on key cities and influences from gang to punk and skateboarding cultures that informed the style.

photo courtesy of Lindsay Tognetti

Our docent spoke about graffiti on New York trains and this collection of photo documentation.

photo courtesy of Lindsay Tognetti

Artist Swoon created this mixed media sculpture that CCC members are standing inside. The Ice Queen, 2011 created a delightful play of patterns and light in a canopy like structure.

photo courtesy of Lindsay Tognetti

The ubiquitous and secretive graffiti artist Bansky asked high school students to graffiti this canvas before overlaying a church window stencil to create a decidedly modern street art stained glass window.

photo courtesy of Lindsay Tognetti

Another follow-up from our last trip, CCC stopped at the Ernst & Young Office Plaza to see Ruth Pastine’s "Limitless" installation. Pastine spoke about her approach and sensitivity to architectural space and the use of such structures.

photo courtesy of Lindsay Tognetti

Another follow-up from our last visit, the CCC stopped athe the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels to view the tapestries of artist John Nava. The collection is the largest hanging in a Catholic Church in the U.S. and references the tradition of large scale pictorial wall cycles meant to vividly tell stories to largely illiterate populations of ancient and Medieval times.

photo courtesy of Lindsay Tognetti

To cap off our Los Angeles trip CCC members had the privilege of viewing the private collection of Monte Factor. This strange and odd tableau is artist Kienholz representation of the U.S. Supreme Court hearing of a child molestation case.

photo courtesy of Lindsay Tognetti

Mr. Factor, a Beverly Hills clothier has been active in social causes and along with his wife Betty, were early supporters of contemporary art in the city.

Contemporary Collectors Council trip to Ojai and Santa Barbara

2011-05-20T13:01:00.000-07:00

Outside view of artist John Nava's home

This April, our Contemporary Collectors Council went on a weekend adventure to Ojai and Santa Barbara. This trip was filled with a myriad of stops at various artists' studios and collectors' homes in addition to a visit to the Contemporary Arts Forum in Santa Barbara.

Artist, John Nava's studio was the first on the weekend adventure. The members of the CCC had the opportunity to view some of Nava's photo realist paintings and tapestries that recently won him Honor Award for Visual art by the the National Interfaith Forum on Religion, Art and Architecture Design.

John Nava talking about his art to the members of the CCC

A John Nava tapestry

After a delightful lunch at the Garden Terrace, the members of the CCC headed over to Ruth Pastine's studio. Pastine, who conjures up Finish Fetish works, laboriously working toward subtle color shifts in her painting, has also been acknowledged as a colorist, creating an environment as the paintings react to light and one's movement in space.

A work by Ruth Pastine

CCC members listening to Ruth Pastine

Gary Lang's studio was up next. This sculptor and painter focuses in abstraction, using repetition and vibrant colors in his work. His recent work includes concentric circles on round canvases, gridded paintings of colorful stacked lines that he calls "plaids," and striped paintings that recall some of David Simpson's early paintings.

Next, the CCC members ventured towards Richard Amend's studio. As an artist, Amend works in various mediums that include production design in film, set sketches, public art, and paintings. Through photographing sites for various film projects, Amend became drawn to painting. Filmic qualities can be seen in Amend's paintings.

Richard Amend's studio

Richard Amend lecturing enthusiastically about his art

Richard's wife, Susan Stinsmeuhlen-Amend, studio was next on the trip. Stinsmeuhlen-Amend works in glass and mixed media and is currently the Chair of the Ojai Arts Commission. Her works vary from wall mounts to small sculptural installations and public art sculptures.

The last stop at Ojai was a visit to collectors Carolyn Glasoe and Chris Bailey's home. These two have a very interesting contemporary eye as their collection frequently changes, which mainly houses blue chip artists mixed with emerging artists. Glasoe has been working as an art dealer in New York. IN addition to their collection, Glasoe and Bailey have a stunning home built by Kazumi Adachi in 1952.

On the first stop for the Santa Barbara end of the trip, the CCC members got the chance to visit collector Nancy Gifford. Gifford has dedicated her collection to contemporary artists based in Santa Barbara. As an advocate for bringing awareness to contemporary art in Santa Barbara, Gifford devotes her time to making numerous studio visits and has amassed a collection of about sixty artists from this region. Gifford lives in a beautiful new contemporary home with her husband and is currently continuing renovations on a home built by the architect Barry Berkus.

Art Collector Nancy Gifford and husband

Nancy Giffords home that houses various artworks by Santa Barbara artists

Next, the CCC members stopped by the Contemporary Arts Forum near the Santa Barbara Museum of Art. Founded in 1976, it is a space devoted solely to exhibition and promoting contemporary art. The members were able to see the current group exhibition Eating Apples in Paradise. In a region like Santa Barbara that consciously sold and established itself as a modern-day paradise, "CAF dares 12 local artists to take a bite out of the proverbial apple with an exhibition exploring the realities and ambiguities of living in such an Edenic location."

A CCC member posing in front of the CAF exhibition wall

The final stop on this weekend long trip was the Santa Barbara Museum of Art. The members had the chance to see the exhibition Charles Garabedian: A Retrospective that brings together approximately 60 works by the artist, representing his enture career with an emphasis on paintings and drawings produced during the years since his first (and last) major solo museum exhibitions in 1983.

CCC members eagerly visiting the Charles Garabedian Retrospective at the Santa Barbara Museum of Art

Contemporary Collectors Council's trip to Venice

2011-02-16T10:27:00.000-08:00

A piece by Laddie John Dill

This February, our Contemporary Collectors Council had the opportunity to visit various artists' studios in sunny Venice. The first stop of the day was a tour of artist Laddie John Dill's new studio. Dill's incorporates glass, cement, metal and natural oxides in his abstract sculpture and paintings to evoke landscapes, light and water reflections, as well as architectural spaces.

CCC members listening to Laddie John Dill

A detail side shot of Dill's pieces

A CCC member poses in front of Dill's work

The next artist the CCC visited was Charles Arnoldi, who takes on various mediums and tools from sticks to chainsaws to reflect gestural movements, as well as experimenting with form and color through a series of grids or ellipse paintings.

CCC members take a picture in front of Charles Arnoldi's studio (photo by Lindsey Tognetti)

One of Arnoldi's paintings

CCC members pose in front of various Charles Arnoldi pieces.

A group picture with Charles Arnoldi

Where Charles Arnoldi works his magic

For lunch time, the CCC dined at Joe's restaurant where they had a chance to devour entrees like Scottish Salmon or Mushroom Ravioli.

After a great lunch, the next studio was collage artist Alexis Smith. Smith takes on collages, assemblage and appropriation while referencing popular culture. Her work is rooted in Southern California art and is critically placed alongside Edward Kienholz, Ed Ruscha, and Vija Celmins.

Artist Alexis Smith posing for the camera (photo by Lindsey Tognetti)

Alexis Smith's work desk

Next, the CCC visited Charles Christopher Hill who creates multiple layered acrylic paintings, which provides a smooth surface that can be either transparent or opaque. As a minimalist, Hill's paintings may show seemingly simple gestures of rows of thick lines, spirals, and dots.

CCC members in front of a work by Charles Christopher Hill

A Charles Christopher Hill piece

A detail of the dripping edge of Hill's piece (photo by Lindsey Tognetti)

The last destination of this Venice trip was the studio of Ed Moses. An evermore dynamic painter today as he was decades ago, Moses' abstract paintings focuses on experimenting and broadening the limits of painting through a multitude of series.

CCC members having fun while listening to Ed Moses (photo by Lindsey Tognetti)

CCC members in front of works by Ed Moses

Contemporary Collectors Council Art in Laguna December 11, 2010

2010-12-21T11:54:00.000-08:00

The Contemporary Collectors Council December foray in Laguna Beach included studio visits with artist Barbara Berk, a long-time resident of Laguna Beach . Berk is currently in a group exhibition at Coastline Community College, and is currently shown in a group exhibition at Joanne Artman Gallery through January 30th, 2011. The CCC went on a visit to Berk's remarkable home and saw first-hand the connections the artist makes between drawings and her performances.

In addition, a prominent and historically significant artist, Tony DeLap, spoke about his most recent body of work. DeLap recently had an exhibition at Charlotte Jackson Fine Art in Santa Fe, New Mexico which received this review in the Albuquerque Journal.

Sandra and Jerry LeWinter generously hosted the CCC to a visit and tour of their private collection and home. The LeWinters collection includes work by Enrique Martinez Celaya, Kim Dingle, Yishai Judisman, and William Kentridge to name a few. The group was also treated to a tour of the 2010 California Biennial at OCMA curated by Sarah Brancroft.

Contemporary Collectors Council's Trip to Santa Fe

2010-11-19T13:23:00.000-08:00

The members of the CCC take a pose in front of Site Santa Fe

The beautiful scenery of the Santa Fe trip

To kick off the 2010-2011 season, the Contemporary Collectors Council (CCC) traveled to Santa Fe from September 22-25. Organized by CCC chair Johanna Felder and Jennifer Jacobs from the Jacobs Group, an ambitious itinerary was set with stunning and diverse private collections of William Miller, Richard and Betsy Ehrenberg, and Dr. Edward Okun.

CCC members take a tour with the Site Santa Fe lecturer

Members listening to a lecturer in the New Mexico Museum of Art

Additionally, the group received a tour of the Eighth International SITE Santa Fe Biennial, The Dissolve, curated by Sarah Lewis and Daniel Belasco; the New Mexico Museum of Art; and the Georgia O'Keeffe Museum.

CCC members listening very enthusiastically during a studio visit

Artist studio visits included Larry Fodor, Dirk De Bruycker, and Mary Mito. Gallery visits included Jane Sauer Gallery, Charlotte Jackson Fine Art, and the Lannan Foundation, with some time to spare at galleries along Canyon Road and the Railyard District. The CCC also took a trip to Abiquiu to visit Georgia O'Keeffe country around Ghost Ranch and a visit to the O'Keeffe home and studio. A few members remained an extra day to enjoy the Santa Fe Wine & Chile Fiesta at the beautiful Santa Fe Opera.

A member of the CCC saying hello to a Santa Fe local

Contemporary Collectors Council's June Trip

2010-06-29T10:40:00.000-07:00

Karen Feuer Schwager, a member of the Contemporary Collectors Council and also a contemporary fine artist, took a memorable trip to LA's Chinatown with the CCC and she graciously contributed an entry about her adventure.

The CCC's destination for the day, Chinatown in Los Angeles

June 6^th started as a mildly, foggy Laguna morning for the Contemporary Collectors Council's tour of Chinatown's gallery scene. There was a plethora of art to be experienced in LA’s nooks and crannies: including assemblages in gardens, muraled walls and painted cars. Our bus trip began with a video filling us in on the day’s itinerary pre- recorded by Grace Kook Anderson who was unable to join us, followed by a couple of excellent Georgia O’Keefe videos, provided by Johanna Felder, tempting us with a taste of what is expected from the September CCC trip to Santa Fe.

Charlie James giving a lecture to the CCC members

CCC members attentively listening to Charlie James

As we approached the Charlie James Gallery, our first stop, I immediately faced a dietary challenge to my days “no dessert” resolution. There, in the entrance, lay a table overloaded with a variety of mouthwatering pastries: petite four, chocolate and sponge cakes, and several cakes delightfully decorated with colorful butter cream icing. As I waited for the aroma to erase my resolve completely, I realized with equivocal relief that the pastries were a realistic installation of embroidered sculptures.

Delectable treats made from fibers by Orly Cogan

Cogan's audacious vintage pillowcases

The artist of this work, Orly Cogan, is a fiber artist who skillfully employs classic female crafts to contemporary imagery. Besides her representational approach to pastries, she also exhibited audacious and playful embroidery. Cogan often uses feminist and erotic images and sayings on vintage dollies, table cloths, and pillowcases.

Dane Johnson's lottery ticket pieces

Charlie James gave a great talk on Cogan’s process. (His helpful guidance continued throughout the day as he hosted our excursion to all the venues.) Next door, in the Sabina Lee Gallery, we observed Dane Johnson’s stark acrylic paintings of his collected remnant pieces of lottery tickets.

Next, we saw stormy, manic, intensely drawn textured landscape images by Pierre Picot at the Jancar Gallery. Although Picot is a trained artist, his work, in my opinion, maintains a raw repetitious gestural outsider art quality. A few surprises lay tucked on the floor, such as intriguing works by Mary Lynn McCorkle who incorporated buckling, medium coated, rayon cloth which created a relief element to partially obscure an intricate painting.

Alia Malley describing her piece to CCC members

On to the Sam Lee Gallery saw an exhibition of the richly detailed landscape photographs of Alia Malley. Malley’s photographs capture the moody, painterly effect of a John Constable scene and the feeling of a passing era. Her imagery displays secluded, rare city pockets of natural pastoral settings that are yet to be urbanized.

We took a needed brain break with a lunch of dim sum at Ocean Seafood.

Asad Faulwell talking about his culturally infused art

one of Faulwell's piece

After lunch, we hopped on the bus to visit a young, edgy, emerging LA-based artist Asad Faulwell. Faulwell uses a culturally traditional Afghani approach to his large colorful paintings in which he combines contemporary secular figures from modern Middle Eastern history with Western and Eastern religious iconography to make subtle political statements.

Tim Campbell speaking to his guests

Last venue, but not the least, was an extravagantly catered cocktail hour at the home of Tim Campbell and his husband Steve Machado. Campbell, a self taught building designer, created a four-story industrial construction which is beautifully designed to present his art collection of politically charged, contemporary, figurative, and conceptual work merged with antique African and Far Eastern artifacts. Climbing the impressive grated stairwell to the main floor gave me a feeling of being in an Escher litho and, as I looked below to see the switch back overlapping grid pattern and my curious fellow travelers passing in alternate directions below me, a slight feeling of vertigo.

A painting by Travis Somerville dominated the dining room. Somerville’s bold work is based on racial and political themes. We are fortunate that he is currently participating in Laguna Art Museum’s exhibition Art Shack.

The sky was darkening as we drove through the canyon to Laguna’s calming pastoral scene of the goats munching on the dry grassy hills. An end to a memorable day!

CCC Day Trip to Pomona and Claremont

2010-06-15T10:28:00.000-07:00

In earlier April of this year, the Contemporary Collectors Council took a day trip to Pomona to visit the Andi Campognone Projects exhibition, Curiosities of the Curio, along with his and Alex Couwenberg's private collection of works, and also a visit to the Pomona College Museum of Art and the studio of Karl Benjamin.

Contemporary Collectors Council listen in on a lecture

The group started the day by exploring the Curiosities of the Curio, which celebrates the collecting of ktischy objects we hold with sentimental value. The small works that resemble curio, the bizarre objects, are inspired by personal momentos ranging from family heirlooms to random objects one finds at a thrift store. Throughout the exhibition, the works continuously provoked a sense of curiousity among the group as they encountered pieces such as Laurie Hogin's peculiar portraits of odd spotted bunnies and pink and green monkey-people banging on drums that resembled human skulls. Moira Hahn's Japanese prints portraying parrot-headed geishas as opposed to beautiful women emphasized the strangeness of these curios.

Next up, the group visited the private collection of Andi Campognone. This private rendevous for the CCC not only included works of Campognone, but also incorporated the paintings of Alex Couwenberg, which are similar to the works of Karl Benjamin.

After Lunch, they visited the Pomona College Museum of Art which held three different exhibitions. The first exhibition was Helen Pashgian's Working in Light. As a pioneer light and space artist, her use of industrial materials offer a various range of optical and color possibilites. In these works Pashgian brings together small scultpures from the past and current larger-sized light columns as she continues her work to portray the spatial qualities of color in light.

The Project Series 40: Amanda Ross-Ho exhibition was next the list. Ross-Ho's site specific installation concentrated on the mutability and materiality of context. She incorporates paintings, sculpture and installation pieces that observe the boundaries of exhibition space, the direct and indirect products of creative expression, and the connectivity of the visual world.

Finally, the group visited Famous for 15: From Andy Warhol to your Camera-Phone. As Warhol stated "In the future everyone will be world-famous for fifteen minutes," this exhibition circles around the idea of that statement. The exhibition observes the curiosities of instantaneous fame based on the modernization of technology, primarily photography, and the connection of that fame to camera-phones photos.

In addition to the exhibitions, the group also visted two mural sites: Rico Lebrun's Genisis and Jose Clemente Orozco's Prometheus. LeBrun's mural serves to portray a visual and symbolic center through the display of Noah sheltering a child. Surrounding Noah are also represenations of other significant places and people of the Bible; the Deluge, Job, Sodom and Gomorrah, Cain and Abel, and Adam and Eve. Orozco, who is also known as one of "los tres grandes," the three great Mexican muralists, painted Prometheus as his first work in America and also the first Mexican mural in North America, and thus began the Mexican Mural Movement.

The shallow pool from Dividing the Light

James Turrell's metal canopy shading the seating area

The group made one last stop at Pomona College at James Turrell's Skyspace: Dividing the Light. In a piece that incoporates the use of lighting elements, a floating metal canopy, and a transparent courtyard, Turrell's installation helps to heightens the audience's awareness of light, sky and space.

Karl Benjamin showing pieces of his work

Finally, at the end of the day, the Contemporary Collectors Council visited the studio of Karl Benjamin. The group was given the opportunity to talk to the artist about how he created the genesis of geometric abstraction. As a self taught artist, he started his career as a grade school teacher. His intesity in art evolved and eventually he became a member of the "Four Abstract Classicists," which started with an exhibition in the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. As a leading member of the "Hard Edge" movement, Benjamin focused on saturated and sunny colors that resonates with one another in the environment of his geometric designs and gave way to an assortment of shapes and patterns.

Riverside, yes!

2010-02-03T13:52:00.000-08:00

The Contemporary Collectors Council had another lively and successful trip, this time, to Riverside on Saturday, January 30. We had a dynamic group of council members and we’re fortunate enough to include Peter Clothier’s reflection of this trip. This is from Peter’s blog The Buddha Diaries.

Before it gets left behind, I need to report on that remarkable and entertaining day, last Saturday, in the company of members of the Contemporary Collectors Council at the Laguna Art Museum. As new members of this Council (we become more rooted, slowly, in the Laguna Beach community), Ellie and I signed up for the day trip to Riverside, to become acquainted with the art life of that city.

I was fortunate to find myself, on the bus, in a little four-seat nook, around a table in the company of the museum’s curator of exhibitions, Grace Kook Anderson (who took many of the photographs included here,) and two well-informed and eloquent fellow passengers. Our engrossing conversation about art, collections, trends, and the museum itself kept us fully occupied for the outward journey, leaving me surprised that we arrived so soon at our first destination, the home and studio of the British painter David Leapman.

This was a great stop. The house, a rather bland-looking tract home from the outside, was crammed with David’s paintings, large and small. (Please check out the "gallery" on his website, above, for better images than I could provide.) He’s a versatile painter who happily combines a remarkable diversity of approaches, from hard-edge minimalism to gestural abstraction, from figurative and narrative line-drawing to surfaces textured with diamond dust and glitter—all in a single canvas. The result is enchanting. David also proved to be an excellent speaker....

He describes his works in the words of the Romantic British poet and artist William Blake, as journeys “from innocence to experience.” The images he evokes—they are never quite explicit—tend to hover in the space of the painting, teasing the eye and mind without ever quite resolving themselves, existing in the realm of dream or fantasy against the solid, intense reality of their painted ground. The viewer is invited into the space in the same spirit as the painter himself, as a voyage of discovery that will never fully reveal its inner secrets. That David manages this in small, even tiny works as well as large canvases is testament to his thoroughly engaging skills.

We left David’s studio reluctantly, boarding our bus for the drive to another house that seemed, from the outside, no more than another tract home in a community of tract homes. The front door opened, however, into a rich fantasy land of art that fairly took your breath away. It seemed that every inch of wall, shelf and floor space was occupied with some object or other to amuse the eye. And I use that word with its old association with the muse… True collectors are an odd species. They don’t know where to stop. Their passion is consuming, and knows literally no bounds. As my late father-in-law, who was one, used to say, it’s an addiction.

To say that Connie Ransom and her husband are addicted to collecting seems a radical understatement. Connie herself...

... seen here, holding forth to the group, is a ceramic artist, so naturally, along with her own work, the shelves, high and low, are crowded with the work of potters, new and old, with stunning examples of the Native American tradition. There are glass objects, too, everywhere, along with an outstanding selection of Oaxacan animals...

... carved in wood with exquisite line detail. And art objects, assemblages, and paintings—hundreds of them, each finding its own space. The taste of these collectors ranges from elegant abstraction to landscape and raw political provocation. Their standard seems to be excellence, no matter what the medium or style. I was personally impressed not only by the diversity of the collection, but also by the evidence it offered that the quality of art objects has nothing to do with an artist’s fame or standing in the mainstream of American art. It's not all about celebrity and money. There are great numbers of wonderful artists at work in all parts of the country, whose names are not bandied about in the national art journals. If you’ll forgive the expression, they “persist.”

The natural vista outside the Ransom’s house is as compelling as the art within. Set at the very edge of the housing development, where civilization meets wilderness, the house is surrounded on two sides by towering boulders and, below, a deep ravine...

... savaged recently in dramatic fashion by a week of heavy rains. Across, on the other side of the ravine, a steep hillside where both flora and fauna flourish. A hawk’s nest adorns a distant telegraph pole, and we learn that coyote are frequent visitors, along with the occasional mountain lion. On a distinctly smaller scale, a hummingbird had built its tiny, immaculate nest in the branches of an evergreen tree outside the kitchen window; I was thrilled with the sight of the nest itself, but unfortunately missed what others saw—the mother bird herself, returning to feed her two recently-hatched young. (I hope to post a good picture in a separate entry.)

The next step of our trip brought us to a downtown plaza where, on the walk from our bus to the restaurant, we were surprised to pass a memorial dedicated to Mahatma Gandhi—a statue of the great teacher and leader surrounded by inspirational quotations from both himself and others about his extraordinary contribution to the world. Nice, as one of our number noted, to have a peace memorial. We have too many of the war variety. On, then, to the restaurant, Phood, where Ellie and I were fortunate to enjoy a good lunch in the company of our next guide, Tyler Stallings, who was formerly the curator at the Laguna Art Museum and is now Director of the Sweeney Art Gallery of UC Riverside. It was good to have the opportunity to catch up with him, and to learn from him a good deal about the cultural life of the city and developments at the arts complex that includes the Sweeney, the California Museum of Photography next door, and the renovation of the adjacent old department store as a fine arts creative and research center for multiple media.

Tyler’s introduction prepared us for the next step along the way, a visit to that same complex of buildings. Our first stop was at the photography museum, where we met with the Executive Director of the complex, Jonathan Green, also a professor in the university’s Art Department. He described the ambitious development project, and led us through a back door into the huge and splendid department store space which is currently under renovation...

Once it opens, as I understand it, the building will not only host exhibitions and performances, it will provide studios and working labs for video, photography and film—a truly creative environment that students can look forward to. In these days of severe academic retrenchment in California, it’s an encouraging sign that creativity and imagination will continue to occupy an important place in the system. No doubt it was all planned and funded before things came crashing down…

From there, we were led to the second floor of the photography museum for a visit to a fascinating exhibition documenting the history of the digital camera. That the entire history dates from only 1987 is pretty amazing, given the ubiquity of digital recording devices of all kinds today, from advanced camera systems to the cell phone that virtually everybody owns. I have talked elsewhere about the dizzying multiplication of visual images with which we are bombarded daily. Here, we were treated to the story of the technology that makes them possible, in the form of an exhaustive collection of the devices themselves, loaned to the museum by David Whitmore Hearst Jr. Ellie and I were happy to note that our old Canon Elph was included in a museum show!

Tyler Stallings led us, next, to the Sweeney Art Gallery and offered us a insightful tour of his own exhibition there, Intelligent Design: Interspecies Art—the title itself a witty twist on the junk science of “creationism.”

The show brings together the work of artists working in a diversity of media—from still photography to various forms of documentation, video and more traditional art media—to explore the fascinating possibilities of interspecies communication. There’s space here only for a couple of highlights: Carlee Fernandez, who mocks our casual human use of leather by turning real taxidermied animals into articles of luggage; Hilja Keading’s mural-sized video installation, where she films her fragile human self sharing a small space with an enormous live bear, revealing their tenuous, curiously tender co-existence; and another video by Corinna Schnitt, who places a slowly rotating camera at the center of a large, furnished living room into which alien environment she gradually introduces animals and birds of different species...

It’s in part a comment on the way we live, the way they live, their strangeness, our strangeness…

We could have spent much more time—and I much more space, here—on this show, but, as with all organized tours of this kind, the scheduled called. From the Sweeney, we walked up the street to the Riverside Art Museum to see curator Andi Campognone’s exhibition, Edenistic Diversions, a somewhat irreverent riff on the venerable tradition of landscape painting that includes the work of four artists, three of them working with large-scale installations (There's a nice installation shot at her website, above.) . We met with the curator, who had invited three of the artists to talk about their work: Kimber Berry, who creates massive flows of paint that spread from ceiling to wall and out across the floor, using color, light and movement to create a wrap-around effect (see her website); Rebecca Niederlander, whose floor-to-ceiling waterfall of delicate, white paper construction and vast, drifting clouds of knitted household wire and plastic insulated cable gracefully occupy the center of the exhibition space (see installation shot); and Lisa Adams, the most traditional in the rectangular format of her paintings, whose fascination with birds is the focal point of works that blend fanciful delight with the threat of ecological doom. One of her two paintings in the show is on the home page of her website. An interesting show, especially in conjunction with “Intelligent Design.” Artists are clearly paying attention to the vulnerable natural world, and to the dangerously dominant role we play in it.

Our last stop for the day was at Tio’s Tacos—not for the tacos: we had only recently finished lunch, but for the art. Tio, it turns out, is one of those wonderful obsessives who, like Simon Rodia of Watts Towers fame or Grandma Prisbey whose Bottle Village is unhappily deteriorating, is driven to turn detritus into art.

Tio has turned the back yard of his restaurant into a fantasy land where every imaginable piece of trash has been recycled...

... into objects and structures of hilarious beauty, from towering giants constructed out of bottles and cans to chapels...

... with burning incense, and shrines where fountains play and water runs. Tio has enlisted the help of family to the task, his delightful wife and three young daughters, but he must be up very early in the morning to work on his creation and get the tacos made and sold; he is also the chief chef in his own kitchen.

I was happy to be reminded that art is still not only the privilege of a wealthy elite in this country, but that a man like Tio is inspired by the same creative urge, and that those who come to enjoy his tacos are equally inspired by the results of his efforts. It was an English king—one of the Charleses?—who on first walking into the new, Christopher Wren-designed St. Paul’s Cathedral after the Great Fire of London had destroyed the old one, declared it “awful, artful, and amusing.” The quote is often used to demonstrate how the meaning of words shifts over the centuries, but I like its double meanings. They seem to apply to Tio’s wonderful adventure.

Diversity, it seemed to me, was the theme of the day. All in all, a great day in Riverside. And we didn’t even stop at the famous Mission Inn!

Upcoming January CCC Trip: Riverside

2009-12-30T16:29:00.000-08:00

The next highly anticipated Contemporary Collectors Council trip is upon us! On January 30th CCC will make its way to Riverside to explore the wonderful culture and art the area has to offer, organized by Tyler Stallings, director of Sweeney Art Gallery at the University of California, Riverside.

The first stop will be to the studio of the talented London-born painter, David Leapman, who will give a personal explanation of his most recent works. Following the studio visit, the group will then head to the wonderful collection of Connie Ransom, whose art collection is displayed in her home that offers a magnificent and unique view of the wilderness of the county. The CCC will then break at lunch at the highly-praised and creative restaurant, Phood, located in the beautiful Historical Mission Inn District of Riverside.

Following lunch, it is a quick stroll across the street to the Sweeney Art Gallery where the exciting tour of the exhibition, Intelligent Design: Interspecies Art, will be led by the former Laguna Art Museum’s curator, Tyler Stallings. Next up will be a visit next door to the California Museum of Photography for a tour of the current exhibition, The End of Film: A Brief History of Digital Photography 1987-2009. An insightful tour will be given on this show that is second in a series of presentations of the riches of David Whitmire Hearst Jr.’s extraordinary, encyclopedic camera collection. The last visit will be to the Riverside Art Museum where the artists of the main exhibition, Edenistic Divergence, take an in-depth look into the role of landscape art through a contemporary lens. Finally, the trip will conclude with a snack at Tio’s Tacos, a cantina that offers delicious Mexican cuisine as well as a wonderful outsider art environment.

All Museum Members are invited to join the Contemporary Collectors Council. Council dues are $100 per person per year. For more information, please contact CCC Chair Johanna Felder.

Contemporary Collectors Council December Trip: Laguna

2009-12-30T15:48:00.000-08:00

The Contemporary Collectors Council reached full capacity for the Saturday, December 5th excursion. The council visited several artist studios including Jorg Dubin, Cheryl Ekstrom, Dennis Ekstrom, Brad Coleman, and Jeff Peters. The group also enjoyed a private tour of Yasuko Bush’s exhibition at Arin Contemporary Art and tour the private collection of Ellie and Peter Clothier in Laguna Beach. In the afternoon, the council lunched at K'ya Bistro.

Upcoming Contemporary Collectors Council Trip in December

2009-11-02T10:55:00.000-08:00

In Store for December

Join the Contemporary Collectors Council for a local visit to several artist studios including Jorg Dubin, Cheryl Ekstrom, Dennis Ekstrom, Virginia Katz, and Jeff Peters. We will also tour a private collection in Laguna Beach and we’ll stop for lunch at K’yas. Since this is a very local excursion, we will carpool.

All Laguna Art Museum members are invited to join the Contemporary Collectors Council. Dues are an additional $100 per person per year. The cost for the December 5th art trip is $45 for CCC members, $65 for non-members of CCC. For more information on how to join, please contact CCC Chair Johanna Felder at johanna@felders.net.

San Francisco Day 4 – Sunday, September 27, 2009

2009-10-06T10:56:00.000-07:00

Day 4 – Sunday, September 27, 2009

We began our day in the Presidio to see Andy Goldsworthy’s Spire (2008). With the old felled trees in the Presidio, Andy created a sculpture that is meant to be ephemeral as in all his works. Over time, the younger, newly planted trees will grow and surround the sculpture.

After brunch, our final visit was to the de Young Museum in Golden Gate Park before the group headed back to the airport.

San Francisco Day 3 – Saturday, September 26, 2009

2009-10-01T11:02:00.000-07:00

Day 3 – Saturday, September 26, 2009

We headed out to San Gregorio bright and early to meet Jane Rosen and assistant/artist, Terrance Tierney. Visiting Jane and Terry was a perfect way to start the day. Jane’s professors in college were Chuck Close and Sol le Witt, but Jane was disconnected to the rise of conceptual art stating, “I don’t like to read standing up.” Early on in her career, Jane was very much aware of understanding who her audience is. She wanted people of all backgrounds to understand her work. Similar to Constantin Brancusi and David Nash, Jane is interested in using the story of art to talk about nature.

From San Gregorio, we drove a few miles north to Half Moon Bay to meet with Ann Hollingsworth in her studio. Ann works with glass, but often her work resembles forms in nature such as petrified wood, shells, and rock formations. Ann was first influenced by her visit to the Corning Museum of Glass in New York several years ago and became fascinated by the process of glass-making. On the upstairs level of Ann’s studio, there are collections of pods, seashells, and other glass works which gives a sense of a cabinet of curiosities.

After lunch, we headed back to downtown San Francisco, visiting a few galleries at 49 Geary. At Haines Gallery, Lisa Lindenbaum gave us a walkthrough of their current exhibitions Adou: Samalada and Julia Oschatz: Odd One Out. We also had a chance to see the gallery’s beautiful back room with an installation by Andy Goldsworthy and works by Max Cole, Mike Henderson, David Nash and Max Gimblett. All the way down the hall is Brian Gross Fine Art with new work by Freddy Chandra, Listening Sequence. And before we left the building, we popped into Gregory Lind Gallery to see Anders Ruwald: Almost Nothing (sculptures) and Aaron Parazette: Air Drop (paintings).

The group went to Catharine Clark Gallery to see Sandow Birk’s American Qur’an and Packard Jennings Afghanistan 1985. American Qur’an is an on-going project where Sandow hand-transcribes and illuminates the Holy Qur’an and illustrates contemporary American life. Packard’s Afghanistan 1985 uses three appropriated films illustrating a humorous dialogue between Regan, the Taliban, and the Soviets. Packard’s film looks at the use of propaganda and the problem of media.

We finished our visit with Frey Norris Gallery looking at the works of Mary Anne Kluth and Laurel Roth. Both artists are interested in the production science and perhaps a personal understanding of science. Laurel creates intricate sculptures with wood or common objects such as fake fingernails, barrettes, and false eyelashes, such as in Birds of Paradise. Anne Kluth meticulously paints the subjects of people and their aim to understand the sciences.

Our evening ended with dinner at Plouf. Items on our menu included: sautéed California calamari with baby spinach, olive tapenade, parsley and garlic; grilled sea bass Mediterranean with pine nut couscous, arugula salad, and Plouf harrisa; and for dessert, banana profiteroles with warm chocolate sauce.

San Franciso Trip Days 3 and 4

2009-09-30T16:05:00.000-07:00

Exciting summaries and photos of Days 3 and 4 of the CCC San Francisco trip will be updated tomorrow...

San Francisco Day 2 – Friday, September 25, 2009

2009-09-30T15:24:00.000-07:00

Day 2 – Friday, September 25, 2009

Our first stop on Friday morning was at the studio of Walter Robinson and Ray Beldner. Ray began discussing his work and various projects of working with currency, collecting homeless signs, using found words, such as two-word phrases. Walter also mentioned his interest in two-word phrases and how he was interested in the certain archetypes, such as icons in advertising. His more recent body of work, Transport series, looks at the fall of the automotive industry.

At SFMOMA we had a brief tour of the current exhibit Richard Avedon: Photographs 1946-2004 then ended our tour at the new rooftop before heading to lunch.

Our next stop was at Amy Ellingson’s studio. Amy discussed her interest in formal repetition. In Identical/Variation series (2004-2006), Amy essentially creates works that are the same form, but vary in subtle color differences and order of layering. Through this process, Amy creates an interrelated system of forms.

In our visit to Kelli Yon’s studio, we saw some new photographs as well as series from as early as 1997. Often working in series, Kelli works with subjects that are intimate and close at hand, such as her family, unusual landscapes, and estate sales.

Our final stop of the day was at Queens Nails Projects (QNP). QNP is an artist-run space that is dedicated to presenting experimental projects for artist and curators. Julio Cesar Morales was the co-founder in 2004. We were greeted by co-curator Zoe Taleporos who gave us a background of the alternative space and its mission. Ian McDonald whose work is currently showing at QNP discussed the blurring in his work of hierarchy and between function and design. We were pleased to learn that Ian is originally from Laguna Beach where he was first exposed to ceramics. Behind QNP there are several studios and CCC had a chance to meet with photographer, Maggie Preston. Maggie aims to use photography to capture itself.

And finally, the CCC ended the evening with a fantastic dinner at Bar Bambino. Every dish was special, but just to name a few: Pesche cotte – grilled peaches, crisp prosciutto, shaved parmesan and dandelion greens tossed with balsamic vinaigrette; Papardelle with sugo di coniglio – House-made pasta with a divine braise of rabbit; and Una tazza di cioccolata – a flourless chocolate cake made with bittersweet chocolate, topped with chocolate sauce and crumbled espresso beans.

San Francisco Day 1 – Thursday, September 24, 2009

2009-09-30T15:08:00.000-07:00

Day 1 – Thursday, September 24, 2009

The CCC arrived in San Francisco in the early afternoon and headed out for lunch at the popular Slanted Door restaurant. Afterward, the group walked to the first appointment to see the Gap Collection with a walkthrough given by Abner Nolan. The first work we saw was the impressive 60-foot tall Richard Serra sculpture, Charlie Brown (2000). Doris and Don Fisher (Gap’s CEOs) began collecting in the mid-70s and believed early on in collecting artist’s works throughout their lifetime, providing an insight into an artist’s entire career and practice. Most of the art collected are made after WWII by American and European artists and the collection includes artists such as Duane Hanson, Sol le Witt, George Segal, Gerhard Richter, Andy Warhol, Agnes Martin, Georg Baselitz, Chuck Close, and William Kentridge.

After an impressive tour, we were blown away again at the home of Robin Wright, the co-chair at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA). The private collection included works by Sol le Witt (just at the entrance), Tara Donovan, Liza Lou, Marcel Duchamp, Lawrence Weiner, Carl Andre, Martin Creed, Ed Ruscha, Sigmar Polke, Bruce Nauman, Thomas Ruff, Richard Prince, and Joseph Bueys, just to name a very few. It was impressive to learn how Wright’s family lives so intimately with the art, often working with artists on commissioned works.

The following day, we read in the paper that the Fisher’s collection will be housed at SFMOMA:

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2009/09/25/national/a143214D98.DTL.

And just two days later, we learned that Don Fisher died at the age of 81: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/09/28/MN6E19TL93.DTL.

Donald Fisher with Brice Marden's "The Sister," a piece in his collection.

Photo: Mike Kane/ The Chronicle

Upcoming San Francisco Trip

2009-08-03T13:40:00.000-07:00

The Contemporary Collector’s Council is putting together a trip to San Francisco from September 24 to September 27. We plan to visit SFMOMA (and their new rooftop sculpture garden), the De Young Museum, the Gap collection, as well as prominent artists and private collections. All members of Laguna Art Museum are welcome.

(Image: SFMOMA Rooftop Garden; Photo: Henrik Kam)

June 2009

2009-07-06T13:42:00.000-07:00

Lita Albuquerque’s studio is Santa Monica was the CCC’s first stop. In her light-filled studio, Albuquerque, an internationally renowned artist, explained her practice. In particular, Albuquerque focused on her most recent project Stellar Axis which connects to her current projects in New Delhi and Paris. After lunch, a full itinerary was set in Culver City - Susanne Vielmetter Los Angeles Projects to see exhibitions on Whitney Bedford and Suzanne Lacey; S. LaCienega Boulevard galleries including Blum & Poe, LAX Art, Taylor de Cordoba, and Walter Maciel Gallery. The group also visited Center for Land Use Interpretation (CLUI), an untraditional space given to looking at the land as a curatable medium. Lastly, and even less traditionally, a few in the group couldn’t resist the stop next door into the Museum of Jurassic Technology where things real and historic are questionable, but certainly fun.

April 2009

2009-07-06T13:32:00.000-07:00

CCC spent a day in Century City and Santa Monica. The first stop was at the Creative Artists Agency in their Century City headquarters with a docent tour of their architecture and renewed contemporary art collection. The second stop in Century City is the newly opened Annenberg Space for Photography to view their opening exhibit L8S ANG3LES: Perspectives of Eleven LA Photographers which includes the works of John Baldessari, Carolyn Cole and Catherine Opie. All based in Los Angeles, the exhibition reveals the influence of the city in multiple genres of fine art, architecture, photojournalism, fashion, and documentary. After lunch at Soleil’s in Westwood, the group headed to Santa Monica Museum of Art and received a very special tour of Ethiopia’s most original and prolific artists, Elias Simé (his painting, Filega 4, above). The exhibition was titled Eye of the Needle, Eye of the Heart curated by Meskerem Assegued, a revered Ethiopian curator and anthropologist, and visionary theater, opera, and multi-disciplinary artist Peter Sellars. Simé happened to be at the exhibition, so council members had a chance to ask some questions to the curators and artist. The group ended the visit with Mark Moore and Shoshana Wayne galleries in Bergamot Station to view the exhibitions of Japanese artist, Kenichi Yokono, Canadian artist, Kim Dorland, and Israeli sculptor, Zadok Ben David.

February 2009

2009-07-06T11:24:00.000-07:00

The Contemporary Collectors Council had a high-energy trip in February beginning with a lively studio visit with Mario Ybarra, Jr. With thoughtfulness and humor, Ybarra, who has been receiving international recognition, lives and runs his studio space in Wilmington where he was raised. Ybarra along with his wife, Karla Diaz, also founded Slanguage in 2002, a workshop collective bringing artistic collaboration with local teenagers. The group then visited the Museum of Latin American Art for a fantastic docent tour led by Harold Cannon. In addition to looking at the Museum’s permanent collection, Cannon also led the group through the exhibition of Puerto Rican artist Arnaldo Roche (b. 1955). The next stop was to Ali Smith’s studio. In December, 2007, Smith was included in Christopher Knight’s article “45 Painters Under 45” in the Los Angeles Times and Smith’s work was also featured in our live auction component this past weekend. Lastly, the group visited the private collection of Greg Escalante. Escalante co-owns Copro-Nason Gallery and is the curator of Juxtapoz magazine. Escalante is also known as a legend among the enthusiasts of lowbrow art.

November 2008 Trip

2009-07-06T10:13:00.000-07:00

On November 15, the group, including Grace Kook-Anderson, Laguna Art Museum’s new Curator of Exhibitions, visited the studios of artist Wayne White and Oliver Arms. After a delicious lunch at McCormick & Schmick’s, which is surrounded by significant art in public places including the controversial Robert Graham fountain, the group visited the Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA) and had a docent tour of the Louise Bourgeois exhibition. Next, the group visited the joint exhibition of Ed and Andy Moses where both father and son graciously agreed to have their picture taken with the group.

Portland Trip, 2008

2009-05-06T10:33:00.000-07:00

Laguna Art Museum’s Contemporary Collectors Council had a spectacular four-day art trip to Portland, Oregon for Time Based Art Festival 2008. The dedicated group left from Orange County Airport on a Thursday morning 7:00 a.m. flight and returned home on Sunday evening. This trip was led by CCC Chair Johanna Felder and included Museum Director Bolton Colburn and staff member Bibe Stockman. The council used the resources of the Jacobs Group and traveled by chartered bus to galleries, wine tastings, and gourmet restaurants.A highlight of the trip was a visit to the Bullseye Glass Company. Here, the group was able to view the process of making colored glass and were given a tour of the home and collection of founders Dan Schwoerer and Lani McGregor. Another special event was visiting the home of Ivan Gold, who provided detailed and enthusiastic anecdotes to the council as they viewed his superb contemporary glass art collection.