Super Spandex Singalong: Leslie Hall Part Deux

Here's a little glimpse at the soundtrack in my head right now: Enjoy the above video by Leslie and the Lys wherein artist Leslie Hall waxes lyrical about how the perfect pair of stretchy pants unleashes her inner tigress.

So, you all know how I feel about Leslie Hall and her gem sweater efforts (see my blog from April 6, 2011 ). Well, she's equally passionate about stretchy spandex pants. Discouraged by the lack of fabulous spandex for women her size, Leslie began crafting her own leggings and offering them for sale. She also immortalizes her love for the garment in a ridiculously infectious song I just can't get out of my mind! Carissa and I are dying to catch a Leslie and the Lys show if they ever come to San Diego.

Later,
Beth

NOW READING: Just Kids, by Patti Smith

Just like my travels lately, my book reading patterns have been as such: finish one, immediately pick up another. After finishing a humorous travel novel called “Do Travel Writers Go to Hell?” by Thomas Khonstamm, I’ve immediately picked up Patti Smith’s 2010 memoir, “Just Kids”. While it has been a quick transition from silly to serious between the two, I’ve welcomed the change. I have an affinity towards reading about the suffering artist (e.g.: Bukowski, Plath, Kerouac, Di Prima, etc.) so this book slides right in as a great leisure read. Months ago I did some research on a piece in our private collection by Robert Mapplethorpe. The Center Museum has one of his flower photographs in its possession and it needed a didactic label.  I poured over all the information I could find available about the artist and, much to the disapproval of my smug security guards, found myself completely enamored with Mapplethorpe and his work.  This book is yet another avenue of information that is equally telling about both artists, but is written first-hand in pure, poetic, Patti Smith-style.  So far, I’ve only just begun to get into Patti’s move to NYC, where she unknowingly meets Mapplethorpe in passing, and I can’t seem to put this one down. Maybe it’s just that time of the month, or maybe it’s my recent entrance into the online dating world (don’t judge!), but I’m feeling especially drawn to rom-antics this month and “Just Kids” is a sure supplement for that kind of disease. Pick it up, order it online, borrow it from a friend, do whatever you got to do. . . . Just get your mitts on it somehow and go get your bohemia on! Tell the Kids I sent you.

A more formal review. . .

Let them Eat (Mondrian) Cake!



Image :http://www.designspongeonline.com. Cake by Caitlin Williams for SFMOMA





When I was researching designs for my wedding cake, I envisioned a Mondrian painting of draped fondant covering three consecutive rectangular tiers.

"Surely," I thought, "somebody has done this before and documented it."

 I should find it with a simple Google search, right? Wrong. Apparently, not many brides have shared my idea, and the ones who did just weren't capturing what I sought. I was getting discouraged about the possibilities of such a wedding cake. However, I did come across a decidedly different cakey interpretation of Mondrian.  

SFMOMA's roof-top cafe offers one fantastically edible slant on the De Stiijl master's paintings. I was in love when I saw it, and have put a slice on my bucket list - which shouldn't be too hard, right? Isn't a flight from San Diego to San Francisco about and hour?

 So, cut to me watching The Food Network last weekend and catching an episode of Best Thing I Ever Ate. On this show chefs recount the best pizza or steak or ice cream, etc. they ever enjoyed. This episode focused on best cakes, and one chef's fave happened to be the SFMOMA Mondrian cake. Apparently, this thing isn't simply a feast for the eyes, but the palette as well!

The desert masterpiece is constructed out of classic yellow cakes, some with food coloring, cut into long rectangular strips of varying sizes. The strips are coated with a thin layer of chocolate ganache on the outside, imitating the black lines separating the color fields of Mondrian's paintings. The strips are  then pressed together to make a long, rectangular loaf and a very thick layer of ganache is applied to the outside to hold everything in place. After a chill, the cake loaf is then sliced revealing perfect, individual, edible artworks. So, do yourself a favor and have one of the best looking, and, apparently, best tasting cakes of all time when you visit San Francisco. Oh yeah, get there early - the chef only makes one cake per day and it's reputation is getting around!


Later,
Beth

We are Your Pit Crew for Bike to Work Day 2011


Mark your calendar - Bike to Work Day 2011 is Friday, May 20! What better way to give Mother Earth a break than to swear off the automobile for a day? And what better place to live than sunny SoCal when it comes to biking to work?  This is a great way to get some exercise into your otherwise busy schedule; and who knows - maybe you'll discover a new scenic route to work. Maybe this will inspire a complete paradigm shift in your transportation habits, or maybe you'll just enjoy something different.

The Center will be there to cheer your on as an official pit stop. Pull into the Arrival Court from 6-9 am and we will greet you with water, OJ, snacks and encouragement.

What? Your bike has been gathering dust in the garage for a few years? That's no excuse. Bike to Work 2011 is hosting Tune-Up Time on May 15 in Balboa Park. This event offers free bike maintenance checks, bike education and safety demonstrations, a kid's bike rodeo, and registration for great prizes.

In the words of the late, great Freddy Mercury, "Get on your bikes and ride!"

Date: Friday, May 20, 2011
Time: 6 am - 9 am
Place: Arrival Court (on N. Escondido Blvd. facing Regal Cinema)

 Check out the most bizarre bicycle safety film imaginable below. I can't believe children had to watch this:

Fast Times at CCA

How radical is this photo?? We here at the museum have been flirting voraciously with the idea of holding a custom cycle exhibition, and the research I have been doing has produced some amazing results- one being this photograph! Now, I don’t know much about the motorcycle industry or “Kustom Kulture”, aside from mental pictures of beards and Budweiser, but it turns out that the community of biker enthusiasts is as colorful as a Maui rainbow and I. Am. Loving it! It’s a cacophony of cultures, ethnicities, occupations, styles, and genders that proves that motorcycles aren’t just reserved for the Hells Angels (as interesting as they are), but they are the framework for so many models of people. This industry is jam packed with creativity, proving it to be the perfect subject matter fit for a contemporary art museum . . . say, OURS? I’ve only had one experience on a motorcycle, that I can recall, and it includes being VERY sore-- like I’d ridden a horse for 10 hours straight-- for several days afterwards. That experience didn’t leave me wanting to get back on one anytime soon, for fear of permanently walking bow-legged, but in light of what I’ve been seeing, I think a ride on a hot Harley or Chopper is in the near future  We aren’t making any promises just yet, but stay tuned to see what we might come up with. The gasoline in our think tank is flowin’ and we’re revving up for an amazing summer!  Yeow!

Cabaret Voltaire: Zurich's Most Famous Unknown Landmark

The main reason for my stop in Zurich on my recent trip to Europe was, aside from the ridiculous-delicious chocolate and macarons, a visit to the Cabaret Voltaire, the birth place of the Dada.

Dadaism was both an artistic and cultural movement ranging from WWI through the early 1920s. In light of the atrocities of WWI, Dadaists promoted anti-war politics through the creation of art which flew in the face of established artist practices of the time. Collage employing pop-culture imagery, cardboard and construction paper - "base materials" which were not considered the media of "fine art"- were some of the tools the Dadaists used in their subversive coup of art and bourgeois culture. Not limited to the visual arts, Dadaists were performance artists, writers, poets and musicians. Their work and ethos would influence Surrealism, Pop, Fluxus and even the punk movement (it blows my mind to think men in spats were the original punks). "Dada" is, essentially, a nonsense word which is fitting for the international reach of the movement. Zurich, a cosmopolitan city at the confluence of several European cultures in a neutral country, was the perfect place for artists of many nationalities to come together to exchange radical ideas and to make equally ground-breaking art.

The Cabaret Voltaire is still standing, still showing art and still functioning as a club/performance/meeting place. The installation we saw included a fantastical cardboard city-scape reminiscent of Kurt Shwitters' Merzbau with an ominous voice telling us, wryly, not to trust architects. The husband and I had a great time sipping a surprisingly inexpensive cocktail, soaking in the images of Marcel Duchamp and Hugo Ball in his Karawane guise, browsing the gift shop and just reveling in the rich history. Yet, we were basically alone. I was shocked!

Do the people of Zurich not know what an important and super-funky landmark they posses? Do they just not care?  Am I just some giant art nerd? (likely, yes, as my husband kept referring to Hugo Ball as Hugo Boss just to annoy me) I'm not really sure. This free experience - yes a FREE experience in Zurich, one of the most expensive places on the planet - is the best kept secret in that city. I want everybody to know what they're missing...and yet, I don't. Maybe this can just be our little secret.

Later,
Beth

Immaculate Conception

“Art-lovers ask for amnesty for unauthorized Madonna mosaic”

http://www.nctimes.com/news/local/encinitas/article_d2cd5603-3918-56cd-bad1-342bdaeaa72e.html

“Surfing Virgin Mary mosaic attracts admirers, controversy”

http://www.nctimes.com/news/local/encinitas/article_a382d79c-1b77-57b1-8a29-f3ce9f95bef3.html

This past week another awesome act of artwork popped up in North County! While unsanctioned (my favorite kind), this piece looked as if it had tons of careful planning and some dollars behind it that would have had to come from the Arts Commission. BUT, alas, it was not an approved work and the artists are still a perfect mystery. The powers that be are denying responsibility, and are now left with some serious decision making on their hands. The Virgin of Guadalupe riding a surfboard, in an effort to “Save the Ocean” has been embraced by its surrounding community, but the council is saying it fits the definition of graffiti, no matter how edifying it is to the city’s landscape, and therefore must be removed. It’s a hard pill to swallow for the art lovers in Encinitas and other cities who have visited the piece in throngs since its installation. Many are now pleading for its amnesty. Every day while drive to my other job in Enci, I pass by the Virgin and see people touching it, taking pictures of it, talking with each other about it, and most recently, leaving flowers at its base in some sort of effort to either pay homage to the Saint herself or express their gratitude for such an “immaculate conception”. It’s been so great to see and hear people engaging in dialogue over artwork, and it would be a shame to have the catalyst for said dialogue removed.

x carissa