paintings + drawings

Must see.

Kathleen King is at Mercury 20, November 1 through December 1.

I haven't seen her recent stuff, but I'm sure I will like it - and you will as well. Her work exudes the joy you can get from painting. Here's a little something I wrote awhile back about her work:

The Philip Guston retrospective at SFMOMA three years ago made a big impression on North Berkeley painter Kathleen King. Though Guston is best known currently as a leader of the return to figurative painting in the 1970s, his post-war Abstract Expressionist paintings were what captured her eye and her imagination.

Drawn in by his nuanced sense of color and his ability to weave horizontal and vertical brushstrokes together seamlessly, King soon set off on an exploration of her own. Tackling some of the same issues Guston explored, her painted results are terrific, but of course different from the modern master’s. Where Guston’s shapes tended to come trudging out of a muted, almost foggy field of color, King’s boldly blast out, held in check by a field of color gripping at their edges.

Kathleen King attended U.C. Berkeley in the early ’80s, at a time when many of the leading lights of the Bay Area art scene where holding court on campus. Local luminaries like Elmer Bischoff and Joan Brown were shaping young hearts and minds—King’s included. But it wasn't the debate raging about the merits of abstract versus figurative painting that interested her.

“What I like in art is excitement, something that can really bring you out,” explains the exuberant painter. “Abstract Expressionism is very physical.”

King, who supports herself doing graphic design, draws her inspiration from her environs. Marks on a sidewalk, graffiti, the texture of skin, all resonate for her and are translated into her painterly poetry. “It’s similar to gumbo; you put it all in there and it cooks for a while,” she says. “In this short amount of time you build stuff up—creating information that is visual, intellectual, emotional, and a little bit spiritual.”

Most of the painters she admires paint in oil. King paints in acrylic, and often on a smaller scale than her heroes do, but like them, she mixes her own colors. Her new paintings, seen in her San Pablo Avenue studio, are pure delight, crammed to the point of bursting with marks and color. In a previous series, the brighter colors looked to be held down by sheer will. The latest ones seem to be missing their lids.

photo: "Free Ride" 30" x 40" 2007 Mercury 20 Gallery

La Casa Formica update.

Read the background on this here.

Roland Formica, Joe Formica’s oldest son, emailed me today to say he is still in the house and to explain what happened to some of the project's characteristic sculptures. The news is a mixed bag: Joe died a little over a year ago, but the home is still in the Formica family’s hands.

Roland writes “My father passed away on labor day 2006 at the age of 94... he was a wonderful person who accomplished much in his life... I was born and raised in the house on Belmont Ave in El Cerrito...I helped my dad a lot on the house...

I left home at 17 and returned after my divorce to help my dad in the early stages of dementia... I lived downstairs for the last 10 years of his life and kept him out of a rest home...He was treated with respect till the end...I loved him very much...He had a real taste for being different...

The reason the statues are down ...is the wood began to rott and the middle statue on top of the roof fell back onto the roof...I decided at that time, while my father was still alive... to take them down for safety reasons...They are all in the back yard now...although by that time my father really didn't notice or remember...He didn't believe it was his house...

I'm still working and don't have the time to restore the home the way he had it...I have a son also named Joseph Formica who is 22 ..He wants to someday restore it like his grandfather had it...So he is welcome to do that sometime in his future...For now the house was left to me and I have moved up stairs and I'm busy with up keep...currently redoing all three bathrooms...I have added a deck where the largest statue was...The Discus Thrower...

Who knows how the house will go...My son will have to carry on the taste of my father someday, as for me...I'm getting too old and I don't have the time and imagination of my father...

Here is his obituary...

Joseph Formica Dec. 4th 1911- Sept. 4th 2006

The family of Joseph Formica announces his passing on 9/4/06 at the age of 94.

Joseph Formica born December 4, 1911 in Brooklyn, New York to his parent Rosario and Sebastiana.  He lived in Brooklyn, working as a dress maker, cutting patterns until the age of 30 when he moved to Las Angeles with his family.  He later moved to the Bay Area in 1943 and met his wife Ann in El Cerrito, where he spent the rest of his life.  He and Ann worked together at  Kaiser Shipyards during WWII as welders before opening the El Cerrito Florist in 1945.  Five years later they sold the business and Joe began working at Standard Oil as a pipe insulator until his retirement 30 years later.

Joe was well known for his home, La Casa Formica.  Over the years his home has attracted the attention of television documentaries and book authors.

Joe was the first president of the El Cerrito Junior Chamber of Commerce, the Vice President of the local Richmond Chapter of AFL/CIO, the president of East Bay Chapter City of Hope, CCC Chapter form 1957-1961, the commissioner of the City of El Cerrito, president of El Cerrito's Democratic Club, Vice Commander of the U.S. Coast Guard Auxiliary, a member of the Eagles, Moose Lodge, and Galileo Clubs, a campaigner/fundraiser for democrats and Joe was one of the first members of the NAACP, and an inventor of specialized tools used today at Standard Oil.

Joe will be lovingly remembered by his children Roland and Mary and his nine grandchildren.  Joe was predeceased by his wife and son Richard.”

Its obvious by now that the La Casa Formica itself incredibly unique as well as the dedication and vision it took to make it. As with most projects that demand so much imagination, the town they are situated in often overlooks them. Isn’t it time El Cerrito figures out someway to help one of the very few things that makes it unique?

Blackeye peas supper dish.

From Rob Matthews:

Mog Coombey's banana bread.

from Dean Sabatino:

Get the butter out to soften about 2 hours before making.
About 1/2 hour before making, pre-heat oven to 350 degrees.

Mash and set aside 2 medium bananas.

In another bowl mix:
1/4 cup butter
1 and 1/2 cup sugar
1 egg

Now add:
2 cups flour
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
3 tablespoons of milk

Next add the bananas.

Pour into a greased 2lb loaf tin and bake for about 1 hour at 350 degrees.

This is a recipe for the best banana bread we've ever eaten. Recipe is from an English family friend. I enjoy this sliced and toasted lightly in the toaster oven in the morning with melted butter.

Public service announcement (to run thru 11/01).

I've been rattling on with my artist/art worlder recipe project recently. Here is an event that seems kinda related and possibly fun:

“Sixteen Tons of Hot Pastrami: Songs, Food and Jewish Cultural Identity”
THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 1ST, 6:30 PM
At the Magnes Museum
with Francesco Spagnolo, Magnes Head of Research

Jewish traditions from around the world include songs about food. Recipes in Ladino, celebrations of Jewish dishes in Yiddish, Judeo-Italian poems from the late Renaissance, contemporary parodies a la Mickey Katz, and a nationalistic ode to the Israeli falafel, all celebrate Jewish culinary culture while at the same time trying to come to terms, in music, with loaded existential questions: What makes Jewish food Jewish? What is a "national" Jewish food? And, finally, why is food so important to be immortalized in song? Between the lines of some of the most hilarious Jewish music lies an essential key to interpreting the issue of Jewish cultural identity.

 

This just in.

Today, Tyler Green reported that SFMOMA’s senior curator Madeline Grynsztejn will take over the directorship of MCA Chicago.

Sure it’s a bit of a loss for us – she did the Tuttle show and the Eliasson thinger. But looking on the bright side, which is easy to do on this one, maybe SFMOMA will hire someone that cares about what is going on and has gone on around here.

December 1963, Art in America.

When we were kings.

Taking a cue from Martin Bromirksi, I dusted off some back issues of Art in America – December 1963 to be exact. Below is a piece John Coplans (who was at ArtForum at the time) penned on the triumph of the West Coast ceramic sculpture movement led by Peter Voulkos and Kenneth Price.

The piece is mainly a summary of the players and their varied histories, but in an odd twist Coplans points out “that the material, fired clay, was a sculptural form free of the innovatory stamp of New York or cross-bred international sculptural idioms is incidental.” But then goes on to qualify it by saying “they’ve created an entire creative milieu for a further generation.”

Anyway, Oakland Museum’s permanent collection and highlights from the recently acquired Nash collection both feature some Voulkos pieces and are on view now. But at the end of '07, the Museum will closed for renovation, and you should head over to Braunstein/Quay who rep his estate. Or wait until Spring 2008 when SFMC+D puts up “Within Two Hands: Works from the Marer Collection of Contemporary Ceramics, Scripps College.”

Oh yeah, in January, Scripps is hosting its 64th ceramics annual.

Wally Hedrick redux.

Well, my recent posts on Wally Hedrick seem to have caused a firestorm of missives, all in support of the neglected genius.

One anonymous emailer even directed me to a video of Hedrick late in life. You can click here to see it on youtube. I’m not gonna embed it because its not all that good – mostly assorted moments that L.G. Williams spent with Hedrick will trying to organize Hedrick’s  2003 show at Sonoma State. I don’t recall any footage of Hedrick speaking, and the joke about Wally’s rubber tree plant looking like Alice Neel’s rubber plant is goes on far too long. So view it at your own risk.

But, today, during a conversation with Gary Carson about something totally unrelated – the Barnes Foundation, actually – I remembered this 2002 interview with Hedrick (by Leslie Goldberg) on the di Rosa Preserve website. It is quite good (reading like an oral history, featuring accompanying sound and image files) and includes Hedrick calling Jay DeFeo’s vision-quest paintinga a white elephant. Also included is this great quote:

“My career has never really taken off in the usual sense. I just couldn't take New York seriously. When Jay and I were in that big show at the New York Museum of Modern Art with Jasper Johns, Rauschenberg and those famous people, they sent us tickets and said, "Come to the opening, we'll put you up and show you New York." I sent a representative. We didn't want to go to New York; we hated the place. We thought it was arrogant.”

And of course, it goes without saying that there is nowhere else in the Bay Area that proudly showcases the art from here, warts and masterpieces, like di Rosa. Too bad its way in bumblfck – which is why I thought of it when Carson mentioned the Barnes.

photo 'jackd from di Rosa website.

Canned tuna.

From Martin Bromirksi:

ingredients

1 can of tuna

directions

1. Open can, being careful of any sharp edges. Drain water.

2. Fork tuna into mouth.

I'm a horrible cook... i just think about things like grams of protein and how much potassium, etc. If someone else is cooking I'm a gourmand, but by myself I just eat tuna out of the can.