A local favorite

Richard Diebenkorn was one of those artists, all too rare, who simply was not capable of making a mistake. His paintings and drawings are full of smudges, paint-overs, and changes; his process of trial and error is always on full display but inevitably, the more he did the better it always got. Diebenkorn died in Berkeley in 1993. He was well known in California but less so with the rest of the country until a major retrospective in the late 90's raised his profile, including a very well-received showing at the Whitney Museum in New York. I saw a small show of his works this weekend at his alma mater Stanford University and, as always, was knocked out by everything I saw, even the tossed-off birthday card sketches he made for his son. The works on display belong to his lifelong friend Cary Stanton (they met as fellow Stanford freshmen), and reflect a lot of lovely, personal moments on Santa Cruz Island off the coast near Santa Barbara, a place which is or was largely owned by the Stanton family. Diebenkorn was as at home with abstraction as figuration, with black and white value as with rich color, and with watercolor, pencil, charcoal, ink, and oils.

Nature wins the art prize again

San Francisco's Academy of Sciences in Golden Gate Park, designed by Renzo Piano and built as about as green as is currently possible, (for example, the insulation is old denim and it has a living roof) merits all the rave reviews it's gotten since the opening on September 27, and then some! I was fortunate to be there last night with a smaller crowd than during normal hours, so had a wonderful chance to see everything from the tiniest frog to the albino alligator. We spiraled up the levels of the rain forest, dodged the butterflies, puzzled out shy lizards and reptiles in their habitats, walked under and among fish in the Amazon, peered at the living roof in the dark and the fog - and every minute I was marveling at the incredible art skills of Nature. Nature never, ever misses - not with color, or form, or proportion, or texture - and she has an inexhaustible sense of humor and whimsy. There are always surprises and so many ways to learn, just by paying attention. Among my favorites - tiny tree frogs with bright red bodies and deep blue toes, set like jewels in the folds of green leaves - a zippy little turtle who was having a wonderful time zooming around his tank - a soulful chameleon in the Madagascar exhibit who let us know that the human species was the one to be stared at.

Giorgio Morandi - For the Love of Ordinary

If you've seen drawings from my series "Things" you won't be surprised to know that I treasure the work of Giorgio Morandi, the subject of a major exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum in New York (through December 14.) Morandi (1890-1964) was a very modest Italian artist who lived quietly in the Bologna apartment he shared with his sisters and almost never went anywhere. He painted bottles - that's it, bottles. Occasionally he added a pitcher or a jar, but mostly it was bottles. Not only that, his palette scarcely made it out of the neutral beige - brown-grey range; the work is the essence of subtle. His paint on the canvas is soft and juicy; it is his one concession to sensuality, but it is a good one and works beautifully. There is something about a Morandi painting that gets under your skin, something you can't explain in long words and high-sounding art talk. His work is the best argument I know for valuing the everyday, and for coming to the understanding that it isn't the subject that makes a great work of art, but the ability of the artist to connect to something deeply human. Don't try to make those bottles into anything they aren't - they're just bottles, but that's enough. Find more information about the Met Exhibit at http://www.metmuseum.org/home.asp