Landscapes Real and Perceived - Sea Ranch and Maya Lin

There are few places where nature and human come together with more drama and more ease than at The Sea Ranch on California's north coast. The story of The Sea Ranch as architectural and environmental utopia is well known (see a recent article in The New York Times Sunday Travel section for history and pictures) and part of the wonder of the place is that after nearly 50 years the original dream is so clearly in evidence and working. Every season, every type of weather, every day, every time of day and night, presents a feast, blessedly free of ubiquitous modern visual and aural static, of sky, land, and sea. We owned a house there once; our teenager used to yawn at the 'boring' architecture, but of course, it's restrictions on design - only natural wood, hide the cars and garbage pails, etc., - that make the houses simultaneously settle into and get out of the way of the natural world. Parts of The Sea Ranch coast are protected havens for wildlife such as seals, brown pelicans, and tidepool creatures, but life is everywhere. On a recent visit we had days full of songbirds and hawks, and twilight sojourns with foxes, rabbits, and deer (three of which plunked down in front of our windows and watched us like television for an hour or so.) It was a hard place to leave after four idyllic days. On my return to San Francisco I went to the De Young Museum to see the show entitled "Systematic Landscapes" by Maya Lin, and was struck by the similar synchronicity of her ideas, which also marry human intelligence with the natural landscape, and are marked by an urge to 'get out of the way' of nature at the same time she exhibits and enhances the significance of it. The Sea Ranch is alive with textures - a side of bark, a mass of wind and waterworn rock, a screen of branches, all adding up bit by bit to a magnificent whole. In one of Maya Lin's pieces, a topographic sculpture made of thousands of cut ends of boards, small individual textures combine into a grand statement of form that makes a monumental rise and spill across the DeYoung lobby. In both cases we get a good reminder to notice, respect and appreciate nature in its detail and its grandeur.

Open Studios 08

I've been so busy with Open Studios (and with Jury Duty - interesting if not very creative) so I've neglected my blog - I apologize. I've been doing Open Studios in Berkeley California for the past couple of years, but this year I'm part of the Sawtooth community, a group of artists of all types and disciplines who work in an interesting old industrial building. Here's a look at a few of these very creative individuals in their 'natural habitats.' I've included a shot of my own space, part of a studio which I share with Barbi Jo, a jeweler who makes colorful, charming treasures, and is fun to hang out with when things get slow! Alison is a jeweler who does beautiful, elegant things with metal and stones. My favorites are the ones she does with beach glass set like precious stones. Cordelia is a visiting artist in a friend's studio. She's one of those amazing individuals who can take bits and scraps and turn them into eye-popping marvels, like her enchanting, sexy, irreverent Gizzy dolls (note 'Frida' shown here.) Susan Brooks and her husband Rick are the force behind the Berkeley Artisans Open Studios. Susan, who works in various media and techniques, including drawings and jewelry, was recently honored by the mayor of Berkeley for her contribution to the local art scene with the designation of 'Susan Brooks Day'. Curtis is a master craftsman in metals; he makes jewelry as well as extraordinary one of a kind furniture pieces that 'grow' out from existing furniture. Wherever you are, in Berkeley, CA and elsewhere, there are artists working, doing incredible things with paint, paper, fabric, wood, metal, clay, etc., etc., and especially with their imaginations. Visit any time you get a chance. Support artists with your interest and your respect; it takes courage and a lot of strength to be an artist. Buy something if you can - you can't go wrong if you love it!

Night Lights - Wendy Goldberg

It isn't easy to do 'night art.' Rembrandt, perhaps, set the standard in the iconic masterpiece The Night Watch, when he evoked a dark complicated scene splashed here and there by torchlight. These days you don't find many artists who choose to set their work in the night hours. No doubt it's harder now than it was in Rembrandt's day, as we live in a time when artificial light is so pervasive that few of us know what dark really means. So consider the art of Wendy Goldberg, an artist from Fairfax in Marin County whose velvety medium is pastel on paper. Her landscapes, many as local as she is, come with a fresh, sometimes startling difference of vision, especially when she tackles the night. Shapes of trees or buildings form themselves out of shadows, dark against dark, speaking the truth of how our eyes work at night. Bright lights against the dark spark the same warm, bittersweet feeling as a lit window in a strange town. There is a rich evening color, a purple-blue just before the sky fades to black, that has always given me a sharp pang of pleasure, and there it is, one of her signature colors. The long rectangular work shown here is a new piece, done on a cold windy hill in San Rafael just before dawn. Like good poetry it suggests and cajoles rather than states a solid fact; as you watch the sky seems to shift from dark into the explosive colors of dawn. Watch for Wendy's work in local shows and open studios. Her website is http://www.wendygoldbergart.com/