Work by Ben Cunningham, Ukiah Post Office muralist

Determined to see another example of mural art by Ben Cunningham, the artist who painted the mural in the Ukiah Post Office, I trekked to Coit Tower in San Francisco. There, my Internet research assured me, was another example of Ben’s art, a mural entitled “Outdoor Life.” No mention of the fact on the Internet that the nine by twenty-two foot mural is off limits to the public.

To see a photo of the mural I bought an expensive but beautiful book, Coit Tower San Francisco: Its History and Art, by Masha Zakheim, photos by Don Beatty. Searching the Internet for a good picture of Ben’s mural turned up only a tiny detail here.

Fortunately I had not planned the whole day around Ben Cunningham or Coit Tower. Because much of the inspiration for the Coit Tower murals came from Diego Rivera, it seemed like a good idea to see one.

Second stop was the City College of San Francisco to find the Diego Rivera mural “The Marriage of the Artistic Expression of the North and of the South on this Continent,” a.k.a. the Pan American Unity Mural. The mural nearly eluded my friend Christine and me when we found a sign on the door informing us that the docent who normally shows the mural had been injured in a bicycle accident that very day and was home nursing his wounds.  No docent, no viewing. When I explained to a sympathetic person in the Creative Arts Department that Christine and I had come especially to see the mural, she unlocked the door and chatted with us for several minutes while we tried to take in the huge 5-panel installation. Flagging just a bit, we needed a break so we found a coffee shop and had truly terrible piroshkies and tea. Then, using Google Directions, we took two buses to get to the Western end of Golden Gate Park .

The mysterious Ben Cunningham, it turns out, is included in a grand display of New Deal murals in the Beach Chalet. There, after finding Ben (picture above) depicted among the figures of the San Francisco public works scene of the 1930’s, we enjoyed the ocean view replete with kite surfers skimming the very choppy surf and sipped some delicious beer. All in all, a perfect day in San Francisco.

A link to more photos, including the gardens and statuary along the steps leading up Telegraph Hill to Coit Tower, details of Murals there and of the Diego Rivera Mural, plus murals from the first floor of the Beach Chalet is here.

Other links:

Coit Tower

Online Nevada Encyclopedia entry for Ben Cunningham

Diego Rivera’s mural at CCSF

Beach Chalet

This post originally appeared at Ukiah Community Blog.

The bowl Cliff gave us on Marcia’s birthday in February is now my favorite bowl, and possibly my favorite thing, after my piano and not counting myriad mammals—Marcia, friends, cats; although the trouble with cats…but that’s another story. Cliff made it clear when he gave us the bowl that even though he was giving it to us on Marcia’s birthday, the bowl was for both of us. I asked him to repeat that when I was sure Marcia was listening so there wouldn’t be any confusion…that the bowl was for both of us, or in legal terms: the bowl is our joint property.

My previous favorite bowl, which I still love, (though not as much as I loved her before I met Cliff’s bowl) was given to me by my dear friend Katje Weingarten, an extraordinary poet who lives in Vermont, which is crazy. Katje should live around here. Both she and our community would be much happier if she lived in, oh, Caspar or Philo, but she’s married to Roger, and you know how that goes. Anyway, I showed Cliff the bowl Katje gave me and he knew who made it. He knew the actual person who threw the bowl and glazed it. Cliff can do that. He can glance at a ceramic bowl or vase or plate made somewhere in California, and most of the time he can tell by the glaze or the shape, or both, the potter who made the thing.

Which reminds me of a tea story. When I lived in Berkeley, I was adjuvant to Helen Gustafson, famous for introducing fine tea to the menu at Chez Panisse and training the servers there to make and serve fine tea as it was meant to be made and served. When Helen died in 2003, her obituary in the New York Times called her one of the pioneers of the fine tea renaissance in America. Helen often took me to lunch and supper at Alice’s restaurant (Chez Panisse) where she, Helen, had carte blanche in exchange for her tea duties. I was frequently under-funded in those days and always esurient, so…just imagine. Helen liked to introduce me to her cohorts and admirers as her editor—an understatement and a compliment.

One evening Helen threw a dinner and tea tasting at Chez Panisse for the famous tea writer James Norwood Pratt, Norwood’s marvelous mate Valerie Turner, moi, and Roy and Grace Fong, preeminent tea importers, Roy a bona fide tea master. We tasted several black teas that were essentially priceless. By that I mean, they were teas of such rarity and in such short supply, they could not be purchased at any price. The denouement of the evening was that Norwood had brought along a mystery tea with which he hoped to stump Roy Fong as to the origin of the goodly leaf.

Norwood directed one of Helen’s well-trained servers in the making of a pot of the mystery tea, and after the leaves had steeped for the appropriate number of minutes, the pot was placed before Roy. Without lifting the lid or bending close to the pot, Roy concluded, “Thailand.”

“I’ll be damned,” said Norwood, his accent richly North Carolinian. “How…”

Roy lifted the lid of the steel pot, glanced at the leaves, inhaled again, and correctly named the region, the plantation, and the location in the plantation where this particular tea had been grown. He then filled our cups and prophesied, “It will be some time before tea from these plants will be of any note. If ever.”

Cliff’s bowl, on the other hand, is of great note now at our house. Why do I love this bowl? Let me count the ways.

First, it is a perfect size: four inches tall and seven inches wide at the top.

Second, it has a beautiful shape: assuming nearly its full width close to the base.

Third, it is surprisingly light, and a delight to hold in one’s hand or hands.

Fourth, it is the color of an East African topi (antelope), of carob powder, of the skin of certain Moroccan nomads, and graced with that random mottling all living flesh is prey to.

Cliff declared the bowl to be a standard noodle bowl, nothing special, and so I dutifully ate noodles in it the first time I used it (brown rice spaghetti) but I have since used the bowl for goat milk yogurt topped with banana and apple and raisins with a dollop of huckleberry jam, for beating eggs for an omelet, for making pancake batter (and pouring the batter directly from the bowl into the frying pan), for watering house plants, for drinking water, and for eating rice with vegetables and spicy sausage. I have also gently tapped out several nifty rhythms on the bowl with chopsticks, and I sometimes place the bowl on the table in the living room as an object to contemplate and admire.

Do I believe Cliff’s bowl is alive? Yes. And I remind myself that not so very long ago our ancestors believed that all things, from the tiniest pebble to the mountains to the rivers and oceans and the gigantic earth in her entirety, were as animate as humans or whales or fleas. Fool’s Crow, a Lakota holy man I admire, used the ancient vernacular of his people when referring to rocks as stone people, trees as standing people, clouds as citizens of the cloud nation, and so forth.

I possess a stunning black and white photograph of Fool’s Crow taken by Michelle Vignes when Fool’s Crow was in his early nineties (he died at the age of 99); and when I look into his eyes, my entire being relaxes. Every time. While reading his book Wisdom & Power, I came upon his observation that some people need to carry stones in their pockets in order to feel grounded. I gasped in amazement and gratitude when I read this passage because I have carried stones in my pockets since I was a little kid, knowing intuitively I needed them, yet rarely revealing to anyone that I toted rocks in my pockets to stay sane in a world gone mad.

Cliff’s bowl, I think, is a divine manifestation of animate mud, composed of animate earth and animate water, shaped into exquisite form through the synergy of centrifugal force and gravity and the skillful ministrations of the strong hands and generous intentions of a practiced artisan: Cliff.

“I’ve made thousands of bowls,” Cliff declaimed, responding to my raving about the magnificence of this particular bowl. “And, yes, this is a good bowl. I was surprised when I found it because my good bowls sell pretty fast and I’m not sure why I still had this one…but I don’t think it’s all that special.”

I wanted to be a potter. I took Ceramics in high school as part of my rebellion against my parents wanting me to use only the left side of my brain; and three subsequent times in my life, I have endeavored to center balls of clay on potters’ wheels and make bowls. But I was not persistent, and so I failed. My only clay creation that I still have is an embarrassingly heavy little lumpish object I refer to as a bud vase because only a bud might fit therein. I love the little thing. The glaze, a murky greenish accident, is…subtle. And sometimes I tell myself I could make a good bowl if only I would commit myself to the task.

In the meantime, I (we) have Cliff’s bowl to inspire me (us) along with Cliff’s beguiling mugs and Marion Miller’s quietly erotic vases. Oh, and I must tell you about Cliff’s clay canisters, two of which I own. These elegant brown cylinders are ten-inches-tall and four-inches-wide. They are the only objects (other than the teak Buddha that Paula Mulligan brought us from Bali as a wedding gift and Marcia’s cello bows) I allow to reside on my piano. I am not a fan of pianos being used as display spaces, and until the advent of Marcia’s cello bows in my life, I never let anybody put anything on my piano. But the piano is teak, so the teak Buddha…and now Cliff’s lovely dark canisters, well…I’m not playing any less because of these inspiring passengers, and the piano sounds fine, so…

A few months before Juliette died, we were sitting around in her cottage having tea (or was it wine?) in Cliff’s mugs, and I fished in my pockets and brought forth two of my stones, each roughly the size of a walnut, one jade green, one bluish gray, both rounded and polished in a grand lapidary of surf meeting intractable stone. Juliette took the rocks from me, tumbled them around in her wise old hands, and then correctly identified their source as a tiny beach not far from the village of Mendocino—a brief spit of gravel that only comes into being at the lowest of tides.

Cliff Glover can be found at threeriversstudios.com

When the old grange hall burned down, 1985 I do believe, the Variety Show was conceived as a fundraiser to help pay for the new building, which is now the ven­erable and hallowed hall that is the true community resource we know and love. Assumedly the building is long since paid for, but thankfully, the show has gone on and on and has become a beloved institution. Year after year it continues to astonish and amaze, and reinforces our conviction that we live in one of the most blessed places on earth.

To kick off the 20th Anniversary show, Captain Rain­bow and his familiar tuxedo greeted the audience and indicated an old steamer trunk on the stage that, we were told, was on the stage at the very first show and was about the only item that survived the 1985 fire intact. Just as it was 20 years ago, it was opened to start the 2011 edition, and from it emerged a panoply of former hosts and co-hosts of the show, or as the offstage announcer put it, “a whole host of co-hosts” to take part in an awards ceremony, a la the Oscars, in recognition of this momentous event. These included Charlotte Triplett, Doug Read, Patty Liddy, Nancy Gowan, Kevin Jones, Karen Bailey, and via ‘live satellite hookup from New York’, Russell Meyer, Jesse Wakeman, and Gabe Shapiro. We also saw, via video tape recaps from past shows, clips of the departed Bill Dawson and Wayne Ahrens. Amy Bloyd was brought out not only to present the awards, but also to deliver the first scripted F-Bomb in Variety Show history. The co-hosts vied for lesser prizes, such as “most pregnant” host ever (Doug and Charlotte tied), “best fishnet hose” (Nancy and Patty tied), and “best hair” (Kevin and Karen — go figure). All the while Captain Rainbow was alternately trying to horn in on the prizes, at one point displaying his own fishnets, and chortling that the big statuette on the table was clearly meant for him. Just as he was being announced as the winner of the greatest host of all time, Charlotte pulled the plug on the sound system in a fit of exaspera­tion at the Captain’s egotism and preening, and she and the other co-hosts, at Amy’s suggestion that they ‘stuff his ass in the trunk’, did just that and dispatched Rain­bow to the outer darkness, or possibly back to Sri Lanka. The six hosts remaining on stage then began a catty bat­tle for dominance over who would actually host the show instead of the banished Rainbow. It became humorously evident, to both the audience and hosts alike, that they really didn’t have any clue as to what they were doing. “Does anybody know how to start this thing?” was the cry of despair from the stage and at this cue (at least on Saturday night) El Capitan came flying on wires from the ceiling over the audience, across the stage and crashing through the large Oscar backdrop, emerged none the worst for the wear to show us “how to start this thing.” “Are You Ready For A Show?” he shouted, as he has for most of the last twenty years and just as predicta­bly Anderson Valley was.

The Friday lineup kicked off with longtime Variety Show favorites, Billy Owens and Sheila Hibbs perform­ing as the Okie Hoedown and ripping through an old-timey “Here Rattler Here,” followed by Hank Williams’ ‘Jambalaya’. Before leaving the stage, Billy gave us one of his signature train whistle blasts to appreciative applause as we all settled down for a great show. Joe Petelle took a break from his trombone chores with the pit band, fearlessly soloing on jew’s harp, singing verses of “Jenny” between twangy obligados.

Speaking of the pit band, formally The Peanut Butter and Jam Band, as usual they created a festive atmosphere during the pre-show and intermission periods and accompanied a number of acts as well. A veritable who’s who of the Valley’s go-to musicians, we were enter­tained throughout both shows by Lynn Archambault, Chris Rossi, Rod DeWitt, Dean Titus, Greg Krouse, Dennis Hudson, and the aforementioned Joe Petelle.

Starting this way sets the bar pretty high for the other musical acts…well, maybe not the jew’s harp…but Fri­day’s show featured another half dozen knock out sing­ing and musical specialty acts. Eleven year old Riley Lemons was back, another year of guitar studies under her belt, confidently accompanying her lovely voice as she performed a couple of songs, one by Taylor Swift. Clearly, her posse was in the house judging by the appreciative squeals and whistles of her peer group in the crowd. Maybe the confidence and steady year-to-year improvement of the younger performers is the underly­ing theme of the show. Always fun, Leslie Hubbert’s Anderson Valley Kids After School Chorus entertained with their customary verve and enthusiasm in a song with some helpful advice on table manners and etiquette and a couple of kazoo choruses thrown in for good measure. (I just knew that after we had jew’s harping, kazoos couldn’t be far behind). Also, Bob Gardner was back after a hiatus of several years to demonstrate his progress as a neophyte guitarist and perhaps inspiring some of us older dogs to remember that there’s always time to learn a new trick or two.

And while the oldsters are learning new tricks, it’s always inspiring to watch the development of the younger talent in the Valley as a teenage choral ensem­ble from SPACE in Ukiah, including the Valley’s Olivia Allen, and calling themselves “Breath,” really nailed their number, impressing with their clear, beautiful voices and spot-on harmonies. The Valley’s resident rock star, and veteran Variety Show soundman Mitchell Holman, sang and played acoustic bass on two of his own compositions, one written thirty years ago and the other just recently. Accompanying with lovely harmo­nies were Sarah Larkin and Jennika, who also played rhythm guitar and violin respectively. A polished, pro­fessional turn. Another couple of real pros, Donny and Debbie of Yorkville who call themselves The Thorn Pet­als played two numbers showing off Debbie’s soulful vocals and Donny’s acoustic guitar pyrotechnics.

As always, comedy runs throughout the shows, and Friday night included a well received monologue deliv­ered by Barbara Lamb relating to various parts of her body being stolen and replaced by someone else’s. It seemed like many of the audience related to this strange phenomenon judging from the laughter. Chris Balson, one of the stars of the recent theatrical production of The Breakfast Club, bravely assumed one of the hardest tasks in all of show biz, stand-up comedy, with his routine drawing favorable reactions from the large force of high school kids in the crowd. J.J. CrashBang, whom I hear is a juggling teacher at Camp Winarainbow, with perfect aplomb delivered a comic magic act, tearing up a news­paper and somehow miraculously getting it all back together just as his music ended.

And Captain Rainbow’s perpetual quest for animal acts was not in vain this year as we were favored with an appearance, honestly, folks, of the Guinness Book of World Records certified tiniest cow in the world, a miniature Brahma named Rati who took a bow on stage.

Consistently strong musical acts were the hallmark of this year’s shows, but that’s not to stay that dance and bodies otherwise in motion were to be denied. The Fri­day night displays of grace and movement ranged from the sublime to the ridiculous. Trillium Tribe, a troupe of belly dancers from the coast ensorcelled us all with their sensual and sinewy gyrations, colorful costumes, shining jewelry, and finger cymbals. “Les Petites Fleurs” was a semi-serious ballet vignette performed mostly by resi­dents of Emerald Earth. Mica was the lead male dancer and I regret that I don’t know the prima ballerina’s name, but they did the best they could to execute their steps while three thick legged, bearded ballerina’s in tutus, Patrick, Tom, and co-host Kevin, galumphed around behind them to great comic effect. That would be the ridiculous part I mentioned. The rest was mostly sub­lime. Like Judy Stavely from Comptche, 65 years old we were told who entered the scene from the rear of the hall, confused and late in taking her place on the stage as the violinist while band mates Michael and Leslie Hubbert and Miel Newstead and Holly Newstead waited more or less patiently. As she doddered her way to the stage she was momentarily distracted by the bolts of silk hanging from the ceiling, and on which we had witnessed many feats of daring-do in Variety Shows past. Struck by inspiration, Judy shed her dowdy old-woman garb to reveal leotards and she hoisted herself up on the silks and thrilled us with dangerous-looking twists, turns, and gravity defying suspensions. She concluded by forming a sling chair out of the silks, reclining gracefully, and playing her violin along with the marvelous musicians on the stage. SPACE kids were back with a troupe calling themselves “Feat of Freedom,” performing interpretive dance with confidence and skill. The lovely ladies of “Andajaleo Flamenco” returned for another display of this classic dance, and raised blood pressures with the passion and precision of their art.

And let’s not forget The Mothers, Linda Boudoures, Gail Meyer, and Susan McClure, a Variety Show staple for the whole twenty years, returning to shed the dingy feathers of their hausfrau personas to shake some right­eous booty in their little black dresses to such numbers as “Mama Said There’d Be Days Like This.” They closed the Friday night show and it goes without saying they brought the house down.

For the raffle drawing on both nights, Rainbow was joined on stage by the lovely ticket selling maidens, Yvonne Dunton, Loretta Houck, and the Queen of the Raffle, Taunia Green. The winning ticket was selected by Russell Meyer on Friday, and Jesse Wakeman on Sat­urday, both by “live satellite hookup” from New York City (huh?), somehow reaching across the void of 3,000 miles and getting their mitts into the squirrel cage full of tickets. The winner of close to $600 on Friday was Vari­ety Show house manager Andy Jones (hmmmmmm) and on Saturday it was the partner of co-host Karen, Jason Strazzobosco (another hmmmmmm). For Jason’s part, he is using half the money to travel to visit his mother, recently fallen ill, and the rest he is donating to the AV Senior Center.

On both nights the show took a time-out to pay trib­ute to Tom Smith, who touched many lives throughout the Valley in any number of activities and endeavors, but was also a major guiding force in mounting the Variety Show year after year. Tom, who was tragically killed in a traffic accident last year, was honored in a brief film showing highlights of on-stage appearances and back­stage trouble-shooting and problem solving. With Tom’s own commentary about the show as soundtrack, it was a moment in the show that was both poignant and whimsi­cal.

It’s dangerous to try to acknowledge the production and backstage crew, which Tom Smith anchored for many years, for fear of leaving out a key player but a round of applause may be proffered here for Bill Meyer, the Busby Berkeley of Boonville, Mark Pittman, Jonesy DeWolfe, Robyn Spector, Mitchell Holman, Mike Crutcher, Tim Glidewell, Gail Meyer, Via Keller, Eric Frey, Jimmy On-The-Spot, and…and…aw hell, I was writing notes in the dark and their were so many names but these and several others contributed mightily to everyone’s enjoyment of the show. Outstanding job, everyone!

For the Saturday show there was some snappy danc­ing as well. Who isn’t happy to see The Blossoming Ballerinas? Back once more, and featuring some of the Valley’s cute little kids jete-ing, plie-ing, and entrechat­ing all over the place. Keeping with the theme of youth­ful dance performances we also had a hip-hop interpre­tive dance presented by Emma Jean to a Lady Gaga song and a wildly energetic turn by the AV Dance Team who interpreted “Evolution of Dance” taking us, literally, step by step from Elvis through Michael Jackson and MC Hammer and others whom I’m not hip enough, nor hop enough, to recognize their music. As with the night before, Saturday also had another stunning display of Flamenco (although I’m certain co-host Kevin Jones said “Flamingo” a couple of times in introducing the act) with “Los Duendocino” tattooing the stage with percussive heels in this intense and melancholy dance form. The costuming was, as always, elaborate and beautiful and Eli Donahue’s superlative flamenco guitar playing is something we’ve missed for too many years from the Grange stage.

I don’t suppose there are many places where the local cop gets a thunderously warm round of applause, but that’s exactly what happened when resident Deputy Sheriff Craig Walker took to the stage. As county budget restrictions not only imperil his position, but the elimi­nation of his canine partner as well, Craig was surprised to be presented with a new replacement dog, a fluffy pink French poodle by the name of Fifi, who promptly sprang into action by apprehending a purse snatcher lurking at the far edge of the stage.

Circus arts have been flourishing on the Variety Show stage in recent years, and we had a large dollop on Saturday night as most of MECA (Mendocino Circus Arts) displayed their diverse and eye-popping talents. Bones Newstead and son Kai again wowed with their well-articulated routines on the silks, Holly Newstead likewise impressed with her demonstration of hoops acumen, and younger son Max showed the circus gene runs deep with some difficult gymnastic and tumbling maneuvers. The Newsteads were joined by fellow MECAns, John LaCampagne who juggled clubs while dancing, and son Mateo pogo-ed energetically while jug­gling floating kerchiefs. For the last two years, Mateo has bounced on his pogo stick without pause from the high school parking lot to the Fairgrounds grandstand during the Fair Parade, a distance of a mile or so. You can’t keep a good kid down. Or up. Or down. Or up.

Theatre arts were also represented this year with some of our younger thespians, Maxance and Mathis Weyrich, and some of their cohorts whose names, alas, I did not catch, performed an amusing pantomime in which a patient in a doctor’s waiting room begins to sympathetically exhibit the symptoms of the several patients in to see the doctor before him, until he passes out cold when the last patient to enter is a pregnant woman.

But as with Friday, the Saturday night show was heav­ily weighted towards musical performances and that is certainly not a complaint. Olivia Allen was back for her third (by my count) appearance in two nights, this time as a solo act, singing a ballad from Phantom of the Opera as Lynn Archambault accompanied on piano. Keep an eye on this young talent. It’s clear that she has natural gifts, but it is also clear that she has been working hard to develop them to their fullest as those who have watched her talents grow from year to year can plainly see. Lollywagon, sometimes known as David Durette, presented another of his quirky, slightly askew poem/song/story/monologues about Whirly Girl, accompanying himself on upright bass. I love this act! The Boonville Hillbillies were also on the bill, with longtime Variety Show regulars Jimmy Humble, Charlie Hochberg, and Brian Wood singing the amusing story of Boonvilly Willy and Kitty from the City. We also heard from The Raging Grannies, a number of women of a certain age who rocked the house with a new-fashioned version of “Little Old Lady From Mendocino.” Rachel Juster, another local young lady with a big clear voice and loads of talent sang an emotive, message song “If I Were A Boy.” Emil Rossi, who has trod the boards in Valley probably as long as anyone, returned to the Vari­ety Show stage to revive the classic “If I Were A Rich Man” from Fiddler on the Roof, complete with appropri­ate Russian peasant costume. The Valley warmly wel­comed back Maria Villeboy and Catfish Jack whose presence and talents we’ve missed around these parts as they decamped for Austin, Texas for a spell but have returned to live a little nearer to us in the Russian River Valley. Maria’s powerful voice and Jack’s harmonica virtuosity took us through two numbers, including “I’m Leaving Austin Tomorrow.” Sharon Garner sang the poignant Grateful Dead song “Brokedown Palace” to Mary Aigner’s piano accompaniment, and the Anderson Valley Community Chorus, another Variety Show per­ennial, gave us a charming medley of Beatles songs. Holly Tannen, well-known coast folklorist and balladeer, sang a topical song accapella called “The Geek Shall Inherit the Earth” about the power of the internet to bring about social change.

We also heard from Big Lu, formerly of Those Darn Accordions and currently fronting Big Lu and the Casse­roles, resplendent in green and gold native costume, tore through “The Happy Wanderer,” even getting the audi­ence to lustily sing along with the Val-de-ri, Val-de ra-ha-ha-ha” parts all the while ripping through some wicked accordion riffs.

It was the last two acts of the Saturday night show, however, that left the audience dumbstruck. First, we heard Sarah Larkin, Sarah Ryan, and Dwn Marshall in beguiling gowns and coiffures, blending their beautiful voices together for an acapella medley of 60’s girl group standards such as “Chapel of Love” and “One Fine Day” and really tearing up Aretha’s “Chain of Fools” and a few Motown classics. It was fun to hear those old chest­nuts, and we thrilled to the exquisite harmonies these singers put forth. Their performance was right on the money. This was a grand lead-in to the ultimate act of the night, the cherished closing spot of two nights of more than forty performances. None other than The Ukeholics, Denver Tuttle, co-host Doug Read, Henry Hill, and Dennis Hudson who have been delighting Val­ley audiences and gatherings for several years now with their ukulele song stylings and mirthful stage antics. We know ‘em and love ‘em, of course, but what happened next absolutely blew the roof off of the house. Through wildly inventive lighting, video and audio effects, and surrealistic props, an underwater world was presented on stage before our eyes that made one feel as if they were themselves submerged at the bottom of the ocean or per­haps in a well appointed aquarium. Sea creatures, including a prominent octopus floated about in the briny deep. In the midst of this a steam punkish submarine began its wobbly way through the undersea world before landing at the bottom, where it disgorged, one by one, the Ukeholics in tophats and Victorian formal garb. Once assembled they promptly struck up “Octopus’s Garden,” singing and plunking all the while in this wonderful undersea world, with Denver at one point performing a xylophone solo on a convenient fish skeleton while Dennis similarly employed a passing squid for an upright bass. It was like seeing a live action cartoon right before your eyes. A triumph. Of the many visually stunning acts over the past twenty years, it will be hard to find a topper to this. But who knows? As they used to say in Brook­lyn, Wait ‘til next year!

Go to any performance of Swan Lake, which Black Swan converts from Romantic tragedy to a story of psychological torture, and you’ll see many young girls in the audience. They’ll be decked out in their fine frocks and many of them will have their hair up in ballerina buns as markers that they are dancers, who that night will dream they might one day dance both the black and white swan, embodying both evil and good in the span of one theatrical evening. For all those parents who want their little darlings to avoid the physical punishment that ballet brings with it — not to mention the rampant cigarette smoking, eating disorders, and long-shot odds against success — I recommend braving the R rating and taking them to Black Swan. The movie should help any aspiring dancer at least to grow up and out of the fairy tale.

The culture of ballet thrives on suspended development. Adult dancers continue to be referred to as “boys” and “girls” well into the their chronological, if not emotional, maturity. In Black Swan this oppressive infantilization of dancers is expressed most pithily by the sleazy but brilliant artistic director/choreographer, played with suave arrogance by Vincent Cassel, who calls his has-been prima ballerina — inspired casting put Winona Ryder in the part of the bitter, washed-up star — as “my little princess.” In the last dying moments of the film, the choreographer transfers the nickname to her replacement, Nina, given a beautiful performance by Natalie Portman. Her Nina is fragile and tough, exposed and elusive, poised and unhinged.

The ballerina’s relentless concentration on self derives not only from the demands of this most physically trying form of expression, but also from the fact that artistic life is lived in front of mirrors, staring at one’s own body. The toddler’s obsession with her own reflection extends across a ballet lifetime.

The stage mother, whose malevolent, controlling solicitude electrifies the screen in the person of the Botoxed and face-lifted Barbara Hershey, is just another kind of a mirror: the daughter sees in her mother her own fears of failure; the mother looks at her daughter as if at herself, treating the younger body and career as her own. She clings onto lost youth and own ballet aspirations by keeping her fully-grown daughter (like Portman, Nina is in her late twenties in the film) preserved in sugar and spice and everything nice.

In animating the clichés — the dark fairy tales — of ballet pathology in Black Swan, Aronofsky’s film is dominated by mirrors, and when these are not at hand, the heroine regards, and is haunted by, her reflection in subway and taxi windows. Strangers mirror her, too, as Nina keeps having visions of and encounters with doppelgängers: other young women she sees in the subway appear to be versions her, as does a new dancer in the company. The image of the ballerina heroine of the movie is increasingly fragmented, until at last a shattered mirror paradoxically gives the story its necessary closure.

A world enclosed by self-obsession is also enfolded in sound: when dancers look at themselves there is inevitably music, most often the ballet class piano numbers — mazurkas, polonaises, waltzes — with powerful rhythms (except for the inevitable adagio) and predictable harmonic sequences that track the progress of the workout from pliés to jumps and pirouettes. Some of these ballet-class classics are heard several times in Black Swan and come as a brace of cold water accompanying cuts away from the horror of Nina’s domestic life and her schizophrenic exchanges with her mother and those doppelgängers. Often interrupting the soundtrack’s eerily droning bass notes and snaking Tchaikovskian oboe lines tethered to repetitive chords that mirror Nina’s psychological disintegration, this piano music throws Nina back to something she can understand — physical effort. But the return to the studio with the piano echoing through it and the pianist’s occasional slips captured to shore up the verisimilitude of these scenes also means further confrontation with too many mirrors. (In a moment in the film that all ballet rehearsal pianists will surely applaud, one of them finally walks out of a after-hours practice session with Nina. “Why are you leaving?” she asks in desperation. “Because I’ve got a life,” comes the response.) The image of the dancer in infinite regression from front, behind and both sides bounces back to her accompanied by music. The moving picture the ballerina sees in the glass has a live soundtrack.

The genius of this film’s score is that the vision of a dancer’s ultimate madness in pursuit of artistic perfection, a perfection distinct from technical accuracy and allied with sexual awakening, is hermetically sealed by Tchaikovsky’s music, itself often distorted beyond recognition. The symphonic score is often taken to portray the inner emotional state of an assumed protagonist, personified most famously in Beethoven, who, as the text-books would have us believe, triumphed over his own affliction and fathered the Romantic style. In Black Swan the Romanticism of the grand theme from Swan Lake inevitably evokes the longing for love and freedom dramatized in the original ballet. While Tchaikovsky’s music necessarily conjures these same desires in the heroine, it also threatens to suffocate her. Even the music box with ceramic ballerina in pink tutu that Nina’s mother winds and places next to her pink bed plays Tchaikovsky’s theme. Little wonder, then that Nina, imprisoned in perpetual childhood, hears her own story in the music that accompanies her on- and off-stage drama of struggle and transcendence. As at the ballet class mirror, she can never escape her own reflection, until the grand theme finally cuts right through her.

Aronofsky’s composer, as for all his films, is Clint Mansell. The former lead singer of a band called Pop Will Eat Itself, the Brit Mansell might seem an unlikely choice to grapple with Tchaikovksy’s score, arranging it, deforming it, picking away at its unconscious. The great composers of Hollywood’s Golden Age would have gladly gone to-to-toe with Tchaikovksy. Think of the sweeping Romanticism of Max Steiner’s Gone with the Wind score, although the grandeur of Tchaikovsky’s music stands in relation to Steiner’s attempts at the epic as does Tara to the Winter Palace. But what is required by Aronofsky’s movie, and what Mansell delivers, is not the back-lot grandeur of a bygone era, but uncanny insertions, minimal and unsettling commentaries, modern emaciated doppelgängers of Tchaikovsky’s tragic strains.

Even when Nina storms out of the apartment she shares with her mother and goes clubbing and debauching with fellow company member and possible real-life black swan Lily (Mila Kunis), the house music turns out to be a high-decibel, strobe-lit version of Tchaikovksy. (That music was commissioned from the Chemical Brothers.) Our collective inability to escape ballet music even when out on the town reinforces the sense that what we experience on screen represents Nina’s inner psy-chological state, rather than some sort of independent reality.

Like the use of the ballet class piano, the masterful sound design of the film helps ricochet the viewer’s perspective from the heroine’s disintegrating mental theater to the film’s version of the “real” world. Mansell’s sinister evocations are silenced by actual sounds, delivered with frightening sonic reality brought to the front of the mix: the sliding into place of apartment door chains; the flushing of toilets; the breaking of glass. Here too there is ambiguity, however, as when the rattling of the subway car on the tracks gives way to its own doppelganger — the flutter of swans’ wings. Even the silence of an empty museum foyer after a gala resounds with a kind of intense presence oppressively muted in the musical underpinnings of the movie.

Tchaikovsky’s music, even in altered form, is also muffled in its function as sounding board of the heroine’s state. It is only in the final merger of off-stage horror and on-stage transcendence that the symphonic upwelling blasts unshackled through the cinema speakers, before the screen goes white for the credits and the music is silenced by the heavenly euphoria of applause.

Mansell’s original cues and his canny arrangements of Tchaikovsky’s music are hardly the most complex and rewarding of artistic creations. In contrast to the Russian master’s score, Mansell’s efforts do not stand up on their own. Like an endlessly pirouetting ballerina, they need a partner to keep them from teetering and looking silly. But Mansell’s score vitally stokes the dark power of this blackened fairy tale that goes white only at the very end.

Needless to say the above-mentioned Academy Awards gang denied Mansell from consideration for an Oscar, because they claimed his soundtrack relied too heavily on Tchaikovsky’s music. That’s like barring a Western because it uses Monument Valley as a backdrop. The so-called Academy’s attachment to quaint notions of musical autonomy and to the aesthetically unique score is endearing only in as much as it shows how irrelevant these archons really are as judges of such things. Only the obsolete could disqualify Mansell’s work precisely for accomplishing what it set out to do: trap the movie’s heroine in a musical house of mirrors before finally letting her fly free.
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David Yearsley teaches at Cornell University. He is author of Bach and the Meanings of Counterpoint His lat-est CD, “All Your Cares Beguile: Songs and Sonatas from Baroque London,” has just been released by Musica Omnia. He can be reached at dgy2@cornell.edu

In the conduct of their everyday lives most folks don’t start out with the idea of becoming “Living Treasures”. Conducting their day-to-day lives and raising families they use their free time to follow deep personal interests. In the case of the Lee’s it was collecting local history.

It seems the more the Lee’s collected tidbits of history and photographs over the years the more people turned to them with questions. The couple became the persons who could provide answers. Soon people all over the county and state were recognizing their work. Survive long enough, freely share your knowledge, and recognition follows as “Living Treasures.”

Lila Lee has deep roots in Mendocino County with family in the area for 160 years. Her mother Elizabeth Conrad Rose was born in Anderson Valley and in the Anderson Valley Museum visitors can see quilts made by Lila’s grandmother Mary Jane Rose. Made circa 1875 these quilts have backings made from flattened feed sacks with the stamped imprint “J.Bros-Ukiah” from a grain mill there.

Additional roots in the county came from Lila’s father Arthur Romer, who arrived in 1902 to raise pears and grow hay. Arthur Romer and Elizabeth Rose married in 1916 and had three daughters, including Lila.

In 1941 Lila graduated from Ukiah High School and immediately moved into World War II support work at places like the Rationing Board. Many jobs followed and after the Korean War she met Robert Lee. They married in 1955, adopted two children, and grandchildren have followed over the years.

Robert Lee had been raised by his grandparents in the Sacramento Valley and was a jack-of-all-trades. He worked as a logger, mechanic, truck driver, heavy equipment operator and a bottling line supervisor at Parducci Winery. He always found time to sit with an old-timer that had a good story to tell and developed his own love of local history.

Mendocino County formed a Historical Society in the late 1950’s and the Lee’s joined it.. There was a lot of debate among local historians about where the repository for artifacts should be. Sites included the home of artist Grace Carpenter Hudson, where Lila was part of the Sun House Guild that was preserving it, or the lovely home of retired Judge Held on Perkins St. It was decided to build a new structure in Willits for a museum, but what was to be done with the donated Held home? Lila suggested it become a library. Artifacts could go to the new museum in Willits and written records, newspapers and photographs could come to the Library, and Lila volunteered to run it.

For the next 35 years, while working part-time as a bookkeeper and raising a family, Lila brought order and organization to the donations to the Library. With no formal training she became a respected authority on local history and was recognized by the California Historical Society with an award for her long service, along with being voted “citizen of the Year” by the Ukiah Chamber of Commerce in 1994.

Meanwhile Robert Lee, seeing the need to have someone knowledgeable in reproducing historic photographs, had Ukiah photographer Don Crawford help him set up a dark room and teach him photography skills. The copied and collected photos until had had over 10,000 images neatly organized and his collection draws researchers from all over the country. My own book, “Early Mendocino Coast” could never have been completed without the help of this collection and the book is dedicated to the Lee’s.

After decades of supporting and volunteering with the Mendocino County Historical Society the Lee’s found an uncomfortable relationship developing. The Society’s Board of Directors wanted to computerize resources and photographs. Lila and Robert were long beyond the time in life where they wanted to start learning new technical skills. With bitter feelings they left the Historical Society and found new institutions that appreciated the encyclopedic mental knowledge of Mendocino County history.

The Anderson Valley Historical Society has a volunteer drive Lila Lee over frequently to docent in the Little Red Schoolhouse Museum, where display cases feature many items from her Rose family history. Lila also volunteers with the Grace Carpenter Hudson museum in Ukiah where she and the museum’s director quite often “just talk” about some point of County history needing clarification.

With prior arrangement, Robert Lee’s extensive collection can be inspected by researchers looking for a particular image. Access to these photos is not for casual browsers but if the research you’re doing absolutely needs a photo of 118,000 railroad ties stacked near the Navarro River in 1926 waiting for railroads to come buy them, Robert Lee has it.

Robert and Lila Lee are “Living Treasures” for Mendocino County. Their encyclopedic knowledge of local history and its photographic images delight historians, authors and researchers. Simple people with avid interests make interesting neighbors in the Ukiah Valley.

Hollywood produces frauds

From lives that once had meat;

No one in the know applauds

Hollywood’s latest feat

When it produces movies of

Redemption. Triumph. Real love.

* * *

I like watching boxing like I like to watch football. But I always feel guilty because someone’s getting hurt. I watch to see power and skill I wish I had.

Today, Katheryn had a vacation day and I dragged her to see The Fighter, the movie just out that the critics have been raving about. Oscar potential they say.

For all its much-hyped and massively expensive high-tech stage machinery, the Metropolitan Opera’s new production of Wagner’s Das Rheingold seems sur­prisingly underpowered, as if so much money and mental power went into the behemoth contraption dominating the stage throughout that not much was left over for the details of scenery, costume, and action.

“…the thousand-year sigh in Joanne Kyger’s genius!”

— Ed Sanders, “Ode to the Beat Generation”, 2008

Specially

For your eyes

If you make it this far you are fairly out of danger

because now you are on foot

on dirt roads, edged with sunlight

and small birds. When the wind

comes up you inhale it whole

and slowly distribute it

calm the torrent of breathing

— Joanne Kyger

* * *

Modern poetry is for many readers something like the famed Emperor’s new clothing – although we are supposed to “see” and appreciate it, few of us do. The abstraction, the willful difficulty and obscure references so prevalent in much “good” poetry are like medicine we suspect must be good for it simply because it tastes bad. So while many people profess to like it, few regularly read good poetry. Thus it’s all the more rewarding to find that rare poet whose words are neither a clever labyrinth of abstraction nor simplistic pap, but something which allows us to see things from new angles – and even to laugh while doing so.

There are few things worth giving up a perfect fall after­noon in Upstate New York for, but Buster Keaton’s The Cameraman with live music is one of them. A din­ner break and a return for F.W. Murnau’s Sunrise, beginning as the sun sets on the other side of Lake Cayuga seals the sac­rifice of those irreplaceable autum­nal hours to the gods of the silver screen.

Books

“Rae’s eyes were red and swollen. They sat on the couch side by side, in silence, waiting for the doctor.” from Crooked Little Heart by Anne Lamott

The silence of the eyes rings true, and the eyes being side-by-side seems plausible, but how in heck did those eyes get onto that couch without Rae?

I was 13 and had devoured a thousand books before I discovered the first typo of my reading career, an error that struck me as a scandalous affront to the artistry of writing. I was an insatiable reader, and wanting to be a professional writer I did not skim, but read every word. And when I found passages that wowed me, I copied their lines longhand to teach my sinews the feel of great writing.

For those of you who did not know of the “intelligent, New American Art” displayed in downtown Fort Bragg, or who refused climbing the flight of stairs leading to the second-story exhibition room on First Fridays: shame on you.

The norm-bending gallery was an experiment. It deviated from the dominant Fort Bragg tourist inspired, predictable art and displayed works that ignored seascapes and lighthouses. It’s now caput.

Instead of catering to out-of-towners’ tastes in landscape art, Odd Hours, which opened its doors in August of 2009, tried to appeal to those who appreciate bizarre, imaginative, and unique works. Largely unsupported by the community of Fort Bragg, owners and operators Jason Cowan and Inga Peterson were forced to shut down one of the hippest, pure-art driven joints on the coast, claiming that the studio was too expensive to maintain. “I’m not selling any art work,” Cowen said.

It’s unfortunate that a supposed artistic community was unable to accept this project, as it was your best opportunity to be dreamily inspired by young, local, and uncommon artists and their works. It is a sad day for Fort Bragg, and a blow to Odd Hours’ supporters and artists, who were excited to have an opportunity to relish an intimate, different kind of creative experience.

I braved the stairs earlier this week and found Cowan helping Odd Hours’ artist Jubal Stedman remove some of his last remaining paintings inside a once vibrant, cozy, four-roomed studio. Cowan and I sat in the middle of a bare front-room, face to face, and talked about the closing of Odd Hours, the upcoming finale in Mendocino at Odd Fellows Hall (which you should check out), and inspirational high school art teachers, all the while our voices echoing in the unfamiliarly bland and vacant space.

AVA: WHY IS STUDIO ODD HOURS CLOSING?

COWAN: “I’m not selling any art work. I can’t afford to keep operating this space under the pretense of being a gallery. People aren’t coming up here on their own. I have to send out party invitations. Even if that happens, people enjoy it and love it, but they’re not helping to pay the rent.”

WHAT WAS HAPPENING ON FIRST FRIDAYS WITH BUSINESS?

“I’d end up so depressed after the First Friday events. The invitation parties were pretty cool. A lot of people were really receptive to what we were doing here. Some people were fairly supportive. Both these things are great, but it just wasn’t enough. There were a small percentage of people that were really great. A fair amount of people were happy we were here, but they didn’t do anything tangible to assure that continued. That speaks volumes to me.”

WHAT WAS THE INITIAL GOAL OF STUDIO ODD HOURS?

“I was fairly positive all along that this would not be successful. I didn’t expect to make money. I knew that was probably going to happen. I personally feel like I produced pretty decent work—work that I’m proud of. That was a large part of my goal—to produce work of a certain quality and appreciate the value. We did actually do something. We got people interested, it got people involved and a little invested, and that’s cool—that’s great. But I can’t carry it any further. No one is stepping up. Maybe someone else will pick up where I left off.”

WAS THERE NO EMBRACEMENT FROM FORT BRAGG?

“I’ve heard from a lot of people that finally something interesting is beginning to happen here once again artistically and creatively. If people love this kind of stuff they have to take some sort of responsibility to assure it continues. Lip service does not do much. Talk is cheap. Rent is high. This is what kills me. We have original work here that a lot of people liked, and it’s very cheap. People spend money where their priorities are. They say this is important, but clearly it’s not that important.”

WHAT IS GOING TO HAPPEN WITH YOUR PERSONAL ART AND THE ART PRODUCED BY THOSE AFFILIATED WITH ODD HOURS?

“I’m going to continue to produce work and try to increase the quality and conceptual level of the work. As far as what we’re trying to do with Odd Hours, we’re developing our website, which is pretty nice. I would like to maybe maintain a physical viewing space by appointment. We’ll promote the website. People are going to have to call me or send me an email. It’s a lot to ask, but if they want to see it, that’s what they’re going to have to do.”

WHAT IS GOING ON AT ODD FELLOWS HALL IN MENDOCINO JULY 3OTH THROUGH AUGUST 16^TH?

“The Odd Fellows Hall in Mendocino runs more than a dozen art shows annually and we have a slot coming up that we have been preparing for for four months. It’s going to include five people who are involved in Odd Hours plus 13 others. Most are local, but there are three from out of the area. We’re going to put on a show that entire period of time and try to get this stuff seen and seen by people who are tourists in Mendocino. We’re going to see how successful it is. We’re putting on a show the quality and caliber of which I don’t think has been seen around here in quite some time. I want people to experience what we’re giving them, and experience a different part of their life. Not just something you stand in front of and then walk away from. We’re trying to create some energy and some interest.”

IS THIS THE FINALE FOR JASON COWEN? WHAT DOES THE FUTURE HOLD?

“It’s very important for both Inga and I to keep working, and always increase the caliber of our work creatively and conceptually. It’s something we’re both driven to do. I like this idea of trying to work with people with similar aspirations.”

IS THERE ANYTHING YOU WANT TO SAY ON INGA PETERSON’S BEHALF, SINCE SHE WASN’T ABLE TO JOIN US TODAY?

“She cut back her own hours at work. I see the quality and caliber of her work, and I’m looking forward to seeing where she takes that now that she has more time. That’s important: more time and all of your heart. People need to do that. I started drawing when I was five years old, and I’ve never had any training. Richard Hamilton, my high school art teacher, Ukiah High. That’s the only training I’ve ever had. He’s the only guy that ever consistently encouraged me. But that guy was great. He meant a lot to a lot of people.”

The Studio Odd Hours Summer Group Show at the Historic Odd Fellows Hall in Mendocino begins July 30, with an opening reception Saturday July 31, from 6-9 p.m. The show will be open daily through August 16, but make sure to stop in Saturday August 14 during the 2^nd Saturday Art Walk. Visit studiooddhours.com for more information.

]]> http://theava.com/archives/7670/feed 2 http://theava.com/archives/7547 http://theava.com/archives/7547#comments Fri, 16 Jul 2010 00:22:41 +0000 Bruce McEwen http://theava.com/?p=7547 Celebrating his first anniversary in Boonville, this reporter strolled the 14th Annual Boonville Art Walk last Saturday, July 10th. The day was sunny and hot with about six knots of welcome cool winds gusting intermittently through the valley, fresh off the Pacific 25 miles to the west.

A year ago, a backward, blundering bumpkin blew into town and he might just as well have fallen off the turnip truck from Sodom, Egypt, for all he knew about Mendoland’s most happening place: Boonville! He took a tentative look around and wondered aloud what he’d gotten himself into. But now the cub reporter’s a year older and infinitely wiser, having learned the difference between a maven and a dilettante, not to mention a few choice words of Boontling. Among the many things I’ve learned in a year of learning experiences, that in Boonville, with its vibrant culture, characters and vivid personalities, anybody with an adjustable hearing aid and a zipper on his lip can become an accomplished art critic virtually overnight. Granted, it took me a whole year, but I’ve come to understand that I’m not really a retarded eejit, like Grandpa always said, just “special.”

A deeply rural art gallery at the end of a Comptche dirt road is not likely to attract many visitors. Or any visitors. And sure enough its curator, Dan Parker, laughingly says of his remote enterprise, “It’s the only gallery you can’t get to.”

And the only one I know of, at least at ordinary income levels, that seems to operate by invitation only, the invitations apparently extended solely to persons the curator thinks will appreciate his work.

I got my invitation, I went, I appreciated.

It’s been said that Mendocino County with its population of just under 90,000 souls, has more art­ists per capita than any other county in California — and Anderson Valley is the place many of these artists call home. Recently, a group of them formed the Art­ists’ Guild of Anderson Valley, with a main focus of presenting an annual Open Studio Tour, Memorial Day Weekend, May 29-31. This is the 8th consecutive year for the tour, where artists and artisans open their doors and welcome the public. It’s a free event with maps available at many businesses throughout the valley. The public can visit the artists’ studios from Yorkville to Navarro, meet the artists, and observe art-in-action demonstrations. Artists who usually work alone suddenly become extroverts!

In constant character, the actors enter and exit the stage from passageways behind the seats, adding all the more to the feeling that you are in someone’s home. In effect the audience members become extras, watching the back and forth action of the play across from each other, like spectators at a tennis match, or as Hugh Dignon, who plays Uncle Vanya, suggests: like witnesses to ghosts playing out the most important day of their lives in perpetuity.

Such is the beauty of a well-interpreted and produced Chekhov play. “What’s important in Chekov is what’s not said…He was this great poet of subtext,” says Dignon, who first played the role of Vanya in the 1970s at Vassar College. What might read flatly on the page is brought lovingly and thoughtfully to life under the direction of Jonathan Haugen, who has spent ten seasons working with the Oregon Shakespeare Festival. In what spare time he has, Haugen collaborates with friend and founder Hugh Dignon on productions for Rock the Ground Theater Company.

There is a timelessness to Uncle Vanya: The distinction between past and present, audience and cast, seems obsolete. The layout of the set leaves the audience no choice but to become engaged. It is not hard to imagine the audience as extended members of Uncle Vanya’s family, watching the tragicomic struggles of their ancestors, realizing that in the hundred years since the play’s inception, not much about the human condition has changed.

Uncle Vanya touches upon themes of duty and faith versus living for the moment, catching one’s pleasure where one can. Uncle Vanya is a man in crisis who, after a lifetime of devoting himself to ideals of loyalty, scholarship, hard work and family, finds himself let down by human fallibility. He fears that through his blind devotion to his ideals he has squandered away his life and any real chance at happiness. “Conviction alone,” Vanya’s mother tells him, “means nothing. It is what you do with your convictions that count.” Uncle Vanya’s unraveling occurs over four acts, and while he is the title character of the play, the struggles of conscience and identity of those around him are equally on display.

If this all sounds too heavy for a night of entertainment, keep in mind that Uncle Vanya is touted as a comedy. There is something darkly humorous about how seriously we take ourselves, how given to flights of fancy and self-delusion we are. There is something beautiful about it as well: that there are moments where we can extract joy and beauty from what otherwise might seem like an endless stream of hardship and disappointment. The line between hysteria and hilarity is well walked by the cast: their performances lead to moments neither too melodramatic nor too absurd to find resonance with the audience.

Rock the Ground Theater Company is relatively new–but it enlists the talents of a veritable A-team of actors, musicians and artisans who in one form or another have come to think of Mendocino as their true home. Their aesthetic is part literary canon, part rock’n’roll: in 2009, Rock the Ground produced Rocky Horror Picture Show on weeknights and Hamlet on weekends, using much of the same cast and crew for both. The name itself is a reference to A Mid-Summer Night’s Dream: “Sound Music! Come my Queen, take hands with me, and rock the ground whereon these sleepers be.” Indeed, Rock the Ground is waking up our local arts scene. They take the Do-It-Yourself attitude of punk and temper it with the sort of prowess that comes only from years of experience, study and craft.

“What I see as being part of Rock the Ground’s mission statement is contemporary innovation through traditional roots,” says contributing artist Lavender Grace Cinnamon.

Take, for example, the fact that Rock The Ground has no fixed venue or theater out of which they work. This mobility allows Rock the Ground to consider the actual physical setting of their productions, alongside the set itself. In the instance of Uncle Vanya the Botanical Gardens as venue seemed a perfect fit. “We were looking at different venues…we looked at doing it in a converted barn…we looked at doing it in a house. But there is an environmental message to this play, that Jonathan [Haugen, director] and I felt should be emphasized. The leitmotif of deforestation runs through this play so deep and this issue really was Chekov’s passion…it’s just so fitting to do it in a garden where everything is kept growing and healthy,” says Dignon. On the table for Rock the Ground Theater Company’s 2010 season is an outdoor summer production of A Mid-Summer Night’s Dream, and an aquatic production of Metamorphoses if they can swing the right venue.

It is inspiring to see a collective of artists who are pooling their years of experience, education and craft to create something which feels genuinely new and exciting for Mendocino. If at all possible, get out to see Uncle Vanya this final weekend.

Saturday at 8 pm, Sunday 2pm matinée. Tickets available at Twist in Mendocino, Tangents, Harvest Market and The Botanical Gardens in Fort Bragg.

***

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An Odd Party

Tucked away, up a narrow staircase above Tangents–on the corner of Main and Laurel in Fort Bragg–sits Odd Hours, an art gallery and studio space run by local artists Jason Cowan and Inga Petersen. “How refreshing, “ said one attendee at Studio Odd’s recent Friday night invitational showing. “I don’t see a single sunset or seagull in any of these pieces.” Throughout Odd Hours’ three Victorian rooms partygoers milled about carrying glasses of wine, and even the occasional well swaddled baby, studying work by the gallery’s featured local artists. Though varied in technique and subject matter, each artist’s work conveys a weltanschauung stretching well beyond the usual pastoral fare on which so many coastal artists have made their living.

From Jacob Hewko’s psychedelic surf scenes with 1960’s bikini clad girls to Nicholas Heller’s shellacked one-act absurdist coasters, the atmosphere at Odd Hours is decidedly playful, eccentric and do-it yourself. Jubal Stedman’s beautifully realist oil and acrylic renderings of otherworldly women contrast nicely on the walls with Inga Petersen’s abstract paintings. Petersen, like her partner Jason Cowan, is clearly adept in a range of mediums and styles: there is a playfulness and ease with which their work jumps from subject to subject. For a moment this writer felt as though she’d been transported to an Artwalk evening in Brooklyn or Oakland. It was refreshing to see so many young people out and about on a rainy Friday night in the name of art.

The vibe at Odd Hours is in many ways a direct reflection of Cowan and Petersen’s demeanors: quirky, entertaining and thoughtful. I had a chance to ask Cowan some questions about his vision for Odd Hours and what he hopes it will continue to contribute to the local art scene.

Sara Liner: How long has Odd Hours been happening?

Jason Cowan: I leased the space at the beginning of 2009. I was looking for a place to use both as a working studio, as well as location that might at some point in the future have some retail/gallery potential.

Using the existing First Friday Night Art Walk as a platform, we held our first Open Studio in August of 2009. We have held four open studios and two invitation only parties at Studio Odd Hours since then. The Open Studios are held still held during the First Friday Night events, and the “parties’” have been held on alternate Friday nights as a way to stay connected with, and show appreciation to the folks who have expressed interest in what it is that we are doing.

SL: What was the impetus behind starting up the gallery? Where do you see yourself going?

JC: I have always wanted to paint and create. I have finally reached a place in my life where I have come to understand that life is short, and that if you don’t want to “waste” it, then you had better get busy on those things that matter to you.

The business model for the studio is evolving. 2009 was a year for establishing a presence, and for building up a core group of participants whose work I appreciate and respect,

2009 was also a time for establishing a routine and discipline around creating new works (these things don’t paint themselves). 2010 is the year that we will be focusing on making the Studio into a viable operation.

SL: Do you have an operating philosophy or mission for Odd Hours?

JC: The intent of the studio / gallery is to produce and display varieties of work that are not represented anywhere else on the Coast (that I am aware of).

However, it is not just about showing something “different or weird”; what I want to do is present works that are moving, thought provoking, meaningful… real, honest, challenging… I want to see things that aren’t “nice and easy” … or worse, completely pointless.

I want to show works that are significant and worthwhile, both as something to create as well as to view and experience.

The mission is actually rather grand; it is to change the tone of the local “art” scene. When I look around this community, I don’t see much in the way of work that is appears to me to be particularly relevant to people with modern sensibilities or aesthetics… and am not talking about Modern Art per se either, I’m talking about not seeing any art around here that bears any relationship to the lives that people are living now, today…

This community is changing, it is trying very hard not to become a roadside relic. If this is truly an “Artist’s Community”, then the quality and caliber of the creative works produced around here should be at forefront of that transition.

Odd Hours will be participating in February’s upcoming First Friday Artwalk event. While they do not as of yet keep regular business hours (hence the name) if you happen to be in the Fort Bragg area and are interested in seeing what Odd Hours has to offer, you may make an viewing appointment by calling : 707-357-0338

Jacob Hewko: gluten-free, loves rabbits, plays with knives.

Jacob Hewko is gluten-free–but he’s also one of the Mendocino Coast’s most talented and provocative young artists, breathing fresh life into the local art scene and creating images on paper that rival your most bizarre dreams.

After a few years working as a bike messenger in Portland and San Francisco, the corn chip-munching minimalist recently moved back home to the Mendo Coast to focus more on his art. You can find his work at Odd Hours Gallery in Fort Bragg and Frankie’s Pizza and Ice Cream Parlor in Mendocino, as well as on Etsy. I sat down with Jacob and talked about art, rabbits, and the lack of open dental offices on Sundays.

Why did you move back to Mendocino recently, blessing us with your presence?

I’m glad you think it’s a blessing! As long as that doesn’t change, it’ll be smooth sailing.

I was getting by, but I wasn’t making any headway in San Francisco. I was kind of treading water. I wanted more time to finish projects and I was living in a closet. Literally. So that was kind of boring after a year or so. I wanted to get back to my roots and surf.

How would you describe your art?

I try and choose the subconscious. It’s open to interpretation. There’s a certain ambiguity to it, sort of like when you’re dreaming and you wake up and you think, “What the fuck was that all about?” Most of the time that’s the thought I have when I finish a painting, but I’m still trying to figure things out.

Do you love making art?

I’m not sure I love making art, but it’s a process that kind of opens doors that weren’t previously opened. It makes you question a lot of the different ways we perceive reality.

Rabbits seem to be one of your favorite subjects for your pieces. Why is that?

I’ve been asked that before. Of course rabbits are cute. They’re kind of interesting animals in a way. They mirror humans in a sense that, on a more rapid scale, they’re just reproducing and dying. They’re low on the food chain so they provide a lot of food for other animals. They live really close to life and death.

You’re pretty good at drawing scantily clad or naked women. Is this another of your favorite subjects?

Well, I’ve been drawing nudes since I was fourteen. I’ve had a lot of practice.

Why do you think more women buy your art than men?

Women have better taste?

When do you do most of your work?

I like working at night. It’s a quiet time. A lot of piece and quiet. The world is asleep. It’s also the time that I’d normally be dreaming, so, it’s cool to work through that time.

Is there a Mrs. Hewko?

No. Not at the moment. But I’m always looking for her.

What’s with that outgoing message on your cell phone?

That would be an actor playing an angry Kirk Douglas, working on the script for Spartacus II. It’s just something whacky…to flaunt my lack of professionalism.

You ride your bike and hitchhike. Do you have any interesting hitchhiking stories?

I’ve had a lot of really good hitch-hiking experiences. A lot of good times. Ninety-nine percent of the time it’s good. It’s a great way to meet people in your community. One time I was hitch-hiking from Manchester coming back to Mendocino and I got picked up by this dude who didn’t have any shoes on. He didn’t seem that strange at first. Then he started talking to me. He asked me for money and I kind of brushed him off—told him I didn’t have any. Then he told me that all he ate that day was an egg some guy bought him at a truck stop. Then he proceeded to tell me that he just came from a mental institution. He was kind of taking the curves a little fast. I hopped out in Elk. I’m glad I survived that one. And yeah, there are drunk drivers, too. But mostly it’s been pretty good. That’s fourteen years of hitch-hiking.

Jacob Hewko is Gluten-free. Tell me a little bit about that.

Well, that’s just the way the Lord made me! Whatever that means. I’m allergic to gluten. I guess I figured it out when I was eighteen by process of elimination. If you’re feeling lethargic and you hate life, try not eating wheat for a little while.

When I first met you, it seemed as if you were always walking around with bags of broken chips. How is your corn chip supply now-a-days?

[Walks over to counter, pulls out clear plastic bag of crushed corn chips] Well, I’d say it’s pretty good. Chips are a delicious snack.

You used to live in Portland. What are your thoughts on that city?

I hate that fucking town. Specifically the police. They’re ridiculous with their attitudes against bicyclists. It’s quite true. Everyone thinks, “Oh, Portland’s the most bike friendly city in the U.S.” They have the most bike lanes, but they also have the worst cops on the West Coast. Worse than L.A. and San Francisco. Well, Seattle is pretty bad, too.

Did you live in Seattle?

I spent some time in Seattle—Port Townsend. Enough time to get a ticket.

So San Francisco was a better city to live in?

Way better than Portland. San Francisco is a real city. It doesn’t have time for all the little bullshit. It’s a big city and it’s got it all. It embraces itself and it has more range than Portland. There are a lot of things going on. In general, people are more driven and focused. It’s also a great bike city.

Would you consider yourself a minimalist?

What’s that mean?

Well, generally you don’t strive to own things. You live simply. Some people think I am, but that is not true.

Man, you are! I’ve seen where you sleep! You better put that in there.

I will.

Yeah, I try and keep it simple. It’s helpful, I find. Life’s a lot easier that way. You don’t need a lot of things to be happy. The less you have the freer you are. Although, I only have three pairs of pants right now. This kind of stresses me out.

There was a rumor circulating that you once pulled your own tooth out. Is that true?

That is true. I was an independent contractor, working as a bike messenger in San Francisco and I had no health insurance and I didn’t have much money. I woke up Sunday morning at about four with a horrible tooth ache. All the dentists were closed that day, so I figured just in case, while the hardware store is open, I’d go buy five inch locking pliers which cost $1.29. Maybe it was $2.19. By noon I decided that the tooth really needed to come out. That was a pretty ground-breaking experience.

I didn’t booze it up. I just went into the bathroom, leaned on my fore-arms and had to wrench the fucker out. It was crazy. You want any details?

Of course.

Well, half the root had died, so half of the tooth was dead and the gum was falling away. I knew the tooth was dead, so it should’ve been a root canal a couple years before. The first time I clamped down and locked the pliers I cracked the tooth in half. The foulest odor I’ve ever smelled came out. It was like rotten onion. I almost gagged, but luckily there was still enough root on the bottom of the tooth that I could get it to grip. I was able to work it back and forth. Blood started spurting. I got that fucker out.

No pain killers at all?

No. I don’t remember what happened after that. I might have passed out. I don’t really recall. I was pretty excited, though. It felt good once the tooth came out and my mouth felt totally different. Yeah. It was one of the better things I’ve done. I wouldn’t recommend it though.

What would you like to accomplish with your art in this area? Or just in general?

I’d like to be able to do it full time. I’ve been doing it the last few years and getting by somehow. I want to be able to continue to do that.

Do you think this is a good area for artists?

It’s hard to get people around here interested in art. Right now the art is basically geared toward tourists. But I think there’s a group of people who are trying new directions and new approaches to art, which is really good. There are a handful of young artists at Odd Hours Gallery in Fort Bragg. That group of people is trying to make art fun and interesting.

Who do you have in the Super Bowl?

Janet Jackson?

What’s next for Jacob Hewko?

Dinner.

***

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Werner Herzog

The famous and also infamous director Werner Herzog is giving seminars for aspiring filmmakers (which the Rand Corp. pegs at 75% of the U.S. popu lation). Included in the curriculum is: “…the art of lockpicking. Traveling on foot. The exhilaration of being shot at unsuccessfully. The athletic side of filmmaking. The creation of your own shooting per mits. The neutralization of bureaucracy. Guerrilla tac tics. Self reliance.” Known for a monomaniacal pursuit of his goals that would make Napoleon blush, Herzog warns: “Censorship will be enforced. There will be no talk of shamans, of yoga classes, nutritional values, herbal teas, discovering your Boundaries, and Inner Growth.” I guess he doesn’t want to be a public school administrator.

The bad news: Many on the newly reorganized board still support the controversial Executive Director, Karen Ely. Since she assumed her responsibilities in August, the Art Center has undergone a systematic dismantling of programs and events, many of which are proven revenue generators. Coupled with this loss of revenue is the 300% increase in administrative salaries. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to see that this is a train wreck in the making.

The real twist here is the fact that the proceeds of the sale of the Stevenson property combined with a generous donation from a patron, have put the Art Center in a position of relative strength in a declining economy. That is, until the board hired a new executive director with no knowledge or appreciation for the tapestry of programs and traditions that make the Art Center such a valued community resource — locals even refer to it as “holy ground.” Ely has made it clear that she will not be influenced by the community in her decision-making process. She has been heard to say that community input is not relevant to her vision. For the same reason, she refuses to read the local paper. With that closed and rather arrogant attitude, it’s no wonder the community isn’t backing her. Many people have stopped coming to the Art Center altogether. They describe the atmosphere as cold, uninviting, like a mausoleum. The September and October turnout at Second Saturday event was down significantly from a year ago. Registration for the Center’s classes is at a standstill.

The remedy: The board must encourage Karen Ely to resign or fire her, if necessary. This needs to happen now. That is the only way the public trust can be regained.

For approximately 12 years prior to July, 2003, the Mendocino Art Center was a membership organization. Each member had the right to vote for five board members. The By-Law change in 2003 did away with this, much to the dismay of many long-time Art Center supporters. The new Board of Directors needs to address this important issue as well as many others immediately.

The next meeting of the Mendocino Art Center Board of Directors is scheduled for Thursday, November 19, at 2pm. Please come to the meeting and share your concerns with the board. If we remain involved in the process, we will restore our beloved Art Center and ensure its survival for generations to come. ¥¥

Margaret Paul spoke of “the erosion of trust that has been steadily increasing since August with each new unpopular board decision, including the cancella­tion of the Thanksgiving Fair and next year’s Summer Fair, the dismantling of the computer lab and ending of the digital arts program, the remodel of a fine arts studio into an unproductive office, the discontinuance of the local schools’ instructional field trips to Center, the closing of the gift shop, the questionable hiring practices coupled with the firing of all of the coordi­nators, the intent to outsource the Mendocino Arts Magazine, the planned disposal of Art Center’s Library and all its books, the hiring of an outsider from Sedona, Arizona, for one day to develop a unnecessary “Strategic Plan” for the art center, the disposal of Center’s art collection without the knowl­edge or consideration of its value, the turning over of Center’s website to an outside company in Arizona, the discourteous treatment given to visitors, students, artists, instructors, community members, artists in residence, and so forth.”