Timken — Vermeer

By | |
Comments Off on Timken — Vermeer

Timken Museum
Balboa Park
San Diego
September 5, 2015

We went back to one of our favorite museums, the Timken Museum in the heart of Balboa Park, near the arboretum and koi pond. We recommend this museum highly, and suggest anyone living in San Diego who has not been there should check it out. It is a totally FREE, small (right sized) art museum with an excellent collection of American and Western European paintings and a large collection of Russian icons. Although admission is free, we made sure to drop some cash in the donation box at the entrance, and we encourage others to do likewise.

Timken_Vermeer

Our most recent visit, back in May, had been to see a special exhibition of a Raphael painting that was on loan at the time. We went this time to catch a visiting Vermeer painting, Woman in Blue Reading a Letter, on its final week here in San Diego. We arrived a little before the museum opened at 10:00 a.m. and joined a group of patrons waiting for the doors to open. Among that group was a man who had come all the way from Washington State to see the painting. He told us the painting is the 15th Vermeer he has seen; an impressive life list! We were enthralled by the painting, particularly by the use of light and color, and also the subtle details. It is a momentary glimpse into the life of its subject. She is caught in the drama of the moment, reading the letter, perhaps sent by her husband traveling far away. Other pieces of Dutch art from that era, including some outstanding watercolor paintings of tulips, were displayed in the same room, giving a context to the central piece.

The museum website had this information about the painting, which was on display through September 11, 2015:
The “Woman in Blue Reading a Letter” one of about 36 known paintings by world-class master artist Johannes Vermeer….Luminous and exquisitely rendered, “Woman in Blue Reading a Letter” (about 1663-1664) is one of Vermeer’s most captivating portrayals of a young woman’s private world. This generous loan from the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam marks the first appearance of this remarkable painting in San Diego. Praised as one of Vermeer’s most beautiful paintings, “Woman in Blue Reading a Letter” demonstrates the artist’s exceptional command of color, light and perspective.

Meredith put a heads up email out to her rowing team, to let them know that week was the last chance to see the painting. Several of them made a point of going to see it that final week, one for the second time. A teammate commented: “Vermeer is one of my favorites. His use of optics, exaggerated perspective and special pigments are fascinating.” Another was pleased that the exhibit tied into a lecture series she had attended recently, about Dutch art.

While it is no longer possible to see the Vermeer, the Timken’s Rembrandt, St. Bartholomew, is back in its place of honor and well worth a visit.

Avila Adobe

By | |
Comments Off on Avila Adobe

Avila Adobe
Downtown Los Angeles
September 3, 2015

Meredith saw the Avila Adobe on the same downtown L.A. trip with her niece and our youngest daughter that included the Chinese American Museum, Olvera Street, and the rest of the Pueblo area. (See the two posts immediately below.) This site also participates in the Passport 2 History program, so together with the Plaza Firehouse and the Chinese American Museum, written up below, Meredith was able to collect three stamps for our passport in a single outing.

Avila_front

The Avila Adobe is open seven days a week, from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m, and admission is free. It was built in 1818 by Don Francisco Avila, who had served as the alcalde (mayor) of Los Angeles in 1810. It is the oldest residence still standing in Los Angeles and is well appointed with furniture and furnishings from the 1840’s which are typical of the upscale California ranchero of the time. A well-informed docent wearing period costume was stationed in the first room. She told us about the history of both the building and its contents. We walked through several rooms, then out into the courtyard which features a tree sized prickly pear cactus, then on into the visitor center and gift shop.

Avila_cactus

The adobe is located in the middle of Olvera Street, surrounded by shops and stalls and restaurants. Growing out from the front porch of the adobe, out onto a trellis over Olvera Street, is a set of lush grape vines. We did not notice them much at the time, but then saw an article in the Los Angeles Times about the vines a couple of weeks later, What to Do with Grapes from 150-Year-Old Vines at Olvera Street? Make Wine, Of Course. The city archivist, Mike Holland, had long been curious about the vines, and recently had U.C. Davis run a genetic analysis of them. They are identical to the Mission grapes of the Viña Madre, introduced by Spanish missionaries and grown at the San Gabriel Mission. That grape “is a first-generation hybrid between a native Southern California grape (Vitis girdiana) and the European grape (Vitis vinifera) variety Mission,” according to Jerry Dangl, lab manager at Davis. Because the vines are a genetic match to the San Gabriel Mission plants, presumably they grew from cuttings that came from the Mission. No one knows how old the vines are exactly, but they may date as far back as the building of the adobe itself in 1818 or soon thereafter. If we had known how historic the plants were, we would have looked more closely at them, but one can see a little bit of the leafy vines overhead, on the trellis in the background of the photo Meredith took of the girls by the fountain in front of the adobe.

Olvera

Chinese American Museum

By | |
Comments Off on Chinese American Museum

Chinese American Museum
Downtown Los Angeles
September 3, 2015

Meredith saw the Chinese American Museum with her niece and our youngest daughter, as part of their tour of the Pueblo area. (See the post immediately below.) The Chinese American Museum is open from 10 a.m to 3 p.m. daily except for Mondays, and admission is free. It is located in the historic Garnier Building, which dates from 1890 and is the last surviving building from Los Angeles’ original Chinatown. (We learned that the original Chinatown was largely demolished to make room for Union Station, and a new Chinatown grew up nearby.)

The museum makes good use of its small space. Our group started with the timeline display in the first room, with explanatory text and photos and representative artifacts. That timeline takes the visitor through a century and a half of Chinese immigration to the United States, chronicling both the milestones that immigrants attained and the hurdles they faced, such as the exclusionary legislation which drastically limited the numbers who could come to the U.S. The nadir of their experience may have been the Chinese Massacre of 1871, when a mob lynched 17 Chinese men and boys in old Chinatown, perhaps with the complicity of the police and leading Angelenos.

We went on into a room set up to look like typical 19th century stores one might have found in Chinatown, with a general store counter and shelves on the left side and an herbal medicine counter, shelves, and jars on the right side. Two smaller rooms with sample artifacts completed the museum displays.

Ch_Am_herbs

This museum participates in the Passport 2 History program, as do the Firehouse Museum (immediately below) and the Avila Abode (see the next post), both at the Pueblo also.

El Pueblo de Los Angeles

By | |
Comments Off on El Pueblo de Los Angeles

Olvera Street and Los Angeles Pueblo
Downtown Los Angeles
September 3, 2015

Meredith took the day off work and traveled by the earliest Amtrak train north to Union Station in Los Angeles, to meet up with her niece from Seattle and our youngest daughter. They spent the day in downtown Los Angeles. The group walked around Olvera Street and the historic Pueblo area, then went on to the Fashion District. This post gives an overview of the day; separate posts will follow for the Chinese American Museum and the Avila Adobe.

The Pueblo area, including Olvera Street, is the original area of European settlement in Los Angeles. There are several small museums located in it, all of which offer free admission. There are several other historic buildings as well. Olvera Street is now a pedestrian zone with vendor stalls and small shops, offering souvenirs and Mexican themed merchandise. We have considered visiting the Pueblo area museums before but were intimidated by the fact that they are in downtown Los Angeles. That location is a fairly far drive from where Margaret lives, and we were also afraid that parking would be problematic. Recently we learned that Union Station is right across the street from the Pueblo, and we resolved that when one of us next had the opportunity to travel by train to LA, we would try to include a visit to those historic sites.

Niece and daughter met Meredith at Union Station, and the three of them took a brief walk around it. The station is a wonderful building dating from the 1930’s, worthy of study in itself.

Union_station

We then crossed Alameda Street, and walked around the central plaza in the Pueblo park, which has a very large bandstand and some impressively large ficus trees. We had arrived a little too early for the museums which open at 10 a.m., so we went northwest across Main Street to the oldest church in Los Angeles, Nuestra Señora la Reina de Los Angeles, dedicated in 1822 and rebuilt in 1861. The church was open, and a number of parishioners were in there praying, so we stopped in for a moment of quiet reflection. We walked back to the plaza and then started walking on Olvera Street, looking at the merchant displays.

Olvera

Halfway along Olvera Street, we stopped in at the America Tropical Interpretive Center. This two-room museum explains the historic, economic, and cultural background to the America Tropical mural painted by David Alfaro Siqueiros in 1932. Unfortunately the mural itself was closed to public view that day, due to some sort of problem with the protective shutters which cover it at night. The center gave us some very interesting information, however, about Los Angeles in the 1930’s and the painter’s life. Olvera Street was being revitalized at that time, and those who commissioned the mural were looking for an idealized tropical scene, to be painted on the second story exterior wall at the center of the street. Siqueiros, an ardent communist and labor organizer, instead painted a crucified Indian peasant surmounted by an American eagle, with revolutionaries on the right aiming rifles at the eagle. The mural was very controversial at the time, and within a few years had been covered with whitewash. In recent years, through the work of the Getty Conservation Institute, the whitewash has been carefully removed, and the mural can now be seen again. (Well, when the protective shutters can be reopened!)

We next saw the Sepulveda House. It is billed as the “only Eastlake Victorian building” in the Pueblo area. There had earlier been an adobe building on the location, which was demolished to widen North Main Street. In 1887, Señora Sepulveda used the condemnation funds to build a two-story Victorian business and residential block. The new house consisted of 22 rooms, with two commercial stores on the Main Street side and three private rooms on Olvera Street. We looked at the kitchen exhibit on the lower level, which re-creates the 1890’s kitchen for the boardinghouse portion of the building, and we then looked in the bedroom exhibit, with decor from the same era.

We then toured the Avila Adobe, which will be the subject of a separate blog post. We finished our walking tour of the merchant area on Olvera Street and went back to the plaza area. The girls decided to see the two small museums off the plaza before lunch, so we proceeded on to the Plaza Firehouse Museum.

Plaza_fire

The Plaza Firehouse is a red brick building which dates from 1884. It is the first building constructed by the City of Los Angeles for housing firefighting equipment and personnel. It was originally occupied by volunteer firefighters, and then by the new professional fire department starting in 1886. Horses were stabled on the ground floor, and the firemen slept on the second level. The horse stalls can still be seen, and a horse drawn hose wagon with harness is on display. There are numerous historic photos on the walls. Admission is free. This museum is one of three sites within the Pueblo which are part of the Passport 2 History program, which is one of our main go-to resources.

We then visited the Chinese American Museum, which will also be the subject of a separate blog post.

We went on to lunch from there, eating at the La Luz del Dia restaurant on the plaza. The prices were very reasonable, and the food was excellent. We ordered at the counter, and then food was carried to our table. Meredith particularly enjoyed the tamales. The girls enjoyed their food also and drank Mexican soft drinks.

There are several lots parking lots right around the Pueblo. Our daughter had driven her car, and she parked in the lot on the south west edge of the Pueblo for a flat five dollar price.

Some of the areas of Olvera Street are on multi levels without wheelchair ramps, but there are several wheelchair lifts. We did not have Margaret with us, so did not have to deal with accessibility challenges hands-on, but it appears that a wheelchair visitor could enjoy all or most of the Pueblo and Olvera Street attractions.

After lunch we drove down to the Fashion District and walked Santee Alley, a high energy marketplace with many small shops. Most were clothing or shoe stores, but there was a variety of other merchandise. Our niece bought a skirt she spotted, and Meredith and the girls enjoyed 10 minute mini-massages.

Santee_alley

Page Museum — La Brea Tar Pits

By | |
Comments Off on Page Museum — La Brea Tar Pits

Page Museum / La Brea Tar Pits
Wilshire Boulevard Miracle Mile
August 15, 2015

Page_exterior

We took Margaret to see the Ice Age fossil collection at the Page Museum. We have been there several times before but our most recent visit was two years ago. The La Brea “tar pits” (technically asphalt seep pools) are home to an unparalleled set of fossil remains from the Pleistocene period. In 1913, the first systematic excavations began when the Hancock family gave the newly established Los Angeles County Museum the sole right to excavate fossils from the tar pits for two years. Inside the museum are displayed many full skeleton fossils of extinct mammals such as mastodons, mammoths, sloths, horses, camels, dire wolves, and of course saber toothed cats, which Margaret liked best.

Page_interior

We opted to see one of the two shows on offer, “Ice Age Encounter,” a family friendly 15 minute docent presentation with media clips and a life size saber toothed cat puppet. There is also a 30 minute “Titans of the Ice Age” 3D film shown in another theater inside the museum. Both shows are ticketed separately from the basic museum admission.

Page_theater

We decided to skip the outside tour of the current excavations because of the record heat. That tour is included with the museum admission. The Page Museum is located in Hancock Park, next to LACMA (Los Angeles County Museum of Art), and it is generally a very nice park to stroll through. There are several active asphalt seeps within the park grounds, including a pit where excavation is still going on. Additionally, the museum is very busy with Project 23, an exploration of 23 separate large excavated boxes of material dug up recently when LACMA expanded its parking garage.

There is an area inside the museum where visitors can look through glass windows to see scientists, both paid and volunteers, sorting through fossils of various sizes, cleaning and categorizing them. It is fun to watch that activity and realize that this institution is not just a warehouse for fossils dug up years ago; it is also an ongoing research institution.

The basic admission price for adults is $12; with one show added, the price is $16; a “passport” including both shows is $19. Student, youth, and senior prices are $9 basic, $13 with one show, and $16 for the passport. For children ages 5-12 those prices are $5, $8, and $11. Wheelchair accessibility is good. The staff are cheerful and helpful.

We usually like to park in the lot behind the Page Museum when we visit it or LACMA. The charge is a $10 flat rate; that lot is located at the corner of Curson Ave. and 6th St., directly behind the museum. Enter from the western side of Curson Ave. However, it tends to fill by late morning, and we were running a little late today. We found it full, so parked across the street in the commercial parking garage behind Johnnie’s New York Pizzeria, our favorite area restaurant. We like to eat at Johnnie’s whenever we go to one of the Wilshire Boulevard museums – there are about half a dozen located within a block or two on “Museum Row” – and we made it our lunch stop today. Margaret was in touch with her inner hobbit and wanted mushrooms, so she ordered the mushroom calzone. Meredith ate cannelloni, and Bob had a chicken Panini. Both food and service were very good.

We met up with Meredith’s sister Kathleen at Starbucks back in the San Fernando Valley near Margaret’s home for cold drinks at the end of the day. The heat was even more extreme in the Valley then it had been at Hancock Park. We dashed from air-conditioned car to air-conditioned restaurant.

Margaret did a little better with the car / wheelchair transfers today. The exertion tires her, but her balance and ability to stand seemed a little better than on our last several visits. She did not talk much today, although she asked after her grandchildren, and she seemed engaged and happy at the museum.

Hammer Museum

By | |
Comments Off on Hammer Museum

Hammer Museum
Westwood
August 1, 2015

Enough digression for now! Time for a blog post which is both about a museum AND located in Southern California. On this visit we took Margaret to the Hammer Museum. We have taken her there several times before, although not since we started keeping this blog. The Hammer has several things to recommend it: admission is free, the permanent collection includes some very nice pieces, and it is relatively close to Margaret’s home in the Valley, although traffic is usually bad on the West Side. We are not big fans of contemporary art, which is the Hammer’s focus, so we only visit there when there are exhibitions of particular interest to us.

Today we saw all three of the featured special exhibitions. The Afghan Carpet Project is displayed in a small gallery on the ground floor and consists of six handmade carpets, all designed by contemporary Los Angeles artists, then handmade by weavers in Afghanistan. That exhibit runs through September 27, 2015, and when it has closed the carpets will be sold and the proceeds given to the nonprofit organization Arzu Studio Hope, working in Afghanistan.

Hammer cat

We enjoyed the photography exhibition Perfect Likeness: Photography and Composition, which runs through September 13, 2015. Meredith had seen a review of the exhibition in the Los Angeles Times, Making Photos, Not Taking Them. As the title of the exhibition suggests, the photographs featured are very beautiful and carefully composed, truly works of art in photographic media. Meredith was particularly taken by a large photo of a river landscape. Margaret was struck by a still life featuring a cat statuette and a vase of flowers. Bob liked a camera shop photo staged recently but based on an old snapshot of a camera store in the 1930s. The third special exhibition, Scorched Earth, features paintings and mixed media pieces by Mark Bradford. It runs through September 27, 2015.

We finished our visit with a swing through the permanent collection, which features traditional art, mainly paintings, from the Renaissance through the Impressionist era. Several signature pieces are currently not on exhibit, and a guard said they were on loan to other museums. The galleries have been rearranged so no obvious holes in the collection exist. There were plenty of nice pieces left for us to enjoy, including a large Eakins painting and a small Monet.

Hammer cafe

Partway through our visit we stopped to have lunch in the museum café. The menu was more extensive than we had recalled, and we all enjoyed our meals. Margaret had a BLT, Bob a grilled ham and cheese sandwich, and Meredith salmon benedict. The café is located in the museum courtyard, and the setting is quite pleasant, shaded by Chinese elms. The menu prices were a little high, but not unusually so for a museum restaurant or for Westwood.

As noted above, museum admission is free. (Their slogan is “free for good.”) On Saturday and Sunday parking costs a flat $3 charge for all day; during the week parking costs $3 for 3 hours with validation by the museum. Wheelchair accessibility is generally good. The elevator is quick and serves all floors. However, doors into galleries are heavy and do not have automatic opening mechanisms. Staff and other patrons assisted us with those doors today.

Margaret finds the car to wheelchair transfers harder than before. She tires easily. We are hoping that physical therapy will help her build strength so she can stand longer and take more steps, and we are trying to encourage her.

Inside Out

By | |
Comments Off on Inside Out

Pacific Winnetka Theater
Chatsworth
July 18, 2015

Meredith went up to Los Angeles without Bob, who was back in Massachusetts. She met up with our youngest daughter and her sister Kathleen, and they all took Margaret out to see the movie Inside Out. It proved to be, as we hoped, one of those animated movies with plenty of clever jokes for adults to enjoy, as well as a story line that younger viewers could follow. The group lingered in the coffee shop by the theater afterwards, and Meredith showed photos from our recent trip to Spain. She had also brought Comic-Con goodies, including an artist-signed print of the Inside Out emotion characters and the latest cartoon book by Lonnie Millsap for Margaret, and some Star Wars items for Kathleen.

Camino del Norte

By | |
Comments Off on Camino del Norte

June 9-18, 2015
Galicia, Spain

Pardon our hiatus from this blog. We spent most of June, three weeks in all, in Spain. For the first 10 days we walked the Camino of Santiago de Compostela, staying in hostels. There are several different routes that make up the Camino, all of which end in the city of Santiago in northwestern Spain, at the cathedral which houses the tomb of the Apostle James. We chose to walk the final 200 kilometers of the Camino del Norte, starting in Ribadeo on the northern coast of Spain. After that we did some sightseeing, first in Santiago, then in Lugo, Leon, and Oviedo. Like many other English speaking pilgrims, we were inspired by The Way, the 2010 movie starring Martin Sheen and directed by Emilio Estevez. Our pilgrimage was a wonderful and life changing experience. Perhaps the best part was meeting and walking with other pilgrims, including people from Spain, Italy, Germany, the U.S., Australia, and South Africa, and we want to give a special shout out to Dave and Kathy from England.

On our last night in Santiago, the priest preaching the homily at Mass in the cathedral told the congregation that the Camino does not end in Santiago, it ends at the end of our lives, and we are all pilgrims. As we return to our regular lives we try to hold on to that message.

IMG_1056

As I pause on the Camino to Santiago
Bless to me, O God, the earth beneath my feet.
Bless to me, O God, the path on which I go.
Bless to me, O God, the people whom I meet,
Today, tonight, and tomorrow.
Amen.

(Iona Community, adapted.)
Posted in the Miraz hostel of the Confraternity of Saint James

Hanging out in the Valley

By | |
Comments Off on Hanging out in the Valley

Reseda, Lake Balboa & Van Nuys
Sunday May 24, 2015

Our most recent visit to see Margaret did not involve any museums. Her long hair was in need of a trim, and she had agreed on our previous visit that she would like a haircut, after previously resisting suggestions that she have it trimmed, so we made that our main activity.

We first stopped for lunch. We had Mongolian barbecue, which Margaret had expressed a desire for recently, at King’s on Vanowen in Reseda. Margaret had pork; we each had beef, and we were all pleased with our meals.

When Meredith had searched for hair salons on Yelp earlier in the week, she found few that were open on Sundays. (We chose Sunday for the visit because with the three day weekend it made for the easiest travel day.) We did find a salon in the Korean area of Van Nuys that is open on Sundays, the Art of Hair, on Sherman Way at White Oak. The staff there were very pleasant and skilled, and Margaret was pleased with her haircut.

Haircut

The three of us spent a half hour or so at the Lake Balboa park, playing a cooperative game of Scrabble. Margaret had fun forming words, although she came up with a couple of alternate spellings! We rounded out the day meeting up with Meredith’s sister for coffee. Margaret shared fun memories of her brother.