The PhotoBooth is a lightweight, portable studio that can be shipped anywhere in the world. During the past three years, Irion has traveled over 8,000 miles and made over 2,000 portraits in communities across America. The booth is set up at cafes, in parking lots, at county fairs and on sidewalks.
Irion then creates installations of the resulting portraits taken of a particular community or group. A requirement of the project is that the installation occur in a place that is frequented by the community in its daily activities, with pedestrian access rather than in a place apart such as a gallery or community space. Irion considers the projects to be about community and only secondarily about art.
Irion is motivated by the concept of community. “I am interested in strengthening the ties of a community, by showing the group back to itself in a direct and democratic fashion with the idea that viewers can directly gaze on the faces of fellow citizens and have a moment to reflect on their relationship to one another. The installation functions as a place to meet one’s neighbors as a town green might once have allowed, so as to share with others the gaze of the community,” he explains.
The Yountville PhotoBooth project and Picture Wall installation have been underwritten by the Bardessono Inn and Spa scheduled to open in February 2009.
Click here to view photos of the Bardessono Inn and Spa construction site on Flickr.
]]>A sunny day, good wine, good food and lots of good conversation. I’ve been here before. For the better part of two decades my life has revolved around the world of politics, and the setting at the Plumpjack winery Monday looked like any number of high-dollar political fundraisers I’d attended over the years. But looks can be deceiving.
For starters, the mere presence of the grilled leg of lamb and rapini greens served at lunch set this event apart: Both were better prepared than what you’d get at a typical buck-raking event. And the rapini greens? They would never be served at a Republican event (too foreign), and rapini’s bitter tang typically banishes them from Democratic menus as well. On the tables of politics, nothing should be too challenging: Political food is cheap, merely fuel for the conversation.
Good wine, however, does grace the tables of the political elite; just ask former Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez, who got himself in trouble recently for buying too much expensive French wine. He’d have done better to spend his money on the Plumpjack cabernet sauvignon or the Quixote petite syrah, both superb wines served with the lamb.
Monday’s luncheon pitted the Quixote petite syrah against a pair of cabernets: the Plumpjack and its sister winery, CADE. Which paired better with the lamb? There were even cards for the guests to cast their vote. (No hanging chads here, though) I knew I’ve been in politics too long when I started thinking that with two evenly matched cabernets duking it out on one side, and a lone petite syrah on the other, there was a whiff of this year’s presidential race in the day’s contest. Is Obama a cab?
]]> I never found out how the vote went, but it was something of a Florida-like field: All three wines were excellent, but cabernet is more typically paired with beef or venison than lamb, leaving the petite syrah as the better match.Friendly rivalries between red grape varietals are a far cry from the rough-and-tumble undercurrent of the political luncheon, however, and I don’t just mean Democrats and Republicans. Attend any event and you’ll see factions form into their respective clutches. Cultlets of personality often develop around regional capos, who compete against one another for dominance; they’ll stand at opposite ends of the room. Other rivalries are more amusing, at least to outsiders: For example, you will rarely see a group of optometrists chatting over canapés with a group of ophthalmologists. They’ve been fighting each other for years over who gets to do what to your eyes once you enter their office, and each has cultivated champions at the Capitol. Rarely do they mix.
Contrast that with the conversation at Plumpjack, where food, wine and the happy talk of good times dominated. Politicos are rarely able to resist talking shop, but here even the winemakers weren’t talking brix or arguing over French versus American oak. It was just…relaxing. As a lunch should be.
Click here to view photos from the Plumpjack and Quixote Shoot-out.
A former line cook and commercial fisherman, Hank Shaw covered state and federal politics in five states for nearly two decades, most recently for the Stockton Record. He is now a freelance food writer who runs the blog Hunter Angler Gardener Cook (www.honest-food.net). He lives outside of Sacramento.
]]>Her first book, Notes on the Making of Apocalypse Now, was hailed as “one of the most revealing of all first hand looks at the movies” (Los Angeles Herald Examiner). And now the author brings the same honesty, insight, and wit to this absorbing account of the next chapters in her life.
In this new work we travel back and forth with her from the swirling center of the film world to the intimate heart of her family. She offers a fascinating look at the vision that drives her husband, Francis Ford Coppola, and describes her daughter Sofia’s rise to fame with the film Lost in Translation. Even as she visits faraway movie sets and attends parties, she is pulled back to pursue her own art, but is always focused on keeping her family safe. The death of their son Gio in a boating accident in 1986 and her struggle to cope with her grief and anger leads to a moving exploration of her deepest feelings as a woman and a mother.
Written with a quiet strength, Eleanor Coppola’s powerful portrait of the conflicting demands of family, love and art is at once very personal and universally resonant."(Random House, 2008)
Click here to purchase, "Notes on a Life."
Upcoming Book Signing Events:
5/19/2008 - 7:30 pm
Kepler's Books
1010 El Camino Real
Menlo Park, CA 94025
650-324-4321
5/20/2008
- 6 p.m.
Tosca Cafe
242 Columbus Ave.
San Francisco, CA 94133
415-986-9651
5/22/2008 - 7 pm
Book Passage
51 Tamal Vista Blvd.
Corte Madera, CA 94925
415-927-0960
5/28/2008 - 7:30 pm
Capitola Book Cafe
1475 41st Avenue
Capitola, CA 95010
831-462-4415
6/3/2008 - 7 pm
Rubicon Estate (Click here for information on the 'Music in the Vineyards' event)
1991 St Helena Highway
Rutherford, CA 94573
To purchase tickets for this event: 707-258-5559
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6/5/2008 - 7 pm
Copperfield's Books Napa
3900A Bel Aire Plaza
Napa, CA 94558
707-252-8002
6/10/2008 - 7:30 pm
Sonoma Community Center
Andrews Hall 276 E Napa Valley
Sonoma, CA 95476
707-939-1779
6/11/2008 - Noon
Huntington Beach Public Library
16807 Sea Witch Lane
Huntington Beach, CA 92649
714-846-3916
7/10/2008 - 7 pm
Book Soup
8818 Sunset Blvd.
W. Hollywood, CA 90069
310-659-3110 ]]>
“In developing an intimate understanding of horses, sculptor Deborah Butterfield evokes an interior life with which the viewer connects. Each sculpture depicts a solitary horse, introspective, unridden, at rest, which, despite their mass and materiality, appear animated. Butterfield constructs these works first with found wood branches and sticks that she twists into the horse forms. The bronze is cast from this wood, which is burned out in the casting process, to produce a unique work. Butterfield then applies patina, which conveys with astonishing accuracy the texture and nuances of the original wood.”(LA Louver, 2003)
Sculptor Deborah Butterfield created her newest work, “Madrone,” in the studios of Napa’s Oxbow School during the winter of 2007 while she worked as an artist-in residence, teaching high school-aged students.
Born and raised in San Diego, Deborah Butterfield studied at the University of California, Davis and the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture in Maine. From the mid-1970s through the mid-1980s Butterfield taught sculpture at the University of Madison, Wisconsin and Montana State University, Bozeman. Both of Deborah’s sons attended Oxbow.
]]> “Madrone,” is currently on display at the Oxbow School where previews may be arranged through Development Director Phoebe Brookbank between now and May 30. The sculpture, valued at $125,000, was generously donated to Oxbow by Deborah and will be auctioned on Saturday, May 31 at the school’s annual fundraiser which celebrates a different honoree each year for their “artful living.”This year, Oxbow celebrants focus their spotlight on Alice Waters for her pioneering work as a cook, restaurateur, food activist and founder of the Chez Panisse Foundation whose mission is to support educational programs that use food to nurture, educate and empower youth.
Alice’s philosophy of introducing young people to healthy eating habits is the basis for Oxbow’s dining program. At Oxbow Chez Panisse trained chefs embrace Alices’s vision through the culture of of the school’s sustainable dining hall. The Oxbow School’s garden and dining program are essential elements of its vibrant educational community.
To reach Phoebe Brookbank, call 707-252-5427. To preview the entire 2008 Oxbow School live and silent auction, click here.
View details on The Oxbow School 2008 Auction, ¡Fiesta Oxbow!, by clicking here.
Place an absentee bid or obtain event details by contacting Phoebe Brookbank at 707-252-5427 or e-mail phoebe@oxbowschool.org
Oxbow Links:
OS18 Final Show and Spring Open House, Saturday May 17, 2008 - Sunday May 18, 2008.
Oxbow Summer Progam for adults.
Oxbow Summer Program for kids.
For more information please visit http://museum.stanford.edu/news_room/Hobson.html
Or visit www.charleshobson.com www.charleshobson.com
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A two-woman show...
MARY DANIEL HOBSON: "Evocations"
and CLAUDIA KUNIN: "Myth"
April 4 - June 3, 2008
Modern Book Gallery
494 University Ave, Palo Alto, CA
650-327-6325
www.modernbook.com
On view will be a selection of works from three of Hobson's series - Evocations, Sanctuary, and Bottle Dreams.
Modern Book also has a nice selection of work from Mapping the Body in their upstairs gallery.
To view the work online, visit www.marydanielhobson.com
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Anybody who loves fruits and vegetables as much as Jeff Cox clearly does is, for me, a kindred spirit. Cox, a prolific writer, has spent his distinguished professional career promoting organic gardening, wine appreciation and good cooking, all passions I share. For those of us who believe that good eating begins with a home garden—or, lacking that, a local farmer’s market—Cox’s two new books, The Organic Cook’s Bible and The Organic Food Shopper’s Guide (both from John Wiley & Sons), reinforce our prejudices. Like him, I’m persuaded that varieties matter (nothing beats an O’Henry peach), that the season should steer the menu, and that fresh produce offers endless inspiration.
A Sonoma County resident and longtime restaurant critic for the Santa Rosa Press Democrat, Cox spent much of his early career at Organic Gardening magazine. Organic food was a fringe movement then; today’s shoppers have many more organic choices, and Cox’s new books give readers the tools to make the most of them.
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Bible—could persuade even novice cooks to venture beyond their produce comfort zone. And when your garden rains zucchini this summer, Cox’s angel hair pasta with summer squash, anchovies and capers might make you reluctant to share any of the harvest.
At 500-plus pages, the Bible ($40) is a hefty reference book for the kitchen library. The paperback Shopper’s Guide ($14.95), a condensed version of the big book, is the one you will lug to the market with you. With either book, you’ll find your produce world expanding. And for the sake of your health and the planet’s, that’s all to the good.
Janet Fletcher is a Napa County Master Gardener and the author of Fresh from the Farmers’ Market.
]]>Sarr works with barbed wire, rusty tin, and old metal skillets to create her often life-sized figures. One of her most prized tools is a chainsaw. Injuries are always a possibility.
“I’d like it to be a collaboration, but it ends up being a contest between me and my materials,” said Sarr, who also incorporates dirt and plant roots into many of her works. So why, asked one young Oxbow School art student, was Sarr drawn to sculpture? “I’m a very tactile person,” Sarr answered. “I understand my world through my hands.”
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“My hair was my treasure,” Sarr told the audience as she showed a slide of her piece “Taint” – “She ‘taint’ white and she ‘taint’ black,” the sculptor explained of the unsmiling head with its grey skin and bristling hair.
“Nappy Head Blues,” a bright-blue head with a stern face, is crowned with hair that is “almost like a diary,” Sarr explained, pointing out the many symbols embedded in its blue locks: “a mule shoe, a scrub brush, a little pig, a winged victory.”
The figure’s hair, Sarr said, represents “her hopes, her fears, her desires.”
In a work called “Coup,” Sarr takes the concept of hair-as-history even further: A life-sized female figure sits staring stoically forward, a knife in her hand, ready to cut the long braid that stretches from her head to enwrap a towering bundle of suitcases behind her.
The burdens of being female and the challenges of being black in America are recurrent themes in Sarr’s work – as they have been for her mother, whose assemblages like “The Liberation of Aunt Jemima” (1972) often targeted social assumptions.
The younger Sarr’s “Bat Boyz,” a collection of found baseball bats, clustered in a corner with their hitting ends sculpted into male heads, comments on the Negro Leagues in baseball history. Her “Spade Series” – a group of found shovels with men’s portraits painted on the blades – commemorates what she called “the invisible population” of workers. “Every shovel has a name,” she said.
Similarly, Sarr’s “Skillet Studies” pays tribute to the nannies and cooks who care for other people’s families but are “basically invisible” themselves. In fact, you have to look closely at the skillets to see the faces of “Mona,” “Nesta,” and the others.
“I could only paint from 11 (a.m.) to 1 (p.m.) because I needed full sun to see them myself,” Sarr said.
Not all of Sarr’s works are directly related to the African-American experience, but nearly every one comes with a dash (or more) of social comment: “Asset Test,” for instance, is a series of cast buttocks inspired by her “ever-changing physique, and how women are often judged by their backsides.”
The winner of a Guggenheim fellowship and two from the National Endowment for the Arts fellowships, Sarr is now putting the finishing touches on a heroic sculpture of Harriet Tubman, already installed on 122nd Street in Harlem.
“You take the A train,” said a smiling Sarr, who often evokes music in titling her works. The Tubman statue is called “Swing Low.” Some 11 feet tall, it took 5 years to create. Despite its 4,000 pounds of bronze, the figure is so filled with intention that it almost seems ready to stride off its plinth.
“I kind of made her like an unstoppable train,” Sarr said, referring to Tubman’s Underground Railroad. The figure’s skirt is covered with faces, representing freed slaves, as well as broken locks and chains and worn-out shoe soles. Behind it, Sarr created a “vapor trail” of roots.
There has been some controversy, Sarr said, because the figure is striding determinedly toward the South and slavery, not the North and presumed freedom. But, Sarr said, the real Tubman risked her life again and again as she kept returning to the slave states to keep the Underground Railroad running. “It’s a call to all of us to go back and look and see what we can do,” Sarr said.
The next Oxbow Visitng Artist Lecture is on Monday, March 31 at 7:00 p.m. with photographer Dawoud Bey, a professor of photography at Columbia College in Chicago who will remain in Napa for a ten-day teaching residency at the Oxbow School.
The lecture series concludes on Monday, April 14 with a talk by curator and art historian Larry Rinder, Dean of the College at the California College of the Arts in San Francisco.
The Oxbow School Visiting Artist Lecture Series is free to the public. For information, call (707) 255-6000.
Link : To view all photos from the lecture.
Tonight's Art Lecture Continues Oxbow Series
Tonight, the Oxbow School's Visiting Artist lecturer is Los Angeles sculptor Alison Sarr, whose work often evokes themes of race and culture. She will speak and show slides from 7 to 8:30 p.m. in the Copia auditorium, 500 First Street, Napa.
Fresh from his latest gallery-opening in Milan, photographer Ari Marcopoulos touched down in Napa last week for the latest installment of the Oxbow School's Visiting Artist Lecture Series.
The third speaker in this year’s spring lecture series, Marcopoulos confessed to the audience assembled at Copia that he’d rather just put on some techno music and dance, “and invite everyone to join me.” He then launched into a 90-minute presentation that mingled music – Bjork and Dylan – with the arresting images that have become his trademark. Snowboarders, skateboarders, and kids’ skinned knees: Whether in color or black and white, Marcopoulos’s photographs and videos have a powerful, almost physical immediacy.
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Pro snowboarders have long fascinated Marcopoulos, who calls them “metal-tube nomads” after the airplanes that jet them around the globe, “switching seasons over the Equator so they’re living in a permanent winter.” His intimate portraits of them in their hotel rooms offer a glimpse into a world most viewers will never encounter. Here he strives for the kind of intimacy he believes typified the work of 17th century master portrait painters like Velazquez
The Dutch-born Marcopoulos encountered his modern-day Velázquez in 1980s New York, where he landed a job printing photographs for Andy Warhol. Two years later, he went to work for Irving Penn in the high-fashion world. While working for Penn, Marcopoulos was busy aiming his own camera at faces all over town. From Times Square denizens to hip-hoppers like the Beastie Boys, he was making friends by photographing the scenes and people of New York.
“I worked and I partied. That’s basically what I did,” Marcopoulos told his Napa listeners. And he discovered that hip-hop music and culture had the same power to shock and inspire that he’d discovered in listening to Coltrane and Stravinsk “I wanted it all,” said Marcopoulos He soon left Penn to work for himself and began shooting such stars as LL Cool Jay, Jean-Michel Basquiat and A Tribe Called Quest. Inevitably, the omnivorous photographer was drawn into skateboard culture, capturing urban skaters all over New York. Snowboarding was next: Marcopoulos himself became an accomplished boarder, and made friends with some of the sport’s biggest names.
Now living in Sonoma, Marcopoulos continues to make photographs and experimental films, sometimes with the help of his skateboarding son. He shot his latest video, “Dressage,” in the family garage.
Marcopoulos wrapped up his program with images that stuned his Oxbow audience of students and art enthusiasts. Largely filmed from a helicopter as he followed his friend, the late pro boarder Craig Kelly, they captured a series of breathtaking “free rides” down untracked mountains. Kelly, who died with seven others in a Canadian avalanche five years ago, was arguably the sport’s most gifted athlete: “He was the person who made it look easy,” said Marcopoulos, now at work on a documentary about Kelly.
The Oxbow School Visiting Artist Lecture Series is free to the public. For information, call (707) 255-6000.
Link : To view all photos from the lecture.
Links:
Click here to view the press release from the show at Stanford.
Click here to view photos of the various books and wood block images from the show at Stanford.
Link : Neuhoff Stone Show.
Link : The Oxbow School Artist’s Lecture Series.
Link : Katy Stone’s exhibit at Suyama Space in Seattle.
Link : To view all photos from the lecture.
Note: Those wishing to visit the Oxbow School during Katy Stone’s residency should contact Phoebe Brookbank at phoebe@oxbowschool.org or 707-252-5427
]]>If you read, “Dressed: A Century Of Hollywood Costume Design,” published by Harper Collins last November, you’ll be hypersensitive to the difference between red carpet fashion and the art of costume design when you watch the Academy Awards Sunday night. Written by Deborah Nadoolman Landis, president of The Costume Designers’ Guild, “Dressed” takes the reader from the lavish productions of Hollywood’s Golden Age to contemporary blockbusters, illustrating the pivotal role the costume designer plays in creating the authentic characters that move an audience to tears and to laughter.
]]> Costume designers are not dressing to impress but rather to define the character. Landis sees herself as a cultural anthropologist. “The first thing we ask the director is, ‘Who are these people?’” says Landis. “It’s our job to help the actor and the director discover who these characters are.”Landis may be exaggerating a little when she says of herself and fellow costume designers, “No one knows our name.” But it is true that nearly everyone knows what Indiana Jones looks like while few will remember that Landis designed the costumes for “Raiders of The Lost Ark”.
In her most recent book, Landis uses a lush collection of photographs and costume sketches, some of them previously unpublished, along with first-person anecdotes to convey the role of costume in film. A professor at the USC School of Cinema and television and the American Film Institute, Landis is currently curating a history of costume design that will open at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London in 2010.
She was awarded the first grant for costume design from the National Endowment for the Arts in the U.S. and holds a PhD in History of Design from the Royal College of Art in London.####
Click here to purchase “Dressed: A Century Of Hollywood Costume Design,” by Deborah Landis.
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