Stan’s Obligatory Blog

This evening we went to the latest opening party at The Underground Arts Society in Altadena. This time, the featured artist was Ace Farren Ford. We sort of know Ace, since he’s the father of our friend and tattoo artist Shannon’s kids. Lucinda had fun playing with their kids Mars and Rose, as well as playing with Shannon’s cats. Lucinda also got a sticker on her back with some of the art on display. And we had fun looking at all the art. So overall, it was a fun time.

We went over to West Hollywood today to DiRT Gallery to pick up the two collages we bought. They are part of the “Art Hysterical” series by Jeff Gillete. The two we got are “Brice Marden and embryo” and “Odd Nerdrum and Little Mermaid”.

We went to the latest opening party at The Underground Arts Society in Altadena this evening. The featured artist this month is Susanna Eggli, and she works with bones, shells, and other such odd items. She had pieces with crab claws and fish heads, and a whole series with what looked like rat skulls. It was interesting and amusing.

We went to see “Stacked: Homage to Pamela Anderson” at DiRT Gallery in West Hollywood today. This was a fun little art show with a wide range of works by different artists. One room was devoted to Ms. Anderson. Another room was filled with acrylic hatchets with various objects embedded in them. Also, there was a whole series of hand-painted porcelain guns and hand grenades.

On the way back, we went to Griffith Park to look for the Old Zoo trail. We managed to locate it, but by then Lucinda was tired and cranky, so we went home.

We went to the opening party for “Evolving Light” at the Museum of Neon Art this evening. The new exhibit had lots of nice neon pieces.

We went to see “My Blue Sky” at The Project in Downtown L.A. today. This was an art installation of sound recordings from various places. Very strange. After that, we went to the Museum of Neon Art to see the “Bumfuzzle” exhibit.

Lucinda went to a wedding with Aunt Maggi this evening, so we had a night out. We had dinner at El Torito, and then went to an art opening at Ojala in Echo Park. The show was “In Los Angeles Something is Always Burning” with artwork and poetry about the L.A. ‘disaster lifestyle’. It was pretty amusing. We bought a print of a photo that wasn’t part of the show, but was a nice stylized photo of the towers of Downtown L.A. framed by the ever-present palm trees.

Today we dropped Lucinda off at Grandma and Grandpa Tarantino’s house and we went down to Laguna Beach. We met our friends Paul and Patty there, and the first stop was the Laguna Art Museum. The exhibit was “Whiteness, A Wayward Construction”, which consisted of artworks about whiteness as a social and cultural identity. After that, we walked down to the Coast Gallery to see “Classic Rock”, which was an exhibit of photos of rock bands from the ’60s and ’70s. Finally, we stopped in at the Chuck Jones Showroom to see cels and paintings from his cartoons. We rounded out the day with dinner at Ichibiri in Laguna Niguel.

Today we went back to the Herbert Gallery in Echo Park for the “You are what you wear” exhibit. A couple of the pictures we sat for on the 2nd were in the show. It was kind of fun to see them and all the various looks of the other people who were in it.

Afterward, we went to the Autry museum in Griffith Park to see “Ocean View” about the history of Southern California beach culture. This was very interesting and entertaining to see how the surfing culture was originally brought here from Hawaii. And then how it was then exported to the rest of the U.S. by the movie, fashion and music industries.

We went to the Museum of Neon Art opening party tonight. This was to show off the new exhibit, “Gas and Glass”. The new exhibit runs until September. They had food, drinks, music, and lots of very nice neon art. It was a fun time.