Jan 282025
 

Marti a flor de labios (Marti on the lips) is a portrait of Cuban poet, writer, journalist, philosopher, and activist José Martí by Cuban artist Edel Alvarez Galban (AGalban). The painting was part of the 2023 exhibition El Arte: Echos of Cuba at the Clearwater Library in Florida. Galban emigrated to the United States in 1995, later moving to St. Petersburg, Florida in 2001 where he works in both the medical profession and the arts.

José Martí was born in Havana on January 28th, 1853 and died in 1895 during the Battle of Dos Rios, fighting for Cuba’s independence from Spain. He traveled to Tampa Bay’s Latin Quarter, Ybor City, on several occasions while in exile to give speeches and to raise funds to support his cause.

Parque Amigos de Jose Marti (Friends of Jose Marti Park) in Ybor City features a statue of Martí and a plaque. The land was gifted to the Republic of Cuba in 1956 and was once home to the boarding house of Afro-Cuban activist Paulina Pedroso. She was friends with Martí and he stayed with her during his visits to the area.

 

Oct 142024
 

The Agua Caliente Cultural Museum opened in 2023 in its new location in Palm Springs as part of the Agua Caliente Cultural Plaza. It consists of several exhibition areas that tell the story of the Agua Caliente Band of Cahuilla Indians. These include an immersive digitally animated film in a theater at the entrance, scale replicas of the Indian Canyons, and videos, historical photographs and documents. The museum also includes several artifacts including those found during excavations for the plaza that are over 7,000 years old.

The museum also has a gallery for rotating exhibitions focused on traditional and contemporary Native American art. Currently on view is For a Love of His People, the black and white photography of Horace Poolaw.

From the museum

Horace Poolaw (Kiowa, 1906-1984) was born during a time of great change for his people—one year before Oklahoma statehood and six years after the U.S. government approved an allotment policy that ended the reservation period. A rare American Indian photographer who documented Indian subjects, he began making a visual history in the mid-1920s and continued for the next 50 years.

Poolaw photographed his friends and family, and events important to them—weddings, funerals, parades, fishing, driving cars, going on dates, going to war, playing baseball. When he sold his photos at fairs and community events, he often stamped the reverse: “A Poolaw Photo, Pictures by an Indian, Horace M. Poolaw, Anadarko, Okla.” Not simply by “an Indian,” but by a Kiowa man strongly rooted in his multi-tribal community, Poolaw’s work celebrates his subjects’ place in American life and preserves an insider’s perspective on a world few outsiders are familiar with—the Native America of the Southern Plains during the mid-20th century.

Organized around the central theme of Poolaw as a man of his community and time, For a Love of His People is based on the Poolaw Photography Project, a research initiative established by Poolaw’s daughter, Linda, in 1989 at Stanford University and carried on by Native scholars Nancy Marie Mithlo (Chiricahua Apache) and Tom Jones (Ho-Chunk) of the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

For a Love of His People: The Photography of Horace Poolaw is organized by the Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian. The exhibition was curated by Tom Jones (Ho-chunk) and Nancy Marie Mithlo (Chiricahua Apache).

Below are a few selections from the show-

Aug 142024
 

Frey House I (1940) as pictured in House & Garden magazine, January 1948

More images of Frey House I

Palm Springs is famous for its mid-century modern architecture and architect Albert Frey played a large part in creating that legacy. Palm Springs Art Museum’s Architecture and Design Center’s Albert Frey: Inventive Modernist celebrates his career with a creatively curated show filled with an extensive collection of historical photographs.

From the museum-

Albert Frey (American, born Switzerland, 1903-1998) helped to establish Palm Springs as a world-recognized center for modern architecture and design. He was the first architect to design a modern International Style structure for Palm Springs and paved the way for modern architecture and the architects that followed.

Steeped in early European modernism, Frey’s adroit handling of low-cost and low-maintenance industrial materials, sublime desert color combinations, and appealing geometric compositions give him a unique and permanent place in the idiom of “desert modernism” and succinctly expressed his two greatest loves—nature and architecture.

His mark on Palm Springs is indelible and includes such recognized icons as the Palm Springs City Hall, Fire Station #1, The Palm Springs Visitors Center, The Palm Springs Aerial Tramway Valley Station, The Loewy House, and his final home, known as Frey House II, as well as hundreds of other notable projects.

“….the sun, the pure air and the simple forms of the desert create perfect conditions for architecture.”

Albert Frey in a letter to Le Corbusier, 1935 about Palm Springs

More selections from the exhibition below-

In 1937, Frey left California to join the staff of Philip Goodwin who was commissioned to design the new Museum of Modern Art in New York. The museum has included documentation, photos and a model of the building- pictured above.

Above are stills taken from North Shore Yacht Club (1958), a promotional video for the structure that Frey built when the Salton Sea was a thriving resort destination. The refurbished building is now used for community events in Mecca, California.

The Tramway Gas Station, pictured above, is now the location of the Official Palm Springs Visitor Information Center.

From the museum-

At the same location where some 23 years earlier Clark & Frey had designed the graceful stone entry gates to Palm Springs, Frey created another welcoming structure-the Tramway Gas Station, a bold and assertive monument. Architecturally speaking, its roof offers a hyperbolic paraboloid design. Its cantilever suggests a spectacular soaring bird and indicates that visitors were entering a decidedly mid-century modern, forward-thinking city. About its genesis Frey said, “When you think about what nature produces in fantastic forms, in birds and animals-that’s where creativity comes in.”

In 1996 the building was approved by the city for demolition, sparking the beginning of the mid-century preservation movement in Palm Springs. The building was saved by those who bravely stood up for and championed its daring artistry, its physical representation of a moment in time and place, and the legacy of Albert Frey.

This exhibition closes 8/18/24.

If you are a modernism fan, every year Palm Springs celebrates Modernism Week- this year with a four day event in October and next year a week long event in February.

 

Aug 012024
 

Sandra Cinto created the mural above in 2018 for Murals of La Jolla, in San Diego. The Murals of La Jolla project commissions various artists to create murals around La Jolla with 16 currently on view and 48 created in total.  A map of current work can be found here.

From the Murals of La Jolla website about this work

In Sandra Cinto’s mural, Untitled, we get lost in a vortex of lines that push and pull in every direction. Inspired by the immersive relationship of the ocean as a part of La Jolla’s Landscape, Cinto “decided to create another kind of landscape and make it by drawing without colors”. The artist intends for each viewer to have a different experience with the work as it is meant to be an open landscape. For Cinto, her work reinforces a kind of philosophy that each little mark is important, since “little details, little actions can change everything.” The viewer can be absorbed in the lines and details found in her work or step back and behold an undulating and pulsating landscape.

 

 

Jul 182024
 

Randyland is a free eclectic outdoor museum located on the Northside of Pittsburgh. The founder, Randy Gilson bought the property for $10,000 using a credit card. Upcycled objects, sculptures, paintings and murals began to fill the space, and the rest is history.

Included in the story of Randyland is how Gilson met and fell in love with his partner, David Paul Francis “Mac” McDermott. McDermott would go on to help Gilson build the museum. Sadly, he passed away from cancer in 2019.

The museum is open year round from 12-7pm.

May 142024
 

Kwakwaka’wakw artist and activist Chief Beau Dick’s (1955-2017) carved masks for the exhibition Walas Gwa’yam / Big, Great Whale at Andrew Kreps Gallery draw you in with their intriguing visages.

From the press release-

Our whole culture has been shattered. It’s up to the artists now to pick up the pieces and try and put them together, back where they belong. Yeah, it does become political. It becomes beyond political; it becomes very deep and emotional.” – Beau Dick speaking in the 2017 film ‘Maker of Monsters: The Extraordinary Life of Beau Dick.

Beau Dick’s works are deeply informed by the tradition of potlatch, a gift-giving ceremony practiced by Indigenous people of the coast of Pacific Northwest Canada, which focused on the redistribution of wealth as a tool for building solidarity. Outlawed by the Canadian Government for nearly seventy years as part of an ongoing history of forced assimilation, the seclusion of Dick’s birthplace on Kingcome Inlet (Gwa’yi) allowed his community to continue practicing customs relatively free from the gaze of colonial authorities. Trained in wood-carving by his father, grandfather, and other master carvers, and completing his education in Vancouver, Dick was acutely aware of inherent tensions between contemporary consumer culture and Kwakwaka’wakw teachings. Refuting his masks as static objects, his carvings reference supernatural figures, like Dzunuk’wa, the “wild woman of the woods,” and her counterpart, Bakwas, “wild man of the woods,” which are reanimated to combat what Dick saw as capitalism’s “ravenous” oppression. Frequently employing his works in dances and performances, in 2012 he took forty Atlakim (Forest) masks to his community in Alert Bay, where after one final ceremony, they were ritually burned, referencing the ongoing responsibility for rebirth, and recreation in the face of erased tradition.

Jan 292024
 

Whimzeyland, the “Bowling Ball House”, is a local landmark located in Safety Harbor, Florida, created by artists Todd Ramquist and Kiaralinda.

About the house from their website

In 1985, they purchased the beige house on Third Street in Safety Harbor, Florida. They traveled everywhere, actively seeking out inspirational and unusual places. Inspired by these travels, they began transforming their house. One of the earliest additions were the wooden triangles to the eaves of their house. The beige house became bold in color, too.

One day, they went to a flea market and saw a sign that said that anybody could take 10 free bowling balls. They took the bowling balls and began painting and placing them around the property. This is how they became known as the bowling ball house of Safety Harbor.

Todd and Kiaralinda even branched out of decorating their home, creating two different art cars, designed a restaurant, and making public sculptures, among other things. They began calling themselves the Whimzey Twinz because they work together on all of their projects.

Their travels soon included visits to folk artists and artists that they met at their shows. These friends visited them, too. Todd and Kiaralinda’s bowling balls inspired many of them. They would create bowling balls for Todd and Kiaralinda, who got so many of these works from artist friends that they started a gallery in their home. They created a “Call for Balls” which made a lot more of these art works roll into their home. Today, they have over 80 bowling balls from various artists around the world and people still bring them bowling balls as gifts.

If you are in the area, make sure to also stop by Safety Harbor Art and Music Center (SHAMc), a nonprofit they opened in 2017. It has an art gallery and shop, and hosts music events and art classes as well.

 

Nov 302023
 

Eagle Opens Up by Haisla, Heiltsuk artist Paul Windsor, located in Vancouver, Canada.

You can also find his work on Instagram.

Nov 142023
 

This past weekend was Studio Waltz, an annual artist studio tour that takes place around Dunedin and Palm Harbor. One of the stops was The Mosaic House of Dunedin.

Carol Sackman and Blake White’s magical home has so much going on you almost don’t know where to look first. The couple teach classes from November thru April and can be contacted for tours of their home.

The Mosaic House was also featured in a gallery exhibition at the Dunedin Fine Art Center last year.

Spotted while at their home was a mural, pictured below, by former local artist Jennifer Kosharek, pictured below. She recently relocated to Alaska.

 

Nov 142023
 

One of the two Creative Liberties spaces in the Limelight District

On the second Saturday of every month artists from the Sarasota Studio Artists Association open their studios around Sarasota, Florida. One place to stop is the Limelight District where you can find Creative Liberties, Palmer Modern, and The Bazaar.

Founded by artists Barbara Gerdeman and Elizabeth Goodwill, Creative Liberties opened its first location at the end of 2021 and the second in February of this year. Along with the artist studios, the space hosts exhibitions and classes for children and adults.

The exhibition space and tables from a finished class from September 2023

If you go make sure to also check out the delightful Free Little Art Gallery. Created by artist Judy Robertson and modeled after the Free Little Libraries, you are encouraged to take a piece of art, leave a piece of art, or sometimes just admire what’s been donated. There is one for work by adults and for children’s art work.

Below are images from a few of the artist’s spaces in the Creative Liberties buildings.

Paintings by Lisa DiFranza

Paintings by Adrienne Watts

Paintings by David Sigel

Photography by Henry Martin

Work by Sandra Wix

Paintings by Cheryl Taub

Paintings by Ava Young

Work by Creative Liberties founder Barbara Gerdeman

Work by artists Traci Kegerreis and Sandy Koolkin

On the next page- Palmer Modern and The Bazaar