Carved at Descanso Gardens has created a gently haunted, transcendent Halloween-time experience this year, with a fresh route, hand-carved wooden spirit creatures created by Chainsaw Jenna, and more of the large, crazy-cool pumpkins visitors have come to know and love.
The garden setting is lovely and the lighting sets the mood for glowing, spooky fun.
The charming new Descanso Railroad is playfully aglow; Rhizome, an installation from Tom and Lien Dekyvere offers mesmerizing, futuristic beams of light.
And of course there are the ever changing – because they only last three days – carved pumpkins to delight young and old. The artists creating them are ready to chat about their unique designs from Beetlejuice to Pikachu.
Then there’s the delightfully haunting pumkin trail, where pumpkin sculptures offer a mix of toothy grins, and fierce gazes. There are pumpkin-headed scarecrows, and pumpkin families as well as a purple-lit, water based installation that depicts a storm tossed and tattered ghostly pirate ship, rainstorm periodically descending over it.
A pumpkin–filled mesh dragon shifts colors with cast light in another water spot; glowing red lanterns illuminate a tunnel in the Japanese Garden.
The garden’s tree forest features illuminated bases with touch pads that emanate spooky sounds when trod upon.
Wire figures of ghostly boys and girls are positioned eerily in the rose garden.
Even the parking lot attendant’s booth gets into the spirit of the event, with a jaunty skeleton ticket taker pointing the way to the entrance.
The whole event is original and delightful, and has grown exponentially in both size and charm since its first years. This is a don’t- miss for families and those who like their Halloween thrills compelling but not filled with jump-scares; haunting in a mist-shrouded, purple-lit, leave-it-to-your imagination way.
There’s also a pumpkin house photos stop, a beer garden, snacks, coffee – and hot chocolate, and delicious cupcakes, cookies and pastries alluringly near the pumpkin carvers.
The event is open from now until October 30th. Ticket discounts for members. Non-members will pay a well-worth-it $35-45 for adults and $25-30 for kids.
Hours are 6-10 pm, with timed admissions at 6, 6:30 7, 7:30, 8, 8:30, and 9 p.m.
Landscapes of the Mind – Thresholds at Gallery of Hermosa
Nancy Kay Turner
Look deep into nature and then you will understand everything.
Albert Einstein
The earth has music for those that listen.
William Shakespeare
Thresholds, thoughtfully curated by Genie Davis, brings together five artists, Eileen Oda Leaf, Hung Viet Nguyen, Angelica Sotiriou, Linda Sue Price, and Snezana Saraswati Petrovic, whose artworks reference the elements of air, water and earth. Working across different mediums such as oil and acrylic painting, mixed-media drawing, neon and 3-D printed sculpture, these artists create landscapes that take us from the depths of underwater reefs to gently rolling hills, jagged mountains, and aerial views of land both icy and green, moving engagingly from the micro to the macro. These five artists present landscape as a state of mind rather than an actual place by creating romantic dreamscapes that are idealized versions of nature.
Both Hung Viet Nguyen and Eileen Oda Leaf invent inviting scenarios, jam-packed with flowers, trees and plants with highly textured surfaces. While Nguyen literally sculpts and incises thickly applied oil paint, creating ridges and crevasses that illuminate his forms in his Sacred Landscape series, Oda Leaf adds actual painted materials to her pieces, as in “Desert Plateau,” laying them out in a regular simplified pattern that recall embroidered Folk Art hangings. Both painters present bucolic unspoiled scenes where the sun always shines, the grass is green, the water is pure and there are rarely people visible. While Nguyen’s paintings focus on the majestic and mysterious, bringing the viewer on a spiritual journey, Oda Leaf’s work focuses on recognizable spots such as piers, desert and forests which she transforms with her lavish color palette. Nguyen and Oda leaf are masterful colorists whose palette and paint handling echo both the Impressionists and the Symbolists.
The sculptors Linda Sue Price and Snezana Saraswati Petrovic use industrial and technological materials such as neon, 3-D printing and augmented reality to create compelling works that challenge our perceptions of the environment. Price’s jaunty neon works evoke both the down to earth world of plants in “Snake Beans” and “Kapeeno,” and aerial views of cities and freeways in “The Other Side of the Story. ” The festive colors and the surprising movement of the neon itself suggests cars moving on a freeway or even the gurgling equipment of a mad scientist, making these works especially lively.
Petrovic’s tiny, jewel-like 3-D printed “Pas De Deux” and “Coral Song” are poetic recreations of coral reefs that the artist not only imagines or re-imagines but ones that she has seen on her many dives. Each delicate translucent piece looks lit from within glowing, lace-like, and seeming to sway. Petrovic, whose works are conceptual, continues her use of 3-D printer technology along with augmented reality in her Sprawling LA series. These two pieces paradoxically look both macro (aerial view) and macro (view of the ocean floor). If one downloads the ARTIVIVE app on one’s smartphone, one can view the AR image that appears over the physical 3-D digital print. A frenetic Los Angeles freeway appears over one landscape and a serene ocean view with a seagull flying in the sky appears over the other. Petrovic alludes here to man’s destruction of the ecosystem and what is being destroyed.
Angelica Sotiriou’s works on paper and canvas are highly abstracted and poetic. Her large- scale mixed media painting “Scala, Divine Ascent,” highlights striations between earth and the heavens that are delineated, moving from earth tones to blue sky and to a glowing beyond. A simplified gold leaf tree reaches upwards towards the stars, perhaps a symbol of growth and transcendence.
Nature is clearly the star in Thresholds – bountiful, fecund, benevolent, a treasure to behold. Humans rarely appear and when they do, they are tiny specks in the immense universe – small and insignificant. They seem newly formed and not yet dangerous to the planet. There are no cars, planes, buses, cruise ships or tourism. This earth is still a paradise, unspoiled and pristine. Clearly a balm for a troubled soul.
And what is the threshold suggested by the title? Is it the precipice we find ourselves on? The tipping point or moving from the now to the point of no return? Is it the portal one steps through from the present into the future, from the known into the unknown? From what could be into what is? Uncertainty swirls about us daily but in this exhibition, Davis offers us beauty, serenity and abundance. Perhaps this is also a gentle call to action – a reminder of what might be lost if we don’t preserve what we have while we still have it.
– Nancy Kay Turner; photos: Nancy Kay Turner, Genie Davis, Dani Dodge Pasadena, CA.
A real wow official opening for PST Art splashed across the sky early Sunday evening with a major event at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum by globally renowned artist Cai Guo-Qiang and his custom AI model cAI™ commissioned and presented by Getty in collaboration with the University of Southern California.
WE ARE was experienced by only 5,000 guests positioned directly on the stadium’s astroturf to witness what Cai calls “daytime fireworks.” As a note, the stadium typical holds over 77,000 guests.
The unique artwork uses organic, sustainable pigments and dyes rather than traditional pyrotechnics. The roughly half-hour long program, conducted live by Cai, debuted the first expansive daytime firework event featuring a drone formation equipped with pyrotechnic products ever in the U.S.
WE ARE presented nearly ten thousand twinkling mini firework shells installed throughout the Coliseum seating, custom-developed daytime fireworks, and choreographed drones carrying pyrotechnic products. When the drones arrived, multiple nearby viewers began to hum some sections of the Star Wars score.
The paints and pyros created a sky that temporarily at least evoked abstract watercolor paintings, igniting the sky with images of myth and humanity and drawing parallels to Prometheus’s theft of fire from the gods.
In two separate displays, the official Los Angeles flower, the bird of paradise, played a key part. There was an explosive dragon circling the stands, sparkling and booming loudly for the finale. Drones spelled out “We Are” with sparkles, and poetic electronic billboards offered the titles of five separate art sections along with resonant stories about them.
Cai Guo-Qiang asks “Is humanity’s creation of AI akin to the theft of fire and an attempt to steal the ‘heavenly secret’ with AI? …I hope WE ARE will stand as a grand gesture of the art world integrating the virtual with the real in the era of AI, and also as a powerful voice and decisive action in these turbulent times.”
It certainly integrates a vast created beauty with the natural wonder of the sky, drawing awed responses and cheers as each vibrant, dreamy, surreal, and lush element of the performance unfolded.
You may know Kristine Schomaker as the creator of Shoebox Arts, an inclusive arts community that includes Shoebox Projects exhibitions, mentoring artists throughout Southern California and beyond, and Art and Cake, digital publication you’ve likely read along with DiversionsLA.
Now Schomaker has begun a joyous new project for her, January Arts, a nonprofit she originally conceived of in 2018, and is bringing to fruition now, with a launch party that includes a small works fundraiser this Sunday, August 18th at the Moonhuts in Los Angeles from 3-6 p.m.
The nonprofit will serve as a hub, a facilitator, a connector, an introduction to the art world—the place where any artist can find mentorship, professional development, exhibition opportunities, critique groups, professional speakers, workshops, tools, and more.
As Schomaker says “The world is in a wonky place right now, but I knew I could help artists keep going: I’m a good cheerleader, advocate, and facilitator. While I’ve been doing this work for a decade through Shoebox, I’ve been itching to reach a wider audience. Now, through the tax-deductible nonprofit, we can apply for grants and fundraise to bring more support to creatives; with January Arts, I’m better positioned to offer my experience, knowledge, and passion to those who wouldn’t otherwise have access to support.”
She visualizes Shoebox “evolving into the more holistic platform that is January Arts. I am excited about January Arts being a hub of artist resources, where artists from all over can find whatever help they need.” Her board members were culled form diverse backgrounds in business, journalism, artist support, technology, and finance, among others.
Schomaker, left with board president Ellen Friedlander
She stresses that she wants “January Arts to be a platform where artists can find community, learn to network, and achieve their goals, whatever they may be. I also want it to be a place where any artist–regardless of career level–can realize that there are opportunities available to them. We know how hard it is to be a creative: trying to be vulnerable and put yourself out there can be an emotional rollercoaster. We want artists to know that they aren’t alone. Their story is our story. I also want January Arts to bridge the gap between artists and their needs, both material and otherwise: We have resources for graphic design, printing, framing, shipping, taxes, workshops, classes, art supplies, self-care, organization platforms, mentorship and more.”
According to Schomaker, “Once we have a bit of history under our belts, we will be applying for grants. The Launch party will feature a small works exhibition where all work is $100. We are also accepting donations on our website www.januaryarts.org. All donations are tax deductible. Fundraising will be key to providing unencumbered support to all artists.”
January Arts will officially launch on September 1st. “When you sign up through our artist membership, you have access to an abundance of benefits, including group zoom meetings three times a week: on Mondays we hold open forum Q&As; on Wednesdays we hold a book club; on Thursdays we hold co-working sessions where we all log in and work separately, using the energy of the group to finish the work we’ve been procrastinating on. We also hold a monthly meeting where we bring in an art world speaker. In the past we have had art writers, gallerists, curators, well-known artists, consultants and other guests,” Schomaker says. “Coming up we have someone talking about different technology that is available to artists to make their lives easier, as well as someone talking about licensing. Once a month, we also hold a zoom critique group. Each artist gets 10-15 minutes to share their work/projects and get feedback.” Additionally, she says “We have in person meet-ups at museums and galleries, too. Ongoing benefits include a call for artist list, an artist registry on the website, a private Facebook group, social media PR and more. Artists can check out our services as well as testimonials and FAQ on our website, www.januaryarts.org Artists can pay monthly, every 6 months or every year. We have been able to keep the fees lower due to donations and fundraising.”
The indefatigable Schomaker describes January Arts as “a passion project. It is a culmination of so many ideas coming together to continue supporting artists. In the future, we look forward to more collaborations with organizations and institutions. We look forward to expanding Art and Cake and bringing in art writer fellowships. We want to do more workshops with emerging artists and students. ”
And, she still dreams of starting an artist residency outside of the city, hoping to travel and share available opportunities with artists everywhere. “The internet and social media have opened up so many opportunities to artists, but it is still overwhelming. We want to be able to help artists navigate their individual path. We believe there is no linear or predetermined path for artists,” she attests.
January Arts Fundraiser August 18th 3-6pm
MoonHuts
5320 Valley Blvd LA CA 90032
https://www.moonhuts.com/
Catered by @district5kitchen
Small works exhibition, fundraiser, silent auction and more…
