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MARINE SANCTUARY CENTER ART…REVEALED. Last week in this space I bemoaned the fact that our Santa Cruz Arts Commission chose out of town artists works to decorate the about-to open Marine Sanctuary Center. I thought/think that more effort should be made to notify local artists when paid commissions like these are possible. I emailed Trink Praxel from the City Arts Committee who along with Peter McGettigan, made the motion to approve these commissions. Trink replied…
“Thanks for your interest in the Marine Sanctuary public art!
Our Public Art ordinance, like most in other cities, requires a public “call to artists” and a competitive selection process in the construction or purchase of public art. The intent is to ensure the best possible quality when using public funds. For the Marine Sanctuary, the “call to artists” included both site projects. The entryway/plaza art was limited to artists living within 100 miles (Bay Area local) and the facade art had no geographic limitations for submitting artists. We had 174 proposals submitted for both projects, including a small number of Santa Cruz County artists, but unfortunately none of those SCC artists made it into the very competitive final round. The final selections were made by a panel of local artists, public officials, and project partners and I know they were disappointed that the best artists were not local. It’s always a tough decision.
Yes, of course, we would love to have more local artists compete and succeed in more of our public art competitions, and we are always looking for ways to reach out, prepare, and involve more of them. In fact, the SculpTour installations downtown are not just to give our local sculptors greater visibility but also to get them interested in and prepared to do public arts projects. We have also given training programs to prepare emerging artists to do larger public arts projects, and will continue to do so in the future.
The public art plan is based on the notion that a strong artistic ecosystem includes opportunities for locals to gain experience (like the traffic boxes, murals, SculpTOUR) but does not limit participation to locals, as we would not want our artists to be limited by the ability to work in other places. In fact, some of our professional local sculptors (like those you mention and others) go through similar open selection processes in other cities, and when they are successful, it allows them to gain work around the country, thus make a living while living here’.
Then Trink emailed Crystal Birns who is the City Arts Program Manager and Crystal replied….” I would just like to add that the entryway artists worked to find a local fabricator to complete the concrete mosaic portion of the project. They ended up working with Dave Pettigrew of Diamond Dave Concrete, who specializes in decorative concrete (past projects include the Ken Wormhoudt Skate Park wave)”.end of emails.
Well, that settles that. Still, you have to wonder about local metal sculptors like Jack Zajac, Barrington McLean, Doyle Foreman and whoever did the surfer statue (if he/she was local).
| MARINE SANCTUARY CENTER. No Whale Tail sculpture from Sebastopol in this clip and the building is even uglier now that it’s almost finished…but you can get some idea |
FRANK DePALMA DIED. Frank De Palma died on May 11. Frank and then wife Carole opened the Café De Palma on Seabright near Marine Parade Street. Frank and Carole ran the restaurant during the morning and noon, then Joe Schultz would take over in the afternoons and called it “India Joze” (the very first India Joze). Frank moved up to Washington a long time ago, and yes, he was a member of E Clampus Vitus, and we miss him.
TED X…POSED. From Thursday May 24 AlterNet…”Before streaming video, TED was a conference — it is not named for a person, but stands for “technology, entertainment and design” — organized by celebrated “information architect” (fancy graphic designer) Richard Saul Wurman. Wurman sold the conference, in 2002, to a nonprofit foundation started and run by former publisher and longtime do-gooder Chris Anderson (not the Chris Anderson of Wired). Anderson grew TED from a woolly conference for rich Silicon Valley millionaire nerds to a giant global brand. It has since become a much more exclusive, expensive elite networking experience with a much more prominent public face — the little streaming videos of lectures.
“It’s even franchising — “TEDx” events are licensed third-party TED-style conferences largely unaffiliated with TED proper — and while TED is run by a nonprofit, it brings in a tremendous amount of money from its members and corporate sponsorships. At this point TED is a massive, money-soaked orgy of self-congratulatory futurism, with multiple events worldwide, awards and grants to TED-certified high achievers, and a list of speakers that would cost a fortune if they didn’t agree to do it for free out of public-spiritedness”.
| SOLAR ECLIPSE AT LIGHTHOUSE Point last week!!!4 minutes and 5 seconds of watching locals muck about during the eclipse. Notice there’s no comments, and only 28 views.
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PATTON’S PROGRAM. Gary’s weekly radio scripts for KUSP contain such gems as…” The Santa Cruz City Council has recently approved a rather risky investment in a new basketball arena, and has done so in a way that tries to avoid CEQA review with respect to initial construction. You can read the details in links available at kusp.org/landuse. On Thursday he says, “The City of Santa Cruz is getting close to adopting a new 2030 General Plan, and the person who contacted me is helping to make residents in his neighborhood know that this new General Plan, if adopted in its current form, could mean big changes to the Branciforte Avenue and Water Street neighborhoods. In short, a very significant increase in density is being recommended” read the rest of his scripts here. (Gary Patton is “Of Counsel” to the Santa Cruz law firm of Wittwer & Parkin, which specializes in land use and environmental law. The opinions expressed are Mr. Patton’s. Gary has his own website, “Two Worlds / 365” – www.gapatton.net)
ANCHOR IN ANTARCTICA. Micaela Neus emails from Antarctica… The last giant petrel chick fledged this week, soaring north for the winter and thus bringing our field research season to a close. Our research vessel likewise departed, lowering station population to twenty-nine, and the number of daylight hours has decreased to roughly five per day. On Thursday, we got about a foot of snow in a single night… not quite enough to break out the snowshoes. All considered, time to move activities indoors for a few weeks.
We started the weekend off with a station-wide scavenger hunt, but not for objects– for the objet d’art embedded in the concrete and stuck to the ceilings. These improvised additions give character to the otherwise monotonous Antarctic architecture. All of the US stations are made from ready-made military buildings, beginning in the late 1950s with the now-defunct Little America and McMurdo Station on the other side of the
continent. Many of them can be identified by a model number, but even the original-designs share the same boxy steel aesthetic of base architecture. The new South Pole station is a perfect example—a unique building with a totally generic look.
So, we decorate for self-defense… but most (not all) of the art is not exactly sanctioned by management. People add discreet interventions behind the ceiling tiles or underneath the stair risers, onto the duct work that runs along the ceiling or inside pieces of equipment. You might pass a small painting every day without noticing, or it could be a beloved workstation icon installed twenty years ago. Your job on station plays a large role in which pieces you’ll notice… a mechanic will catch different pieces than the IT worker, for instance. On trivia night early this summer, I won an National Science Flag flown at Palmer Station (to rags, really) by naming three hidden artworks around station– I named one that no one else had discovered yet, discovered while dusting the ventilation fans in the bathroom.
Which brings us to the scavenger hunt. The best teams combine a mix of people from various departments to capitalize on the multiple perspectives, hopefully people who have come down a few seasons and know some secrets. I had to keep mine to myself, unfortunately… with the research vessel in town, duty called. Instead, I’ll turn my attention to submitting a few new creations for next year’s hunt”.
(Micaela Neus works for Raytheon Polar Services Company as a utilities technician and is currently living at Palmer Station, Antarctica until at least October 2012.
EAGANS DEEP COVER. Tim illustrates how a Bain flowchart really works…beware !!! And then scroll below.
| HEIGHTS AND TOWER CLIMBING. Frontline had a special on the problem of phone companies erecting so many thousands of phone towers so fast, and the number of deaths from newbie underpaid inexperienced climbers falling. Just watch this clip, and hold your breath and anything else you care about while viewing. |
LANDAU’S PROGRES. Saul’s article is titled, “Alan Gross and The Free Press“. He leads with, “Less than 3 years ago, Cuban authorities arrested Alan Gross, who had an almost $600,000 contract with DIA, Inc., to carry out a USAID program in Cuba. At his Havana trial, Gross heard Cuban authorities present his trip reports in which he revealed how he supplied a pre-selected group of mostly Jewish Cubans with sophisticated and illegal technology. Gross smuggled the parts into Cuba “piece by piece, in backpacks and carry-on bags.” These included “laptops, smart phones, hard drives and networking equipment,” wrote Desmond Butler. “The most sensitive item, according to official trip reports, was… a specialized mobile phone chip that experts say is often used by the Pentagon and the CIA to make satellite signals virtually impossible to track.” (Associated Press, February 13, 2012). Read it all here… Saul Landau is an Institute for Policy Studies fellow whose films are on DVD from roundworldproductions@gmail.
LISA JENSEN LINKS. Lisa writes: “This week at Lisa Jensen Online Express (http://ljo-express.blogspot.com/), watch gifted ballet students seize the future in the irresistible dance doc, First Position, and check out some cool new James Durbin links. (Don’t miss how he rocks the National Anthem!)” Lisa Jensen has been writing film reviews and a column for Good Times since 1975.
BERNIE. A surprisingly fine film. Touching, nicely acted, especially by Jack Black, Based on a true Texas story. Shirley MacLaine also does a good acting job of acting way against her type. Definitely go see it. Very human and believable, and proves what a good actor Jack Black can be if given the material.
FIRST POSITION. Like Otter 501 this too is a documentary about an endangered species…the ballet dancers. Unlike that Otter flop this is one brilliant film. Suspenseful, human, perfectly edited, no schmaltz, a must see. The ballet dancers are much cuter.
DARLING COMPANION. You’d think that with Lawrence Kasdan directing and a cast as accomplished as this one that the film would be wonderful. It isn’t, it’s boring, pointless, dull, and a complete waste of everybody’s time…including yours IF you go see it. Diane Keaton is good, so is Kevin Kline at the material they have but Sam Shepard, Dianne Wiest, Elizabeth Moss, and Richard Jenkins are all useless in their roles. Don’t go. Kasdan directed The Big Chill, Grand Canyon, I Love You To Death, and Accidental Tourist among others. He’s only 63 so it isn’t age, maybe because he’s a Capricorn??
DICTATOR. Sacha Baron Cohen was born in England. He used to be a stand up comic. His work in Borat was clever, and then he did Bruno, then Hugo and it was all downhill from there. Dictator is vulgar, clumsy, gross, and in very poor taste. Don’t think of seeing it, ever. Ben Kingsley is in it too and he’s terrible. They claim Megan Fox is in it but I didn’t see her.
HOSTETTER’S HOT STUFF.It’s summer, thank goodness, and things are a bit hectic for everyone. Please have a look at some things in the offing in our neck of the woods over the next month or three, and see what you can manage to attend. Something here for everyone, right? Pierre Bensusan, Panacea, the opera Little Women, Djangofest, Dave Grisman and Frank Vignola, Rodney Crowell for Pete’s sakes, Helm, the Honeydrops, the Mandolin Symposium, Joel Savoy and Jesse Lege, Richard Thompson, Mike and Caterina and gee whiz, it just goes on. For example
In collaboration with the Monterey Bay Celtic Society, Patria and Geoff Brown invite you to a house concert with Master Piper, Fiddler, Storyteller Kevin Carr performing at a House Concert Sunday June 10th at 7:00 pm at our home in Bonny Doon. It’s an evening of story and music from a gifted purveyor of both. It is tales that are true, re-imagined, and retold from deep roots, with music played on fiddles and bagpipes from many lands.
Contact Geoff Brown <geoffbrown@outinthewoods.com> 831-247-1365 for reservations.
As things are increasingly hectic for me, this is probably my last update until August. Carry on! pH.
LITTLE WOMEN, THE OPERA. UCSC’s award-winning Opera Theatre presents a fully staged opera production featuring the UCSC Orchestra and top singers from UCSC’s voice program. Based on the novel by Louisa May Alcott Directed by Brian Staufenbiel, and the orchestra is conducted by Nicole Paiement. It runs Thursday, May 31, 2012 – Sunday, June 3, 2012 at the Music Center Recital Hall (UCSC). It’s presented by: The UCSC Music Department. Tickets available at santacruztickets.com, the UCSC Ticket Office (831-459-2159) and SC Civic box office (831-420-5260). Reserved seating, so don’t wait much longer.
UNIVERSAL GRAPEVINE. Each and every Tuesday from 7:00-8:00 p.m. I host Universal Grapevine on KZSC 88.1 fm. or on your computer (live only, or sometimes old programs are archived…(see next paragraph) and go to WWW.KZSC.ORG. May 29 has Mark Wainer and Judy Johnson discussing details of the annual photography exhibit opening around that time at Felix Kulpa Gallery. In the second half hour Wendy Mayer Lochtefeld talks about The Capitola Book Café and their latest plans. Zachary Caple talks about Teaching The Forest at UCSCand saving the upper campus on June 5th after that Attorney Bob Taren talks about early results from that very day of voting. Supervisor Neal Coonerty helps me celebrate 6 years of Grapevine on June 12 and author Jon Young visits to tell about his new book “What the Robin Knows“. Winners from Bookshop Santa Cruz read their works on June 19th. Bubble Man Tom Noddy tries radio bubbles on July 3. Dr. Rosalind Shorenstein discusses women’s medicine on July 17th. Do remember, any and all suggestions for future programs are more than welcome so tune in, and keep listening. Email me always at bratton@cruzio.com
UNIVERSAL GRAPEVINE ARCHIVES. There are some more recent programs online now…check them out. In case you missed some of the great people I’ve interviewed in the last 5 years here’s a chronological list of just this year’s podcasts. Click herehttp://kzsc.org/blog/tag/
QUOTES. “Help a man in trouble and he’ll never forget you—especially the next time he’s in trouble”, Johnny Lyons. “We never talked in our family. We communicated by putting Ann Landers articles on the fridge”, Judy Gold. “Until I was 13, I thought my name was “shut up“, Joe Namath
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BEST OF VINTAGE STEVEN DeCINZO.
Deep Cover by tim eagan.
