Besides Fun and Joyful --- 14/100, 101 & 102

Walks: Hood 

Distance: average 3.5 miles

So the late Sacramento artist and teacher, Wayne Thiebaud (1920-2021), is one of Ciwt's favorite artists.  Also one of the most tricky for her to write about.  Because, like most people, she find his work immensely pleasurable, joyful, even silly.  But unlike many, a part of Ciwt is also moved to tears by it. 

Wayne Thiebaud, Clown Cones, 2000

To Ciwt, at the core of all Thiebaud's art are the tears of a clown, even his more adorable, 'happy' clown  paintings like the one above.  These cones are somehow animate, like pets or dolls, you want to snuggle with them, 'eat them up.'  And, if they haven't melted first, that is what they are calling for someone to do, consume them. And then they will be gone.  From most beguiling to gone.  This, life's trajectory embedded in Thiebaud's painting, is both endearingly desirable and sad. 

And each of these 'dressed up' cones is alone; they aren't relating to each other. So too the people in Thiebaud's portraits.  

Wayne Thiebaud, Five Seated Figures, 1965, o/c

Whether in group or individual portraits, the inner life of all his subjects are hidden from the people around them and from us.  Even in Thiebaud's portrait of his wife and love of his life, Betty Jean, we see she is gorgeous and has pictures of historically recognized art in the book before her. But we have no indication what she's thinking her or how she relates to that art.  She is essentially a stranger to the world - including her most intimate partner.

Wayne Thiebaud, Betty Jean Thiebaud and Book,  1965-69, o/c

In person the glowing lushness of Thiebaud's paint is as thick and gooy looking as frosting.  His brushwork caresses the canvas with the same sensual, loving way a baker might lavish frosting on her cake. His confections are both beckoning and stark. Too perfect. His people are precisely presented but unknowable. His toys, like gumball and pinball machines have unreliable chanciness. His San Francisco is glowing, gorgeous and extremely precarious.  

Wayne Thiebaud, Morning Freeway, 2012, 0/c

 

There is a complex, deeply personal sensibility underlying Thiebaud's art.  It's shining simplicity isn't all it appears to be.  And to Ciwt there's a lot of tragedy there.  But, like the people in his portraits, Thiebaud's thoughts are private and inaccessible.  Happy, sad, overt, unknowable at once.

What do You Think? --- Days 14/98,99,100

 Walks:  Hood

Distances: 3.5, 5.5, 2.5 miles

So Ciwt was really excited that the new rug she ordered for her living room was arriving early!  When it got here, it was quite lovely but it seemed lighter than she expected.  Just to check, she took out her photos of the rug in the store and slid them under the rug that had been delivered.  If you look above, the one she ordered, Alabaster, is in the middle of the photos.  And the lightest one, Ecru is on the left and right ends respectively.  To her eye, the one that is in her living room is Ecru  the wrong color.

What do you think, dear readers?  Here's a close up: 

Left: rug in living room, Right: bottom Ecru, top Alabaster

Take It Away... --- Days 14/96 & 97

Walks: Hood & around the house

Distances: 3.5, 3 miles

Ciwt has been busy with them, but nobody does weekend chores better than the ✰Stars☆☆.

Mary Hartman

Robin Williams

Cinderella

Rare Visitor --- Days 14/94 & 95

Walk: Around a little;  Hood, Chiropractic

Distance: 1.5; 2.5

So, the other day, a juvenile peregrine falcon! landed on the rail just outside Ciwt's bedroom window.  To say this is a rare event in a San Francisco residential neighborhood is beyond an understatement.  So Ciwt watched it transfixed until it flew away, mercifully without taking one of the small local birds with it.

Then, probably because she has exceeding few associations with large birds of prey, her mind went to the falcon 'partner' of  one of the main characters in the Hawaii miniseries.  When she saw that bird come home to its ancient Japanese master, she thought it was some sort of production gimmick to make the character more distinguished or something.  This based on her assumption that falconry was a sport of the British Isles, and English people had yet to arrive on the series' fictional Japanese shores.

Well, it turns out the Hawaii producers were right on, and Ciwt was way off.  By at least a millenium.  Though no one can say exactly when it began, falconry is a prehistoric means of hunting with birds of prey. Stelae around the Black Sea depicting falconry date to the 13th century BCE.  And prehistoric cave paintings illustrating falconry may be even older.

The practice slowly traveled East from Arabia to Asia and Island countries before European Silk Road merchants, adventurers and Crusaders began taking falcons and falconers with them on their returns home in the middle ages (ca. 500 - 1500 CE). At that point falconry began flourishing among the privileged classes in the British Isles.

 

Art Comes From Love Too --- Days 14/92 & 93

Walk: Hood and Chiropractic

Distance: 3.5 miles, 6 miles 

So it seems, the internationally renowned Sacramento artist and teacher, Wayne Thiebaud (1920-2021), had two primary loves and muses. His wife, Betty Jean Thiebaud, 

Wayne Thiebaud, Betty Jean Thiebaud and Book,  1965-69, o/c

whom he always painted with heartshaped necklines and ART. The whole sweep of it from the cave paintings to the present.  

Days when nothing was pressing with his own art Thiebaud spent copying work by other artists he admired.  This is how he learned his techniquies and expanded his craft throughout his entire painting life.  And, Ciwt imagines, how he communed with with artists and art energy through the ages. 

There were many - Matisse, Rembrandt, Degas, Seurat,

Wayne Thiebaud, 'A Sunday on the La Grande Jatte,' (after Georges Seurat), 2000, oil on board

his own contemporaries - all his teachers.  For, as he was famously quoted, Art is not delivered like the morning paper.  It has to be stolen from Mount Olympus.  And that for him was a serious, arduous, and careerlong endeavor.

Thiebaud's subject matter was often the lighter things in life: cakes, pies, breakfast fare, clowns.

Wayne Thiebaud, Buffet, 1972-75, o/c, @42" x 60"

The works are delightful and Thiebaud found all the things in them delightful to his core.  He loved and respected the the daily objects and people of his (western American) life. So much so that he gave each lemon slice or olive, fish, pineapple an individual presence and personality.  And this embedded liveliness is what really communicates.

In most cases, the paintings are also based on existing art works Thiebaud consciously learned from.  Thiebaud proudly called himself, an 'art thief,' and was likely very pleased when he was able to 'steal' the techniques and qualities he saw in other artists.  Right now our Legion of Honor Museum is presenting an exhibition, Wayne Thiebaud, Art Comes from Art*,  dedicated to illustrationg just what an accomplished art criminal Thiebaud was.

Wayne Thiebaud, 35 Cent Masterworks, 1970-72, o/c, 36" x 48"

Some of Thiebaud's thievery is quite obvious:

Wayne Thiebaud, Woman in Tub, 1965, o/c, 35 3/4" x 60"

Jacques-Louis David, Death of Marat, 1873, o/c

Pierre Bonnard, Nude in a Bath, 1936, o/c

Wayne Thiebaud, 'Study of a Waitress for the Bar at the Folies-Bergere after Edouard Manet,' no date, oil on masonite

Wayne Thiebaud, Girl with Pink Hat, 1973, o/c 

Others are more esoteric.  But all are executed with great respect and love of expanding Thiebaud's deep understanding and intimacy with his beloved art world.  And, when he wasn't stealing art, he dedicated himself to passing it on to his many art students over the years at U.C. Davis.

If you are in San Francisco and go to the Legion of Honor's show, you will learn much about Thiebaud's art yourself - as well as be uplifted by some wonderful works and probably come out happy from your educational experience.

* San Francisco Legion of Honor Museum, Wayne Thiebaud: Art Comes From Art, March 22 - August 17, 2035.

Yesterday --- Days 14/91 & 92

Walk: Hood, deYoung Museum

Distances: 3 miles, 6 miles

                                        Paul McCartney, Self-Portraits with camera, Paris, 1964




So of course Ciwt should have expected it; her whole age group was there at the deYoung Museum today viewing the traveling show of photographs Paul McCartney took on the first Beatles tour.s  

There was John backstage nervously checking out his appearance, patting the famous Beatles' mop of hair into place before appearing on the TV variety show that introduced four unknown lads to millions of British viewers.  Just a kid from a virtual garage band in 1963. There was no way to anticipate that when he and George and Paul and Ringo walked away from the cameras that night Beatlemania had been triggered.

So young, so unworldly and now suddenly so famous.  It still seems unreal, and really Ciwt can't imagine how it must have felt to them.  Imagine such an adjustment from kids backstage with supportive family and friends either there or in the audience to the rapturous frenzy of international fame.

Ciwt and her fellow viewers today were lilely all Beatlemaniacs.  We were all so innocently carried away by these darling mopheads and their wonderful music.  She wonders if any of them flet the tinge of sadness Ciwt did decades later looking at youthful innocence moving into the jaws of fame.

Gang Members Welcome --- Days 14/89 & 90

Walks: Sloat Garden Center, AMC Kabuki (The Alto Knights)

Distances: 4, 2.5 miles

De Niro and De Niro in The Alto Knights

If like Ciwt you're an old time mob movie 'gang member' and have seen all or many of this genre, The Alto Knights is for you. Even then, Ciwt thinks, go with limited expectations.  If you do, you will enjoy all the recognizable elements - Brooklyn accents, shiny sedans, mink coats, dimly lit night clubs with leather banquettes, a bit too much opulence in upper class mansions and clothing - and of course a heap of brutality.  

You will not miss Robert De Niro, one of the two Godfathers of the genre (after Brando), because he plays both main roles.  And does it very well.  Not his fault that the choice to have him do so was an ongoing distraction to Ciwt. Maybe that decision was made by the Academy winning director, Barry Levinson (Rain Man - and many others), or Nicholas Pileggi, who wrote the Goodfellas script as well as this one. In any event, The Alto Knights has it all and would be a shame for mob movie buffs to miss.

If on the other hand you are new to the Mafia canon, The Alto Knights is likely to bore you silly.  Start with The Godfather, Parts I and II.

Hmmm --- Day 14/88

Walk: Hood of course

Distance: 3.5 miles

Well, lookee here at this headline.  Heathrow, the second busiest airport in the world has shut down.  Oh dear, all flights in and out canceled with travelers stranded perhaps for days all over the world.  

What a shame for all concerned.  Ciwt wishes them the best but also notes it is happening just as she was considering canceling or postponing her May trip to London. (See yesterday's post) Hmmm. Maybe a better time to stay home, begin with her new home as a home instead of a work station. And get back to CIWT.  Hmmm...