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...

Life on the Non Road --- Days 14/86 & 87

Walks: Hood  (ciwt likes it)

Distances: 3.5 miles

And then there's that trip to London.  Maybe she mentioned, in January she bought her (refundable) ticket ticket there for ten days at the beginning of May.  Somehow this year, May is much earlier than usual or something and Ciwt is beginning to consider canceling or postponing.  

Those of you who have followed CIWT over the years may remember that she is one of the maybe 100 other people in America who doesn't love to travel.  If you go on the internet and read about people who don't like to travel, all you encounter is bands of posters who consider that horrifying, shameful, pathetic, close minded and more - all negative.  

For Ciwt though travel is anxiety producing from beginning to end.  Oh, except for the thinking of the trip and booking her plans part which is exhilerating and seeing friends and art when she gets there.  Those things aside, there are leaving her cats, the airplane rides both ways, and the many unexpected situations, basically the vast diminishment of personal control.  For instance there was her friend who went on a river cruise with her husband, but at some point the river ran dry.  So they had to reinvent their trip right in the middle of it.  And actually they ended up running into Ciwt's brother in Vienna where he and his wife had been diverted from a completely different trip because of international miscommunication about arrival dates.

Travel lovers probably roll easily with these unforeseen events, maybe pat themselves on the back for their resourcefulness and thoroughly enjoy the substitute place.  Not Ciwt. First of all, she generally travels alone, and she has no interest in being stranded in the middle of a foreign river and having to slap together some solution for getting back to her cats - in a foreign language with foreign currency.  She can do these things, but internally she is not rolling with them and congratulating herself for what a terrific traveler she is - while also grooving on being in this foreign place.  She's just thinking "How soon before this is over.?"

Such is the life on the road for we small band of non-travelers.  So, perhaps her readers can understand why she is reconsidering that London trip.  And maybe they are also thinking "How pathetic, shameful, closeminded, etc. of Ciwt."

Green, Pink, Linen, Over There, I Dunno --- Days 14/84 & 85

Walks: Hood

Distances: 4.5 miles each

What color do you want for the office walls? What about the rest of your place? What size pillows, how many, where in the living room? Oh, and what fabric?  hdo you want this table?  What are you going to do wtith the things in the storeroom 

Ciwt has been on the move for the past 3 years, and the moving decisions are beginning to wear her out.  Even worse, they are pulling her creative energies away from CIWT.  Like many people, she actually enjoys decorating decisions, but she's thinking this is beginning to be too much of a good thing.

The good news is the end is in sight.  Sort of.  Only four more projects to go.  They are big ones - office, storeroom, living room rug - but not so fraught with the great unknown of what colors, fabrics, furniture locations she'll still be in tune with years from now.

Okay back to work on her place.

In the Bag --- Day 14/83

Walk: AMC Kabuki (Black Bag)

Distance: 3.5 miles

Yay!  A real grown up movie and something to write about.  Superbly acted but ultimately a consummate director's movie. 

From the opening nanosecond Steven Soderbergh, that director, drew Ciwt directly into, Black Bag.  And he kept her there feeling the breath, analyzing the smallest action and look of each character while staying hyper alert to what in the world was going on.  Much of the time Soderbergh's camera can't be more than two feet from his actors and each one is up to the acute watchfulness with clean, precise, intriguing portrayals.  Ciwt did miss quite a few words at the beginning due to the rapid 'Brit speak,' but was happy to realize those words apparently weren't important and she was able to track the overall action.  She even wonders in retrospect whether the muffled words were another device by Soderbergh to heighten suspense and rivet his viewer even more to every detail.  

Without patting herself on the back, Ciwt will say this is a thinking person's movie.  Viewers who rely on pyrotechnics, shoot em ups, kung fu action for their entertainment will likely be bored.   For those who like their fare precise, intelligent, challenging, cleanly filmed and acted, this movie is in the bag.

It's a Ponderful Life --- Days 14/78-82

 Walks: A Few Hood; A Few Rain Days Off

Distance: Hoods: 4 miles, Rain: n/a

Once again Ciwt (aka Pooh in her youth) is pondering.  What to write about?  All her rooms piled high with furniture while her place is painted? No. That she's already started to wonder about another color? No.  The economy?  Certainly not.  Her cats, her back, the Gene Hackman marathon she's sharing with a friend, local storms?   All rejects.

Please hand in, dear readers.  She's been in this ponder empty place before, so, anon, she'll be back with new gems - or entries at least.

Now, About Mint --- Day 14/77

Walk: Hood

Distance: 5 miles

Aren't I Cute?

So Ciwt is learning about all sorts of things as she puts her new home together.  Mint for instance.

Trader Joe's had  $2.50 pots of the cute, refreshing  little herb for sale the other day.  So Ciwt bought one, brought it home and planted it in the new garden she's trying to invent.  Her first.  

Later in the day she decided to read a bit about fresh little mint and was shocked to find gardeners dread it.  Turns out it is completely invasive and will run like mad wherever it is planted crowding out anything in its path.  

So she quickly dug it up, and brought it safely inside where she will enjoy it until it outgrows whatever pot she puts it in.

Life in Purple --- Day 14/76

Walk: Hood

Distance: 5.5 miles

Reader Quiz:  There is one particular difference between these two bedroom pictures which is on Ciwt's mind these days.  Can you figure out what it is?

No, not the bed frames, or the different colored pillows.  If you guessed the color of the walls, you are exactly right!  And also looking at the reason Ciwt decided to have her home repainted.

The top wall color is called Calm.  Every room was painted in it when Ciwt bought her new place, and gradually she began to notice that Calm became purpler and browner as the day went on.  And her mood moved from calm to less spirited even to gloomy.  

Here for instance is Calm in her actual bedroom: 

Obviously her cats are so engrossed by whatever bird is outside the glass that they don't notice Calm has turned the room quite drab.  But, not so Ciwt. 

So, she is giving the color in the bottom photo a try.  Its name is Swiss Coffee and Ciwt's fingers are crossed.

Where'd That Hour Go? --- Days 14/72-75

Walks: Hood, SF Ballet, TBD

Distances: 3 miles, 5 miles, TBD

So, this morning it took Ciwt 1 hour and 10 minutes to feed her two cats?!?  From there it took her minus one hour to turn on her computer.  Needless to say this was very disorienting for Ciwt until she realized - finally! - last night was 'spring forward' night.

In the marvelous olden days, local newspapers would start warning readers days ahead that they would be changing their clocks soon, and the day before the warnings were near banner headlines. Another tradition lost and lamented at Ciwt's home.

Her Daylight Savings Hero friend on the other hand never, ever forgets And has her clocks synchronized to the nanosecond.  Here for the future is how it is done according to her system:

       You walk around to each clock with iphone in hand.

        When the new minute shows, you immediately set the clock.

        The remaining seconds allow you time to get to your next clock.

        Repear until all your clocks are synchronized.

Maybe Ciwt will try that when 'Fall Back' comes around.  If she remembers..... 

Private Thoughts --- Days 14/71

Walks/Lopes: Presidio and Hood

Distances: 2.5 miles, 7 miles

Carlos Avila Gonzalez/The Chronicle

Caspar David Friedrich (German,1774-1840), The Moon Rising to the Seashore, 1822, o/c

So Ciwt was just spending time on line with the wonderful current show at the Metropolitan Museum of Art: Caspar David Friedrich: The Soul of Nature.  And when she went to our local paper's website, it seemed to her The Chronicle's photographer, Carlos Avila Gonzalez, today captured much of the same moody, contemplative romantism in his photograph above.

Spring Fever Off and On --- Day 14/70

Walk: Sloat Garden Center

Distance: 5 miles

Sandro Botticelli, Primavera, late 1470's or early 1480's, tempura on panel

So spring is coming and going out here and probably where you live.  One day there's sun which makes Ciwt want to wander the Headlands just across the Golden Gate Bridge, but the next day (or hour) cold, wind and rain make her relieved she isn't caught in some glen or forest far from home.  

Luckily art lovers like Ciwt can escape from the vissitudes of spring and get lost in Sandro Botticelli's Primavera, which has remained one of the most popular paintings in Western art for centuries.

Oscar End Notes --- Day 14/69

Walk: Hood, Sloat Garden Center

Distance: 4.5 miles

To Ciwt's eyes all celebrity attendees - men and women - at last night's Oscars are to be applauded for their attire which was appropriately formal and respectful.  That said, she did have some personal favorites.

Selena Gomez

Halle Berry

Michele Yeoh

She enjoyed several variations on the classic tuxedo which echoed their personal style while remaining tasteful.

Colman Domingo

Jeff Goldblum

Unfortunately a few choices just didn't work for her:

Zoe Saldana

Yasmin Finney

Omar Apollo

It's the veil.  

Timothee Chalamet
Very Timothee and he rocked it so Ciwt was torn between Best Dressed or this category.  Your choice.

Ciwt's Absolute Favorite Oscar!!!! (with nods to Kieran Culkin)

FLOW