"Photography as Meditation"

As Descanso Gardens’ first artist-in-residence, photographer Christine Burrill has been exploring the spring blooms up close over the past month, zooming in on birds of paradise, yellow tidy tips, and roses wet with dew. Her prints will be on view at Descanso Gardens on Sunday, May 3, and she will talk about her experience capturing them in “The Pause of Focus: Photography as Meditation” from 2 to 4 p.m.

Burrill has been focusing on macro photography of flora for several years. As the title of her talk implies, her approach is almost Zen-like. Burrill says she finds photography “contemplative and meditative,” not just the time spent with the camera in the gardens, but also the work afterward, reviewing every frame and “making it perfect.”

“It slows you down,” she says, “nature does in general, but especially photography.”

Burrill’s images have a haiku-like simplicity, capturing with precision the most exquisite and easily overlooked details in nature. During her residency, she discovered a newfound appreciation for roses while photographing them on a recent dewy morning, but the wildflowers in the California native section remain her favorites, even as masses of bees swarmed around some of them. “The bees were not interested in me,” she says, “which was good.”

A USC Film School graduate, Burrill has spent more than 30 years behind the camera and has worked extensively as a cinematographer and writer of documentary films. One of her projects was the Dixie Chicks’ “Shut Up and Sing.” But she sees her still photography as a creative escape from her work on documentaries, which entail following people around and waiting for a story to unfold and for dramatic moments to occur.

While working on a film in the Brazilian Amazon, Burrill snapped photos of the indigenous tribes and, inspired by David Hockney’s concept of the photo collage, combined dozens of individual prints to form massive, almost motion-picture images. She has exhibited that series and other work in South America, Europe and the United States.

Descanso Gardens, 1418 Descanso Drive, La Cañada Flintridge, (818) 949-4200, www.descansogardens.org

Illustrated Love Poems at Norton Simon

Henri Matisse was inspired by poetry, apparently so much so that later in his career he would not lift a paintbrush before reading some verse.

In 1941, the artist began illustrating the work of Renaissance poet Pierre de Ronsard, and seven years later the 128-page “livre d’artiste” (artist’s book) called “Florilege des Amours de Ronsard" was published.

Lithographs from this "Anthology of Ronsard’s Love Poems" are currently on display at the Norton Simon Museum in Pasadena. The exhibit, titled “Matisse’s Amours: Illustrations of Pierre de Ronsard’s Love Poems,” continues through June 8, but National Poetry Month seems an ideal time to see it.

Considered the father of French lyric poetry, Ronsard (1524-85) brought the Italian sonnet and classical ode and elegy to the French. His romantic and sensual “Amours” (first published in 1552) are a natural match for Matisse’s love of painting the female form and flowers in a decorative, almost musical style.

Each of Matisse’s illustrations seems to flow in rhythm with the verse, communicating ethereal beauty with a few strokes of his brush. In one deceptively simple yet exquisite rendering, the artist created a sensual female body with only seven lines.

The Norton Simon exhibit includes 25 pages, spreads and folios, including a drawing of "The Birth of Venus" and one that visitors will recognize as resembling Matisse’s most famous painting, “The Dance.” To set the mood, Renaissance music plays softly in the gallery.

For the sonnet “Je veux pousser par la France ma peine,” Matisse illustrated Ronsard’s words with a mermaid on the surface of the ocean. Lounging with her arms behind her head and the clouds floating lazily above her, she seems to be casually oblivious of her seductive power. The poem (English translations are available in the gallery) reads:

I wish to drag my pain the length of France,
Faster than an arrow from the bowstring,
I desire with wax my ears to stop,
To no longer hear my siren’s voice.
I wish my two eyes to turn into a fountain,
My heart into a fire, my head into a rock,
My feet into a trunk, never to approach
Her so proudly human beauty.
I wish my thoughts to turn into birds,
My gentle sighs into new Zephyrs,
To broadcast the world over my complaint.
I wish the hue of my pale color
On the banks of the Loire to bear a flower,
Painted with my name and my misfortune.
(Translation by Michael Mills)

An illustration of two lovers in an embrace, with heads, arms and legs inseparably wound together in ecstasy, accompanies this song called “Plus estroit que la Vigne l’Ormeau se marie”:

More closely than the clinging vine
About the wedded tree,
Clasp thou thine arms, ah, mistress mine!
About the heart of me.
Or seem to sleep, and stoop your face
Soft on my sleeping eyes,
Breathe in your life, your heart, your grace,
Through me, in kissing wise.
Bow down, bow down your face, I pray,
To me that swoon to death,
Breathe back the life you kissed away,
Breathe back your kissing breath.
So by your eyes I swear and say,
My mighty oath and sure,
From your kind arms no maiden may
My loving heart allure.
I’ll bear your yoke, that’s light enough,
And to the Elysian plain,
When we are dead of love, my love,
One boat shall bear us twain.
(Translation by Andrew Lang)

Matisse created more than a dozen “livres d’artiste” in his lifetime. For the "Amours de Ronsard," he selected and updated the text, chose the typeface, and designed the layout in addition to illustrating the poems. His seven-year undertaking was interrupted during World War II when his wife was imprisoned by the Germans and his daughter was captured and tortured – adding poignancy to an already evocative work of art.

The exhibit is small enough to savor and still have plenty of time to explore the rest of the Norton Simon Museum, a treasure trove of European and Asian art. Just past an amazing room of Van Gogh paintings and Degas sculptures are some colorful canvases by Matisse, featuring sensual women, elaborate patterns and floral motifs, including “Odalisque with Tambourine (Harmony in Blue)” (1926), “The Black Shawl (Lorette VII)” (1918), and “Nude on a Sofa” (1923).

Listen to a podcast before you go.
Norton Simon Museum, 411 W. Colorado Blvd., Pasadena, (626) 449-6840, www.nortonsimon.org.

Image credits:
Florilège des Amours de Ronsard, 1948
Henri Matisse, French, 1869-1954
Lithograph (Printed by Albert Skira, Paris)
Jennifer Jones Simon Art Trust, N.1965.8.1
© 2009 Succession H. Matisse, Paris / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York

Cool Science

NHM Celebrates “Darwin Year”
The Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County is doing it up right for Charles Darwin’s 200th with a series of First Fridays celebrating the famous discoverer of evolution. First Fridays feature tours, lectures, DJs and bands on, you guessed it, the first Friday of every month (January through June).

On April 3, arrive early (space is limited) for a tour of the entomology collections (that’s bugs to the rest of us) at 5:30 and 6 p.m. Then at 6:30 p.m., USC’s Dr. Michael W. Quick moderates a discussion with Dr. Michael Ryan, a scientist with the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute and zoology professor at the University of Texas, Austin. The focus of the discussion is Darwin’s other theory, sexual selection, and Ryan will explore how males and females of various species (humans included) differ. Have your questions ready. Then grab some food and drink and enjoy the music from 7 to 10 p.m., as Phatal DJ and T-Kay spin tunes, and Bus Driver and Tim Fite perform.

The next First Fridays event on May 1 brings Dr. Donald C. Johanson, who as the founder of "Lucy," a 3.2-million-year-old hominid fossil, could definitely be called a science celebrity.

Tickets are $9, and $6.50 for students with ID.
Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County, 900 Exposition Blvd., Los Angeles 90007, (213) 763-DINO, www.nhm.org.

ArtNight Pasadena

Friday, March 13, is ArtNight Pasadena, when the city gets into full party mode with 14 cultural venues offering free admission and performances. The world-class Norton Simon Museum, the lively Pasadena Symphony, Pasadena Jazz Institute, Pasadena City College and Art Center College of Design are among the many options. Local restaurants offer special treats as well. 

Start at City Hall, the gorgeous 1927 California Mediterranean structure designed by Bakewell and Brown, where you can enjoy some music before jumping on the free shuttles that circulate the ArtNight route. This arts extravaganza happens twice a year, in the fall and spring. The fall '08 event brought in 14,000 people, so plan accordingly. For more information, visit artnightpasadena.org.

The Boston Court Performing Arts Center offers a day of music, theater and more on Saturday, March 13. For information on that event, visit www.playhousedistrict.org.

Two Lives, Two Stories

LA photographer Karl Larsen contacted me last weekend with a story idea: “I know this lady in Pasadena who is African-American and she is the City Attorney for Pasadena. Her name is Michelle Bagneris, and her grandmother just turned 109 years old last week!! As a gift I am going to give her a print of Barack and Michelle Obama on the parade route. She was too old and frail to go to the inauguration herself, so I feel this may be the next best thing.”

Not only did I want to know more about how the centenarian Lucile Burrell and her family felt about the inauguration of the 44th President of the United States, but I also wanted to learn the story behind the photo itself and more about the photographer whom I had hired to shoot Brian Wilson and Paul McCartney for stories I worked on as an arts editor at a weekly newspaper.

The Big Picture
Attached in Larsen’s email was his photo of the President and First Lady, smiling, holding hands and waving to an expectant nation on Jan. 20. For so many people, of so many races and backgrounds, that day was historic. Larsen said being at the parade was a “spiritual experience,” a sentiment that many in this country who went into the voting booths on Nov. 4 and only watched the inauguration on TV completely understand.

But Burrell, having been born in Arkansas on Feb. 2, 1900, was someone who perhaps had a much deeper understanding of the significance of the occasion. “She was born just one generation removed from slavery,” Larsen said, “and I thought I would have to give her a photo of this monumental event that I was fortunate enough to capture.”

I drove with Larsen on Presidents Day to Inglewood, where Big Mama, as she is affectionately called by her family and friends, lives with her daughter Rohelia Beal and son-in-law Meredith Beal, Bagneris’ parents.

Big Mama – who had met George Washington Carver as a child when he came to Arkansas to teach food-canning skills and stayed at her family’s home – didn’t say much during our visit, but when she saw the 16-by-20-inch framed print of the Obamas, she seemed excited and said “hallelujah.” She even began to sing a little bit.

She had a similar reaction when the family watched the inauguration together on TV. Bagneris told me, “We experienced chills and watery eyes, and Big Mama exclaimed ‘hallelujah,’ and as Obama spoke, she shouted to him to ‘tell the world!’”

All three generations were overcome with emotion, Bagneris recalled. “My 86-year-old father choked up, saying that, having been raised as a child in East Texas, he never in his wildest dreams imagined that he would live to see the day that a Black man would be president.”

Before we left, Larsen posed with the entire family and gave Big Mama a kiss on the forehead, both of which I captured with his camera.

Afterward, Bagneris told me what the inauguration and Larsen’s gift meant to her. “My mother and I revel in the recognition that, although America continues to experience challenges in race relations, this represents a giant leap forward and something that my children will recognize came with great sacrifice, presenting a hopeful future. Karl’s photo of the First Couple represents the strength, unity and determination that I have seen in my parents and grandparents, and that I hope to convey with my husband.”

Behind the Camera
Larsen didn’t have media credentials to attend Barack Obama’s inauguration, but that didn’t stop him from flying to Washington, D.C., last month. On Jan. 19, he scoped out the mall and realized without a ticket he couldn’t get close enough to the stage, so he visited the parade route, found a good spot and noted things like the lighting at the time of day he expected to take the photo.

The next day he awoke at 3 a.m. and was the first civilian in line for the parade at 4:35 a.m., behind police, volunteers and media. By 7 a.m., he was in place and trying to stay warm – in thermals, ski pants and goggles – waiting for the president to pass by at 4 p.m. Apparently, it’s not just the National Geographic photographers stalking wildlife and ideal skies who have incredible patience.

Over the course of nine hours of talking and even dancing to Motown, country and more over the PA system, Larsen got to know the people around him. “We all were strangers at 7 a.m. and by 4 p.m. were lifetime friends,” he said, explaining that he also promised to send them all a copy of the photo if they were careful not to bump him during that one crucial moment – which came at 4:05 p.m.

He had maybe a matter of seconds to take a photo of the Obamas, who hopped back into the limo right after he snapped it.

I knew that Larsen, who started as the house photographer for the West Hollywood House of Blues and has worked extensively for Rolling Stone magazine – and whose image of Paris Hilton crying in the back of a police cruiser made newspapers across the country – was good at his job. Hearing about his trip to D.C. and seeing his “catch” confirmed that.

Even so, Larsen’s agency has not yet sold the photo to any media outlets (most likely because many have subscriptions to agencies like the Associated Press and Reuters). So Larsen gave one photo as a gift to Burrell and a 24-by-30-inch giclee print to a friend’s mother who happens to be a Congresswoman in Florida. She had flown with the President on Air Force One when he visited her district and wanted to send it to the White House as a thank you.

In the meantime, a giclee print of the Obamas, arguably the biggest celebrities in the world right now, is at the Celebrity Vault gallery in Beverly Hills along with a few other images by Larsen, as well as ones by famous photographers Richard Miller, Bert Stern, and Gered Mankowitz, who photographed icons such as James Dean, Marilyn Monroe, and Jimi Hendrix, respectively. Larsen is investigating the possibility of Obama signing a number of his limited-edition giclee prints so that he can sell them at the hip gallery on Canon Drive and donate a portion to charity.

At the gallery, in addition to photos of Slash whom Larsen had intimate access to as the official photographer on Velvet Revolver’s first album tour, are some others by Larsen. They aren’t portraits, but emotional images that quietly tell LA stories. The shuttered Tower Records on Sunset is a symbol of the end of a musical era. The inflatable pig that escaped during a Roger Waters concert at the Hollywood Bowl in 2006 and floated toward a full moon makes it obvious that being a photographer is as much about being in the right place at the right time as it is about doing your homework.

As for his black-and-white image of the Hollywood sign with smoke ominously billowing behind it, Larsen said at the moment he heard the fires were encroaching on the city’s world-famous icon, “If the Hollywood sign was going to burn down – then I was going to have to get that photo.”

Visit the Celebrity Vault gallery or website to see more of Larsen’s work: 345 N. Canon Drive, Beverly Hills 90210, (888) 838-1881, www.thecelebrityvault.com

Visit Wikipedia to learn about the controversy about Larsen’s famous photo of Paris Hilton being incorrectly attributed to Pulitzer Prize-winning Associated Press photographer Nick Ut on ABC’s “20/20.”

Art at the Armory

Time is winding down on your chance to see "at the Brewery Project," an exhibit that ends March 1 at the Armory Center for the Arts in Pasadena. The Brewery Project was a showcase for artists, by artists, first organized at the Brewery Art Colony near downtown LA by artist John O'Brien in September 1993. Between then and May 2007, the project was responsible for more than 35 exhibits, curated by as many as 20 different artists, and featuring photography, painting, ceramics, collage and more.

The retrospective at the Armory provides a fascinating glimpse of the contemporary art scene in LA. Among the most fun works on display is Keiko Fukazawa's "Good Luck" with a wedding cake -- made of white ceramic Maneki Neko (Good Luck) cats topped with the colorful ones that are ubiquitous in Little Tokyo -- paired with a kimono decorated with graffiti art. In front of Thomas Muller's enlarged photos of a clay elephant balancing on a gorgeous ripe tomato are the actual items in plexiglas boxes on wooden pedestals -- only it takes a while to figure out what's going on in those boxes because the tomatoes have almost completely decomposed since the installation.

Armory Center for the Arts, 145 N. Raymond Ave., Pasadena 91103, (626) 792-5101, www.armoryarts.org

Keiko Fukazawa, Good Luck, 2005, clay and kimono, kimono: 60 x 50 x 3 inches, ceramic cake: 60 x 22 x 22 inches/photo courtesy of Armory Center for the Arts

Art, Science in Pasadena

Science is a beautiful thing and, sometimes quite literally, a work of art. Such specimens spotlighting the universe, the natural world, and technology are on display at the Pasadena Museum of California Art through April 12.

In the main gallery, "Data + Art," curated by Jet Propulsion Laboratory Visual Strategist Dan Goods and Mars Public Engagement Outreach Coordinator David Delgado, features numerous works that express scientific data in creative visual (and auditory) ways, as well as some materials used in NASA missions, such as a material called Aerogel that is 99.8% air and was used to collect dust from a comet. The project gallery has colorful Scanning Electron Microscope images by David Scharf. In the back gallery, guests can don 3D glasses and ogle the Martian landscape captured by Jet Propulsion Laboratory's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. The three exhibits make for a thoughtful and intriguing -- okay, mind-blowing -- experience.

Movement or sound make many of the "Data + Art" works especially interesting. "Flight Patterns" is a constantly changing digital work using flight path information from the FAA; and an animated video, accompanied by an upbeat, rhythmic soundtrack, uses MRI data to explore the development of a quail inside an egg. A couple of works use classical music to make physical information audible. Radiohead fans will appreciate the DVD detailing the making of the band's "House of Cards" video with a robotic laser scanner, one of which will capture your body and movement on a large screen. Other items of note include a giant hundred dollar bill, miniature drawing robots, a tiny disk etched with 13,000 pages of information, and an incredible visual representation of the number of people imprisoned in the US in 2005.

Alex Dragulescu's architectural designs generated by computer programs using junk email as input (see photo) are spiky and impractical and, oddly enough, bear a resemblance to Scharf's images of ascorbic acid crystals or kidney stones magnified thousands of times their actual size. Scharf's digital images captured with the S.E.M. technology he developed include pollen grains, salmonella, and other natural subjects in prismatic color and enlarged to reveal interesting patterns and the unbelievable complexity sometimes invisible to the naked eye. Cannabis flowers magnified 400 times, for instance, look like a psychedelic landscape of mushrooms.

This is not the first meeting of science and art in Pasadena; the city's world-famous JPL and California Institute of Technology have collaborated with other local arts institutions, including the Armory Center for the Arts and Art Center College of Design. The PMCA's current exhibits succeed (as the shows at this modest, high-quality museum devoted to California art and design from 1850 to the present usually do) at being manageable in size, accessible, and stimulating.

Upcoming programs include a gallery walkthrough with the "Data + Art" curators on Feb. 7 and a panel discussion with the curators and artists on Feb. 28. For details and other events, visit www.pmcaonline.org.

PMCA, 490 E. Union St., (626) 568-3665, www.pmcaonline.org. Open Wed.-Sun., noon-5 pm. General admission $7, free first Friday of the month.

Griffith Observatory

At the Griffith Observatory, you can find a bust of James Dean and a sculpture of Albert Einstein. The juxtaposition of these two famous, yet very different, figures is fitting for a landmark in LA since science and cinema both reign here.

Dean starred in the 1955 film "Rebel Without a Cause," which features interior and exterior scenes shot at the Observatory, and the monument to his work is located outdoors where the Hollywood sign is visible on the hills behind it. The grounds of the Observatory and the views of the hills, the ocean (on a clear day), and the city are part of what make this place so incredible.

The Einstein statue sits on a bench in the Gunther Depths of Space exhibit gallery near the Leonard Nimoy Event Horizon Theater (Spock!). Sit down next to him to get a perspective on "The Big Picture," the largest accurate astronomical image in existence (152 x 30 feet) created at nearby Caltech in Pasadena. It contains millions of stars and galaxies but represents only the amount of night sky that would be covered by Einstein's finger held a foot from his eyes.

Another example of the meeting of science and entertainment is "Centered in the Universe," the show that's been at the Samuel Oschin Planetarium since Fall 2006 when the Observatory reopened after extensive renovations. With the most advanced star projector in the world, one of the largest domes (75 feet), a 3-D digital film, and live narration, the show lives up to Hollywood-size expectations.

"Centered in the Universe" takes the audience through time and space, with graphics that will blow you away (or make you think the room is spinning), even providing a glimpse of the Big Bang. Executive Producer Ann Hassett, who with husband Bob Niemack has produced numerous award-winning documentaries, told me back in 2007 when I saw the show twice (before returning again just recently): "We were in the middle of Hollywood, and they [the Friends of the Observatory and Director Dr. E. C. Krupp] didn't want it to be seen as just another dusty, old educational film." They got it right. It's exciting, thought-provoking, and thoroughly entertaining -- almost like a Disneyland ride for the mind.

Griffith Observatory, 2800 E. Observatory Road, (213) 473-0800, www.griffithobservatory.org

Robert Graham's Sculptures

If you go to the opera this month, plan to get there a little early and have a cocktail on the Music Center Plaza. While you're there, take in the ambiance, which is enhanced by fountains, white lights, and sculpture. In particular, check out "Dance Door," an open door with reliefs of dancing figures by sculptor Robert Graham. Recognized as one of LA's most important artists, Graham died on Dec. 27, 2008 at the age of 70.

Graham's work can be seen across the country in civic monuments such as the FDR Memorial in Washington, D.C. Public artwork in LA includes the "Great Bronze Doors" at the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels, the "Olympic Gateway" at the Memorial Coliseum, and female torsos on Rodeo Drive and in Venice, the latter visible from a window in the artist's studio.

I had the great fortune and honor to meet Robert Graham about a year ago, after interviewing him on the phone for an article on his exhibit of sculpture and paintings at the USC Fisher Gallery. Graham's assistant called after "My Tour With Robert" was published (in December 2007 in the weekly newspaper where I was arts and entertainment editor) and said the artist wanted to invite me to his new studio in Venice because I had written their "favorite article." (The California Newspaper Publishers Association liked it too. I received honorable mention, top 10% in the state, in the category of "writing" for that article.)

I got a tour of the sunlit space, which forms a kind of compound with the home he shared with actress/wife Anjelica Huston and her production office. The bottom level was a gallery and the upper one a working studio. He was smoking a cigar as he showed me his latest work: paintings of the female nude done with brushes dipped in hot, black wax (which went on display at Ace Gallery in Beverly Hills in March). Graham and I sat and chatted for a while, though we're both on the quiet side. When I inquired about the price of his tiny sculptures on display at the Fisher Gallery, he was embarrassed to say. But I told him why I wanted to know: to see if I could afford one. As I expected, $3,000 to $10,000 was not in my price range, so he got up and found a teeny, tiny silver sculpture about the size of my fingertip (a study for the series at the gallery) and said, "Here, this is for you."

Graham made a career-long study of the female figure using live models. He told me this about his sculpture: "Everything is dance. When you look at these great athletic events and you see these movements of the bodies, it's awesome."