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...is how long I've been waiting to see the work of Anslem Kiefer. 16 years ago a friend of mine took the picture of me seen here in front of the painting Isis and Osirus (back when you could get away with crazy shit like that).
When I was 20 years old, going to museums was like going to church. Especially the old SFMOMA. The beaux art building had beautiful light and delicate crown molding. The permanent collection took on a dignity it has never re-acheived at the new building (which, as you may have guessed, I hate). Back then, I saw the work of Anselm Kiefer for the first time in a publication that listed it as a new aquisition for the Museum. Even though it had nothing to do with what I was interested in at the time (painting fruit and trying to be the new Winslow Homer) I was struck by the reproduction and went to see the painting at the first opportunity. I was taking art classes at community college and got around to museums and galleries fairly often even though I didn't drive. I took my buddy Janet who then took this picture. I don't remember anything else about that day.
That painting changed me.
Many years of art school, art jobs, art friends, gallery this and that have stripped me of the illusions I had about being an artist 16 years ago. I'm no longer ravished by wonderment every time I step into a gallery or museum. Frankly, I'm usually depressed by what comes out these days, which made me start to lose hope. Art sustained my hope growing up in suburban hell. It got me out (if only across the Bay Bridge). I had dreams of a secret brilliant fraternity. Reality proved to be more down to earth, as it usually does.
The best legacy of these years has been making awesome talented friends, who have really sustained my hope. But I have been wondering why I'm still making art. I don't show, I don't sell. But I'm still making stuff. It sustains me. But I've been ready for a message in a bottle, some sign. Something to strive for.
Who knew I'd see it on BART last week?
Yep. A poster for Kiefer's show at the SFMOMA. My jaw actually dropped, in the first time I can ever remember.
Today I got to see the show. The only thing that would have made it more perfect was seeing it at the old MOMA.
Anyway. I'm definitely going again. Anyone with me?
Hello to all 5 of you who read this. Sorry it's been awhile since I updated. I've been lazy on my days off since starting my new job.
And then just as I was feeling some balance in my life, Alex and I got into a car wreck last Thursday. We were leaving the driveway of the parking lot on San Leandro St. when a little Honda came out of nowhere (we had almost 100% no visibility on our left due to all the cars parked on San Leandro) and smashed into the front end of the truck, lifting us off the ground and spinning us 90 degrees to the right, where we narrowly missed hitting a parked car. The seatbelt grabbed me (thank Great Hera) and kept me from bouncing into the windshield. But I was thrown so violently in the crash that the seatbelt severely pounded me in the sternum. It's been really hard to move my torso very much this week. I tried to run errands yesterday, but I still hurt too much and had to cut it short. Today I'm much better.
The truck is a total loss. The guts on the left are jammed into the guts on the right. And the kicker is that we were at-fault. That's right, the driver entering the roadway is 100% responsible for making sure it's safe to enter. So even if you are a little Honda flying down a 35 mph zone at 45 mph (at least) and accelerating while paying no attention to what's in front of you because you are chatting with your boy-passenger and you hit a 2 ton truck so violently you don't even have time to brake and you lift it off the road and then carroom into another car and destroy its rear driver side tire...you walk away with no-fault.
Fortunately, there is some justice. She had no car insurance. Not a smidge. So she got a fat ticket and her car impounded. She somehow got Al's phone number and called him, upset because she couldn't get her car from the tow yard, and now can't get to work, to pay the fine or the tow fees and storage. Alex wrote the book on that (literally, yes. See, Undertow at www.smartasspress.com) so told her to contact his insurance agent. She's injured too, she tells him. Contact the insurance company sweetheart, he tells her. That's why they're there. Maybe you've learned that now.
Sorry to be so callous. I'm glad no one was seriously injured. But you'd be amazed how many things you use your torso for that you take for granted until you can't do them. Like getting out of bed.
Today I'm supposed to put together a new lesson plan for my classes, and perhaps a CD of images of my work to show the students. Naturally I've been goofing off on the internet for hours. I found this link that some might like:
Epitonic
I'm usually the last person to find anything cool, so if you've already heard of this, ignore me.
Classes are going pretty well. Most of my students are pretty great. I have a few meatheads, but the school's been really supportive about that. Pretty amazing since this is the San Mateo High School district and they've been in the middle of a devastating budget emergency all month. Positions got slashed all over the district, and Hillsdale is losing a few teachers, too. It's bad. I find out tomorrow who is getting the axe. My job is through the College of San Mateo, so I've been on the sidelines of this drama. The teachers and the students at Hillsdale have been tense but everyone's been trying to stay focused on education. It's really amazing. But now, who knows. I'm afraid this is going to be pretty demoralizing for the teachers and the students and staff.
The blame for this is getting lumped on the district, but it's really due to the corporations in the area who demanded to have their taxes reassessed (sued, actually, I heard). Not just the little guys, no. The big dot-coms who patted themselves on the back for finding San Mateo when it was cheap and small.
Nice going guys. Have fun recruiting from the pool of talent whose education you failed to fund.
Anyways.
MPK
This blog is due a long posting on my recent trip to Maui this month. But of course I got a sinus infection when I got home and moped around on the couch for a week with an ice pack.
I am starting a new job tomorrow and I'm both excited and nervous. I'm teaching high school ceramics...at my old high school Hillsdale. Coming back after 18 years is a total trip. The school has changed a lot. They are part of a program run through Stanford University called Smaller Learning Communities. The academic buildings have been totally redesigned into 3 smaller school that are largely autonomous in terms of administration and budgeting, etc. Everyone I've met at the school is really happy and positive about being there. The arts dept. hasn't really been enfolded into the program, but they're trying to find ways to integrate the curriculum. I'm all about that, so it seems like a good time to get on board.
I'm curious about my students and I hope they'll like me. I'm praying for at least one emo kid who cares what happened in the 80's. My boyfriend's son Aldrin talks about bands he likes and stuff he's into and I can barely keep up. At least I've heard about anime and hyphy.
I'm hoping to widen their horizons a little. I grew up a bored teenager in San Mateo with big dreams of getting out. I made it as far as Oakland anyway! I took Alex with me on Friday and dropped him off at the mall for two hours while I had a meeting at the school. He couldn't believe that this was the only thing to do in the entire area for young folk. Back in my day there was actually a cool bookstore by Central Park in downtown San Mateo that my friends and I would hang out at, but they tore that down in my early 20's and replaced it with a Noah's/Starbucks combo.
Anyway. New Deadwood on tonight. Tomorrow I take my first real commute. I hate the San Mateo bridge with a passion, so I am doing something weird. We drove my car up to Millbrae Bart and left it parked in the nieghbourhood. So hopefully it will be there tomorrow when I take Bart to Millbrae and drive to Hillsdale. It's around a 90 minute commute, but an hour will be on Bart. I'll be leaving around 7 am here, which is a big adjustment to my lifestyle, but I'm done by noon or so for 4 days a week, so. Wish me luck.
After a long drive on Saturday, we arrived at our next port of call, Salt Lake City. While we were enroute to Montana, I had the bright idea of going to visit the Spiral Jetty in Utah. Because it's there, and I seem to hit Utah only once every 20 or so years. However, by the time we got within sniffing distance of the long route to it, we'd been in the car for 5 or so hours. I waved at the exit and called it done. Because of the rats, we couldn't really stop for long breaks...Joey got heatsick in the car after a half an hour break in Missoula and had to be nursed back to health with a cold compress in Butte. It was a close call.
So we had one break in Idaho Falls in the parking lot of a Quizno's with our AC running in the truck. By the time I got to Salt Lake I was in sad shape. But Alex desperately wanted to catch the owner at Sam Weller's Zion Bookstore. After a fruitless search for a restroom at the huge honking mall city mere blocks away from the temple, we gave up and headed to Sam Weller's. I was so strung out and distracted I didn't get a picture of the facade, which I'm sorry about. (But they had a bathroom.) It's a great big store, with lots of quality used books mixed in with the new, which I like. I browsed the books while Alex made his pitch to the owner. In the kids section I found a copy of a book printed in 1974 about a little girl who goes to the hospital to get her tonsils out. I read this same book in 1975 when I got my tonsils out, and I'm surprised by how accurate my recollections of the photos were!
After that we crawled down to an EconoLodge near the I 15 I had spotted on the web the day before. We noted some interesting nightspots, but by the time we checked in, I was checked out. We ordered in pizza.
The next day we were up pretty early. I wanted to check out the Temple square area and take pictures. We knew it was going to be beastly hot, so I was eager to get out the door and back to check out at 12. We got a good parking spot on the shady side near the main complex and hit it on foot. I've been there before, in 1981. I took all the tours at that time, so I'm pretty well up on the history of the buildings, etc. I was kind of tempted to retake the visitors center tour with Alex, but I was afraid he'd start muttering aloud. We have a copy of the Book of Mormon, and we've both dipped into it and some other readings, so no need to see the movie.
We walked past the Beehive House and the Lion House, both residences of Brigham Young. It was Sunday morning so Mormons of all ages were streaming past us, to get to the Temple for service. There were perky young Mormon women greeting guests at the gates...they were also diverting guests who were coming to the Tabernacle to hear the choir. The Tabernacle is being retrofitted and the choir now sings across the street in a convention center. They paused to give us literature and asked if we'd been here before. I demurred answering, as I estimate my last visit was before these gals were born.
I took pictures for about an hour before the heat got crazy...I grabbed a free paper and used it as a parasol on the way back to the truck. We packed up and hit the road by 11:30 am, planning to stay the night in Winnemucca, NV.
For those of you following the story on The Daily Show about the Berkeley Pit...well, here it is. The biggest Superfund site in the nation. It also contributes to Butte's motto "One Mile High, One Mile Deep." The next few pictures hardly do it justice...but it is very huge. There is a water treatment plant on the opposite side. If you kinda squint in the 3rd picture of the pit itself, you will see a small vertical white streak leading down to the pool in the pit. It's right of center. That's a huge waterfall of the treated water from the pit.
The pictures of the graves are from Holy Names Cemetery. I think I some relatives in this older part of the cemetery, but it was the weekend and the office was closed.
Not a relative of mine, but I liked his picture. I can't believe it's survived all these years in the sun. 
Spookiest. Cemetery. Ever.
