Archive for the ‘Art’ Category

 

Two local designers create art you can wear, weaved from the lives they have led

by Casey Parker 

 Love, death, decadence and a long road traveled back to its beginning are among the elements at play in the accessories created by two local designers.

Bill McCrea earned his childhood allowance cleaning his grandfather’s hair salon, Mack’s, in Manhattan Beach. Attending Catholic school with two younger brothers, McCrea never dreamed of following his family’s footsteps and becoming a third generation hairdresser.

After art school, McCrea craved a tropical adventure and flew to Hawaii.  The luxurious Aloha spirit of the 1970s made it impossible to leave. Not having a house or a proper job didn’t stop an independent flower child. McCrea built a tree house and got a job working as an assistant in a psychiatric hospital.

 As the 1970s came to a close, McCrea left his island dream. A friend reminded him life was for the living and complacency leads to boring and dared him to leave paradise for the free-thinking, indulgent San Francisco. After enjoying the music, art, and nightlife the city had to offer, McCrea still had a little voice in his head reminding him hairdressing was a career that embraced his past and offered a way to live creatively.

So to the delight of McCrea’s grandfather and father he returned to the South Bay in 1983 and attended beauty school. Today, he is the owner of Rumba Hair Studio in Redondo Beach.  

 On many runways today we see designers emulating the boho chic styles of 1970s. Since McCrea was there, the feathered flower hair accessories he makes celebrate the look. Beauty inspires confidence, McCrea says, and every women smiles when she sees herself in the mirror with a tropical bit of Janis Joplin elegantly placed upon her head.

“I believe in the transformative power of beauty,” McCrea says.

Gemma Del Rio was born into art. Her mother, Gemma Taccogna, was a renowned artist from Mexico City and moved little Gemma there when she was only nine months old. Latin culture’s vibrant colors, warm sun, and her mother’s love molded Del Rio into the artist she is today. Her fresh sense of design and color are highlighted in her line of hand painted silk scarves and fused glass jewelry. Most recently, her work was featured on Good Day LA. Debbie Reynolds’ face glowed as if the painted peacock feathers on the scarf gave off light.

 Del Rio’s mother passed in 2007. Instead of wallowing in grief, Del Rio felt compelled to use what she’d learned from her mother and create inspired works of art. When one ties on one of her scarves or places on a piece of fused glass, one can almost feel the Latin sun and see the swirl of  traditional Mexican dance skirts that made such a strong impression on Gemma in her youth.

“It doesn’t matter what you create,” her mother told her long ago. “It’s that you are living with dignity, you’re living with principal, you are living with passion, with honor. And you have a visual statement of your bravery.”

McCrea’s floral creations are available at Rumba, 1830 S. Elena Ave. in Redondo Beach. Del Rio’s scarves and jewelry are available at Annie’s Boutique 722 Yarmouth Road, Palos Verdes Estates, or by contacting her directly at gdelrio53@hotmail.com.

 

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Tracey Weiss challenges her viewers to confront their assumptions about art

by Bondo Wyszpolski

“It’s kind of ironic,” says Tracey Weiss. “I started as a painter, I discovered ceramics, and now I make ceramic sculptures of paintings. I’ve come full-circle.”

This is going to sound a little confusing at first, but bear with me. There’s a big payoff at the end.

“I’m letting ceramics pose as paintings so they’re taken more seriously. To some extent it’s tongue-in-cheek, but I like exploring on a very formal level that fine line between painting and sculpture. They seem very different, but in a way I’ve brought them to where they’ve come very close to each other.”

Weiss lives next door to a Thai restaurant in Redondo Beach. We sat in her garage-studio on a rainy afternoon and spoke about her newest work, the concepts that give it life, and about her upcoming group exhibition.

“The show in Manhattan Beach,” she continues, “is an abstract show, and I always find that (classification) amusing because a lot of people view my work as abstract when in fact it’s painting and sculpture. As painting, it’s abstract; as sculpture it’s representational.” She laughs. “I’m trying to do everything at once.”

And not without some success. Weiss is displaying half a dozen pieces in “Southern Exposure 2,” which highlights the work of six South Bay artists, all of whom reside in Hermosa, Manhattan, and Redondo Beach. Ann Martin is the guest curator, and the show (details below) opens tomorrow evening.

Paintings are illusionary, but Tracey Weiss trumps us one better. When we look at her canvasses… Well, that’s the thing; what looks like a canvas isn’t a canvas at all, it’s ceramic. But, as Weiss explains, “even though it’s made in ceramic it’s really talking about painting in the art world.”

As the artist sees it, “in the fine arts arena painting is considered the best, the grandfather of the art world. Generally speaking, it’s held as the highest and revered as the most important art. And ceramics is really the low man on the totem pole” – to the point where people question if it really isn’t craft rather than art. What Weiss has done is to tweak this accepted hierarchy. “If ceramics posed as painting, is it going to be looked at as art then?

“That’s how this idea started,” she says of her current work, and perhaps – as the viewer – we don’t know if we’re looking at a cat or a dog. When we stand close, does it meow or bark? To blur even further that fine line between painting and sculpture, Weiss doesn’t usually paint on her “paintings.”

“They’re weird as sculpture,” she says, “even though they’re sculptures of paintings. I refer to them as super-paintings because I like them to do things that painting can’t do.”

Making her way

In the fall, it’ll be 10 years since Tracey Weiss moved from Northern California to attend Cal State, L.A., where she earned her Master’s in Fine Arts.

That turn of events might have surprised her much-younger self: “I actually didn’t plan to go to college at all, because I wanted to be an artist and artists don’t go to school.” She laughs. “How little I knew.”

But why Los Angeles?

“I wanted to move into this area because it’s really the place to be if you’re an artist. Northern California is not bad, but L.A.’s much better in terms of the art world. It’s more competitive with New York.”

Weiss says that from an early age she knew she wanted to be an artist, but it was still some time before she found a means of expression most conducive to her talents.

“I went through every facet of art. When I was a little kid I wanted to be a cartoonist. When I was in high school I thought I’d go into commercial art or advertising because that’s all I really wanted to do. I didn’t know about the fine arts world.” Her parents were always supportive, although it seems that family trips to the museum and other cultural events were infrequent. It was only when Weiss was in college that “I had professors who encouraged me to go into the fine art world and taught me what that was all about.”

As a beginning artist, Weiss was a representational painter.

“I was probably 20 when I discovered ceramics,” she says. “So I did sculpture mainly through college. When you’re in school you kind of do a little bit of everything. And I like that – I didn’t want to be strictly a sculptor or strictly a ceramics sculptor. For me, it’s much more about the idea and the concept; so, whatever medium works, that’s the medium I’m going to use. In that sense, I’m sort of a jack of all trades. But when I [embarked upon] this idea that I’ve been working on for the last several years, it had to be in ceramics, so that’s what I’ve been using.”

She elaborates: Many artists, of all persuasions, fall in love with their medium, and remain faithful to it no matter what. “There’s nothing wrong with that,” Weiss says, “it’s just that I’m not one of those people. I enjoy clay very much, but if I came up with something that called for a photography series then I would use that.”

However, that painting-sculpture thing of hers, which has intrigued Weiss since graduate school, continues to occupy her thoughts. And why is that? Simply this:

“I haven’t worked through it.”

Sometimes a great notion

It’s still raining, there’s an occasional gust of wind that tries to reshuffle the umbrellas, and the cloudy skies are reminiscent of Courbet’s turbulent seascapes painted in the north of France. But here in the garage-studio, the art and the influences behind it are markedly different.

Periodically, Weiss will take a breather from what she calls her “preliminary body of work,” and try her hand at something else. “It just physically got to the point where it wasn’t fun anymore,” she says of her ceramic paintings. “I really believe in the concepts and I don’t want to stop making them, but sometimes I’m physically bored with making them.”

Understandably, she needed a brief diversion from her endeavors. So, a couple years back, Weiss executed a series of “macabre” paint tubes.

“I think of them as a vacation from my work,” she acknowledges, “and they ended up being relatively successful. They’ve gotten more play than I thought they would.”

None of the paint tubes will be in “Southern Exposure 2,” as she was never committed to an in-depth exploration of them, but pictures of the series can be found on the artist’s website and – this is all that counts, really! – they’ve intrigued this writer. What they are, essentially, are recreations of paint tubes that have been partially opened or peeled back to reveal teeth or ribs or viscera. Are these paint tubes really living creatures? But what this viewer begins to conjecture is that essentially anything can emerge from a tube or several tubes of paint working together: a portrait of Andrew Jackson, a waterfall in Venezuela, the battle of Waterloo strewn with bodies. It’s almost a metaphor for the creative process. We begin with something very basic and then – like the universe contained within the seed of the Big Bang – anything can emerge.

Had Tracey Weiss found her influences in Paris or Barcelona, perhaps she would have continued and developed her experiment with the paint tubes, but it’s not Delacroix or Gaudí that she cites, it’s Barnett Newman and Mark Rothko.

“Originally the works started out as referencing the New York School,” she says, alluding to the abstract expressionists of the 1950s. “A large red piece that I did for my graduate show was supposed to refer to a Rothko.

“I have art history references in a lot of my work. It’s something you don’t need to get, because most people aren’t going to. It’s a little extra bonus for artists; it’s like a little inside joke.” Weiss then mentions one of her pieces called “Red Zip,” which is blue with a red stripe.

“The ‘zips’ are those vertical stripes. In the ‘50s, Barnett Newman did a whole series of paintings and he referred to them as zips. So that’s my little ode to Barnett Newman. I like to do little things like that.”

In his book, The End of Art, Donald Kuspit defines Newman’s zip as “a vivid grand gesture the vertical length of the canvas, a kind of punctuation mark of existence, signifying primal howling in the cosmic void, anguished recognition of the originality of being.”

“Abstract art,” Weiss adds, “is one of those things that you definitely benefit from by having an education about it, because people always look at it and go, ‘Oh, what is that supposed to mean?’ It’s not supposed to mean anything. It is what it is. It’s a painting of paint in a sense. But like those Rothkos it’s their actual presence. They’re almost like sculptures because it’s their presence as an object, really, that he’s going for. When you’re in front of a Rothko, it’s completely different than looking at a Rothko in a book. Well, any painting is, but some more than others.”

The abstract expressionists – including Clyfford Still and Cy Twombly – tended to work large, and Weiss is right there with them.

“There are logistical reasons [why] I work in the scale that I do,” she says, “but I like – especially in my earlier work in this series – that the pieces were very large. When I was in graduate school, all the work was big like that. That was because I wanted that presence that the abstract expressionists had. They had very large work and it was big and loud and in your face.

“But,” she points out, referring to her proclivity to combine numerous smaller units so that they add up to something greater than their parts, “I like the idea that as these individual objects they’re kind of these small, finely crafted objects like sculpture. But when they all get together they have a presence.”

That’s what Weiss finds attractive, the detailed components and, when you step back, the bigger picture and the accumulative impact.

“I’m trying to cover all the bases, you know?”

An example of her large-scale work, and one that falls into her category of super-painting because, as you remember, “I like them to do things that painting can’t do,” is “Lime Slide.” She made it for a show last year.

“Essentially, the painting is sliding off of the canvas,” Weiss says, “and you can’t do that in painting.”

But large works like this can pose a problem.

“Realistic elements come into play and most galleries can’t accommodate that or they don’t want to. Or, if you get into a show, you can show one big piece or four medium pieces. And you’re not going to sell those big pieces very often, either.”

This brings us to her recent endeavors. One series seems to depict torn canvasses; another has the appearance of paintings that have been physically broken and then imperfectly reassembled: “Obviously you can’t break a painting and repair it.”

Her newest work – a five-panel piece, and it’s featured in the show – gives the impression of canvasses that have been ripped and then stitched back together. A question that Weiss continuously puts to herself is this: “What can I make these [works] do that paintings aren’t able to do, so that they’re actually better than painting? Not just ‘as good as’ painting, but better.”

And it’s a question she’s been finding different ways to answer.

A word from the Weiss is sufficient

Tracey Weiss has been teaching art since graduate school, essentially an introduction to ceramics. She’s held a part-time position at Cerritos College for a few years, and also, closer to home, at the Torrance Cultural Arts Center. The latter is more informal, and no one’s academic future rides on how well they do.

“I don’t really encourage them to go into art,” she says of her students, but she does make it clear that it’s healthy for the creative spirit and for the mind and that one needn’t be an artist to make art.

“It’s a hard profession,” she acknowledges, but we both know that pursuing a career in the arts does not tend to be a rational decision. And if someone seeks her advice on whether or not he or she should become an artist?

“I tell them,” Weiss replies, “if you’re asking me if you should do it, then you shouldn’t.”

Southern Exposure 2 also features work by Jessica Alley, Mike Gaines, Simon Ouwerkerk, Linda Jo Russell, and Marlene Sanaye Yamada. The show opens tomorrow with a reception from 6 to 8 p.m. at the Creative Arts Center, 1560 Manhattan Beach Blvd., Manhattan Beach, and will be on view through March 25. Hours, Tuesday and Thursday from 2 to 6 p.m., Wednesday from 4 to 8 p.m., and Saturday from 1 to 5 p.m. Call (310) 802-5440 or go to citymb.info. ER

The art of Amy Theilig’s wedding photography

by Mark McDermott

 She arrives early, when the bride is in her final stages of preparation. In the nervous hush, she begins shooting.

 Amy Theilig’s eyes take in the scene: the wedding dress, hanging by a closet; the bride’s face, tilted upwards as makeup is applied; the bride’s mother, helping her daughter fit the bridal veil; the young woman standing before a mirror, seeing herself as a bride for the first time.

 Oftentimes, after everyone leaves for the ceremony, only the photographer remains with the bride.  Theilig’s camera documents this pensive, anticipatory time, the bride looking out the window, hopeful, happy, and slightly scared. Later, she will be there when the groom first lays his eyes on the woman who is about to become his wife.  When the groom stands alone outside the church, fidgeting with his cufflinks, Theilig captures the moment.

 Over the course of a wedding day, Theilig will take anywhere from 600 to 1,000 photographs. She’ll use three cameras and as many as five lenses. Her images include details – the garter belt, the rings, the flower girl’s hands clutching the bouquet   – as well as well as the big moments, such as the exchanging of vows or the couple’s first dance as man and wife.

 The wedding album she will later create is more than a series of photographs. Theilig is a 30-year-old wedding photographer who has shot nearly 300 weddings since launching her own business only four years ago. Her business has taken off with almost no marketing – 90 percent of her clients are referrals. She has quickly become one of the most sought-after wedding photographers in the South Bay because she manages to achieve something rare in wedding photography. She creates art.

 “I have a specific clientele,” she said. “Not everyone wants my style. Some people want straight, traditional photography, which is fine. People tend to book me are like me – they appreciate art, and they want to look back at their wedding in 20 or 30 years from now and feel the emotions of the actual day. They don’t want to just see who was at the wedding or what they were wearing. They want to remember how nervous they were, how excited, how in love, how beautiful.”

 Wedding photography is more than a profession for Theilig. It is a calling. She was a theater major at USC who was studying photography as a sideline of sorts when she came across a CD of fine art wedding photography.  “I thought, wow, I want to do this,” she remembers. “But even better.”

 Upon graduation, she took a job at a tuxedo shop in Beverly Hills. The shop happened to be across the street from the wedding photographer Kevin Lee, whose shots inspired her. After fitting clients for tuxedos, she would sometimes mention that she was also available for photography. One client took her up on it, and her shots from that wedding found their way to Lee. She had, with very little training or experience, created a series of stunningly beautiful images. Lee hired her immediately as an assistant.

After three years, Theilig returned to her native South Bay and started her own business. Word of her special talent spread quickly. In her first year of business, the photos she took of Shade Hotel owners Mike and Andrea Zislis’ wedding were featured in Los Angeles Weddings magazine. The album from that wedding caught the attention of a Zislis family friend, Sandy Comstock. She saw something extraordinary in Theilig’s work even before her own daughter, Kelly, became engaged. When her daughter announced her plans to marry a few years later, Comstock actually borrowed the wedding album and shipped it to New York, where her daughter was living.  

“I loved it,” said Kelly Ferris (formerly Comstock). “That was it. I was sold.”

 The wedding took place at the Comstock family’s vineyard outside Healdsburg. It was a small, intimate affair. Theilig was asked to tread lightly.

 “My husband and I are not big fans of having our pictures taken, not even remotely,” Kelly Comstock said. “We are very uncomfortable and told her that. She was the perfect fly on the wall…and she still managed to get every shot you might want afterwards. She just documented the day. She caught all the little things, like my husband pinching my nose at the end of the table when nobody else was looking. And she got all these amazing, gorgeous shots – everything from the details, the food, the place settings, and things we didn’t know had happened when we later saw the photographs.”

 One of the shots shows the bride’s shoes sitting on a rail overlooking the vineyard. There are no people in the shot. It looks almost like sculpture, yet somehow taps into the character of the day.

 “She captures not just the wedding but the sense of place and time,” Sandy Comstock said. “It’s a real gift. I have only one daughter, so this was a real treat. And I’m blown away, because this child is only 30 years old. She is highly talented and sees things in a very special way, which I don’t think you can teach. I think it is truly a gift that she has, a gift for seeing.”

 She also has a gift for directing people who are not models into occasionally posing in such a way that accentuates their own beauty and that of their surroundings.

 Nicole Zalazar was stunned when she opened the pages of her wedding album for the first time.

 “There was quite a large photo of me on one page,” she said. “I never saw a photo before where I look like a model! And my husband is handsome, but he looks like a GQ model. I don’t know how she does it. I was shocked at how perfect everything looked. It was beautiful.”

 Theilig also managed to convey the special connections between people at the wedding.

 “The way she got my dad and my husband’s father to open up and joke around is probably one of my favorites,” Zalazar said. “The two of them and my husband are doing ‘see no evil, hear no evil.’ They are just so funny. She just gets people to open up somehow.”

 Theilig said that she looks for little “vignettes” that collectively create a narrative for the day. When Zalazar looks at her album – which she admits is a very frequent pastime – something kind of magical tends to happen. It’s not as if she’s just flipping through pages so much as she is reliving the day.

 “It doesn’t just feel like a photo album full of pictures,” she said. “It’s a story – the story of your day.”

 The connection that is formed between the photographer and her subjects tends to endure beyond that day.

“Each wedding has its own rhythm,” Theilig said. “Some weddings I shoot are so mellow and easy and there is a lot of just kind of an unspoken kind of warmth. Some are just crazy and running late, some are like a huge big party. I shot a wedding once where it was just the bride and groom and officiant and me. And I mean, talk about jumping into people’s lives – I have to tell you, almost every single one of my clients to this day calls me or emails me. We are friends, because I am the one who is there when they are getting dressed for the most important day of their life. I am there calming them when they are nervous, walking down the aisle.”

 Like any artist, Theilig is careful about her subject matter. When she meets with prospective clients, the interview goes both ways. If somebody calls and asks only about pricing and not what they want in terms of quality, then likely they are not a good match for what Theilig does.

 “For me, if people don’t value the investment of wedding photography, then we are not right for each other,” she said. “Because how I view this is that this is one investment you are going to make you’ll have the rest of your life. Your house changes, your sofa grows old, the food gets eaten, the kids grow up and go away, but when a natural disaster strikes the one thing people run out of the house with is their photos.”

 Unless we are celebrities, most days of our lives go by relatively undocumented. But this once, on this most special of days, things are different. Most wedding photography, somewhat oddly, tends to be flatly unimaginative. Yet the subject lends itself perfectly to a more artful approach – a wedding day is among the most choreographed days of one’s life, when beauty is accentuated and strong emotions are allowed free reign.

 It’s the stuff of art. And Theilig is perfectly satisfied to call herself a wedding photographer.

 “When I think about my legacy, I may not be this famous fashion photographer or this famous landscape photographer,” she said. “But then I think about all the weddings I have shot and all the albums that have my name stamped into the corner…I’ve done maybe 300 weddings, so all those wedding albums are out there in the world, and people keep them forever and hand them down to their children.

 “In a hundred years, some person may hand one of those books down from an attic, and my name will be in it – my name, and my art. So that is my legacy.”

 See amytphoto.com for more photographs and information about Amy Theilig. B

by Tom Fitt
Ahhhhh, dogs. Man’s best friend – especially if you like your friends defecating on the living room carpet. I had a gray hound named Lion (thanks, William Faulkner). He didn’t hunt bears. Actually, he was slow to find his feeding bowl. The Weimeraner didn’t bring me the newspaper; he didn’t bring me my slippers (probably because he had already ingested the left one). The only treasures he deposited at my feet were small, gnawed-upon rodents and cat excrement he discovered in the front yard. But, give him credit, he was extremely proud of his gift deliveries.

The Civic Light Opera of South Bay Cities (CLOSBC) is offering a tribute to the furry beasts, tonight through Feb. 28. “Bark! The Musical” is Executive Producer James Blackman’s unspoken revenge on an Andrew Lloyd Webber show that portrayed a different breed of four-legged foot warmers, the ones who cough up fur balls and sing insipidly boring songs. The cover of the original cast recording of “Bark” (2004) refers to the show as “The Musical That Does It Doggie Style.” Thankfully, the pups haven’t the language facility to read The Kama Sutra, but they do like the pictures. They are in black and white.
Certainly, all involved with CLOSBC must be thrilled at the generous endorsement of this new production provided in the Feb. 1 edition of New York magazine.

The cover story is entitled “The Rise of Dog Identity Politics,” by John Homans. Okay, perhaps the story is not an homage to our local theater, but the timing is perfect and Blackman should consider messengering a box of Milk Bones to the scribe. Large sized biscuits, of course, as both Homans and Blackman are big dogs. The writer describes his dog Stella as “an elegant creature… with the runway model’s trick of looking simultaneously gorgeous and ridiculous.” Sounds like my ex-wife. He continues: “While highly vocal, with a booming baritone bark and a complex secret language of whines and growls, she’s not notably articulate.” This is my ex-wife. Homans also cites a 2008 study that found “a man with a dog had a much better chance of getting a woman’s phone number than one without.” Same can be said about a pencil.

“Bark’s” music is written by David Troy Francis; lyrics by Gavin Geoffrey Dillard and Robert Schrock. The show ran for two years at the Coast Playhouse in West Hollywood, making it the third-longest running theater piece in L.A. history. It received a Critics’ Choice award from the L.A. Times and was nominated for several Drama Circle awards.

“Bark” explores the daily lives of six canines residing at Deena’s Doggie Daycare. I think I stayed there once. Room service sucked, but the breakfast kibbles were tasty. As is the case with real pooches, our characters have definitive personalities. With the show in rehearsal last week, I was given free leash to interview CLOSBC’s artistic director and director of the production, Stephanie Coltrin, and three of the pups.

Howl at the room
How did Coltrin and the powers at CLOSBC come to decide upon “Bark”?
“The authors had done a rewrite and we went to a reading of it in Hollywood about a year ago. All of us at CLOSBC are dog people and we were so completely charmed with it. We loved that it is a small show – only six performers – and for those of us who have dogs, and even if you don’t, it’s first of all hilarious seeing the dogs being personified. It also confirms the feelings you have about your pet that they are more human than not,” said Coltrin. “I have a dog, and James (Blackman) has a dog, our accountant has a dog, the subscription manager has four dogs. Basically we all have dogs.”

In preparing for the show, Coltrin explained that David Troy Francis encourages wide interpretation of the musical he conceived.

“The characters are not really written into the script, so we are in the process of creating these characters.”

On the production side, Coltrin said CLOSBC has expanded the band from the original single keyboard player to a group of five, under the direction of Daniel Gary Busby.

Great Dane
Versatility is a great asset for an actor. Dane Biren appears in “Bark” as the Jack Russell named “Rocks.” Just a couple months earlier, he played a college teacher in “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?” at the Hermosa Beach Playhouse. Prof to pup? Most would not consider this to be a giant leap.

With true Stanislavskian diligence, Biren takes his work home with him.
“I have a dog,” said Biren. “He’s a funny mutt, kinda like the Jack Russell I’m playing, but I’m not even sure what kind of dog he is. It’s fun doing character study for a show like this because you can sit at home and watch your pet do nothing.”
As a point of reference, my present pooch – Woody – does exactly that when ESPN televises the Westminister Kennel Club’s annual show. It’s a weekend of serious leg humping as handlers parade the Afghans across the screen.

Biren explains Rocks’ character: “It’s the first day of puppy care, and I’m new, so I’m just taking the excitement of everything that’s new and experiencing all of the wonderment. That’s how I’m approaching it: everything is brand, brand new. Rocks is kinda guided as to how to be a dog and find his own way. I’m like the student.”

Royalty rules
Regal titles make for good doggie names. I’ve owned a Prince, a King, a Duke and a Queenie. The male Rottweiler wasn’t crazy about the last name, but he adapted quickly, learning to urinate without lifting his leg.
Harrison White plays King, “the oldest dog; the alpha dog,” he said. “I think of him as a chocolate Labrador. It’s a fun part and a fun journey, and we’re just getting into it. The music is fantastic; we’re just now beginning to focus on each others’ characters. It’s the quintessential answer to ‘Cats,’ I think.”

White is presently dogless due to living conditions, “but I really want one; a mid-sized dog. I’ve actually gone as far as going down to the pound and looking at dogs, that’s how much I want one.”
White sees King as strong, but also lovable. “He’s probably the leader of the pack, but he wants some nurturing.”

Poodle envy
Do poodles have green eyes? Regardless of her pedigree, Janet Krupin is no barker. Her character, Chanel, is an opera singing diva with an attitude. Have you ever met a poodle sans attitude? Have you ever met an opera singer… nevermind. The beaded dog collar is a most appropriate accoutrement for this coiffed purebred.

This is Krupin’s first appearance at CLOSBC, with or without the bejeweled throat prop.
“I’m the high maintenance one of the bunch. She just has a zest for the joie de vive, the finer things,” said Krupin.

The young Seattle-born actress has never owned a dog (“my father was allergic”) “but I know what kind of dog I would have: a Husky. I like big dogs and I can see myself running along the beaches in Seattle with my Husky dog.”

Are there leash laws in Seattle?

Krupin looks forward to the vocals, as well she should. She most definitely has the pipes. Check her out on YouTube.

“I believe the original cast album only had a keyboard; we’re going to have a few more musicians and we’re redoing quite a bit of the show. It will be exciting to see it on a bigger stage – our new and improved ‘Bark!’”

Also appearing in the show are Justin Michael Wilcox as Sam, Shanna Marie Palmer as Boo, and Jessica Gisin as Golde. Karl Warden is choreographer.

Rawhide chewy bones and arguably fresh toilet water will be available for gnawing and lapping at the show’s intermission.

‘Bark! The Musical,’ in previews tonight and tomorrow, and opening on Saturday at the Redondo Beach Performing Arts Center, 1935 Manhattan Beach Blvd., corner of Aviation. Performances Tuesday through Saturday at 8 p.m.; Saturday matinees Feb. 20 and 27, at 2 p.m.; Sunday matinees Feb. 14, 21 and 28 at 2 p.m. Tickets, $45-$60. Closes Feb. 28. Call (310) 372-4477 or visit civiclightopera.com. ER

Bill Maher appears at the Comedy & Magic club this week. Photo by David Shankbone

by Tom Fitt

“New Rules: Just because a country elects a smart President doesn’t make it a smart country,” said Bill Maher. “A few weeks ago, I was asked by Wolf Blitzer if I thought Sarah Palin could get elected President, and I said I hope not, but I wouldn’t put anything past this stupid country. It was amazing – in the minute or so between my calling America stupid and the end of the Cialis commercial, CNN was flooded with furious e-mails and the twits hit the fan. And you could tell these people were really mad because they wrote entirely in CAPITAL LETTERS! It’s how they get the blood circulating when the Cialis wears off.

“Worst of all, Bill O’Reilly refuted my contention that this is a stupid country by calling me a pinhead, which A) proves my point, and B) is really funny coming from a doody-face like him.”

That’s what stand-up comedian and social commentator Bill Maher in the Huffington Post on Aug. 7, 2009. The Post is an Internet vehicle to which one responds by typing only with his/her left hand.

Maher appears Tuesday night at the Comedy & Magic Club in Hermosa Beach. Right turns into the parking lot will be strictly forbidden.

In a story by Hector Salanda in the San Antonio Express News on Jan. 26 (prior to a Maher concert), the comedian claims to be a throwback to Jack Paar, Dick Cavett, David Susskind and Tom Snyder, TV talk-show hosts who took time with their guests and issues.

But the star of HBO’s Real Time With Bill Maher also says when he’s doing his stand-up act, deeper topics — from the healthcare debate to the economy to Afghanistan to global terrorism — take a back seat to the laughs.
“Stand-up comedy is the kind of thing where you don’t want to screw around with people. You want to make them laugh really hard,” Maher said. “You want to make their face hurt.”

Maher gained fame as the host of Politically Incorrect, which aired on the Comedy Central television network and later ABC.

Just six days before his weekly series returns for its eighth season, the live comedy special “Bill Maher…But I’m Not Wrong” showcases on HBO with an hour of stand-up comedy on Feb. 13.

Bill Maher, Comedy & Magic Club, 1918 Hermosa Ave., Hermosa Beach. Tuesday, Feb. 9, 8 p.m. Tickets, $40. Call 310-372-1193 or visit comedyandmagicclub.com. ER

 

Colorful art by Sasha Marie Barnard is on view Saturday in Manhattan Beach

by Bondo Wyszpolski

“My main dream,” says Sasha Marie Barnard, “is to do a series of public art installations across the United States and worldwide. I want to start doing some public art; I really believe that the South Bay could use a little more public art. A lot of places could use more public art.”

Barnard, perhaps best described as a media sculptor, is in her latter 20s. On Saturday, her fine art and sculpture will be on view from 7 until 11 p.m. at the Beach Cities Masonic Lodge in Manhattan Beach. “Pillars of Inspiration” is not only a one-woman art show, it’s a charity benefit for the Shriners Hospitals for Children.

“My brother and dad are both members of the Beach Cities Masonic Lodge,” she tells me when I ask Barnard how the exhibition came about. During one of the dinners that are held each month, one of the officers told her that he remembered hearing about her work. They were going to have another fundraiser and benefit for the hospital and he asked if he could visit her studio.

“That sounded great to me,” Barnard says. “He came over and I showed him a bunch of my art and we decided what kind of collections he thought would be appropriate for the show. I was really interested in the charity part of it, and that is the mission of the Masons and the Shriners, to do charity work and to help people who are less fortunate. I’ve been doing community stuff like that my whole life.”

With a benefit show – and especially one for a children’s hospital – I guess you have to be careful what you put on display, as opposed to someplace else where you could show things that might, umm, be less cheerful.

“It’s funny you say that,” Barnard replies, “because for two years I’ve been working on a huge project called ‘Mapping the Americans.’ It’s a 22-foot-long by 14-foot map of the United States and I had made skeletons for each state. The whole idea of the project is to revive some kind of good energy about American culture. Because people are so like, oh, American culture is just hotdogs and hamburgers! It’s so not true; so I want to give that life back to America. It was amazing because I was working on these skeletons” and that’s clearly “not appropriate for a children’s hospital show.

“I’m getting really close to the end,” she continues, “and I just packed everything up and put it all in my storage unit and – boom – started doing this show.” The transition wasn’t easy because Barnard had compiled a lot of information and done so much research, and is hoping to get her master’s degree out of it.

Knowing that she’s been creating skeletons has surprised various people who associate her with angels, the focus of yet another monumental project. “But they’re really kind of one and the same for me,” Barnard explains, “because it’s a celebration of life.” It also leads into an explanation of the track that she’s been on.

From a whisper to a dream

“I have been doing art full time for about five years now,” Barnard says, remembering back to a miserable day in school. She’d been restless, and “I was like, I want to do my art.” She points to a sticker that shows a heavily bejeweled young woman with a Frida Kahlo-like intensity. The night before, she adds, “I had this dream, and she was in my dream. She was showing me this way of creating all these angels, [which] would become a way for me to be an instrument of God’s, or [to help] people [recognize] this positive awareness.

“The very next day I’m sitting in the (science) lab, listening to my horrid teacher, and I flip open a National Geographic. And there she is, right there. I take the page, I ripped it out,” and in no time at all “I was off to the studio. I’ve been creating angels ever since then.”

Another goal for Sasha Marie Barnard: an exhibition to be called “Angels of Reason and Passion.”

It seems that she’s been working on this series intermittently but also consistently. “I wrote them all down after that dream,” Barnard says of her angels. “There’s 48. I think I have close to 27 or 30 of them done. They range in size and media.” A couple of them will be on view this Saturday. As for the exhibition that she’ll devote to them, “it’s gonna have to be in a really large venue.” She figures she needs another two years to complete the work.

As Barnard says in her artist statement, “The shining light of angels empowers me to see revealed mastery in every texture, shape or form that I encounter… God’s light energizes me so that I may inspire others.”

Distant thunder

You also wrote a long piece (it’s on her website) called “The Moon Angel.” Tell me about your connection with the Moon and what it means to you, because it seems personal and inspires your art.

“It’s kind of a self-portrait,” Barnard replies. She describes seeing the Moon as “one of those magic moments,” when you’re out walking or driving and you look up and there’s the Moon – just over the horizon or through some branches. “One of the main things it reminds me of [is] my place right here on this Earth… There’s all this mystery about the Moon.”

The Moon, of course, is also the Queen of the Night, and it can be a magical, seductive time for the artist.

“Sometimes I can get more done in two hours in the middle of the night than I will the whole day,” she says, mentioning the daytime disturbances – like gardeners with their leaf-blowers – that can simply blow out one’s focus. But as for the trains passing by, that’s another story. Barnard lives close to the railroad tracks near Carson Street and Crenshaw Boulevard in Torrance.

“I always think of that Paul Simon song (“Trains in the Distance,” on “Heart and Bones”), and I really do love the sound of the train in the distance. The train is the least of my noise problems.”

A train passing in the predawn hours can even emphasize how quiet everything really is.

“The night is more peaceful,” Barnard continues. “It kind of represents the time that I can just be an artist with no distractions. It’s hard to have that time; you really have to fight to have that time.”

“Train in the Distance,” by Sasha Marie Barnard

On time, under budget

“You’ve spent most of your life in the South Bay?”

“Yeah, my whole life. I graduated from Long Beach State; I did some study abroad, at the University of Vienna in Austria.” Barnard also studied music theory and opera in Salzburg. “At the end of the semester we got to see ‘Carmen’ in the Vienna Opera House, and it was out of this world.”

You studied ballet for many years. It seems that the discipline it needs prepared you for your work in the visual arts.

“I think that it did, sure,” Barnard replies. “It’s very rigid, and my teacher was particularly strict. She just pushed us and pushed us. I ended up hurting myself,” and so that potential career went south.

Later, in private school, “I had some awesome teachers and they were really about self-motivation and discipline.” She mentions her parents, who until the early 1980s owned Paper Moon on Hermosa Avenue in Hermosa Beach. “My family is kind of like that also; we’re all artists. I think if you aren’t gonna wake up and want to do art all day then really you shouldn’t try to be an artist. I just can’t stop doing art, so I really have to be self-disciplined.”

How does she do it? By creating deadlines, she says, and sticking to them. “I clock in and I keep track of my hours.” In film school, she saw firsthand the dangers of not adhering to a timetable. “I think the production schedule is the most important thing you can have for any kind of project. I found that’s where people always fall through.”

Even so, creativity often follows a rhyme and reason of its own.

“And you can’t rush art,” Barnard says; “there’s just no way to rush it. You cannot slap something together. It just doesn’t work.”

But when the spirit or the inspiration comes knocking, this is one artist who doesn’t hesitate to open the door and let it in.

Pillars of Inspiration, fine art and sculpture by Sasha Marie Barnard, is on view from 7 to 11 p.m. on Saturday at the Beach Cities Masonic Lodge, 1535 Artesia Blvd., Manhattan Beach. Free admission, with champagne. (310) 339-1044. ER

by Bondo Wyszpolski
The ears perk up at any mention of Rembrandt, but the current show at the Getty differs immensely from the museum’s last exhibition of works by the Dutch master – “Rembrandt’s Late Religious Portraits” (mid-2005) – in that it doesn’t seduce and dazzle as soon as one steps into the gallery.
But that doesn’t mean there aren’t rewards to be reaped; we just have to put on our thinking caps.
The focus of “Drawings by Rembrandt” is “the problem of attribution,” that is, learning to discern what is or probably is from Rembrandt’s hand and what isn’t. The reason why such an investigation is still necessary lies in the fact that Rembrandt operated a studio or workshop for nearly 40 years (first at Leiden, then in Amsterdam), and over the course of these four decades had a multitude of students. Some of them went on to achieve brilliant careers of their own and their names – such as Govert Flinck and Ferdinand Bol – may be familiar to the casual viewer. Jan Lievens, who is also included (and who was the recipient of a major retrospective this past year in Milwaukee), was more of a colleague than a student.

We could refer to the lot of them as Rembrandt and His Disciples. There are 15 artists with whom Rembrandt is paired, often with three or four examples by one of the students – and in every instance a drawing by the Master is placed besides a similar drawing by his apprentice. Of the 100-plus works on view, more than 70 are or were attributed to Rembrandt, and many of these have since been reassigned to other artists.
Back to the studio
As no one was prescient at the time, and did not anticipate that scholars would be scratching their heads 350 years later, almost all of the drawings produced were unsigned and undated. But why are they so hard to tell apart? Well, back then, one learned and honed one’s skill by copying the masters; that is, by imitating existing works and especially their teacher’s style and technique.
“Drawings by Rembrandt and His Pupils” represents 30 years of scholarship, and the exhibition is the brainchild of Lee Hendrix, the Getty’s Senior Curator of Drawings, and former guest scholar Peter Schatborn. They’re not the first to delve into the bottomless pit of authenticating every scrap of paper with even half a sketch on it, and for a little bit of background in the matter there’s a catalogue essay – “The History of the Attribution of Drawings by Rembrandt and His Pupils,” by Schatborn and William W. Robinson – that is greatly more interesting than it sounds. What could have been deathly dull is herein rendered appealing and accessible.

The essay states that the catalogue (and the show itself) “takes as its starting point the work by [Otto] Benesch, [Werner] Sumowski, and their successors,” and the methods for considering what’s authentic and what isn’t are carefully explained.
So how do we tell the difference? Well, it’s sort of like deciphering handwriting, in which one must do three things, over and over: Compare, compare, compare. This means, using an autographed version or confirmed original as the starting point for each artist, that one examines every single detail or stylistic flourish. In other words, the scholar-detective looks at line and color and hatching as well as how the artist delineated eyes, fingers, or feet and just about any other item that could be used as the basis to compare the work of one artist with that of another.
Some of the distinctions may be hard to follow, even after they’ve been pointed out. Sometimes, although the Rembrandt example may not look so appealing, the authors will explain why it’s a better work.
There are other questions as well: Were the pupils’ sketches after Rembrandt’s work made at the same time, or were they made later? Were the corrections on the drawings made by Rembrandt, an assistant, or by the pupil himself?
Occasionally we can see that Master and disciple made their sketches at the same time. For example, they often worked with live models, and in at least one instance – judging from the angle the model was depicted – we can tell where the artists were sitting in relation to one another. Of course, what will forever remain a mystery is what they discussed as they sat there with their sketchbooks. Since the models were often young women, did they flirt with them? Did they all go down to the tavern afterwards and have a few beers? Or did they simply get on with the next drawing?

Higher standards
As Holm Bevers writes in the catalogue, “Rembrandt’s workshop seems to have functioned more like an informal private academy, which sought to set itself apart from the rigid apprentice system of Holland’s predominant painting guilds.” It was possibly modeled on the Carracci academy in Bologna, which meant that conversations and debates about art were commonplace.
It wasn’t a studio into which just anyone could enroll. Rembrandt didn’t teach beginners; those who studied with him had acquired some training elsewhere. Also, in Holland at that time, the usual term of apprenticeship lasted three years and studying with Rembrandt wasn’t cheap as he’d already earned a reputation as a skilled artist. It may have been a lucrative supplemental source of income for him, but Rembrandt went through his own share of hard times. It should be pointed out that people who lived during those years rarely survived into old age. Rembrandt (1606-1669) may have made it into his 60s, but he also outlived his wife and mistresses and all of his children.
There are magnifying glasses in each room and it is advisable to make full use of them. The fascination here – one can still detect the pressure of the stylus on the sheet of paper – is similar to gazing through a microscope and seeing miniscule creatures in a drop of water.
As noted, the authors and curators can be tough on Rembrandt’s pupils, who are now being critiqued once more, 350 years after being critiqued the first time. I even feel sorry for some of them! Imagine if, a few centuries from today, a couple of androids take issue with one of your doodles, made while you were on hold with the phone company, and all because you’d taken a class some years earlier with David Hockney.
You never know who’ll be looking in!
The catalogue for the show is one of four books on Rembrandt and his work that the Getty has just published, including Rembrandt Drawings, by Seymour Slive, who authored the catalogue for the Jacob Ruysdael exhibition at LACMA in 2005. These are available in bookstores or through Getty Publications at (800) 223-3431.
Drawings by Rembrandt and His Pupils: Telling the Difference is on view through February at the J. Paul Getty Museum, 1200 Getty Center Drive, Los Angeles. The show, which is non-traveling, is comprised of loans from over 30 institutions and private collections, with six pieces from the Getty’s own reservoir. A related show, Drawing Life: The Dutch Visual Tradition, is also on display. Hours, Tuesday through Friday and Sunday from 10 a.m. to 5:30 p.m., and Saturday from 10 a.m. to 9 p.m. Free; parking is $15. See the website for related events. (310) 440-7300 or go to getty.edu. ER

   

Saint Rocke makes history as the first music venue to stream its shows live worldwide via the Internet 

by Mark McDermott 

Next Tuesday night, Saint Rocke will close its doors to the public and tear down its walls to the world.
The Hermosa Beach music venue is doing something that owner Allen Sanford believes has never been done by a club: streaming its shows live in high definition video and high fidelity audio across the world via the Internet.
“Nobody has ever done it,” Sanford said. “The only people who have done anything like it are U2, who just did it in a stadium, and the Foo Fighters. But nobody on a venue-level has done it – only at the concert level.”
Saint Rocke has been beta testing its streaming system – which includes five high definition cameras and a separate mixing station – for a month now. But Tuesday’s show is the official launch of what Sanford has dubbed iRocke, and what he believes will eventually become an essential part of the music business.
“I have a venue that is exactly the same as any other venue,” he said. “Our sound might be better and our venue might look nicer, but essentially it’s the same, because we have four walls. So how can we no longer be limited by four walls? How do you turn a 300 capacity room into a stadium? The only way to do that is to take away my walls. Next Tuesday we will have 100,000 people watching the show online.” 

It will indeed be a big show: concert behemoth Live Nation has allowed one of its bands – whose identity will remain a mystery until showtime next Tuesday – to play Saint Rocke.
“The band that is playing is touring and playing minimum 1,200 capacity rooms,” Sanford said. “They don’t play any room smaller than that. We are a tiny venue when it comes to this stuff.”
Part of the reason Sanford has launched iRocke is to entice bigger bands to the venue, giving them the ability to reach a global audience from the comfort and intimacy of a small club. But he also hopes iRocke will give less well-known bands greater exposure.
“There are two components – one is certainly getting larger artists who would not normally play the room,” Sanford said. “But the other is providing emerging artists with the tools to do what they wouldn’t otherwise have the ability to do. Because part of why Saint Rocke was born is to provide smaller artists a venue to play that is not a bar or club but a real stage to be able to show them at their best. This is just a tool to show how good they are to the world – that is just as important to me as getting the big artists.”
The streamed shows are, at least at this point, free of charge. They can be viewed via Saint Rocke’s website (www.saintrocke.com) or on Justin.tv (the broadband video streaming site is partnering with the venue). Saint Rocke also offers an archive of past streamed shows. It is, in a sense, an unusual business model: a music venue giving away its content. Of course, this is part of the evolving nature of the music industry and the media industry in general.
“The whole world has changed in regard to content,” Sanford said. “It used to be content was king and you guarded it super heavily…With the Internet now, what you are seeing is a different approach, which is you want to get your content out continuously everywhere on everything in sight.”
For Saint Rocke, this certainly makes business sense insofar as it increases the venue’s profile and brand name. Saint Rocke could very well become a nationally or even internationally known venue if its live streams find large audiences, which, in the long run, is likely to boost ticket sales. But Sanford readily admits that his investment in what is at this point a cutting-edge technology is more “an intuitive leap” than a bottom-line financial decision.
“It’s wild, man,” said Sanford, who at 32 has become one of the more successful young entrepreneurs in the South Bay, launching both the Union Cattle Company and Saint Rocke with his brother Jed and a small group of friends. “I have no business plan for this. I have no monetization plan. I have a feel for it, but there is something about being the first to do something. There is something about being a pioneer for something. That is what we want to be: the first ones that have ever done this.”
Part of Sanford’s gamble is that this is indeed where the future lies: one day in the very near future live music streamed via the Internet into your home will be a regular staple of any music lover’s diet.
“You know, do you pay $150 to Ticketmaster for concert tickets or spend $3 – or right now, nothing, since it’s free – to see an artist online and in high definition with really good audio on your home system?” Sanford said. “It is almost a toss-up: what would I rather do, stay in the comfort of my own home or go out?”
It’s also part of the trend known as convergence: the blending of the Internet and television. Another local company, Havoc.tv, is also treading in this territory, launching the first on-demand, interactive music and video television channel and inhabiting a multi-platform entertainment universe that includes the Internet and cell phones. Havoc.tv, naturally, is also an unofficial partner of Saint Rocke, featuring many of the same artists and actual video from the venue.
“We are definitely of the mindset that these new mediums are the only way to go,” said Matt Muir, Havoc.tv’s co-founder and executive vice president of music. “As television and the Internet integrate, it’s only a matter of time when people watching TV will get what they want when they want it. And it’s the same when it comes to music – the ability to see a live band or listen to a song or watch a music video will be seamless as the line between the Internet and television blends, i.e., convergence. So it’s pretty neat that already I could watch a show at Saint Rocke without leaving my couch by streaming an Ethernet line in my 46-inch flat screen if happens to be sold out…Beer in hand, right? That’s pretty nice.”
These new technologies are also part of a newly emerging entertainment universe in which major music labels exert less control. It has frequently been described as the end of the music industry, but it could also be a rebirth: a band doesn’t necessarily need a corporation behind it to get its music heard far and wide. This could also, Muir notes, be a golden age for music consumers.
“I think in this day and age, with album sales and the recording industry being in the dumpster, the bands that are developing or blowing up are finding a lot of different vehicles to get their music heard,” he said. “More and more we are seeing YouTube, Facebook, Reverb Nation and all these great online communities where bands or artists can post a live performance and have that virally shared throughout the entire web. And if you are a huge fan of, say, Sublime, and you live in Indonesia, you may not have the ability to see bands that are kind of like Sublime, for instance Pepper or Slightly Stoopid or Rebelution…but you could still watch live performances and you are sitting in Japan or Indonesia. It’s pretty mind-blowing – it’s on the Internet, and it’s free.”
What Saint Rocke is doing takes this to another level – it’s not a grainy YouTube clip but a clear window directly to a show. Sanford said it fits the mission that Saint Rocke has had from the outset: his vision for the venue was that it would be artist-driven, and by providing a new avenue for producing high-quality video streams, both Saint Rocke and the artists themselves benefit.
“I’m hoping this opens up a whole new avenue and that really good artists who deserve to be seen are able to be seen,” Sanford said. “Of course, it’s good for Saint Rocke – for our brand – but I think what our brand stands for is being as beneficial for the artists as it is for Saint Rocke.”
Aside from larger-scope ambitions, Sanford’s mission is also something more concrete and definitively local. He hopes to help bring back a vibrant live local music scene to the South Bay. He said he looks to bygone days when venues such as the Strand in Redondo Beach fostered a rich musical community as inspiration. He also said that he learned from watching former Café Boogaloo owner Steve Roberts slowly build his brand over the course of more than a decade, realizing that some nights you have to lose money in order to build a name that stands for good music.
“I think music has been gone from the South Bay for so long that it’s been a slow comeback,” he said. “The amount of music that I think Saint Rocke has fostered has been unbelievably successful…and what I kind of take as a tribute, even though it’s competition to me, is looking around and seeing all the bars and other places that are doing live music now. I think we are helping bring rock back to the South Bay.” ER
Join the Easy Reader News Facebook fan page or become an Easy Reader Twitter follower for a chance to win a pair of tickets to next Tuesday’s surprise show at Saint Rocke.  

 

 

 The World in Vogue: People, Parties, Places (Alfred A. Knopf, 390 pp, $75)

 

by Bondo Wyszpolski

“…the exaggerated glamour of Marlene Dietrich and Greta Garbo transformed the beauty industry in the thirties and inspired Vogue’s fashion photographers, artists, and society ladies to new heights of artificiality.”

If you placed Twiggy or Penelope Tree in one palm and The World in Vogue in the other, the latter would be heavier. There are some 300 photographs in this large-format, glossy book, culled from the past few decades of Vogue magazine, and it not only contains an A-list of models and actresses and socialites, but an impressive array of photographers – Irving Penn, Richard Avedon, Annie Leibovitz, Helmut Newton, Bruce Weber, Herb Ritts, etc. – who so perfectly captured them for posterity.

Subjectively speaking, the best example of that might well be the 1946 Horst photograph of Babe Paley (reproduced here), which simply transcends time. Some years later, in 1963, Irving Penn photographed Paley’s 19-year-old daughter, Amanda Burden, and her countenance seems as striking as her mother’s.

Many of the classic Vogue models – and many of the actresses who were profiled – have faces that were made for 8 x 10 glossy stills. In several instances, these faces are masks – in which there’s little to lead us beneath the surface of perfect skin and symmetrical features. This is when Oscar Wilde’s notable quip rings true: “A man’s face is his autobiography. A woman’s face is her work of fiction.” (Some of you will counter this and say that a woman’s face is man’s work of fiction!)

Of course, since this book highlights “the beautiful people,” who are rich and famous and inevitably stylish, it is also very, very much about haute couture, that is, high fashion as it specifically relates to dressmaking and designing. In short, most of these beautiful people are decked out in original, exquisite clothing, where the cost of a single dress could feed a family of four for three years.

 For example, the centerpiece of The World in Vogue seems to be the annual Costume Institute gala at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, which is a sort of fashion Mardi Gras for the elite and privileged. Each year there is a different theme and – like carnaval in Rio – people go all out. There is a photograph of Tom Cruise dancing with Katie Holmes, and lots of other attractive couples as well, but I’d say that the one pair that stands out, really stands out (they’re even on the cover), is supermodel Gisele Bündchen and star quarterback Tom Brady. You probably don’t need solar energy if you live in their neighborhood. On the other hand, they make an intriguing contrast with Bruce Weber’s 1989 shot of prizefighter Mike Tyson and renowned model Naomi Campbell as they stride down the boardwalk in Atlantic City. While Campbell looks demure, the bare-chested Tyson is strength personified. I’ve never seen a Marvel Comics superhero radiate such raw power.

 This may be a roundabout way of saying that the most memorable faces aren’t necessarily the prettiest (think of all those Fellini extras!). The portraits of Cameron Diaz and Gwyneth Paltrow and Nicole Kidman and Kirsten Dunst don’t do much for this writer. They aren’t quite the classic beauties like Grace Kelly or Sophia Loren or Marisa Berenson (as depicted in these pages), although I realize that this may simply boil down to personal preference. Sometimes the setting or context elevates the subject: Elliott Puckette looks like she just stepped off of a Greek vase. She’s graceful, fluid, slightly languorous, with a collection of her silhouettes on the wall behind her. Also striking because of setting and frame is the image of Jennifer Lopez and her dog team of Doberman pinschers as they strain forward on leashes – more like reins – the same azure blue as the actress-singer’s long, billowy dress.

 Although glamour seems to favor the young, the women who come off best in these pages are the ones who’ve survived their youth, and these include the Duchess of Windsor (married to Edward VIII), C.Z. Guest, and Marie-Laure de Noailles, the latter photographed in her Paris home in 1950, posed amongst her books and artworks like the patron of the arts that she was. The Vicomtesse is not what one would call beautiful, but she seems to have been the sort of person with whom one would gladly spend an hour – as did Picasso, Stravinsky, Breton, Sartre, Klee and others.

 Perhaps being among artists and art adds integrity and depth to a face. I see that here with Alba Clemente, wife of painter Francesco Clemente, and also Jacqueline Schnabel, formerly married to artist and filmmaker Julian Schnabel. Or maybe these women had that indefinable but somehow weightier countenance beforehand, that affinity for art and artists on the creative edge. Magnetism, after all, works on so many levels.

 I shouldn’t neglect to mention the text, much of it by Hamish Bowles, who knows how to guide us into places we’d otherwise never (even vicariously) experience. A case in point is the 2006 wedding – more sophisticated and elaborate than most of us might have guessed – of Dita Von Teese and Marilyn Manson. It took place in an Irish gothic castle and the ceremony was presided over by filmmaker Alejandro Jodorowsky, whose pictures – “El Topo,” “The Holy Mountain,” and “Santa Sangre” – titillated some of us way back when (Ah, art houses! Where have you gone!).

 Likewise, we accompany Truman Capote on a 20-day cruise along what was then the Yugoslavian coast, and what looks to be a silly piece on dogs dressed up as bride and groom and wedding guests that emerges as a short history of the wedding cake. Essentially, as Jeffrey Steingarten notes, “the cake itself stands for fertility because it, or at least the edible part of it, is made from grain, a nearly universal symbol.”

 The World in Vogue is a coffee table book that is easy to wander into and not so easy to depart. One almost feels like placing it upon a pedestal, right alongside some of the women that grace its pages. ER