Wednesday, December 3, 2014

Athenaeum

This is the faculty club/private club on the campus of the California Institute of Technology.  It was painted on a crazy hot summer day from a place in the parking lot with a nice shady wall on which to sit.  I had almost forgotten that I did some photographic cropping of the image, and eliminated approximately the bottom one-third of the painting which actually had a vertical orientation.  The bottom consisted of shadows, which probably should have added some pleasing visual weight to the bottom of the painting, but I mucked up the painting of them.  It is one of my better cropping jobs.

I'm still not sure about the palm trees.  But I think the painting has kind of vintagey exotic look to it, and it isn't even too tortured by its drawing errors.  I've been inside the Athenaeum a couple of times - once on a luncheon date with a graduate student, and once for a class reunion.  Twentieth, perhaps.  The Ath, it's called locally by insiders.

For a lot of money, I could become a supporter of Caltech and apply for membership at the Athenaeum.  Then maybe I could sip tea or eat prime rib and possibly cast flirtatious looks at very smart old guys.  Something to think about as I formulate my retirement plan and need some balance for my painting.    

5 comments:

  1. The Athenaeum (I prefer this to "ath") is one of my fav bldgs in Pasadena! I've also been inside a few times and this post serves as a reminder to make another visit to it this month! Thanks.

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  2. I'd get enough money to be a supporter so one could go flirt with some wealthy men (not talking about me cause I'm taken, ha)...but if I wasn't that's what I would do - yeah go for it. I love this painting - it's beautiful. I imagine you , like every other Californian is loving the rain we are getting. Our lake is going to fill up nice in the mountains! Such a beautiful painting.

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  3. The palms are fine. What is most stunning for me is how you've turned the right side (including the shrub) into a series of tinted grays. It really is fabulous. I learn so much from you. Oh, and I should ask Barbara (the one who visits with the dogs) if there are some tweedy professors operating on at the high end of the autism scale that she'd be willing to introduce you to. Her husband is an astrophysicist there.

    As to the Athenaeum, I've never been. But if it has a stage.... I once found the valances (the decorative boarder where the stage curtains are hung?) of a Caltech stage in an overside dumpster. Used them in my installation 'Ronko's Chapel' at the Brewery (the old old one with the smoke stack off the five). Made the rag Coaguala's critical picks. That was before I was a shaman lol

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  4. Beautiful warms and cools in this piece. I love the palms too, and their shadows on the wall.

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