Industrial Alhambra

Alhambra is not a city that seems too interested in preserving its past.  Sorry, Alhambra, but it's true.  A city that was once known as the City of Homes, it has replaced thousands of single family dwellings and duplexes with large condominium developments.  Alhambra's historical society is housed in a small 1980s building.  An all-American Main Street that once boasted department stores, a Woolworths, a deli, an ice cream parlor, and the like is now lined with car dealers.  And the car dealers bemoan the fact that they have no freeway to bring them customers who aren't local.  In the Emery Park area of Alhambra, which I just learned was was originally part of the San Gabriel Vineyard and the town of Dolgeville (who knew?!!), there are remnants of industry.  There is a foundry, some furniture factories, and an aluminum factory.  Or there was.  This stuff is all getting sold and torn down and developed.  So my painter friends and I hightailed it over there on a couple of Saturdays to mark a moment in time.  I chose these quieter themes, an alley and Rod's furniture, over the huge and marvelous heavy equipment.  We hear it's all going to be a mall or a business park before long.

  
There is still one ice cream parlor on Main Street.

Two From Caltech

I live fairly close to Caltech.  By several reckonings, none of them having to do with football, it is the finest university in the United States.  I visit occasionally to paint, and more frequently for musical performances.  I used to folkdance weekly.  I've heard wonderful speakers there, including Stephen Jay Gould and Ralph Nader.  Nader spoke about how, lacking in public funds, universities tend to become bound to corporate interests.  Gould spoke about evolution and the marvels of life.

Thoughts?

I don't know how long, but I'm sure it has been quite a while since I showed pictures of my yard.  But no worries.  The yard has not gone to wreck and ruin.  My method of gardening is mainly benign neglect.  I have some professional gardening done by some truly lovely people who hate power tools and plush lawns and square bushes as much as I do.  They may think I'm a little nuts about the bugs and birds, but at very least they act like they understand me.  I spend a little time myself puttering around the yard, trimming and pulling.  But mainly, I just water a little and neglect.  Since I love wilderness even more than gardens, it seems the best way to go.  Not to mention, it's kind of effortless.  Plants just show up in the yard, carried by birds or the breeze.  Sometimes they turn into wonderful things.  In this way, I've acquired a fig tree, two oaks, several sunflowers, tomatoes, night-blooming jasmine, and all manner of grasses.  And just recently, this.

A couple of  people and I made a bet on what we thought it was.  I said a melon.  They said, respectively, a sycamore tree and a passion vine.  I'm fairly certain they are wrong and  I'm right, but I'm interested in other ideas.  There may be a prize for the correct answer - possibly some of the bounty of the plant, whenever and whatever that may be.
Here's another nice thing that happens in my yard.

South West

This is my painting from last week of the Southwestern Academy in San Marino.  When I was a child, it was a military academy.  I actually knew two boys who were sent there because they were unruly.  Military school was one of my father's favorite threats.  The Academy used to have a cannon in front that Caltech students used to delight in painting and/or stealing.  Finally the cannon was gifted to Caltech, probably around the same time the school stopped being a military school.  The school still has a Washington Hall and a Lincoln Hall and a replica of the log cabin where Abraham Lincoln was born.  This is Lincoln Hall, as you can almost read, while experiencing something similar to my own nearsightedness.  I kind of botched the drawing, but it doesn't bother me too much.  It's good I don't build bridges.

Post Office Post

If I can't manage daily posting, or even weekly, I want to get something in here before a whole month passes.  Because I haven't decided to give up on this altogether.  In fact, I imagine I might make it a regular thing again some time.  I haven't given up or even really slowed down on painting.  I continue to go out and paint every Saturday morning and to try to learn oil painting most Wednesday nights.  I just remembered, I still haven't cleaned my palette and brush.  The thing I don't like about oil painting.

So this is the South Pasadena Post Office, my local post office.  I painted it May 18.  I had noticed not too long before that many post office buildings in many places look pretty much exactly like this one.  I didn't paint the iconic front view with "post office" emblazoned on its face, but you know what I'm talking about.  The South Pasadena Post Office was renowned for many years because of the wonderful homegrown roses at each window delivered daily by thoughtful gardener and post office customer, Miriam Spaulding.  I remember those roses.

I thought of another thing to add to the list of things I don't like.  I don't like the use of the word, "unacceptable."  It has become increasingly popular among parents, bosses and elected officials.  I don't like it because it has so little meaning.  The word seems to carry a stern judgment, but really doesn't tell you anything.  To whom is it unacceptable?  And why?  Why not say instead to your child, employee or other foreign power,that their behavior is unkind, annoying, dangerous, not up to your standard of quality, in violation of the Geneva Conventions, or whatever.  If you're going to make a judgment, then be committal about it.  I might have told my children a few times that something was "not all right with me," but I was just dropping a Maggie Roche quote.

I should probably start lists of things I do like.  Watercolor cleanup, local history, roses, The Roches, my opinions.  See you again soon.    

Bungalow Heaven

This post was formerly titled "My Opinion" but nobody was reading it. 

Since I'm in a snit, I think I'll make a list of things I don't like.  This painting is not among them.  I like this painting a lot, at least for now.  I did it in about a half an hour at McDonald Park in Bungalow Heaven last Saturday.  I won't mention illness, death, loneliness, intolerance, cruelty, and other really sad and dark things I dislike.  I'll stick to the lighter and more subjective side of negative.

I don't like the excessive misuse of reflexive pronouns.  I don't mean the pleasant colloquial Irish usage, but when people ignorantly opt for "myself" because they can't decide between "me" and "I."

I don't like hand soap and lotion that smells like fruit or vanilla.  Clean hands and skin should not smell like something sticky that you'd like to eat.

I don't like sexy stiletto heels, or really any shoes that even approach that.  I can't wear them because they are excruciating to my toes and metatarsus.  Also my ankles are a little weak and my balance a little poor.  And I'd rather no one else wore them either, because they make my shoes looks clunky in comparison.  They can't possibly be comfortable for anybody.   Look at men. Men know how to treat their feet.

I don't like foam-filled padded bras.  I don't really care if anybody else wears them, but I hate that they are so ubiquitous that it's hard to find a bra that isn't foam-filled and padded.  In the general scheme of attractiveness, I think real nipples are better than fake cleavage.  And I think your bra should not stand on its own.

I don't like those coffee makers that make one cup of custom beverage at a time from a single use plastic container of something.  They seem to create an appalling amount of waste.  And frankly I don't see how the resulting beverage is any better than instant coffee.  Where is the fresh roasting and grinding that goes into a real cup of coffee?  If you like other flavors, get yourself some Torani syrup.

I don't like noisy gardening equipment.  Sounds that come from gardens should be sounds of birds and bees, water drops, rustling leaves, falling fruit.  I'd like it if people could just keep their noise in their own yards, but the noise has no regard for my fence.

I don't like phone solicitations and sales calls.  Who does?  You would have to be awfully darned lonely.  Is there even really a "don't call" list?  If you wanted solar panels or a security system (for instance), wouldn't you search them out rather than just wait around for the phone to ring.

I don't like Las Vegas.  Everything there is extravagantly artificial.  Even the outside air is tinged with false climate and humidity and light.  Games are okay, but they are seriously stacked again you, and you have to drop a huge amount of money just to play.  Except slot machines, which are just completely awful, except for vintage ones which they don't use.  The shows, which are the only thing I might like, are ridiculously overpriced because nobody in Las Vegas thinks about money in the normal way.  People are either happily throwing it away, or randomly winning it.  I liked the swimming pools there when I was a little kid, but I don't have much interest anymore in sharing swimming space with the children of people who like Las Vegas.

I don't like televisions in elevators, buses, and gas stations.  I don't like televisions in bars, except possibly sports bars, and for the most part I don't like sports bars.  I don't like the television in the lobby of the building where I work, and I especially don't like that it shows FOX News all the time.

I don't like FOX News.

I don't like LA Live.  It's sort of like Las Vegas.  Just too much artificial everything.  There are some actual trees, but they are completely covered with lights.  I love Los Angeles, and I hate the fact that people will visit Los Angeles and think that LA Live is what Los Angeles is.

I don't like lime flavored potato chips.

I don't like being called ma'am, although I will forgive it from somebody who doesn't know my name and needs to tell me I dropped my keys.

I don't like reality television (except Mythbusters and Antique Roadshow, and Top Chef a little).  I don't like that it has made huge celebrities out of the Kardashians and people on American Idol.  While I know that there are beautiful brilliant people living in the world who will die as unrecognized as Nick Drake and John Kennedy Toole.

I don't like calling drinks martinis just because they are served in martini glasses.  A martini glass is a beautiful thing, but it doesn't make a candy-flavored cocktail into a martini any more than a tiara would make me queen.

Passage

I missed posting this previously, I think because I inadvertently stored it in a folder innocuously named new folder.  Although this painting has a few very severe drawing problems, I think there's some real strength to it.  This is a view from near the Arroyo Seco Stables looking up at the York Bridge.  I usually view the York  Bridge from the top or the other side.  

Some months ago my computer failed.  When it was restored, I got back most of my important files.  But my admirable FreeCell statistics were reset to zero.  So I know exactly how many games I've played since then. I used to share the computer and there was this pleasing element of doubt.  But now I'm certain the games are all mine.  Each game represents a few minutes out of my life.  If I add them all up, I'm getting into days.  For years, I've pondered the mystery of wasting time.  Not why I might waste time when I was supposed to be working or doing something dreadful.  But why I would fritter away my free time playing solitaire or watching reruns, when this same free time is an opportunity to do something I would love.  It recently came to me that the explanation is probably dopamine and comfort.  Apparently I crave that.    

I'm going to go walk my dog now.  He loves to walk.  It makes him so happy he practically jumps out of his skin.  He isn't able to play FreeCell, but he does chew on his paws a little compulsively sometimes.

Enchanted

This is a bit of Hahamongna Watershed Park - one of my favorite parts.  Hahamongna seems to me a slightly magical place that has been relatively untouched by time - but not without enormous effort and struggle.  In our modern world, entropy often leans toward progress.

If you leave the frisbee golf course, and walk out onto the big sand flats and south toward the damn, you'll likely walk through this spot.  A few eucalyptus trees left behind by who knows, past oaks and amid true natives.  It's like a gateway.  I lured my fellow painter out to this spot so I could paint in safety.

I was quite pleased with this painting when I did it, and I still like it, but it's starting to look a little busy to me.    Like I keep telling myself, simpler is better.  I'm mostly convinced of it.

I'm not mad for my last post.  But it's better I think than me writing to the editor of the L. A. Times.

Heights

This is a painting of a bit of Angelino Heights.  Although I did not find quite the right view of Bob's Market, which is one of my very favorite commercial buildings, it was still an entirely pleasing day of painting.  I was introduced to the Angelino Heights neighborhood in the 1980s, mostly because of its proximity to Matsu, a well-loved but now-gone Japanese restaurant.  The neighborhood is giant visual feast of residences from in and around the Victorian era.  Uncharacteristically, but not too badly, I included a person in the painting.  It isn't a fellow-painter or anybody else I know.   

I don't think about it very often, but I suppose this is my blog, and I'm free to write pretty much anything I want here.  There are probably bounds of good taste and decency, but I doubt that I will cross them.

I wanted to share some thoughts about education.  Disclosure: I'm not an education professional, although I did spend a year as a substitute for the Pasadena Unified School District. I went to school and my children went to school too.  So I have thoughts.  I'm puzzled that education and the work of teachers is such a big political issue.  In so many other fields - public health, criminal justice, air traffic control, nuclear regulation, to name a few - the politicians and citizens trust the trained professionals to understand the work and recommend the policies.  But it seems like everybody knows how teaching ought to be done.  Probably because, like me, they went to school.

Then there is this pervasive opinion that teacher's unions are the cause of  everything wrong with education - that teacher's unions want to protect the jobs of dangerously bad instructors.  Seriously?  How on earth is it in the best interests of the unions to protect the jobs of dangerously bad workers?  Doesn't that drag the stock of the other workers down?  And make their jobs much harder?  It's true that contracts give teachers a certain amount of job security, but isn't job security generally a good thing?  I wonder if the jobs of dangerously bad teachers aren't more likely to be protected by administrators who don't want to admit that they have dangerously bad teachers and deal with them.  Consider this: Boy Scout leaders don't have unions.

I easily grasp why teachers wouldn't want to be evaluated based on students test scores.  That would be like evaluating hair stylists on the basis of beauty pageant results.  To be sure, their work is relevant to the results, but nowhere near the biggest factor.  Yet I kind of like the idea of evaluating teachers somehow.  It seems like good teachers ought to be recognized, and struggling teachers ought to be helped and corrected.  Here's what I think.  I think there should be security cameras and monitors in all the classrooms.  Teachers might balk at first.  I would.  It would seem like an intrusion, but seriously, there aren't very many working people who spend 99 percent of their work day unsupervised.  Administrators could actually watch the teachers teach under all conditions; they could see if the class was engaged and under control.  The monitors would also lend some extra safety and security to schools.  Intruders and other dangerous situations could be detected immediately, and appropriate assistance could be dispatched to classrooms.

I also think there ought to be a lot more art education.  It has been shown that music and visual art education improves students' performance in all areas.  Are history and geometry more important  than than drawing and instrumental music?  What do you think?

Train Everyday

Although it isn't even in my top three wishes, I do wish I were blogging more.  The good news, or a tiny snippet of good news, is that at least I'm still painting.  So if and when I regain my blogging voice, I'll have some pictures.  

It isn't that I don't have anything to say.  I have far too much to say.  Without David as a sounding board for all the little things that popped into my head, my head has become a rather noisier place.  And I spend more time there inside my head, mulling over strange new sad feelings.  And wondering how, and whether, and to whom I might express them.  Mostly I think you're safe here.  I may cry now and then, but my giant filter is largely intact.  As if to prove that to myself, I just deleted a whole paragraph.

These are paintings done at Union Station in Los Angeles - two in the same morning.  I took a Los Angeles Conservancy evening tour of Union Station last summer, so I know a bit more about it.  I've taken long and short train rides to and from Union Station over the years.  It's a good place, coming and going.