LA 2008

I promised my husband we could go to visit his father and his father's wife in California, after my fall art season of shows and events was over.

He took me up on my promise, and not quite 2 short weeks after the East Austin Studio Tour, we headed to San Antonio in the car to catch the Sunset Limited train to LA. But before leaving, I had to pack, burglar-proof the house (well, as much as is possible), and take care of some dangerous code some hacker had inserted into several of our web pages (a 3-4 hour clean-up job). Thanks, hackers (spell that beginning with a f-u) -- it is my sincere belief that hackers are worse even than junk mailers, telemarketers, and cockroaches. I mean, at least cockroaches serve a useful purpose, even if they are filthy and disgusting.

Point being, I got zero sleep before our trip, so when we boarded the train at 5:30 a.m., I had been awake for about 20 hours. I couldn't fall asleep on the train either -- I was too wound up -- until after breakfast, so make it about 24 hours without a wink of sleep.

But then it seemed almost all I did was sleep (and get up for lunch, dinner, breakfast again) until we arrived in LA a whole hour early! Not like last year's train trip to LA, in which we were about 8 hours late, and almost missed (by seconds!) getting our rental car. This time, we were too early, and the car we planned on renting wasn't ready yet, so we had to upsize (!).

We had a contingency plan for being late; but not one for being early. So I called my friend Patri, and we headed to her new place in San Gabriel, where we hung out for awhile, then went out for some pretty good Mexican food (but nothing like Austin style, and sadly so), and then did a whirlwind tour of the Norton Simon Museum, which had a tiny show called Marcel Duchamp Redux (a literal copy of a show they had had there decades earlier). They had prints mostly of about 14 pieces from the earlier 1963 show, all in one small room.

More exciting to me were a few pieces from the post painterly abstract painters Sam Francis and Helen Frankenthaler; especially the Frankenthaler piece, which was a huge, all orange stain painting (orange -- my favorite color! So exciting!!!). The painting was called "Adriatic," from 1968, and the snippet of quote I copied from the gallery card was this: "What concerns me is -- did I make a beautiful picture?" Well, I'd have to say emphatically, YES! I think (I'm afraid) I have similar sensibilities, whether that be good or not so good these days. What can I say?

There were some other great pieces in the room, "Tall Figure IV" by Giacometti; "Three Standing Figures," 1953, by Henry Moore; "Untitled," 1962-63 by Robert Irwin; "Horseman," 1947, by Marino Martini; and "Bottles," 1960, by Diebenkorn. And more, but I didn't have a chance to take any more names or notes.

Patri was getting antsy being in the museum, but we spent a few minutes admiring the perfect yellow Van Gogh had used to paint a straw hat and a tree (2 different works), a couple of pieces of Cezanne's, including one of his fantastic tulips paintings, a Monet, and I forgot what else -- some more Impressionist works.

We also peered at the "On the Enlightened Path: Jain Art from India";
"Ruth Weisberg: Guido Cagnacci and the Resonant Image"; "Under the Influence: Art-Inspired Art"; and "The Art of War: American Posters from World War I and World War II" -- which was really quite fascinating.

We ended our too brief excursion to the Norton Simon with a stroll through the gardens. We then headed back to Patri's apartment, where her child's father was baby-sitting their kid, darling little Kevin, and had dinner; then checked into into our hotel room in Pasadena for the evening.