Monday, June 11, 2012
Wednesday, February 22, 2012
IN PICTURES & WORDS
1. It's All Good
These first visual impressions of California for a Midwesterner are hopefully more art than tour. No pictures of us standing in front of the Golden Gate Bridge waving, but hopefully a look over my shoulder when I would have said to you, "Oh, look at that!"
The series is named after a Momas and Papas hit "California Dreamin'." I kept hearing it on the plane and in the taxi and on the freeways. Here it is if you don't know it:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dN3GbF9Bx6E
I still can't get my internal tape recorder to shut off "All the leaves are brown . . ." The song was written by John and Michelle Phillips in 1963. It's about their homesickness for California when they were living in New York city in the cold and snow of winter.
We went in November, hence the "California snow" in the picture.
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2. The West Coast
If you are going west, young man, this is the end of the road. And a beautiful end it is.
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03. Sticks in the Landscape
My first visual impression of Los Angeles is one of fuzzy topped sticks poking out above the freeway walls. I'm thinking Dr. Seuss must have grown up here.
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04. Birds in the Cityscape
Besides Truffula Trees there was another surprise in the landscape. Along the freeways and at intersections off the freeways were bushes with orange flowers. When we got slow enough and close enough to look at them, I recognized them--The Hawaiian Bird of Paradise Flower.
I had seen a few in floral shops and at funerals. They do look like birds. Back in Wisconsin I knew a fellow who tried to grow them from seed. He sent away and waited a long tine for the right temperature for shipping. When they came they were purple with ornate fuzzy hats. And they came with three pages of instructions on how to germinate them. He did everything. They never sprouted.
In LA they grow rank.
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05. In the Neighborhood
We stayed overnight in Pasadena because we wanted to see the Gamble House the next morning. It's a famous example of the Arts and Crafts Style. In the evening we walked the streets of the neighborhood where our motel was. Once lovely, the tree-lined streets now were shading iron grates over empty store front windows. We walked past a hulking, monolithic brick building in the shape of a great tower. It turned out to be the apse on the back side of St. Gregory's Armenian Church. That's when we realized were were walking in an Armenian neighborhood. We enjoyed our walk better.The motel guy recommended the Armenian Restaurant. We couldn't find it. We asked people in shops and people on the street. No one knew. We finally found it. We shouldn't have asked, "Where's the Armenian Restaurant?" we should have simply asked all those Armenians, "Where's the restaurant?"
We had to wait for it to open, and so we were the first, as the chef told us, to get the just finished soup of the day. The place was pleasant, more folksy than fancy, but five plus stars to be sure. Best kabobs in the world, and the salad with dill sauce and the unpronounceable soup were beyond delicous. We chatted with the friendly staff and other customers, and liked the people as much as the food. We walked back to our motel filled and unafraid, genuflecting slightly at St. Gregory's.
The place in this picture is quite a different Pasadena neighborhood. Not too far away, it's the Gamble House area. All the houses there are in the Arts and Crafts style. We had to wait for our tour of the Gamble House so we walked the neighborhood, drooling, not over more kabobs, but over the visual feast.
The "Neighborhood House" of the picture is next door to the Gamble House and is the opposite of our Midwest experience. There old churches got turned into houses. Here, in Pasadena, this large Arts and Crafts house got turned into a church.
Did you notice the "Hate Free Zone"?
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06. In The Neighborhood 02
This is a typical house in the "Craftsman" neighborhood around the Gamble House. They are all part of the Arts and Crafts movement of the early 1900's. These houses must have seemed very modern compared to other houses of the day, like the soaring Queen Anne Victorian style with it's vertical lines, lofty towers, gingerbread decorations everywhere, and many-colored exteriors--those "Painted Ladies," as they were called. In contrast, this kind of house with its natural materials and simple lines must have looked not only modern, but totally without conspicuous opulence. Perhaps they seemed to the very wealthy even humble.
The bricks used as balusters are a unique feature of this house.
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07. In the Neighborhood 03
A Craftsman garage on a Hillside House. The garages were built with as much carefulness and craftsmanship as the houses.
07. In the Neighborhood 03
Two California architects, the Greene brothers, designed not only the Gamble House (of Procter and Gamble fame), but also many houses in that neighborhood. It made for a fascinating walk.These "In the Neighborhood" pictures are from that walk. I was looking for designs and interesting compositions rather than full examples of any one house--except, of course the Gamble House. But that's a bit down the street.
The Greene brothers developed their own Californian versions of the Craftsman style. In their attempt to be plainer and simpler than the flamboyant Victorians they often incorporated into their homes things normally thought of as spoiled or of no value. In this case it's the curved bricks. The curves happen when bricks are too close to the fire in the kiln. Because they are not flat, they were considered not suitable for building. But as you can see, the Greene brothers used them to make a curvy wall that is quite charming. I like that notion of finding a use for the flawed. It's like God using us for beautiful purposes.
Another characteristic of Greene and Greene houses is projecting roof beams and rafters. They are a great place from which to hang things, as was done with this lantern.
One of the phrases to come out of the Arts and Crafts movement was "useful and beautiful." I l just love that.
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08. In the Neighborhood 04
Here's a Craftsman feature that the Greene brothers liked a lot--exposed and extended roof rafters and purlins. In a Craftsman home the emphasis was on "craftsmanship." Everything was done with great care and accuracy. This roof corner is a good example of the Craftsman principles. Did you notice the rain gutter?
In this composition I like the three diagonal colors flanked by black and white.
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09. In the Neighborhood 05
The Craftsman Style has a simple elegance, here enhanced by a simple landscaping.
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10. In the Neighborhood 06
It's the colors and textures here--redwood, weathered green copper, bricks, cedar shakes, stained glass, rafters, leaves, sky.
This fence was between a brick wall and a large, solid wooden door that shut off the driveway. The holes in the decorative copper pieces made a way of seeing who was there before opening the door. I'm not sure what those copper things are, but they were used in the Gamble House over the basement windows. Perhaps they are decorative window grates used for security. Whatever they are, here they are used for a "see-through" in this charming little fence.
"Useful and beautiful."
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11. In the Neighborhood 07
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12. In the Neighborhood 08
12. In the Neighborhood 08
Useful and beautiful.
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31. On to the Close
It turned out to be a nice close to the day.
CA Dreamin' 30 - The Westering
On our drive north from Pasadena and Los Angeles to San Francisco we stopped at the ocean just to see it. Actually I went down to the water and touched it. I had to. It's the farthest west I'll ever reach. Fredrico Balboa and the New Peace Ocean. I wished I had brought my Spear of Discovery and jammed it into the sand to claim it all for us.
We saw some surfers in wet suits, but they didn't go into the water. Too cold. A different ocean current flows here than the warm one just to the south. The problem with surfing in cold water is not the temperature, it's that the black wet suits make the surfers look like sea lions, the favorite food of the Great White Sharks. But the surfers go anyway. Couldn't you just paint your wet suit blaze orange?.
You already saw a picture of the surfer place. It was the second picture in this whole series, and was entitled "The West Coast." It showed the ocean and a neat pillared beachfront concession stand. It was closed for the winter.
This picture is father up the coast where we stopped in the early evening, hoping to see a sunset over the ocean. Waiting for that I found this. I love headlands and beaches. I especially like the reflections of wet sand. I can see why there is a whole realm of art devoted to "Seascapes." It's a real trick to paint that hypnotic and illusive curl of the breakers. To be "on the strand" and to hear it is never to forget it. I still hear Lake Michigan sometimes late at night. Dougie and Aria heard breakers, albeit small ones, for the first time on a windy day at Lake Lanier, and were as spellbound by the sound as I had ever been.The Bible describes the surf as the waves "clapping their hands." I sometimes clap along. And with the gravel of the road and stones of the walls of Jerusalem I too, with such voice as I have, cry out our Maker's praise and his coming.
Tuesday, February 21, 2012
CA Dreamin' 25 - Gamble House - Interior 2
The open stairway near the front entrance is famous for its joinery. It's a kind of an "Acension" Cloud Lift. Josh and I tried to examined it, but then had to run to catch up to the docent, who seemed too much in a hurry. But then he didn't have to pay for his tour.
The Gamble House was the Gamble's winter house. The rest of the year they lived in Cinncinnati in a Queen Anne Victorian mansion. Eventually the Gamble House became their retirement home. I'll be the kids loved coming to Pasadena.
Here's a bit from Wikipedia: "The house and furnishings were designed by Charles and Henry Greene in 1908 for David and Mary Gamble of the Proctor and Gamble Company. The house, a National Historic Landmark, is owned by the city of Pasadena, and operated by the University of Southern California.
The house is also remembered as the mansion of Dr. Emmett Brown in the Back to the Future trilogy.
CA Dreamin' 24 - Gamble House - Inglenook
The Gamble House is the reason we went to Pasadena. As I said earlier, they do not allow anyone to take photographs of the inside. But since I have spent so much time showing you the neighborhood and the outside, it would be cheating you not to have glimpse of the inside. So these are some pictures I found on the web.
The first picture shows the entrance hallway. You can see the Tiffany "Tree of Life" stained glass front doors. In the room to the left is a famous feature of the Gamble House, the large Inglenook--a three-walled fireplace room, a "room within a room.".
Like the rest of the house, the wall of this room with the Inglenook are paneled in different kinds of woods--teak, maple, oak, cedar, and mahogany.
This picture shows the built-in seating around the fireplace. The famous open-beamed ceiling divider has the familiar "cloud-lift" pattern. This is my favorite Inglenook of all time, and I have sat in in many times in my mind. I've seen it often enough in books, where it leaps off the page at me, but this was truly a thrill actually seeing it. If only our docent had turned his back!
The inlay of this room's custom furniture, also designed by the architects, matches the inlay in the tiles surrounding the fireplace. As you can see, a chair in front of the fire creates a conversation niche with the built-in bench.
A few chairs completes the warm circle.
Thursday, January 19, 2012
CA Dreamin' 23 - Gamble House 03
Here you can see a typical Craftsman signature, large covered porches, widely overhanging roofs, and projecting roof beams. This picture is of a flower box (remember it was November) on one of the large porches. The Gamble boys were expected to sleep out there "to get the night air," a belief at the time in order to prevent sickness.
It's a belief still held by us, but having no Craftsman covered porch to go out to, we let the night air in.
CA Dreamin' 22 -Gamble House 02
Ah, at last a real look at the house itself, not just its parts.
When this Craftsman Style house was first built in1908 everybody else with money was building Queen Anne Victorian styled houses.
This drawing is of a Queen Anne Victorian house built in San Francisco at the same time the Greene brothers were building the Gamble House in Pasadena. Imagine the two houses side by side. How super-modern the Gamble House must have seemed back then. There are no high vertical lines, no soaring towers, no busy details and gingerbread trim everywhere, just a simple horizontal feel along with plain earth colors. Above all, in all its details, was a hand-craftsmanship that could not be duplicated in mass production. That was an idea shared by Art Nouveau, a contemporary artistic movement.
The Craftsman Style, also called Mission Style, became a movement in the United States thanks to this house. It encouraged originality, simplicity of form, local natural materials, and the visibility of quality handicraft.
Smaller houses imitating features of the Gamble House ennobled the modest homes of the rapidly expanding middle class. Those house became the "Craftsman Bungalow" style. That style flourished until the Depression of the 1930's.
Notice on the Gamble House picture the "natural" sidewalk to the rear. The mound on the front lawn was built up so that from the sidewalk along the street pedestrians could not see the brick carriage road in front of the house, and it would all look like a continuous lawn.
CA Dreamin' 21 - Useful & Beautiful 05
This was taken in the Gamble House Gift Shop. It shows the attention to detail of the Arts and Crafts Movement. The exposed joinery on the table is shaped like clovos, decorative nail heads.
I saw this only once before, in Berea, Kentucky, where a fellow had a chair shop. They were more than chairs, each was a work of art. The joinery had the same look--in the chairs the narrow tenons of the leg posts came through the arms and had this same slightly protruding antique nail head look.
The two objects on the table in the picture are glass vases. It looks like the brown one casts a shadow of its swirly lines onto to the table, but that is simply the grain of the table revealed where the light is not glaring.
Tuesday, January 17, 2012
CA Dreamin' 20 - Useful & Beautiful 04
Even a rain gutter can be pleasant to look at. It was the angles and colors here that caught my eye.
CA Dreamin' 20 - Useful & Beautiful 03
A garden lantern, the Greene and Greene version of a Japanese idea.
CA Dreamin' 19 - Useful & Beautiful 02
There is a design motif in the Gamble front door that is used throughout the house. It's simply a straight horizontal line that has a slight curve up and then continues on horizontally. It's of Japanese origin and is called the "Cloud Lift" design. You can see it in the upper frame of the stained glass panels of the front door.
The Greene brothers used the Cloud Lift design throughout the house, on doors, windows, lamps, carpets, furniture, picture frames, and elsewhere both in the interior and on the exterior of the house. It is clearly apparent on the lantern, where it does have a sense of a cumulus cloud "lifting."
The Greenes used lanterns like this all around the exterior of the house for lighting stairways, walkways, and entrances. Truly "useful & beautiful."
Friday, January 13, 2012
CA Dreamin' 18 - Useful & Beautiful 01
This picture is from The Gamble House gift shop, the best I could manage of things interior. Everything in the shop as well as the house had that Craftsman sense of "useful and beautiful." This beautifully useful clock imitates the "Tree of Life" front entrance doors in another favorite Craftsman medium--tiles. The original tiles were done by Ernest Batchelder. There is still a Batchelder Art Tile Company in Pasadena.
The tiles reflect the mosaic-like windows of the front doors, easily seen here from this outside picture.
CA Dreamin' 17 - Gamble House 01
At last our walk brought us to The Gamble House front door. The first thing our "docent" (Californian speak for tour guide) told us was that we could not take any pictures inside the house. Pshaw!
These front entrance doors all have Tiffany stained glass and together form one picture entitled "The Tree of Life." From the inside it was arresting. Here's an "allowed" picture from the web:
You can see in my picture of the exterior that the side doors have screens. They were not used for entering or exiting, but simply were opened up from the inside to allow a cross breeze to blow through the whole large hallway at the end of which where similar doors that were also opened. It was early air conditioning.
"Useful and beautiful."
Thursday, January 12, 2012
CA Dreamin' 16 - Green and Green
A visual pun on Greene & Greene.
This is finally what we had been waiting for, their Craftsman masterpiece, The Gamble House. Notice the cedar shingle siding and the window sill that extends beyond the window frame. Give-away Greene and Greene-ish.
CA Dreamin' 15 - In the Hood 11
This is a side garden that has the elements of a Japanese Garden, including a large pergola/gate.
A Greene and Greene feature is the shingle siding that goes nearly to the ground.
CA Dreamin' 14 - In the Hood 10
Garden of Three Friends: Kasuga Lantern, Ground Holly, Aged Master.
I love Japanese Gardens with their un-busy look. Americans make a garden and say, "Oh, look, a space. What can I put in there?" The Japanese make a garden and say, "What else can I take out? For their gardens the Japanese use stones, shrubs,and water, if possible. No flowers. They try to capture the feel of a landscape, the serenity of simplicity, the peace of seclusion. It's been said that the Japanese can make a garden out of two stones. I tried it once and liked it enough to bring to Atlanta. Sad to say, my birthday gift stone was too heavy to dig up. But I did get another going away gift-stone and brought that one.
The Greene brothers, as well as Frank Lloyd Wright, were influenced by Japanese aesthetics, and reflections of it can be seen throughout their houses.
CA Dreamin' 11 - In the Hood 07
A Craftsman garage on a Hillside House. The garages were built with as much carefulness and craftsmanship as the houses.
Wednesday, January 11, 2012
CA Dreamin' 10 - In the Hood 06
It's the colors and textures here--redwood, weathered green copper, bricks, cedar shakes, stained glass, rafters, leaves, sky.
This fence was between a brick wall and a large, solid wooden door that shut off the driveway. The holes in the decorative copper pieces made a way of seeing who was there before opening the door. I'm not sure what those copper things are, but they were used in the Gamble House over the basement windows. Perhaps they are decorative window grates used for security. Whatever they are, here they are used for a "see-through" in this charming little fence.
"Useful and beautiful."
CA Dreamin' 09 - In the Hood 05
The Craftsman Style has a simple elegance, here enhanced by a simple landscaping.
CA Dreamin' 08 - In the Hood 04
Here's a Craftsman feature that the Greene brothers liked a lot--exposed and extended roof rafters and purlins. In a Craftsman home the emphasis was on "craftsmanship." Everything was done with great care and accuracy. This roof corner is a good example of the Craftsman principles. Did you notice the rain gutter?
In this composition I like the three diagonal colors flanked by black and white.
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