Lake Balboa Interlude

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Lake Balboa Park
Van Nuys
March 12, 2016

We visited Margaret and took her out to the local park. She is still weak, and we didn’t want to tire her out with too many transfers from car to wheelchair and back. The weather was nice, so we picked up sandwiches at Subway and went to the park near her board and care residence. Meredith’s sister Kathleen met up with us, and she and Meredith and Margaret looked through an old photo album and reminisced about family members and gatherings. The photo below — one of the ones we looked at — shows Meredith (front right) and Kathleen (back right) with some of their cousins at their grandparents’ 50th wedding anniversary gathering in 1980.

Maine 1980 cousins

San Diego Museum of Art

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San Diego Museum of Art
Balboa Park
February 27, 2016

We used our Macy’s Museum Month pass for a 50% discount at the Museum of Art, which we had not visited for several years.

Bob had spotted an article in the Union Tribune about a triptych of paintings on display, the Virgin of Sorrows, an altarpiece painted during or about 1564 by a Flemish artist, Pieter Claeissens the elder. We found the Madonna on display in the gallery devoted to religious art. That same gallery includes pieces by El Greco, Murillo, Sanchez Cotan, and Zurbaran, among others. Meredith lingered in that gallery while Bob moved on to other works.

SDMA

We then viewed the special exhibition of works of Harry Sternberg, a 20th century artist who first worked on the East Coast then moved to Escondido. His paintings are powerful, but the most moving pieces were the simple black and white works featuring the gritty reality of steel mills in Pennsylvania and the artist’s youth in New York City. The Sternberg exhibition closes May 8, 2016.

Margaret has struggled recently with several health problems. Last week we visited, planning to take her for a stroll around the Lake Balboa park. On the way to the park she felt ill, and we ended up taking her to the hospital instead. She spent a couple of nights there, being treated for atrial fibrillation and congestive heart failure. She is back home now, this time on oxygen. We visited on Sunday and brought sandwiches in. Meredith read her several Robert Service poems, and all three of us looked through recent letters and photos that Min, Bob’s aunt, had sent to Margaret.

MB_at_home_2-2016

We wonder whether and when Margaret will recover enough strength to resume our customary outings. Or have the many decades of heavy smoking left her heart and lungs too weak to be up to that level of activity? Too soon to tell; we will just have to take things as they come.

National Parks Movie

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National Parks Adventure
IMAX Theater
Reuben H. Fleet Science Center
Balboa Park, San Diego
February 25, 2016

Fleet_theater

We went to see the new IMAX movie, National Parks Adventure, at the Fleet and loved it. The movie has stunning footage of various national parks throughout the U.S. We cannot begin to do justice to the photography; check out the movie’s website for a trailer and still photos of some of the sites in the film.

The film is narrated by Robert Redford, and its release was timed as part of this year’s centennial celebration of the park system. It runs less than an hour, following a trio of climbing buddies and then filling us in on John Muir, Teddy Roosevelt, and the history of the park system’s foundation.

Our outing was a special preview offered to REI members. The film opens to the general public on March 18, and we recommend it highly.

While waiting for the theater to open, we explored the lobby of the Fleet Center. The current exhibit features microbes and we had fun looking at the various stations and doing some of the hands-on activities.

Fleet_microbe

Macy’s Museum Month

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Macy’s customers enjoy half price admissions to participating museums for the entire month of February. Passes can be picked up at any Macy’s store and then can be used all month long at any of over 40 participating museums in San Diego County, Temecula, and the Imperial Valley.

According to the San Diego Museum Council: Guests with a pass can bring up to three people to participating museums to receive half-off admission for the entire party. Additional fees may apply for special exhibitions. Each pass also features an exclusive $10 coupon off any [purchase of] $30 or more at Macy’s. For more information, including a list of participating museums, visit the museum council website.

Recuperating

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Van Nuys
January 30, 2016

Our latest visit with Margaret was a quiet picnic in the backyard of the board and care home where she lives. She spent four nights in the hospital this past week, admitted for a bleeding ulcer but kept for observation and treatment of cardiac issues. As Meredith’s sister Kathleen wryly observed, it is like taking your car in for an oil change, only to have the mechanic find other problems.

Happy_Traveler

In any event, we did not want to tire Margaret out with an extended outing, so we brought in sandwiches. After lunch we called the Seattle granddaughters on FaceTime, and gave them a chance to chat with Margaret. Then we played a cooperative game of Happy Traveler with her. HT is a long out of print game from the early 1990’s that we enjoyed playing with our kids on car trips in the past. Categories such as “things associated with trains,” “types of vegetables,” “things at a fair,” and “summer things” prompted input from Margaret, and she shared several memories. She told us about her Girl Scout summer camp Wayaka in Maine, and we compared notes about favorite things from country fairs in the past.

Before the hospital admission we had planned to take Margaret to see the new exhibitions at the Craft and Folk Arts museum on Wilshire. We may go there on our next visit, if nothing else comes up in the meantime.

Southwest Museum

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Southwest Museum
Mount Washington
January 16, 2016

Margaret’s passion is Native American culture, and one of her favorite museums back when she used to live in Los Angeles years ago was the Southwest Museum. The location is farther from Margaret’s home than we usually go, but she had mentioned it several times and clearly wanted to see it, so we made it our destination for this visit.

SW_tower&trees

Over the course of the 20th century, the Southwest accumulated the second largest collection of Native American artifacts in the country. Established in 1907, it moved to its beautiful hilltop site above Highland Park in 1914. Unfortunately, the museum fell on hard times. It lacked the financial resources to maintain its collection and aging building alone and merged with the Autry Museum in 2003. There has been controversy over that merger, but we reserve judgment. The critics probably do not understand, or do not care about, the expense involved in preserving the collection and restoring the building. One wonders, how many of them contribute financially to either effort?

The National Trust for Historic Preservation has set up a website Treasure It Together, devoted to the Southwest Museum building and site, to disseminate information and foster discussion about how best to preserve and restore the historic site.

For a time, the Mt. Washington site was completely closed to the public. One gallery is now open on weekends. During the week, Autry employees work in the closed gallery spaces, doing conservation work on the collection. One important component of the conservation work is that pieces are being photographed and digital photos added to a searchable online database.

We guessed–correctly it turned out–that there would be no cafe on site and brought sandwiches and other picnic supplies. We parked in one of the two handicapped spots in the museum’s front courtyard and ate our lunch at one of several tables under the arcade.

SW_lunch

The current exhibition is Four Centuries of Pueblo Pottery. There were some truly impressive pieces on display, from the early 17th century to the present. The explanations which accompany the pottery items set the historical context well. The technical details are explained, as are the differences between the different pueblo cultures.

Southwest_gallery

Admission is free, with donations encouraged. The top level is wheelchair accessible. There is a small bottom area open to the public as well, but the interior connection is only by staircase. We each took a quick look at the lower level but did not try to get Margaret down there, since there is not yet a gallery reopened downstairs. The lower level could be accessed by wheelchair patrons, but one would have to enter from the street below the museum, go up a ramp, through the pedestrian tunnel, then up an elevator. That lower level currently just contains a timeline of the museum’s history, a few display cases showing archaeological techniques, the restrooms, and a video terminal on which one can view digital photos of the museum’s basket collection.

There is a Metro stop right across the street from the pedestrian entrance to the museum. Visitors who come by car drive up a narrow winding driveway. There is a general parking lot, which we did not explore, and two handicapped spaces right in front of the museum.

Our only gripe is that there is too little information about the museum online. There is one page on the Autry’s website devoted to the Mt. Washington campus, but it fails to give practical visitor information such as whether there is a cafe on site (there is not), what parking is available, and whether the building is wheelchair accessible (mostly it is, as noted above). Meredith emailed the Autry asking for more information but did not receive a reply.

After the museum visit we met Meredith’s sister Kathleen for coffee. She showed us and Margaret photos from her recent trip.

San Fernando Mission

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Mission San Fernando Rey de España
Mission Hills
December 26, 2015

We took Margaret to see the San Fernando Mission, founded in 1797, one of 21 missions established by the Franciscans in Alta California, i.e. what is now the state of California. (Missions were established in Baja California as well.)

SanFernando_grand_sala

This visit brought back memories of a week long road trip we took in 1999 with Margaret and our three girls, up to Sonoma and back down to San Diego, visiting all of the missions. Here are our three daughters back then, outside the San Fernando Mission:

Girls At Mission San Fernando 1999

As anyone who grew up in California knows, the missions were an integral part of the Spanish colonial era and of the history of early California generally. Nowadays the Southern California missions are generally well restored; some of the Northern California missions have been mostly obliterated. After the Mexican government secularized the missions, confiscating them from the Church, the mission buildings fell into disrepair. The adobe walls of some of them dissolved after opportunistic neighbors took the roof tiles for other projects. The San Fernando buildings have been well restored.

The mission church at San Fernando is an active place of worship, and there was a ceremony going on the day we visited — a quinceañera we think — so we were unable to see the church this time. We were able to see the museum rooms and gardens though.

Several of the buildings have rooms with historical displays in them. There are some informative displays, such as rooms arranged with period appropriate furnishings, and also some workshop rooms showing blacksmith and carpenter tools, a loom, and a saddle making display. Many religious artifacts are displayed, including both liturgical items like vestments and art such as statues, and there is an entire “Madonna Room” given over to iconography of the Virgin Mary. Some of the museum display cases have items which, although interesting in themselves, are not particularly appropriate to the mission. In the first couple of museum rooms, for instance, there were a number of Native American baskets on display. Those baskets included some very nice pieces, but few of them were from the local area.

Bob Hope is buried on the grounds. As he was dying, his wife Dolores asked him where he wanted to be buried, and he is reported to have said “Surprise me.” In any event, this is the resting place she chose for him. The thing Margaret most enjoyed about our visit was a pair of display cases featuring Bob Hope memorabilia. (These are tucked, for some inexplicable reason, in the workshop area.) Margaret even stood up, to see the photo of Bob with Dolores on the top shelf.

Admission to the mission grounds is $5 for adults, $4 for seniors. Most of the grounds and rooms are on a level, so wheelchair access is pretty good.

Margaret asked after her grandchildren as soon as we picked her up, and we brought her up to speed on family news over lunch.

Petersen’s Grand Reopening

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Petersen Automotive Museum
Wilshire Boulevard “Miracle Mile”
December 12, 2015

The Petersen Automotive Museum has just reopened after a long (14 month) remodeling project. We love old cars and so does Margaret, so we headed for the Miracle Mile to check out the new Petersen. We had been there with her at least twice before, most recently on Mustang Weekend.

The exterior has been totally redone and is the subject of some controversy in architectural circles: some love it, some, including Los Angeles Times’ architecture critic Christopher Hawthorne, hate it, calling it happily tasteless and aggressively bad. Another critic called it an atrocity. The wall is red, and it is encircled by silver metallic undulating bands of metal, giving the feel of motion. On the whole, we liked it. We have to agree with Petersen board president Bruce Meyer, who told the Los Angeles Times “Before, nobody knew we were here. Now, nobody’s ever going to drive by this building and not know we’re here.”

You can get a little sense of the exterior, both before and after, from the photos below, the top one taken on this visit and the lower one taken in 2012:

Petersen_exterior_new

Petersen_2012

The interior of the museum repeats the red color on some accent walls, with complementary white, gray, and silver walls and carpeting.

The staff at the ticket desk suggested we start on the third floor and work our way down. The third floor kept us captivated for quite a while. It is a large open gallery with cars from all eras. The display starts with a beautiful replica of the first automobile ever built, in 1886 by Benz. Meredith was interested to see the rare Davis Divan on display. Its restoration had been the subject of a crowdfunding campaign on Indiegogo. She is on the museum’s email list and had received periodic updates about the car, so it was nice to see it “in the flesh.” There is also a gorgeous 1956 Chevrolet Bel Air on display, which brought back memories for Margaret and Meredith of their family car in the 1960’s, a white 1955 Bel Air. Most cars cannot be touched, but we took turns sitting in an antique Ford.

Petersen_Ford_Bob

Meredith asked Margaret, what was the first car she ever drove? She said it was her mother’s 1949 Ford, and smiled at the memory.

One entire wall of the third floor gallery displays cars from movies and television shows, with film clips running in the back showing the cars on the screen. They were a varied group, including (among many other vehicles) the Jaguar and Aston Martin from the latest James Bond movie; the Batmobile from Batman (1989) and Batman Returns (1992); the Pontiac Aztec from Breaking Bad; and the Volkswagen bus from Little Miss Sunshine.

We had lingered so long on the third floor, that we decided to save the second floor for another day. It includes exhibits about the automotive industry, manufacturing, high-performance road cars, hot rods and custom cars, alternative power vehicles, and motorcycles. It also includes the Discovery Center with driving simulators.

We finished our visit with a stroll through the first floor galleries. The theme of this floor is artistry, and a large collection of the most beautiful classic luxury cars is displayed here, all perfectly restored. They are truly gorgeous.

Admission to the museum is $15 for adults, $12 for students or seniors, and $7 for youth. Bob was given free admission as an educator with his school ID card. Parking is $12 for all day.

Wheelchair accessibility is adequate to meet ADA requirements but is not outstanding. Visitors with a handicapped placard can park in designated spots on the ground floor of the garage, if any are available. (All were full the day we visited, but we had parked in the Page Museum lot to be closer to Johnnie’s for lunch, so were not inconvenienced.) If you have to park on the upper floor of the garage, be aware there is still no elevator! That omission was a missed opportunity in the renovation. Within the museum there are elevators, of course, but galleries and bathrooms have heavy doors without handicapped push button openings. That is not an issue for us, with two able-bodied people helping Margaret, but could be more of a problem for another visitor.

Petersen_Johnnys

The museum restaurant is not yet open; it is scheduled to open in April 2016. We had lunch before the museum visit at our favorite place on Wilshire, Johnnie’s New York Pizzeria. Our youngest daughter joined us for lunch, and we all enjoyed both the visit and the food.

Angel’s Attic

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Angel’s Attic
Santa Monica
November 27, 2015

We were looking for something new to see, so searched through a museum guide book we had purchased recently in the gift shop at the Page Museum: Museum Companion to Los Angeles, by Borislav Stanic. This book is a wonderful resource, listing many small museums in the area we were completely unaware of before.

Museum_companion

We settled on the Angels Attic, a small museum in Santa Monica. It occupies an old two-story Victorian house on Colorado Avenue. The collection includes an impressive array of antique doll houses, and also a number of dolls and other antique toys. The items on display are just a portion of the collection assembled by Jackie McMahan, heiress to the McMahan furniture fortune, who started the museum in the 1970’s together with her friend Eleanor LaVove. We were the only visitors there, and the curator gave us a tour, explaining the background and features of many of the pieces on display. In addition to the antique pieces, there are two intricate modern pieces commissioned for the museum: a miniature of the palace at Versailles, and a miniature house in the shape of a boot. (The latter made us think of the rhyme “there was an old lady who lived in a shoe”.) The miniatures were not limited simply to houses; for instance, that was also a miniature butcher shop and a French farm. The doll displays illustrated nicely developments over time, with 18th century dolls very different in style from the Victorian ones.

The wheelchair lift, located in the rear, was not working the day we visited, possibly a victim of the next door neighbor’s electrical work. The curator insisted on helping us lift Margaret, in the wheelchair, up the steps, and we were able to see the entire ground floor of the museum.

Admission is $8 for adults, $7 for seniors; payment is by check or cash, not credit card. There are a couple of public parking lots in the area and a few metered spaces on the street, but no museum parking lot.

We ate lunch at Fritto Misto, an Italian restaurant just half a block from the museum. The food was excellent. Bob had lasagna, and Meredith had black and white spaghettini. Margaret had the soup and pasta salad combo, and enjoyed her clam chowder very much.

Assorted Updates

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Over the last month or two we have seen more than the usual number of items in the press that tie into places we have visited recently. Here is a sampling:

La Brea Tarpits History. The Los Angeles Times ran a retrospective article, A mammoth move to the tar pits, on November 1, 2015 (November 2 print edition), pulling from coverage they did in 1967 explaining the history of the outdoor mammoth sculptures in and around the large tar lake in Hancock Park. The article included several striking photos of the sculptures being transported and put in place. The famous fiberglass mammoths at the La Brea tar pits have kept watch over Wilshire Boulevard for five decades. But few who gaze at the tourist attraction know how the prehistoric “creatures” got there. It turns out the first one got a lift from a 1958 Volkswagen.

Urban Planners Give Olvera Street a Shout Out. Also in the Los Angeles Times, we saw an article reporting on Olvera Street’s grand honor, namely national recognition as a “great street,” based on architectural features, accessibility, functionality, and community involvement. Downtown’s historic Olvera Street, one of the oldest streets in Los Angeles, was named this week as one of the country’s top five “Great Streets” by the American Planning Assn. The brick pedestrian street “is a place where visitors can get a taste of Mexican culture and a sense of the history that still stands preserved in the buildings and plazas that surround the street,” the association said in its designation.

Everybody Loves Vermeer. The Vermeer painting we loved so much when we saw it at the Timken Museum in San Diego — Woman in Blue Reading a Letter — has moved on, this time to the National Gallery in Washington, DC, where it will be on display just until December 1. NPR ran this story about the exhibition.

Timken Acquires New Art. Not content to rest on its laurels after the Vermeer and Raphael special exhibitions, the Timken Museum has purchased a painting, Saint Francis in Meditation by Francisco Zurbaran. The San Diego Union Tribune reported on the acquisition in an article in its October 30, 2015 online edition (November 1 print): The Timken Museum of Art has purchased Zurbarán’s 1635 masterpiece “Saint Francis in Meditation,” the first acquisition in a decade for the 50-year-old Balboa Park institution and the second Zurbarán acquired by a San Diego museum this year.

Hammer Museum Acquires More Room to Spread Out. Just after we had been on our most recent visit to the Hammer Museum in Westwood, we saw an article in the Los Angeles Times, More space, more room for art, which appeared online October 26, 2015 (October 27 in the print edition). The Hammer Museum at UCLA is expanding its footprint in Westwood, taking over five floors of the Occidental Petroleum office tower that will give the contemporary art institution more than 30% additional exhibition and administrative space. Until recently, the Hammer had leased its space from Occidental. Officials at the Hammer and UCLA said Monday that the expansion is part of a recent real estate deal in which the university has become the Hammer’s new landlord. UCLA said it has acquired a full city block of property from Occidental that includes the office tower and the museum building, both of which had belonged to the oil company. The acquisition also includes the 634-space underground parking garage.