Emma in Wonderland
Emma Jacobsen-Sive of the Pasadena Museum of California Art, dressed in black and white, was standing today inside the painter Annie Lapin's parti-colored installation at the museum, "Parallel Deliria Iteration." The piece is made up of flotsam and jetsam from the painter's studio practice and is in the museum's Project Room in the always exhilirating space on Union Street between Oakland and Los Robles in Pasadena.
The museum is gearing up for a major October retrospective of the works of California painter Wayne Thiebaud, who had one of his first big shows at the old Pasadena Art Museum, now the Pacific Asia, next door to the PMCA. Also in October will be a groundbreaking show made possible in large part by Pasadena Susan Futterman, "Behold the Day: The Color Block Prints of Frances Gearhart," an exhibition examining the remarkable contributions of color block print artist, Pasadenan Frances Gearhart. From the release: "Embedded in the time and place of the Arts and Crafts Movement, Gearhart's work personifies a handcrafted aesthetic and conveys a sense of directness, immediacy, and strong visual impact while depicting a clearly ideal, Californian subject matter.
"Frances Gearhart was a leader in the American printmaking movement and, in particular, color block printing. The artist lived with her sisters May and Edna in Pasadena, and all taught in the Los Angeles public schools."
But on view right now is a great show that includes Thiebaud and his colleagues, "You See: The Early Years of The UC Davis Studio Art Faculty," along with ceramics by Edith Heath, who did the tiles on the outside of the Norton Simon and whose work, though you may not know her name, you will recognize from every mid-centuury modernist household you ever visited in the 1960s. Both are on view through Sept. 20, along with wonderful oversized photographs of L.A. freeways by Benny Chan.
I recommend a refreshing summertime visit.
