I got this signed print by the Japanese-born artist Masami Teraoka from the Contemporary Museum, Honolulu. I brought it home rolled up in a tube and then put in up in my living room.

I hadn’t heard of Teraoka before seeing some of his prints in Hawaii but I liked his use of old artistic traditions to tackle modern ecological and sexual themes. My local loyalties also approved that he had been based in Los Angeles from the mid 60s. I later bought a book on his work: Ascending Chaos: the art of Masami Teraoa 1966-2006.

According to that book, in the painting, which was done in 1979: “a catfish woman appears just in time to caution the artist against taking a bite of tainted sushi.”

And indeed, all sorts of pollution is floating towards the sushi-chomper, including some condoms that were rendered with more anatomical detail in his preparatory sketches.

I bought this photograph pasted onto a board for $5 from a bin of cheap art. I think it was from the Echo Park Time Travel Mart.

The bulbous subject matter are presumably pods from seaweed/ kelp. I like the light, and lean in against the backsplash of my kitchen counter.

I bought this symbolic portrait of Robert Kennedy at an antique shop in San Pedro. In the same store, there was a painting of RFK’s brother John F. Kennedy dressed as a bull fighter (referencing the Cuban missile crisis), but it was done in a muddy brown tone that didn’t appeal to me.

The portrait was painted by a woman named Edwina Gaines. The store owner described her as a ‘minor black nationalist poet.’

I think that Ms. Gaines may be the Edwina Gaines profiled as “A community’s treasure” in the Los Angeles public access TV show Art Beat (season one, episode two unfortunately isn’t on-line).

She may also be the Edwina Jones Gaines who penned the pro prayer in school poem “the most provocative event in US history” which opens:

Where, O where, is Madalyn Murray O’ Hare;
Where can this fornicatrix be?
Is she out there…in outer space…somewhere;
or, maybe…she’s been buried in the deep blue sea;
perhaps she’s buried somewhere in the deep blue sea.
Tell me where can this ungodly creature be;
this subtlety, Queen of Immortality? This foxy fornicatress
who delighted in diabolic strategy to conquer every soul
with her shrewd provacative-infidelity!

Edwina Gaines could also be the ‘mother of Watts’ referred to in this 2000 Los Angeles Times article on the Watts Festival.

She could even be the author of the 1962 novel Your People are My People.

The person who painted the picture hanging in my living room could be all four of these things: artist, poet, mother of Watts, novelist. She could be some of them, or none of them.

Whatever she was, I like the boldness of the representation of RFK as a light unto the nation, illuminating the capitol, as well as the boldness of the colors. the candle is rather lovecraftian in its resemblance to an alien tentacle.

I assume this was painted after RFK’s 1968 assassination.

update: I’ve been in touch with a gentleman who is researching Ms. Gaine’s life and art and he shared this link to video footage that shows the artist talking about two of her paintings

In Claremont, CA there is a retirement home for former missionaries, religious workers, and employees of charitable non-profit organizations. It’s called Pilgrim Place.

pilgrim centaur

Every year they hold a two day festival around Thanksgiving time, replete with pilgrim & native american imagery, rides for kids, and sales of crafts, books, etc- including art that had been owned by or often painted by the residents. I’ve bought a few paintings and pices of pottery there.

In 2007 there were some free paintings set on the grass near the art sale. I spotted this pointillist boxing painting, scooped it up, and pushed in around balanced on my daughter’s stroller for the rest of our visit. I’m glad I bothered to take it. I like the big dots and the dynamism. It’s hung up in my bathroom, to the right of the sink, so I see it a lot while brushing my teeth and shaving.

I’ve looked up McAfee and Pilgrim Place and Claremont and wonder if the artist could be Ward McAfee, who appears to be a resident who is also affiliated with the Claremont United Methodist Church (where my daughter has attended pre-school for the past 2 years.) Incidentally the chapel of the church was designed by Richard Neutra; it burned in 1967 and Neutra’s son Dion was hired to redesign it. The pre-school building doesn’t have that kind of architectural heritage but it’s a nice post and beam, light filled mid-century-modern structure.

The ‘Official Opening’ in May 1980 noted on this poster doesn’t refer to the opening of an art exhibition sponsored by the Department of Education. That’s when the Department itself started operating, after being created by an act of Congress signed into law by President Jimmy Carter in October 1979. President Reagan campaigned on a platform of abolishing the Department but it has outlived Reagan and so far survived existential threats by the Republican Party.

So perhaps the optimistic, expanding and disciplined geometry of Josep Albers‘ Homage to the Square: Glow is an appropriate launching symbol for a department that seeks to influence minds and that has escaped attempts on its life.

I bought this framed poster for $2 at the annual book sale at the Occidental College library. I liked the colors and the motto. It has a chip out of the glass on the bottom left corner. I hung it in my bathroom; the rectangle of light in the photo is from the skylight. An artist friend chastised me for putting an Homage to the Square, even as part of a bureaucratic poster, near my shower where steam could condense inside the glass and ruin the art. It’s survived so far without damage except a few gnats that crawled under the glass and perished there.

This photograph of a curved residential high rise won a 1967 RVCC Annual Award in the amateur category. The RVCC stands for Ross Valley Camera Club,  an organization founded in 1949 that later changed its name to the Marin Photography Club.

I can’t find any information online about the photographer, Ralph Butterworth, except that he he lived in the Marin mobile home park in 1967. As someone who lives in an apartment but likes seeing interesting single family houses, I can sympathize with his desire to photograph a buiding much, well, taller than a mobile home.

I bought this photograph on ebay for $10 or $15 because I like the perspective and the architecture of the mid century apartment complex. I assume the building is or was located somewhere near Marin County or the broader Bay area. If anyone recognizes the building, let me know.

The photograph is attached to the side of my refrigerator in my kitchen.

This drawing or print of the Watts Towers on black paper has images on both sides. There is a color drawing on one side (showing) and a white drawing of the same view on the reverse. The color side is inscribed in white:

“Mae Babitz 61. Happy Anniversary, Tillie and Lou. May 61. Watts Towers.”

Mae Babitz was a self-taught artist who sketched many of Los Angeles’ old buildings. She helped champion and preserve the Watts Towers, interviewing Simon Rodia, the Italian immigrant who built the towers, intervening to stop the towers from being dismantled, even selling her drawings of the tower to raise money for the cause. she died in 2003.

I bought this at the Melrose flea market for $15.  I like art about Los Angeles, like architectural art, and like how this work is on black paper. It had thick glass on both sides. My friend Heather removed the glass to see if we could clean or re-frame it. The glass on the white side broke and cut Heather’s hand. Sorry H! I kept it in the ratty white painted frame it came in, and have hung it in my living room with the color side showing.

ah- the early 70s!

In 1973, when Robert Pratt painted this picture of naked people hanging out in a room with a chicken on the table, a clown with an erection in the doorway, and a fire by the highway outside the window, he was an actor who called himself ‘hollywood bob.” The stars of the western TV series Alias Smith and Jones mentioned him during their appearance on the Merv Griffin show on December 3, 1971. (Pete Duel committed suicide less than a month later). >>

Joe Flynn: A pretty wild (bunch)… I’m surprised people didn’t complain about the ethnic outrageousness of that show. We had a guy named Murphy, one named Calhoun, one named Kelly, one named Clint, kind of a… And no fights… no fights…

Pete Duel: “Hollywood Bob” Pratt saved us.

Ben Murphy: “Hollywood Bob” and his belt! (laughing)

Pete Duel: Bob Pratt is a young actor at Universal now, he’s a *very* good actor, and he played a…a… kid with a big southern accent. And this you know, this… really doing it *way out* as far as he could, it was beautiful. And he wore this… he made this big leather belt with stars on it and everything and it said “Hollywood Bob” on the back. He goes around putting everybody on, man… it was beautiful…

Hollywood Bob left Hollywood at some point, worked with amusement parks, taught creativity, wrote books, and kept painting pictures of chickens crossing the road.

I bought his Chicken crossing road 33 this past weekend at the flea market at Pasadena City College. It was $80. Someone had framed it in a weathered wooden frame, with fortune cookie fortunes pinned around the edge under an appropriate collar of chicken wire.

I especially like the glowing innards (gizzard, crop, etc) of the chicken.

I’m going to hang it in my bedroom.