Tag Archives: Family

2012 CalArts Graduation

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Dan graduated from CalArts last night, with a Master of Fine Arts. Years ago, he had declined to attend his BFA commencement at Webster, so this was his first commencement. It was unlike any commencement that I’ve ever gone to. It was quite the party, quite the wild party. I’ve included some random crowd shots to give the feel of the ceremony. Amanda, Dan’s friend, also graduated last night. The rest of the people pictured, just think of supporting cast. The bad boys and girls of the School of Art lived up to their rep. Condemned to walk last, they suffered an interminable three-hour wait. What took so long, was that each graduate was alloted ten seconds of audio sound track as they walked the stage. Most of the grads had music playing and some tracks were embarrassingly popular. Best sounds went to a south Asian man whose audio recording was a well-timed correction of the pronunciation of his alphabet soup name, “No Dean so-and-so, my name is pronounced, …” Anyway, let’s get back to those bad art students. After the last of them had walked, it was announced that a beloved teacher was retiring. Spontaneously, the entire graduating art school rushed the stage and risked its collapse, much to the consternation of security. It all turned out well though and afterwards food and drink was served.

Cooper

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Anne, Cooper and Sally

We visited with Cooper, our high school classmate and long time friend. Anne and Cooper are pictured above with Sally, Cooper’s wife. We drove to their home in the Valley and spent several hours there reconnecting and connecting. Afterwards, we went out for lunch at Follow Your Heart, a vegetarian and vegan restaurant and market. Unfortunately, a fallen power pole limited our selection on the full menu. There was still plenty of good choices left on the menu. We had a good time catching up on old times with Cooper and really enjoyed meeting Sally. Then it was back on ‘The 405′ for another round of bumper cars and then off we went to Dan’s graduation.

Dan’s Studio

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Anne and I visited CalArts last night. There was a Parents/Grad Students barbecue well underway, when we arrived. The party was being held among the warren of student studios. Dan’s was center stage, with its full moon balloon. Both Anne and I were impressed with the organization of all of his stuff. Something that we have never witnessed at home.

The graduation ceremony is tonight. By other college’s standards, CalArts’ graduation ceremony is rather informal. No robes are worn. Dan had suggested that the art department get robes to wear, just to be different, but gave up trying to herd cats. Speaking of cats and dogs, CalArts is a dog friendly campus. You can bring your dog to class, if you want. CalArts is not a cat friendly campus. [Hee, hee, hee.] Speaking of cats, Dan has scored a summer job of sorts. He will be a cat sitter for several cats and a rabbit, or a bunny, he’s not sure which. Time for some OJT, Dan. This gig gives him a place to stay for the summer and some sort of remuneration.

It should be a lengthy ceremony and Dan won’t walk until the end. The art department is being punished for bad behavior at last year’s graduation. I asked, was it public nudity? Dan said no. No nudity is condoned and should be expected. No, last year’s art grads exited the graduation ceremony and began playing loud music, disturbing the remainder of the graduation ceremony. Apparently, rudeness is not condoned at CalArts.

LA-LA-Land

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Lucy Turner Joy, by Anders Leonard Zorn, 1897

We landed it to LA last night. We scored a decent rent-a-car, a white Camry, with only 107 miles on it. Sweet! I christian it the new Clark Griswold Wagon Queen Family Truckster. We got our motor running, and headed out on the highway. We were looking for adventure in whatever came our way. We found it soon enough, stop-and-go traffic on the 405 at 8 PM. Like a true nature child we were born, just born to be wild.

We made it to CalArts and caught the tail-end of a parents and graduate students barbeque. We met some of Dan’s classmates and we got to see Dan’s studio. It was pretty interesting and I did get pictures.

We met with the insurance adjuster Wednesday night. Last weekend, our next door neighbor, Art the architect, pulled us aside and told us that he and all our other neighbors are getting new roofs. When he asked his adjuster what hail damaged looked like, the adjuster pointed it out on our roof. So, we are getting a new roof, awning and gutters. The awning and gutters were only a year old. So much for lifetime warranties. I just hope that the repair work doesn’t take as long as last year.

Pictured with this post is a photo of a painting from the Saint Louis Art Museum. I chose this graphic anticipating a certain dichotomy between stately Saint Louis and the City of Angels. The following text is the museums description of the painting:

The Swedish artist Anders Zorn enjoyed great commercial success as a painter of the rich and famous in fin-de-siècle America. In the mid-1890s he visited Saint Louis where he received commissions to paint several prominent notables including the sitter here who was the wife of a local cotton broker, Duncan Joy. The painting highlights Zorn’s virtuoso Impressionist brushwork. The sitter relaxes on a green armchair while her left hand plays with a ribbon on the sleeve of her dress.