American Chronicles

Norman Rockwell at Tacoma Art Museum

The Weekly Volcano, March 2, 2011

"The Problem We All Live With": Oil on canvas by Norman Rockwell, 1963 - an Illustration for Look, Jan. 14, 1964. Licensed by Norman Rockwell Licensing, Niles, IL. From the permanent collection of Norman Rockwell Museum

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Tacoma Art Museum is the only Northwest stop for American Chronicles, an exhibition of the works of American icon Norman Rockwell.

For almost as long as I have been alive, Rockwell has been idolized by most of the American public while being ridiculed by most art critics. I can easily see why on both counts. When I was a kid I wanted to be Norman Rockwell. I even signed up for the Famous Artists correspondence school because he was one of the artist-teachers. By the time I was an art major in college I had come to think of him as a joke. After that I dismissed him completely as not worth bothering with. But I have to admit that I was surprised by the beauty and power of a few of the paintings in this show - only a few, but those few knocked me out.

If Rockwell had spent his career making serious paintings instead of working at being America's most popular illustrator he could have been great.

A few of the paintings in this show are absolutely stunning. In many of his paintings the paint is thickly layered using the technique of over-glazing to create rich surfaces with an inner glow. The colors in "Christmas Eve in Bethlehem," which depicts tourists lining up to see the supposed birthplace of Jesus in Bethlehem, are ablaze due to the contrasts of the brilliant yellow surfaces of buildings against a deep cerulean blue night sky with foreground figures dramatically backlit.

"Murder in Mississippi," illustrating the infamous murder of three civil rights workers in Philadelphia, Miss., is a dull monotone that looks like a weathered newspaper clipping. It is accompanied in this exhibition by a number of preliminary studies illustrating Rockwell's working technique.

The texture on the stone wall that serves as background to the little girl in "The Problem We All Live With" is amazingly realistic. You feel like you can reach out and feel the stone. This image depicts a little black girl being guarded by U.S. Marshalls as she enters a previously segregated school.

These paintings show Rockwell's amazing talent - his dramatic flare, the translucent light in his paintings and the amazing attention to detail, little of which is apparent in reproduction. These paintings and a few others are comparable to the very best of Renaissance paintings. Everything else in this show confirms my contention that he was just an illustrator who capitalized on flash and easy sentiment.

Rockwell didn't consider himself a painter. He was an illustrator. In purely visual terms, illustration falls short of art because the visual elements - line quality, color, composition, harmony, etc. - are sacrificed on the alter of storytelling; this is painfully evident in nearly every one of the 323 original Saturday Evening Post magazine covers in this show. Some of them are cute, some touch the heart, but most are overly simplistic glorifications of small town America, family values, religion and patriotism. Only those few paintings about the civil rights struggles in the South acknowledge that there might be a dark undertone to some of those vaunted American values.

I may not like his sentimentality and corny humor, but this exhibition has shown me that the man could really paint.

Through May 30, Wednesday – Sunday, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.
third Thursdays 10 a.m. to 8 p.m.
admission $8–$9, children free, Third Thursdays free
Tacoma Art Museum, 1701 Pacific Ave., Tacoma
253.272.4258

The greatest artists in the world

Every day the Weekly Volcano's blog Spew posts bunches of new articles including my weekly ramblings. I haven't been posting my articles for Spew on this blog, but -- slow thinker that I am -- it finally dawned on me that I shold at least post links to them.

On Feb. 22 They published the first of a two-part article under the heading "Lunchtime Thinker" in which I talked about which artists I consider among the greatest in the world, knowing, of course, that I could never do justice to such a grandiose topic in the few words allowed. Anyway, you can read it at here.

Part two in the series was published here on March 1. You'll have to scroll down a bit to read it.

Pictured: The Venus of Willendorf / photo courtesy of multi-license with GFDL and Creative Commons CC-BY 2.5

Charlie's interview

I just listened to Charlie Sheen rant on a "Today" show interview about how special he is. He thinks his $2 million per episode salary on “Two and a Half Men” should be bumped up to $3 million. When I heard that I thought that it’s really not Charlie’s fault that he believes he’s so freaking special. He’s a product and a victim of the cult of celebrity, the deification of stardom, and everybody from the public to producers and studio executives have bought into it and reinforce it. They seem to think a series lives and dies with its star. Tell that to the producers of the many James Bond films. And exactly how many actors have successfully played Doctor Who?

Don’t they know that a star, no matter how talented and hard working, is just a product of collaborative efforts of dozens – in Charlie’s case, hundreds – of writers, directors and technicians? I’m a writer, so naturally I’m biased, but I think that’s where it all starts. With the script. Without the script nobody would laugh at the antics of Charlie Harper (Sheen’s character for those who don’t watch the show). Charlie just repeats the words the writer wrote, and he does it in the way the director tells him to. So what’s the big deal?

OK, I know that often actors contribute to the writing. They sometimes write their own scripts or offer helpful changes or even improve scripts through improvisation. And yes, a star can bring a certain charisma to a role. But I don’t believe any actor is irreplaceable. For example: Was it just John Wayne’s magnetism that made the first “True Grit” a great movie? Apparently the Cohen brothers didn’t think so.

There are many actors whom I greatly admire, from Oscar winners like Sean Penn and Jeff Bridges to local actors such as Christian Doyle and Scott C. Brown and Dennis Rolly and many others. And you know what? I think any one of them plus at least a half dozen other actors from Olympia and Tacoma could play the part of Charlie Harper and the sitcom would be just as funny. Why heck, you could put Lauren O’Neill in the part of one of Charlie’s girlfriends and the show would be immeasurably better. And none of them get $3 million per gig. They all work day jobs to make ends meet.

One other thing: Charlie’s father – another actor I admire – should tell his son to get over himself.

Charlie Sheen paraphrased from various statements made during the NBC interview: I'm tired of pretending I'm not special. I’m a total freaking rock star from Mars with tiger blood and Adonis DNA You can't process me with a normal brain.

Watch the interview.

Two players, 34 characters, 15 tales

COURTESY OF PRODIGAL SUN PRODUCTIONS
Elizabeth Lord, left, and Lauren O’Neill become all kinds of colorful characters in “Parallel Lives.”
The News Tribune, Feb. 25,2011

Shows at The Midnight Sun Performance Space in downtown Olympia nearly always are provocative. “Parallel Lives” is more than provocative. It is insanely funny. Like all good comedies, it can be like salt to a raw wound as it takes an unflinching look at the lives of women and satirizes men, childbirth, menstruation and the Catholic Church.

This play was written by Mo Gaffney and Kathy Najimy. It is a two-person play starring Elizabeth Lord and Lauren O’Neill playing 34 characters in 15 loosely connected stories. It is directed by Josh Anderson.

Each scene is a separate sketch or dialogue or monologue. In one case, a mime performance by Lord is set to music. It begins with two angels (listed in the program as “Supreme Beings”) working on the creation of the world. In this stage of the creation story, they are figuring out how to create procreation and what that means.

Next, we meet Kris and Jeff, a pair of whacked-out and possibly drug-addled youth on a date at a gay bar. O’Neill plays the guy with a backward baseball cap and a low-pitched voice and street-tough gestures. This guy is not too bright.

In another bar scene, Lord plays the man – a drunken urban cowboy named Hank with a cigarette seemingly glued to his lip. The man repeatedly proposes to Karen Sue (O’Neill). Lord is totally believable as the man in this scene and O’Neill nicely tones down her comic antics to play Karen Sue.

Comic scenes involve sisters seen at different ages as they struggle with conflicts over the teachings of the church.

There is more religion-based satire in a confessional, a Shakespearean scene and dialogue between a street prostitute (O’Neill) and the wife of Kenny Rogers (Lord) or someone fantasizing about being Kenny Rogers’ wife.

Breaking out of the comic mold is a shocking and intensely dramatic scene with O’Neill playing a protestor outside an abortion clinic. In yet another break from the mold, Lord makes magic by silently portraying a woman’s morning ablutions to classical music.

The manner in which these two actors assume so many different roles is amazing.

They bring to mind the early one-woman performances that first brought Whoopi Goldberg to prominence, and Lily Tomlin’s performances in the guise of multiple characters from “Laugh-In” to “The Search For Signs of Intelligent Life in the Universe.” They are rubber-faced, loud and brassy.

Most of this show is insanely funny, but there are scenes that are intensely serious. Because of language and subject matter, it is recommended for mature audiences.

When: 7:30 p.m. tonight and Saturday
Where: The Midnight Sun Performance Space, 113 Columbia St. N.W., Olympia
Tickets: $12, available at www.brownpapertickets.com and at the door

Budget cuts force changes in my newspaper columns

I have bad news for readers of my theater reviews. The Olympian and The News Tribune are having to severely cut their features budget, and as a result I will not be doing as many theater reviews. Effective March 1st my reviews will not run in The Olympian, and they will be published in The News Tribune only three times a month instead of once a week.

I feel especially bad for Olympia area theaters, fringe theaters and the smaller theaters in outlying areas because they are the ones that will probably be affected most. When possible I will review shows for my blog that I can't review for TNT, but that will be limited also because I don't get paid for reviewing shows for my own blog and can't afford to travel when I'm not getting paid.

If you want to make sure you don't miss any of my reviews, I suggest subscribing to my blog and please tell your friends to do the same. If you subscribe you will get every post to this blog as an email sent directly to your in box. The reviews will usually show up in your in box on the day after they are published in the newspaper.

Believe me, this cut is certainly not my choice. If I had my way I'd review more plays not fewer.

When the Tribune first hired me to do reviews it was an every-other-week column. After a couple of years it was extended to every week, and after a couple more years The Olympian picked up my reviews of Olympia shows.

I consider myself lucky to have been able to do as much as I have. I am extremely grateful to these newspapers for giving me the best job in the world, and to the South Sound theater community for treating me so well (even when the reviews were less than flattering).

I will still write art reviews and features for the Weekly Volcano.

Going big with small

Selinda Sheridan show to benefit Nativity House

The Weekly Volcano, February 23, 2011

"Contour Intervals," by Selinda Sheridan, on display at Mineral in Tacoma

Selinda Sheridan's exhibition at Mineral, Contour Intervals, is a nice little show with a nice big purpose. From 2004 to 2008, Sheridan was the art coordinator at Nativity House, a daytime shelter for the homeless in Tacoma that operates an art room where guests may come to make art with materials that are provided for free. Sales from works in this show will be used to support that project.

While running the program at Nativity House, Sheridan began collecting blobs of paint that were left behind on palettes and blotting them with paper and then drawing back into the Rorschach-type blots with ink. At Mineral she has assembled these drawings - each about the size of a business card - into an installation that covers most of one wall. 

With a quick rough count I determine there are about 80 of these small drawings. The arrangement looks random, but it is not. An overall pattern emerges, and the little pictures are grouped together according to color schemes and similarity of shapes, etc. It is the title piece of the show. Seen as a single image this installation looks like a large grouping of topographical map sections. The individual pieces can be seen as mountains, rocks and lakes, or abstractly as an interweaving of soft color areas with meandering black lines.

To the left of this work are three small drawings in ink and acrylic, all delicate and simple landscapes.

Six larger framed pieces in Sumi, some with subtly added color, fill the rest of the small gallery space. These are more typical works with a decidedly Asian flavor. Most of them are derived from landscapes, with views of mountains, lakes and streams reduced to a few simple semi-abstract lines and shapes.

As I have often noted in my reviews, when natural elements are abstracted, the more abstract they are, the better they are. When objects taken from nature are included in what is essentially abstract art, these objects detract from the work and lessen its impact. But sometimes there are exceptions. In this instance, one of the best works has a picture of an apple in what is otherwise a completely abstract work. It is called After the Storm: Summer, a title that, so far as I can tell, has nothing to do with the imagery. Five odd, black, circular shapes march across the bottom of a white page, each touching the other, with one gap, and resting on top of the stack by the gap is a red apple. This work is all about contrasts of open and closed spaces, contrasts between color and black-and-white, and slightly off-kilter balance.

Another of the strongest works is a piece called Still Humming. It is a large dry-brush circle of black ink with a group of smaller and more clearly delineated circular forms like seeds or purple fruits clustered inside the circle. As in After the Storm: Summer, this one is all about contrasts and balance.

All of the works in this show are reasonably priced, and 100 percent of the income from sales will go to Nativity House.

Through March 26, noon to 5 p.m. Thursday-Saturday, and by appointment
Mineral, 301 Puyallup Ave., Tacoma
253.250.7745, lisakinoshita.com

Review: Kid-filled ‘Wonderland' a sweet delight at OFT

Photo courtesy OLYMPIA FAMILY THEATER
Morgan Hanrahan plays the White Rabbit, from left, Sofia Sanchez is the Duchess, Rheanna Murray is Alice and Jude Huston is the Queen of Hearts in Olympia Family Theater’s “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland.”

The Olympian, The News Tribune, Feb. 18, 2011

Olympia Family Theater’s annual all-youth production this year is “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland,” based on the stories by Lewis Carroll.

It stars 15-year-old Rheanna Murray as the girl who goes down the rabbit hole – or in this instance, steps through a picture frame. Murray is a student at Tacoma School of the Arts. She plays Alice with dignity and grace, displaying a suitable amount of surprise and wonder at the crazy things and even crazier people she encounters in Wonderland, yet accepting every absurdity as just the way things are.

Why shouldn’t she drink from a bottle that says “Drink Me”? After all, it doesn’t show “Poison.” It must be safe.

In some ways, this is a Ryle family production. Jen Ryle directed it; her husband, Ted, is the stage manager; and her children, Mandy and Emmalene, worked on the production crew.

The cast, however, is all youths, so it is not as polished as some other OFT shows, including “Winnie the Pooh,” the last OFT play I reviewed. Nor is it as uproariously funny. But it’s great fun to watch the kids perform. Children in the audience have a good time watching the antics of Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum, the Mock Turtle and the smiling Cheshire Cat.

Like the adventures Lewis Carroll wrote about, this Alice appeals to children because of the vibrant characters and colorful costumes and to adults because of the sophisticated wit.

Fifteen-year-old Morgan Hanrahan, also a student at Tacoma School of the Arts, seems quite sophisticated and grown up as the painter who first lures Alice into Wonderland and later runs and bounces about quite frantically and entertainingly as the White Rabbit.

Karli Kooi plays the mouse. She’s a first-grader at Boston Harbor School, and she pouts and squeaks with expressive charm. I love the way she jumps up and claps her hands and squeals “Eeek!”

Katie Sellars is Tweedle Dee and Kylie Charney-Harrington is Tweedle Dum. They are hilarious together as they share the same costume. They are each quite accomplished actors.

Nick Melton, who attends Capital High School, really puts his heart into his role as the Mock Turtle. His outlandish sobbing brings the house down.

The set by Mandy Ryle is colorful, and the costumes designed by Becky Scott and put together by the team of Sally Fitzgerald and Shelle Riehl are delightful. Particularly enjoyable are the Caterpillar’s extra arms, the queen’s robe and crown and Humpty Dumpty’s outsized body and legs. It’s not really a costume, but you have to see how Alice grows larger.

This show is relatively short at 90 minutes with a 15-minute intermission, and it is fast-paced. The time flies by.

When: 7 p.m. tonight and Saturday, 2 p.m. Sunday
Where: The Washington Center for the Performing Arts Black Box, 512 Washington St. S.E., Olympia
Tickets: $8.50 to $15.50
Information: 360-753-8586, www.olytix.org