I'm baaaaack

Okay so it's not Jimmy Dean...that's a singer and bacon maker.  JAMES Dean is who I meant, but I have to say, he was a kid really...so Jimmy fits better than James.  Maybe that's why he was a renegade:  hated the name James...too old folk, too formal, too stodgy....  Just sayin'....  Jimmy!!!  or not.

Thanks to my friend LaBerta, visiting from Australia, who wanted to drive up to her old home in Brookdale and then a little further up the hill to see her friends the Lussier's...long story short:  they know the former owner of the Brookdale Lodge whereon JAMES Dean's mural portrait lay.  Perhaps now I will be able to publish a picture of the original mural...much beloved by local residents.

Very cool.  Thanks JAMES for inspiring me back to this project!

Okay, no guessers on the mural location (See May 6th post). I guess that means I'm "up" $30.... Anyway, the mural is located on the side of the Safeway gas station right off State Park Drive exit at Soquel Drive.

Back to Murals: More Ocean Life

Probably many of you have seen this wonderful mural on the side of 41st Avenue cinema. (This photo represents about half of the entire mural which took a month to paint, with assistants). Painted in 1979 by Daniel Burgevin from the Ithaca, New York area, this is one of the oldest murals I've found still around in Santa Cruz.

And here is a picture of Daniel painting another sea life mural, 12' x 20', in 2005, commissioned by the Museum of the Earth at the Paleontological Research Institution which is affiliated with Cornell University.

Random Art Thought...

So don't ask me how or why I started thinking about this...maybe because I'm on vacation...but I was looking at the portraits of Claude and thinking what a nice looking face he had. Then I'm thinking, but wait - it's a self portrait and that's not really how he would look to someone looking at him. He'd be looking in the mirror and so his left ear would appear on the left rather than on the right if I were gazing at him in front of me. And so then, I started thinking about other artists who most likely did self-portraits in front of a mirror rather than from a photograph of themselves (which is kind of cheating in a way don't you think?). So I downloaded a few famous artist self portraits, flipped them horizontally, and here they are.

But notice in Claude's color self-portrait: the Mona Lisa is portrayed correctly in his work, and backwards when I flip his self-portrait! Pretty cool thinking on his part - he must've added that afterward.

Where is the mural on Bean Creek Road?

Local art conservator Chris Kenney told me about a mural painted
on the side of this man's house on Bean Creek Road. Now I really want to find it. Does anyone know the address or the current owner?

This artist is Claude Buck, born in New York City in 1890. His father gave him his first art training from ages three to fourteen. Later in his 20's he studied at Chicago's Academy of Art and Design and for awhile in Munich.

While in New York he earned money as a theatrical scene painter (perhaps his first "murals"?). He formed a group called the Introspectives and had a reputation as a "radical artist". (Uh oh! We know about those radicals!).

He subsequently moved to Chicago in 1919 where he continued his education and became a leading member of the avant-garde symbolist artists and was known for his "fantastic, sometimes disturbing images with allegorical and literary themes". In the 1920's he did a number of "hyper-real" portraits, figures and still lifes which were popular and aligned him with the opponents of abstraction and their "Sanity in Art" movement. According to Josephine Hancock Logan, the artist and founder of this movement, "Sanity in Art means soundness, rationalism, a correct integration of the art work itself in accordance with some internal logic. "

Anyway, Buck moved to Santa Cruz in 1949 until 1959. He was a member of the Santa Cruz Art League and served as its president in 1953. He moved to Santa Barbara in 1959 where he died in 1974. His work is wonderful, and I highly recommend Googling it to take a looksee. Thanks Chris for making me aware of it.

Now...where's that mural!!!?

This is such a sweet and subtle mural...not loud in the colors or "drama" or detail. But you know what? I really like it. I like the sentiment (and the fresh trail in the sand, although the scale is not correct, so this may represent a time long ago), I like the subtly of color and detail, and I like knowing where this scene is located - at one of my favorite walking beaches and my totally favorite fossil beach! (Uh oh...did I let the cat out of the bag? Cuz...I absolutely know that every time I walk this beach - which is often - I collect the totally best stones and fossils there are that day! :-) or in other words: always a great walk!

CHALLENGE: Do you know where this mural is located? The first person that can name this location by June 1, 2010, will get $30 by emailing me with the correct answer at: shunt95066@sbcglobal.net. I will publish the location of the mural, names of the winner and the first two runners up in the first week of June.

For those of you who would like to comment, or have already tried and gotten really frustrated...please try again as I have now enabled it (thanks Hank).