The Best of My "Best Of"

This is the second year that I've been invited to contribute to Florida Weekly's annual "Best Of" edition.  Last year it was kind of nerve-wracking.  I was new to the whole writing thing and definitely not used to putting together a piece (even a 75 word ditty) on any sort of deadline.  It was fun, though, and the day I put in my 2012 submissions, I started thinking about this year's edition.  Which of my blog experiences could be converted to a blurb?  Is this sign funny enough to warrant a mention?  How can I get a bit of press for the things I particularly love in the area?   The result was 17 entries in the 2013 edition!  Here are a few of my (unedited) favorites:

Best of Show:  Catherine Lucas learned about the Faces and Figures National Exhibit being hosted by the Visual Arts Center in Punta Gorda just one day before the submission deadline.  (Ironically, Catherine—who lives in Naples—heard about the show from a friend in Texas.)   Catherine quickly pulled together her online submission for “Prima Materia” and hit the “send” button.  Five weeks later, Catherine was at the VAC awards reception collecting her first place ribbon and check for $2000.    She gamely posed with her nude self-portrait for members of the press who wanted to protect their readers’ Victorian sensibilities.    

Best Place for One Stop Shopping (4549 Tamiami Trail, Port Charlotte):  Where else can you celebrate making bail by getting some tattoo art of that special someone and a body piercing to boot?  And people in Punta Gorda say it’s not worth making a trip over the bridge!       

Best Budding Yogi:  It’s no surprise that nine month old Maya Yonker came out of the womb doing yoga.  After all, mom Bonnie owns the Yoga Sanctuary in Punta Gorda and taught classes almost up to the day she gave birth.  While Maya’s showing great aptitude for lots of postures, her best one of all is “happy baby.” 

Best New Moniker (Punta Gorda Pathways):  Punta Gorda prides itself on its 15+ miles of bike and pedestrian trails that encircle the city.   But “Ring Around the City” just wasn’t doing its job as a name .  What ring?  What city?  And doesn’t it make you think of that ’70s TV commercial for Wisk?  So the City Council solicited ideas for a new name.   Suggestions included “Punta Gorda Invites You to Walk All Over Us,” “Trabue Trail,” and “K-MURT” (“MURT” is an acronym for multi-use recreational trail).  After much consideration, the Council settled on “Punta Gorda Pathways.”   Whatever you call it, this system of pathways is one thing that makes Punta Gorda such a special place.   

For the complete 2013 Florida Weekly "Best Of" edition, you can click here and go to page 66.  http://charlotte.floridaweekly.com/news/2013-05-09/PDF/flip   For a "bonus" article, flip to page 36 for my repurposed blog entry on Solomon's Castle entitled "Exploring the Re-Purposeful Life of Solomon and his Castle."  (I have to admit that this was quite thrilling, especially with the teaser on the front page of the Arts section "Nanette Crist takes a tour of Solomon's Castle."   I know, my bar for being thrilled is set a little low, but I'll take it where I can get it!)  

Let me know if you come across something weird and wonderful that warrants mention in the 2014 "Best Of" edition.  I've already started my list!  

Love, Loss, and What I Wore at Theater Conspiracy

When I was still living in New York, my friend Andrea and I went to see the play Love, Loss, and What I Wore by Nora and Delia Ephron.   It is the theater equivalent of a chick flick--five women sitting onstage telling stories of their lives through their clothing choices.  The actresses actually have their scripts at their fingertips so, while there is definitely acting involved, it is a perfect vehicle for a revolving cast.  The night Andrea and I saw the show, Fran Drescher was one of the cast members and, yes, that is actually her voice!

Fast forward to last Saturday night at Theater Conspiracy in Fort Myers where Love, Loss and What I Wore is being staged.  My friend and editor extraordinaire Kathy Grey was in the show that night and played the same roles that Fran Drescher assumed when I saw the show in New York.  Kathy was great-- as were the other four women--as they regaled the audience with stories of the trauma of bra fittings and wondering if an outfit makes them look fat and the various iterations of Madonna that they dressed up as for Halloween in the '80s.  One story was about a woman's Betsy Johnson paper dress, and my friend Kathy Hollinger leaned over and whispered to me, "I had one of those!  The boys were always threatening me with their Bic lighters."  While most of the scenes were laugh out loud funny, others were quite poignant.  There's the story of a girl who goes shopping with her dad after her mother dies for her first store-bought dress, and the woman who relates her fashion choice of boots and short skirts to being raped.  It was a great evening of theater, with stories that every woman in the audience could relate to (and that hopefully made the few men in the audience appreciate why it often takes women so long to get dressed!)  Plus, each of the ten performances of the show benefits a different local non-profit that is near and dear to the heart of one of that evening's cast members.  Talk about a win-win.

While I have never been a fashionista, the stories did make me think back to some of the significant clothing events in my life.  Take, for instance, the embarrassment of being measured for my cheerleading uniform when I was in junior high.  I am old enough now that I can just admit it--I have wide hips.  It doesn't matter if I'm on the low or high end of my weight range, the hips are always going to be there.  When I was lamenting this fact to one of my teachers, I still remember her words of support, "Your hips will be good for child bearing."  Now if that doesn't make a 12 year old girl feel better about her body, I don't know what will!

The story of the woman whose baby blue prom dress matched her date's baby blue tux (remember those?) brought back memories of one of my own prom dresses--a black strapless number that was slit up to my thighs.  I wasn't worried about my big hips that evening (although I was a bit worried about how to handle the corsage!)

And, of course, I could totally relate to the story entitled "I Hate My Purse."  As Kathy (playing Nora Ephron in this scene) talked about how her purse seems to carry every bit of her life in it--gum wrappers, food from her last airplane trip, used and unused Kleenex--I thought about my own relationship with my purses.  I actually have a name for my purse--it's called my "Let's Make a Deal" bag.  Remember the show with Monte Hall yelling out to the audience, "Who has a can of Spam?  How about a wrench?" and some woman would grab the item out of her bag and run up to the stage in a frenzy of excitement?  Yes, my bag is the modern day equivalent.  I always have at least one beverage, reading material, gum, keys, reading glasses (which I can NEVER find), and an assortment of other items in my purse that I just can't leave home without.  

Love, Loss, and What I Wore is running at the Theater Conspiracy through May 25th, and tickets are only $20.   If you're in the area and your schedule permits, grab some girlfriends and take in the show.   I promise that a fun night of theater awaits you.   

Wealth of Art at the Naples Art Museum, Part 2

My new home endeavors are cutting into my writing time as well as my wallet.  Plus I haven't really found "the" spot in my new digs that feels like the right place to do my writing.  So bear with me as I go through this transitional period!  

I wanted to return to my visit to the Naples Art Museum with its bounty of exhibits.  In addition to the "Painting Women" show, I was curious to see "Revelation:  Major Paintings by Jules Olitski."  I had never heard of Olitski until about a year ago, when my friend Susan saw the show at the Toledo Museum of Art.  It would have been fun to see the show in Naples with her and get her perspective on a second viewing, but our schedules didn't cooperate with this plan.  So here's my quick and dirty overview:

"Revelation" (on display through July 7th) takes viewers through Olitski's art from 1960 - 2006.  His works are broken down into five categories:  Stain Paintings, Spray Paintings, Baroque, High Baroque, and Late Works.  It's always interesting to get a sense of the body of an artist's work.  All of Olitski's work is abstract, but the styles and moods vary significantly from one period to the next.  Olitski was instrumental in the development of "color field" painting, a style of art on the continuum of modern art after abstract expressionism.   (When I think of abstract expressionism, I think of Jackson Pollock splattering his paint against his canvas.   Many of the works of Mark Rothko--the subject of the wonderful play "Red" that I saw last year--fall into the school of color field painting.)  

Olitski's Tut Thief (1965)

In his earliest works--the stain paintings (1960-1964)--Olitski poured paint onto unprimed canvases.  Olitski didn't even use a brush to create these works, differentiating himself even more from the abstract expressionists.  I preferred the feel of his spray paintings (1965-1970), though.  Olitski said that his goal was "a spray of color that hangs like a color, but does not lose its shape."  I think he was quite successful in achieving his goal.  These works are very peaceful--they reminded me of shimmering clouds of paint hovering on the horizon--and I stood contentedly looking at them for a while.

Detail from Olitski's Lives of Angels (1990)

The 1970s and '80s found Olitski in his Baroque and High Baroque periods when he focused on the physicality of paint.  The word "baroque" always makes me think of things that are heavy and dramatic and a bit overblown, and Olitski's paintings don't dissuade me of this interpretation.  In this photo of a detail of Olitski's "Lives of Angels," you can get a sense of the heaviness of the paint and why Susan said she was most interested in the way that Olitski "moved paint around the canvas."  For these thick impasto paintings ("impasto" means "dough" in Italian), Olitski poured paint onto the canvas and then created his works with his hands, wearing cotton mitts.  A sophisticated take on the art of finger painting!  These canvases are alive with the waves of paint swirling and turning before your eyes.  Most of Olitski's paintings are on a grand scale (in this case 68" x 129") that enhances the mood created.

Olitski's With Love and Disregard:
Splendor (2002)

At the end of Olitski's life, he created a series of works "With Love and Disregard."  He painted splendor and silence and rapture and pleasure.  These paintings combined aspects of his earlier works--particularly the orbs from his stain paintings and the impasto style of his baroque works--in a way that critics say evokes landscapes and city views.  I admit that I didn't quite see that, but who am I to say?  With these works I found myself at the end of the "Revelation" show.

Dine's Singing and
Printing I (2001)

The final show I wandered into was "Multiplicity," a collection of works from the Smithsonian's collection.   (This show is also on display through July 7th.)  The exhibit contained a variety of prints and paintings that were part of a series of works done by an artist.  In some cases, you only saw one of the works, so you didn't really get the impact of the multiplicity.  It was fun to see this work by Jim Dine, though, which is a monocut woodcut that he hand painted.  (Dine did a number of sculptures inspired by the Venus de Milo, including two bronze sculptures that are on the corner of Sixth Avenue and West 53rd.  I'm going to try to visit them when I go to New York for the Book Expo in a couple of weeks.)  

There were three works by R. Luke Dubois from his series entitled "Hindsight is Always 20/20" that were quite fascinating.   These works feature the 66 most frequently used words in a State of the Union Address by each U.S. President.  (Harrison and Garfield died before having the chance to give their addresses, so they are omitted.)  DuBois has styled these works after an eye chart (which has 66 letters), with the words used the most in larger print at the top of the chart.  Dubois did two versions of these works, one a series of light boxes and the other a series of bosed prints.  This print is of course from Abraham Lincoln's State of the Union address.  I can only imagine how interesting it would be to spend time looking at the series in its entirety--a study in creativity as well as history.

With that, my visit to the Naples Art Museum was complete.  Once again, I'd learned some things, not only about art, but about myself.  It's always a surprise to find out which works draw me in and which leave me cold.  Like the world of art itself, my arts education is a continuum.  I'm looking forward to the next chapter.  






 

Home Ownership, Lucy Ricardo Style

While I am loving my new condo, I often feel my domestic life is like one long episode of the "I Love Lucy" show.  In fact, I'm considering getting a laugh track to play when I do my household chores.  It just does not come naturally to me to dust or vacuum or, heaven forbid, get on my hands and knees and scrub a floor.  In fact, I once was about to throw out a dust buster because it didn't work anymore.  Jay, my ex-husband, informed me that it needed to be emptied.  Oops!

Perhaps it's my ineptitude that makes every accomplishment seem like such a victory.   My new vacuum cleaner (a Shark, which I highly recommend) required a minor bit of assembly.  When I turned it on, I realized that I hadn't attached the hose and all of the stuff I was cleaning up blew out onto a different area of the floor.  Again, oops!  I did get it properly hooked up, though, and am now enjoying my almost daily usage quite immensely.    Then there are the corners in a number of tiled rooms that have been hidden under furniture for the last few years.  They were all discolored, and I was a bit disheartened when they didn't clean up with my dust buster.  I even resorted to scratching at a couple of spots with a fingernail, with no success.  I was going to go the easy route--I was already contemplating what furniture I could buy to cover the spots--when I talked to a guy on one of my many trips to Home Depot.  Turns out that with a bit of tile cleaner and some serious elbow grease, the corners now look as good as new!

Grandma, me, Suzanne and Mom

My aversion to cleaning goes back to my childhood. (What doesn't, you might ask?)  My mother prided herself on being known as "Mrs. Clean."  Our home was spotless and our clothing was always meticulously cared for and crisply ironed.   Doesn't every child rebel against their parents in some way?   Well, both my sister and I have become stereotypes in this regard.  (A few years back, an ironing board was put up in my sister's home and my 10+ year old niece asked Suzanne, in all seriousness, what that was for!)    There are just so many more interesting things to do with your time than clean and do laundry!

Now that I have my own home again, though, my perspective--and willingness to figure things out, with a lot of help from my friends and the folks at Home Depot--is changing a bit.  Did you know, for instance, that an outlet cover runs about $.49 and can be changed with a couple of deft turns of a screw?  Or that there is a "gun" that you insert the tube of caulking into before shooting it into those exposed areas between the floor and the baseboard that you want to fill?   Yes, I am indeed making progress. 

While I am enjoying this uptick in my skills, rest assured that I haven't gone overboard.  My housekeeper will be reporting for duty twice a month to pick up the inevitable slack.