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Arts & Life
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- Written by: Editor
With anniversaries of the fires of 2015 and 2016 just behind us, devastation from the Sulphur fire and pervasive regional fires and a week of evacuation alert in south county make the show all the more poignant.
Witnessing on view through Oct. 22 at MAC, is highly relevant and recommended.
The exhibition speaks to the trauma of those impacted by wildfires in Lake County and to the journey of overcoming personal struggle and healing.
There is power in both making and in viewing art. Art gives form and voice to feelings and insights. We identify with and are moved by expressions of the human experience through image, line, shape, color, texture, and materials.
Local artist and founder of EcoArts of Lake County, Karen Turcotte, reminds us that “Destruction takes no thought at all. Creation however, is from the heart, the mind, the hand and the soul.” Words to live by. This is exactly what the artists have done.
Sage Abella, creator of “Fire Godd and the Phoenix,” a 3-foot by 3-foot acrylic on canvas painting done two years post-fire, draws us into the chaos and colors of the fire.
Rendered in a primitive, “magical realism” style, the artist utilizes complementary warm and cool colors to speak of the two opposite yet somehow reciprocal presences of the “Fire Godd and the Phoenix,” fire and water, dry and wet.
Abella takes us through her personal journey with the Valley fire, from emergence on Cobb Mountain, to witnessing wild turkeys, rattlesnakes, deer, and other creatures’ flight from fire and ascent to the heavens.
She evacuated four times in 2015 and 2016 as her home is located between Jerusalem Grade and Lower Lake. While unscathed by fire, the landscape that surrounds her home certainly has changed.
“Fire Angel #2” is a moving piece by Ben vanSteenburgh III, and one of two acrylic and ink Fire Angels on view. It offers us a benign and winged young angel alone in her reverie, sitting with her knees gathered up to her chest as an unchecked blaze consumes a faraway landscape across a lake calm as glass. It is only the lake, however, that reflects the emotionless furor of the unchecked blaze.
The composition, primarily rendered in tints and shades of orange and yellow, seems to emit light and heat. Somehow, it is oddly comforting, perhaps a nod to ‘impermanence’.
Marcus Maria Jung’s “Dance of Creation, Destruction and Rebirth” is actually made from the devastation of the wildfires, rather than about them.
Using fire-ravaged manzanita, the artist has created a veritable dance between three charred trunk sections, swaying in gentle relationship to one another. Jung has lovingly smoothed the bark in such a way as to invite touch, and he has brought about a rebirth of the fire-forged Manzanita by transforming it into sculpture.
There are many other poignant pieces in this exhibit. Ceramicist Melanie Liotta’s impressive mosaic “Survivor” depicts a rooster crowing the break of a new day. It is comprised of shards of pottery retrieved from the Valley fire.
Also not to be missed is Alana Clearlake’s “Dreaming of Hope” – a masterful and stunningly colorful handmade felt painting of a landscape on fire with elements of regrowth and water.
Several works made by artists during Resilience classes are also featured in the show.
Come experience the Witnessing exhibition, on view at Middletown Art Center until Oct. 22.
MAC is located at 21456 State Highway 175 at the junction of Highway 29 and open Thursday from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m., Friday from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m., Saturday from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., and Sunday from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m.
Visit MAC online at www.middletownartcenter.org or call 707-809-8118 for more information.
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- Written by: Editor
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- Written by: Ted Kooser
There's not one extra word in this, and every word – with that word's singular music – is set in the perfect position.
This poem is from his forthcoming book, “The Sound: New and Selected Poems” (Red Hen Press, 2018).
Mending Time
The fence was down. Out among humid smells
and shrill cicadas we walked, the lichened trunks
moon-blue, our faces blue and our hands.
Led by their bellwether bellies, the sheep
had toddled astray. The neighbor farmer's woods
or coyotes might have got them, or the far road.
I remember the night, the moon-colored grass
we waded through to look for them, the oaks
tangled and dark, like starting a story midway.
We gazed over seed heads to the barn
toppled in the homestead orchard. Then we saw
the weather of white wool, a cloud in the blue
moving without sound as if charmed
by the moon beholding them out of bounds.
Time has not tightened the wire or righted the barn.
The unpruned orchard rots in its meadow
and the story unravels, the sunlight creeping back
like a song with nobody left to hear it.
American Life in Poetry does not accept unsolicited manuscripts. It is made possible by The Poetry Foundation (www.poetryfoundation.org), publisher of Poetry magazine. It is also supported by the Department of English at the University of Nebraska, Lincoln. Poem copyright ©2016 by David Mason, “Mending Time,” from The Sound: New and Selected Poems, (Red Hen Press, forthcoming in 2018). Poem reprinted by permission of David Mason and the publisher. Introduction copyright ©2017 by The Poetry Foundation. The introduction’s author, Ted Kooser, served as United States Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress from 2004-2006.
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- Written by: Tim Riley
BLADE RUNNER 2049 (Rated R)
A sequel to a cult favorite and ground-breaking science-fiction film that comes thirty-five years later suggests that insightful considerations are absolutely necessary to understanding the trajectory of the “Blade Runner” cultural significance.
First, we need to look back to the original “Blade Runner” and its pioneering of an entirely new cultural genre that might be described as “neo-noir cyberpunk,” an existential state that captures a bleak dystopian future.
The sequel arrives with “Blade Runner 2049,” and its director Denis Villeneuve, observing that the source material was a blending of the two genres of science fiction and film noir, aims for the surreal atmospheric existence of a defiled universe.
While it is not absolutely essential to have seen the original, it helps to know that Harrison Ford starred as a former blade runner named Rick Deckard who came out of retirement to track down and terminate four fugitive replicants that escaped from an off-world colony.
Deckard was reluctant to take on the job of hunting the life-like robots, but over the course of completing his mission he met and fell in love with Rachael, a beautiful, young woman who turned out to be a replicant.
Fast forward to 30 years later in “Blade Runner 2049,” and Ryan Gosling plays the role of an LAPD blade runner named K who oddly enough has difficulty with memories of his childhood to the extent that he starts to question his humanity.
But “Blade Runner 2049” has much to do with the conflict between humanity and technology, and the intersection of the two manifest themselves in Officer K’s home life where his only companion is Joi (Ana de Armas), who materializes as a life-like hologram.
As a result of tracking down an old-model replicant (Dave Bautista) living off-the-grid as a protein farmer, Officer K unearths a long-buried secret that has the potential to plunge an already dysfunctional society into a permanent state of chaos and ruin.
Consequently, Officer K’s discovery leads him on a quest to find Deckard, the former LAPD blade runner who has been missing for 30 years and wants to very much remain hidden at his lonely outpost in a decimated Las Vegas where only a flickering image of Elvis provides a human presence.
The future world of “Blade Runner 2049” is so bleak that you may be fascinated to learn that the climate of sunny Los Angeles has been so drastically changed that the average days are often more like the harsh, snowy conditions of Chicago in January.
Atmosphere and visual style are the two things that create a most compelling landscape in the environmentally degraded surroundings of a toxic wasteland. The bleak aesthetics are fascinating and make this film interesting to watch.
“Blade Runner 2049” is full of intriguing characters, including industrialist Niander Wallace (Jared Leto) who’s pulling the strings with his genetic engineering and Robin Wright’s tormenting police captain. Revealing too many details about these compelling players would be unwise.
To his credit, director Villeneuve has preserved and enhanced the strong image of what Ridley Scott, director of the original film, presented as a disturbing future that could be at the same time so seductive and frightening.
The dreary, desolate landscape and harsh realities of existence in “Blade Runner 2049” may not appeal to everyone, but it may fascinate the aficionados of a grim science-fiction realm.
‘Seal Team’ on CBS Network
Military-themed series are popping up on several network schedules this fall, but “SEAL Team” running on CBS television seems like the best fit for this type of drama and the core audience that taps into the top-rated network’s penchant for safe, dependable programming.
We already know that Navy SEALs are an elite military fighting force, often engaged in the most dangerous and critical missions. After all, they were the squadron that took down Osama bin Laden in his Pakistan compound.
This new drama series centers on David Boreanaz’s commanding role of Captain Jason Hayes in a tight-knit team that is seen in the first episode in a gunboat firefight with ISIL forces. But this show is about a lot more than just military operations.
The stress of war has taken a great toll on Jason. He’s estranged from his wife and children. Losing a colleague in combat is just as devastating as the death of any family member.
During the summer TV press tour, Boreanaz observed that “SEAL Team” is a “workplace show” and that his character has to “deal with his own inner turmoil” and the complexity of his personal life. Combat missions are important to the series, but not the end-all.
“SEAL Team” consists of a solid ensemble of actors, from Jessica Pare as a CIA liaison involved in mission planning to Neil Brown, Jr. as Jason’s trusted teammate. Boreanaz’s Captain Hayes may inspire many to follow him into battle during the run of this series.
Tim Riley writes film and television reviews for Lake County News.