On the set of Jason Reitman’s film, Up in the Air

Cheri, Xochi, Jason, Marka  

Recently, during my spring break, I visited St Louis where former student, Jason Reitman, was shooting his new film, Up in the Air. The film stars George Clooney as an executive whose job it is to fly all over the country and fire people. He spends all his time in hotels and is obsessed with reaching his personal goal of 10 million frequent flyer miles.

 

Jason Reitman graduated from Harvard-Westlake in 1995, the high school where I teach Video Art and am Chair of the Visual Arts Department. As a young filmmaker, Jason already showed talent. I remember watching him shoot a public service announcement and thinking to myself, “That kid is a director!” It was the first time I saw a student not only guiding the concept, camera work and editing, but also the actors’ performances. He won the top prize in a contest for that PSA which was about AIDS. He also cast an openly gay student in the spot, although the point of the piece is that AIDS was not a gay thing or a boy thing or a girl thing or a…..you get the idea. Jason went on to college, graduated and made a number of short films that screened at Sundance, then commercials and his first feature, Thank You for Smoking. Around the time of his second film, Juno, he reconnected with his former teachers at Harvard-Westlake (it was my colleague Kevin O’Malley who was actually Jason’s video teacher). Jason was the keynote speaker in our 2007 Harvard-Westlake Film Festival. We embarrassed him by opening the evening with his 10th grade PSA! He was a judge in our festival the following year. Last year, Jason, Kevin and I co-created a speaker series called Speaking of Movies in which Jason interviews cool people he knows in front of an audience. We videotape the talks and plan to post them on the internet soon. Our guests so far have been Diablo Cody (Academy Award-winning screenwriter of Juno) and Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris (directors of Little Miss Sunshine and numerous award-winning commercials and music videos). Coincidentally, Valerie and I knew each other back in 1984 when I stage managed a performance art piece she did with Lin Hixson and Molly Cleator. 

 

My daughters, Marka and Xochi, spent the day with me on set in an airport hotel where they were shooting a series of short scenes with George Clooney. We learned a lot while we watched — the production designers change the room to become different cities, the director of photography experiment with still and moving shots, the prop master get the Blackberry to go off at just the right moment, the gaffers block out the windows with green screen material, the craft services guy who was also a sculptor and a founder of the amazing City Museum (if you haven’t been there it’s worth a trip to St. Louis!), and the excellent sound guy who gave me some tips. Between shots and while the crew was setting up for the next shot, Jason was a gracious host. He used his laptop to show us: clips from the film, scenes that were already edited (he’s going to premiere it in Toronto in September so his post-production is happening simultaneous to production), and some of his favorite stuff on youtube! Jason also introduced us to George Clooney and as you can imagine, the man is charming and funny (we loved listening on our headsets to the banter especially the bet between Reitman and Clooney as to whether the Blackberry would go off on cue). The day began at 9:30 a.m. and they broke for lunch at 3:30 p.m. We were exhausted and I went back to my folks’ house and took a nap! Meanwhile the film crew had another 6 hours of shooting.

 

It was an amazing experience for me as a teacher of film and video, as well as for my daughters who are young filmmakers themselves. This weekend Xochi and I are off to Seattle where her 7th grade film screens during the opening night of NFFTY-National Film Festival for Talented Youth. Then we return for the Sunday screening of her 9th grade film in the Newport Beach Film Festival. The next generation?

 

Filipino WWII Veterans Memorial Featured in New Book

Los Angeles's Historic Filipinotown by Carina Monica Montoya

The Filipino WWIII Veterans Memorial I designed is included in a new book called “Los Angeles’s Historic Filipinotown” by author Carina Monica Montoya (from Arcadia Publishing). The Filipino American Library (FAL) will present a Book Launch on Saturday, April 4 at 2:00pm at Lake Street Park (227 N. Lake St., Los Angeles 90026). I am scheduled to speak briefly at 3:10. For more information about Montoya’s book contact  filamlibrary@sbcglobal.net or 213-382-0488.

Also on sale will be the book “Valor: Filipino World War II Veterans Memorial” that is an indepth look at the memorial itself. Published by Midmarch Arts Press, it includes essays by art writers Betty Ann Brown and Eleanor Heartney, as well as Filipino writers Enrique de la Cruz and Mae Respicio. Stunning photographs of the memorial by Kevin O’Malley plus all of the historic photos and information I culled for the memorial grace its pages. Both books sell for $20 each.

Valor: Filipino World War II Veternas Memorial by Cheri Gaulke

The City Council of Los Angeles officially designated Historic Filipinotown on August 2, 2002 . It is the first Filipino community in the United States to merit a named area with distinct geographic boundaries. Historic Filipinotown was once home to one of the largest Filipino enclaves in California , a place where many Filipinos purchased their first homes, raised families, and established businesses. The cultural continuity of the area’s Filipino families and businesses inspired the collective efforts of Filipino organizations, Los Angeles community leaders, and individuals to establish Historic Filipinotown and maintain its vibrant culture.

Come help us celebrate this community and the publishing efforts that keep its history alive.

The Feminist Art Project at CAA

My participation in the College Art Association related events continues! Saturday will feature an all day look at feminist art presented by TFAP (The Feminist Art Project). It’s free and open to the public. I went to this in New York two years ago and it was fabulous. From 2-3:15, I will be on a panel with Catherine Opie and Andrea Bowers—a generational look at feminist art (I’m the elder in this case). My friends Phranc and Nancy Popp will be doing short performances, as well as many others. Details are below.

TFAP @ CAA 2009
New Brunswick, NJ—The Feminist Art Project (TFAP), in its fourth year of creating events about feminist art announces several events at the College Art Association (CAA) annual conference 2009 in Los Angeles, California. CAA is a founding program partner of TFAP. Started by Arlene Raven, Judy Chicago, and Susan Fisher Sterling, the Feminist Art Project is administered by Rutgers University’s Institute for Women and Art, under the auspices of the associate vice president for academic and public partnerships in the arts and humanities, and directed by Judith K. Brodsky and Ferris Olin.

These events include a day of panels, discussions, and performances and a bus tour, organized by Anne Swartz, Art History Department, Savannah College of Art and Design. These panels will focus attention on several urgent issues in art and feminism, with the bus tour highlighting the substantial contributions of contemporary women artists to public art in Los Angeles. These discussions, presentations, and performances offer a broad range of views and insights into the dialogue surrounding the history of feminist art and its energetic present and future. The bus tour has limited availability. Ticket information is available below. The day of panels is FREE and OPEN to the public.

The schedule for Saturday, February 26, 2009 will be as follows. All events will be held at the Los Angeles Convention Center, Room 502A, Level 2. The day of panels is FREE and OPEN to the public.

Interstitial Talk: Dena Muller, Art Table

9:00-10:30 a.m.
“Black Women, But, Are They Feminists? – Issues: their gender, their artwork, their lives as artists”
Suzanne Jackson, Savannah College of Art and Design
Panelists: Senga Nengudi, Independent Artist; Carrie Mae Weems, Independent Artist; and Linda Goode-Bryant, Independent Artist
This panel will examine questions about the past and present concerns women of color have had in the artworld surrounding feminism and feminist issues. The evolution of black consciousness for women and the complications of all women not seeking freedom from traditional roles remain important aspects of the dialogue surrounding race and gender for women of color.

Interstitial Performance: Nancy Popp, Harvard-Westlake School

10:45 a.m.-12:15 p.m.
“Salon des Refuses” or who was/is “in” and “out” of the recent feminist exhibitions
Maren Hassinger, Maryland Institute College of Art
Panelists: Moira Roth, Mills College; Joan Semmel, Independent Artist; Kris Kuramitsu, Independent Curator; Eve M. Fowler, Independent Art Historian
Recent feminist exhibitions, including “WACK!: Art and the Feminist Revolution,” received considerable press and attention, but did not include all of the women who played significant roles in the decade of the 1970s. This panel will consider what the situation and meaning is of not having one’s work recognized in these exhibitions.

Interstitial Performance: Phranc, Independent Artist

12:30-1:45 p.m.
Transnational Feminisms
Chairs: Yong Soon Min, UC Irvine and Connie Samaras, University of California, Irvine
Panelists: Leda Abdul, Afghanistan and Orange County; Sara Diamond, Ontario College of Art and Design; Maura Reilly, Brooklyn Museum of Art; Midori Yoshimoto, New Jersey City University

Given the proliferation of difference–some that matter and much that is superfluous–that characterizes the contemporary globalized art field, our conversation will center on markers of difference in the intersections of class, race, age, sexuality, nationality and media that signal notable shifts in our understanding of female subjectivity. Moreover, we will consider how these shifting understandings are imbricated within issues of translation in the transnational cultural traffic.

Interstitial Performance: Denise Uyehara, University of Arizona

2:00-3:15 p.m.
Artists Converse on Feminism
Chair: Maria Buszek, Kansas City Art Institute
Panelists: Andrea Bowers, California Institute of Arts; Cheri Gaulke, Harvard-Westlake School; Catherine Opie, University of California, Los Angeles
How do artists consider the questions about feminism in their art? How do artists consider these questions in various media? How does the social situation of women today impact their work? What is the status of the body, of the body beautiful in art? What political issues most engage feminist artists today? These are only a few of the points of discussion for this conversation between feminist artists working in different media and coming-of-age under different phases of feminist activism.

Interstitial Talk: Johanna Burton, Whitney Museum of American Art

3:30-5:00 p.m.
Performances Galore
Chair: C. Jill O’Bryan, Ph.D., artist and independent scholar based in New York and New Mexico
Panelists: Joanna Frueh, University of Arizona; Maureen Nappi, Long Island University; Martha Wilson, Franklin Furnace Archive, Inc.; Michelle Winowiak, Independent Artist; Jen Zakrzewski and Kristen Rhea van Liew, Independent Artists
Discussant: Tanya Augsburg, Ph.D., Assistant Professor of Liberal Studies, Liberal Studies Program, San Francisco State University.
With the recognition that scholarly feminist art commentary is best when grounded in artwork, these live performances precede an open discussion with the artists. This panel includes new performances by young and elder, famous and not-so famous feminist performance artists.

College Art Association Conference Presentations on Public Art and Motherhood

 

This Wednesday, February 25, 2009, I will be on two panels at the College Art Association conference in Los Angeles. I am chairing the panel, What’s the Story: Public Art and Narrative. It requires a CAA conference pass which you can find out more about here http://conference.collegeart.org/2009/. The second panel, Breaking in Two and Mending: Art and Motherhood, is free and open to the public, as it is sponsored by Women’s Caucus for Art.

 

 

 

What’s the Story? Public Art and Narrative in Los Angeles

 

Wednesday, February 25, 9:30 am – 12 pm

West Hall Meeting Room 515A, Level 2, Los Angeles Convention Center

College Art Association 2009, Chair: Cheri Gaulke

 

Public art can be “plop art,” completely unrelated to its location, or it can be intimately connected to the history, culture, and geography of the place where it is sited. What happens when public artists see themselves in service of a story about the place or community in which the work will exist? What motivates the artist to approach the work in this way and what is the process of researching and creating the work? Los Angeles has a rich tradition of public art ranging from historic works from its founding in the nineteenth century through the WPA era, to more recent murals by community activists, to contemporary artworks integrated into metro stations, libraries, and civic locations. Many of these works reveal fascinating stories about the people, both ordinary and extraordinary, who have contributed to making Los Angeles into a multicultural city.

The presenters on this panel include scholars and working artists who will bring insights into a discussion of such issues as: How do artists distill complex historical stories into visual statements? What is the role of text in narrative-based visual art? How do public artists engage audiences as active viewers? Is collaboration with non-artists a component of making the work? Does the ethnic identity of the artists and the communities, if different, present challenges in the production of the work? Does the gender or politics of the artists to be featured in this panel presentation, which are female and feminist, play a role in their aesthetic or thematic approach?

 

Outline of Panel Presentations:

Cheri Gaulke – Overview showing many LA works by women and raising some issues that can be discussed

Marlena Doktorczyk Donohue – “The Theory and Practice of Social Story Telling” Donohue will lay out a theoretical framework while discussing specific projects by Kim Abeles and Cheri Gaulke.

Holly Barnet-Sanchez – “Meanings that Change Over Time – The Public Faces of Murals at Estrada Courts Housing Project in East LA” An historic look at murals produced in a federally funded housing project in the 1970s.

May Sun – will present her many works in LA that incorporate text and storytelling including “Listening for the Trains to Come” in Chinatown, “La Ballona” in Culver City, “Sky Coyote” in Woodland Hills, “Flow” in Pasadena, (title?) in Union Station, and the Hollywood & Western Red Line Subway station.

Sheila de Bretteville – “LA to Ekaterinburg; how this story develops…” De Bretteville will discuss the evolution of her public art practice from early Los Angeles public artworks (Biddy Mason wall, Little Tokyo sidewalk) to a recent project in Russia.

Jacki Apple – on the Venice Oakwood Project which presents a visual and oral history of African-American seniors in Venice.

 

Breaking in Two and Mending: Art and Motherhood

Wednesday, February 25, 12:30 – 2 pm

Concourse Meeting Room 406AB, Level 2, Los Angeles Convention Center

Sponsored by CAA/Women’s Caucus for Art

A lively discussion about the challenges faced by artist-mothers, as well as the benefits of their very full lives. The session is structured around 5 themes, with two panelists each conversing about that theme. 

 

Pairings and Themes:

Alison Saar/Tierney Gearon (motherhood as content)

The artist-mother, in her expression of motherhood, breaks away from the image of motherhood fed to us by the media. What new ways do we see artist-mothers expressing an essential topic that has been trivialized and devalued because it is too ‘obvious.’ What is the public’s reaction to these artistic expressions of motherhood?

Kim Yasuda/Cheri Gaulke (the artist’s space and the home space)

How do artist-mothers deal with conflicting priorities? The artist-mother can be pulled equally by both the need to produce art and the need to respond to children’s needs and be present with the family. Culturally, these have been incompatible if we still think of the artist as being selfish, self-obsessed and the mother as selfless, all-sacrificing.Please also discuss partners in the home, especially supportive partners.

Linda Vallejo/Kim Abeles (financial dependence/independence)

How do women make it in the art world? What have been some of the choices they have made in order to sustain their art and make it all work? The social/economical system is not supportive of professional women who have children, and even less of artists who have children. How does this affect women as a whole?  How does it affect different ethnic groups?  For some professions in the arts, is it an advantage to hide one’s identity as mother in order to get a job?

Ruth Weisberg/ Alicia Weisberg-Roberts (generational issues / role models / leading meaningful lives, child’s perspective)

What differences have there been in raising children in the 70s as opposed to raising children today? What rewards have there been for both mother and child when the artist-mother is dedicated to both aspects of her life? What is this like when the children are still at home, as compared to later when the children leave and are independent?

Bruria Finkel/Sabine Sighicelli (exhibition / documentary)

Breaking in Two:  The Exhibition will explore the image and place of the mother in our culture through four generations of artists

Breaking in Two:  The Documentary Film focuses on the creation of this group exhibition, as a starting point for an exploration into the mother’s psyche and into our culture’s conditioning.

 

 

 

Kim Abeles Transforms Trash Into Art at Harvard-Westlake School

Obama in 9 Days of Smog and McCain in 18 Days of Smog, 2008

I would like to invite you to check out this exhibition I organized at Harvard-Westlake School where I am now the Visual Arts Department Chair.

Over a period of five weekdays, nationally acclaimed artist Kim Abeles was dumpster diving at Harvard-Westlake’s upper school to collect trash without the general knowledge of students, faculty or staff. She then cleaned, ironed, and assembled the trash in her studio and transformed it into new artwork. Abeles environmental art, as well as works that were collaborations with Harvard-Westlake students, will be featured in the Feldman-Horn Gallery in an exhibition called Nature Studies, from Feb. 9 – March 6. The gallery is open 8 a.m. – 4 p.m. school days and on Saturdays from 11 a.m. – 4 p.m.

Please join us for two public events on Wednesday, Feb. 18. At 9:35 a.m., Abeles will do a gallery talk especially for students and staff, and she conducts another talk at 6 p.m. especially for parents and the public, which will be followed by a reception until 9 p.m.

Abeles, currently a professor of art at the California State University, Northridge, earned national recognition with her smog series in which she literally invented a way to “paint” with particulate matter. The Harvard-Westlake exhibit will feature her complete collection of presidential smog plates. Other large-scale environmentally themed works on display include The Leaf Lounge (All the World’s Leaves), in which hundreds of fabric leaves were created at five times the normal size in which Gallery visitors are encouraged to lounge!

Leaf Lounge (All the World’s Leaves), 2000

Background
Each year, the Harvard-Westlake Visual Arts Department hosts a professional artist’s exhibition in Feldman-Horn Gallery. Inspired by HW’s Green Initiative, Visual Arts Dept. Chair Cheri Gaulke contacted Kim Abeles, who is known for work that addresses environmental issues and often involves communities. Abeles began working with teachers and students to develop projects that involve the skill sets taught within the classes. Students in various departments examined the relationship between humans and the world around them, particularly our consumption-driven culture. Video students recorded Abeles as she dumpster-dove and carried garbage from the trash bins to her car. Math classes evaluated the typical consumption and waste at Harvard-Westlake based on the collected materials, like the amount of water left in discarded water bottles. Photography students investigated the relationship between the sun’s ultraviolet rays and skin tones. Sculpture students made “smog catchers” by using leaves from campus trees. Environmental-science students collected water labels and documented the trash each of them generates over two days. The environmental club and women’s studies students made connections between the environment and Native American spiritual teachings. Journalism students documented the entire process in the school newspaper.

In the spring, a catalog of the exhibition will be published that documents and examines the role of art in education and how art can be a tool for social change around issues such as the environmental crisis. The exhibition and catalog are made possible through the generous support of Harvard-Westlake Trustee Janis Feldman Horn.

For more information, contact Harvard-Westlake Visual Art Department Chair Cheri Gaulke at (818) 487-6596 or cgaulke@hw.com.