More Art Attacks

More Art Attacks

chang.jpgUCSC Open Studio Art Sale!

Friday June 6 and Sat. June 7, from 10am to 6pm, up at the Baskin Visual Arts Studios – in print room G-101 at UCSC.

From UCSC printmaker Chia-Wei Chang comes this provocative woodblock image, “Hunger”, one of hundreds of lively and fresh artworks available. For details contact Moon Rinaldo or Bridget Henry.

831/459-8636. Email: moonr@ucsc.edu / bmary@ucsc.edu Web:http://arts.ucsc.edu/printsale

UCSC Alumna Exhibits in SF

UCSC Alumna Exhibits in SF

Brigid McCabe graduated with a degree in Art from UCSC a few years ago, mccabe.jpgwent back east for an MFA, and now lives and works in her Berkeley studio. McCabe’s vibrant paintings of psychological environments, in brilliant hues of orange, yellow and green, will be on exhibit at Togonon Gallery in San Francisco, starting June 5, 2008.

McCabe’s is a fictional world filled with the playful ephemera of everyday life, gleaned from childhood memories and tomorrow’s breakfast. Striking, lively and 100% California in spirit, this work produces adrenaline surges.

Daily Inventory: Paintings by Brigid McCabe. Reception – Thursday, June 5 5:30-8pm. Togonon Gallery – 77 Geary Street, SF (415).398-5572.

Iron Man: A Star is Re-Born

Iron Man: A Star is Re-Born

This Marvel Comix-based big screen adventure is not just for 15-year-old males. Brooding, smart, crisp, astonishing and edgy — that’s Iron Man, and its star Robert Downey Jr. whoironman.jpg pretty much owns the screen from the scorching opening in war-torn Afghanistan to the final delightful shot. I repeat, Iron Man is a thinking woman’s gloss on at least three Greek myths, one or two Freudian complexes and the age-old battle between the forces of light and the forces of darkness.

Value-added for film buffs, Iron Man looks sensational, and serves up an orgy of visual quotes from Metropolis, Aliens, Gattaca, as well as reframing both the tale of Icarus and Plato’s myth of the cave.

As a Blakean flawed genius, Downey works his way into the short list of great American actors. (I know you’re thinking I have slipped a cog here. It’s a marvel Comix industrial design heavy metal flick — but Downey rockets Iron Man way out of the mere fantasy hormone genre.)

Muscular, graceful and charismatically weary, Downey (more…)

Real Strawberries

Real Strawberries

straw.jpgThe Best Strawberries of the Season! Whatever we were eating before, whatever those other little red orbs were that people were trying to call “strawberries,” well – this is the real stuff!

At New Leaf, look for the little container of RMS Farms Organic Strawberries – from Watsonville, $2.99. The ones we’ve been eating all week are firm and sweet, with that top-note of tartness you want from a berry. They are totally intensely strawberry flavored. Just like the ones you had in your childhood. Amazing!

Fond Farewells

Don Yee’s Tea Cup — which was situated on the second floor above what it now Judi Wyant’s shop on Pacific Avenue — was the required after-work pit-stop during the cocktail years before 1989. The charmingly murky bar was attached to a Chinese restaurant, though no one actually remembers dining. Cocktails were the whole point (more…)