a word to the robot

I like it.

The stupidest thing I overheard this week;

"...Well No, I havent Actually studied Japanese culture... but I read Manga so I know how it is."

art?

erm... thanks Andy Warhol.

Ha ha (slightly belated post)

The Crocker Art Museum

On Tuesday I also visited the Crocker Art Museum, which was small but surprisingly good for a modest museum. Most of the works were part of the Mrs. and Mr. Crocker's personal collection donated to the city. The building alone was worth the price of admission...
Here's the front of the mansion;

The foyer;

They had a display on nude figure drawing. I did a nerdy jump for joy when I spotted this original sketch by Albrecht Durer;
There was a room of dishes... I Really don't get why every museum seems to have a room or twelve dedicated to plates... so not interesting.

a sketch by Peter Paul Rubens (also really impressive to see in a small collection)
They had a modern art wing with pieces that weren't your standard MOMA fare... I liked this one, titled "Crowd Control"

... and this cool walk through sculpture mirror house

I also loved the salon style hanging of the genre paintings... although the lights weren't hung very well (there was a lot of glare and they weren't pointed in the proper directions for the paintings)

Mostly it's a neat little art museum that was worth the visit.

Dioramas

On the bottom level of the State Capitol building there are hallways filled with dioramas from every California district. This is actually something I remember from the last time I was there at age 4...
L.A's had a video screen... very representative of the place...
Marin Co's diorama looked like a 70's craft project...
San Bernadino's made me laugh because they made the airport and the mall look Really Exciting!
Riverside Co didn't mention Idyllwild (my hometown) but it was implied through the mountain and the itty bitty tram heading in that direction.

Governors on canvas

Today it was 110 degrees farighenheight (that's about 44C to the rest of the world)... now it is nearly 8pm and it is 103F (39C)... but it was my day off and one of the few that I didn't need to be tending to business in Berkeley or Carmel so I went out and saw the sights in Sacramento anyway. I went to see the state Capitol building, I went to the Crocker Art Museum and barely saw old Sacramento before fearing that I would burst into flames and made my way back to the hotel on a heated walk (or is that wok) that seamed to take three times longer than the way there. More Blogs of my walk today are forthcoming but I thought I would start with the Governor's portraits I saw today in the State Capitol.
It is the tradition for California governors to have their portrait painted as they leave office. For the most part this one of governor George Dukmejian is typical of them. They're realistic portraits of men in suits with conservative lawyer-esque backgrounds or sometimes a simple black scumble. Usually tasteful and very finely crafted, but not really interesting art. I couldn't find any info on the painters so I suppose that is the point.

I did like that Grey Davis had his portrait done with a background of California poppies and the coast line. For those who don't know; he was actually ousted from office because of the State's anger over California's budget woes... no matter what his record as a whole reflects, he was a good environmentalist and therefore not so bad in my book.

Now although I don't have a lot of knowledge about the gammut of California governors... I have a favorite based on his portrait. Governor Edmund "Jerry" Brown was the only governor of the state (that's out of 38 men) to have a non-realistic portrait done. with further research I learned that he also refused to live in the fancy governor's mansion or ride in the governor's limo because of his deep convictions for social equality... Yay Jerry Brown!

...turns out this is the same Jerry Brown who served as in the mayor of Oakland up to 2006 and is currently the Attorney General of California... oh! That Jerry Brown! Yea, he's cool.
Don't you have to like a man (a politician nonetheless) who would get a portrait like this?

Pity the poor business man. (in haiku)

relaxing is false
while longing by the water
work is all he sees

He sits by the pool
and cannot see his spread sheet
Put down the Lap Top!

Capitol building that...

The California State building as viewed from behind has this three part public art display(part 2 is shown,the other two may come later) This is called the "zone of Discovery"

all of the round drum-like sculptures have different murals representing the peoples of California (from all eras) and are supposedly arranged to represent the way the stars were alligned over Sacramento on September 9th 1850 (the day California became the 31st state)
Here is a cheery one of the Spaniards conquering the new world and getting the natives to bring them all their gold and harvest before killing or enslaving most of them.... yay.  They need to do a bit of a cleaning because this was one of the few not totally covered in bird crap.
I think this golden ball represents the sun... but I'm not sure.  The Skate-ramp area is painted with a portrait of Edwin Hubbel when you look at it from just the right place... still looking for that (maybe in the reflection of the golden ball... further investigation is required).


And here is the front of the Capitol building...

I plan on taking a tour on the inside later on.  Hopefully they'll let me take pictures.