Christina Waters

Santa Cruz-based author and coffeehouse habituée, Carolyn Burke, has done it again. Deepening her reputation as an historian of French modernism, Burke has published an accessible and richly-detailed saga of the life, loves and career of French chanteuse Edith Piaf.

Burke will appear at 7:30pm on May 5 at Bookshop Santa Cruz to talk about her literary quest for details, friends and lovers of the iconic “little sparrow” who defined world-weary toughness and courage during the war years in Paris.

No Regrets is a work of scrupulous research—though it must have been a biographer’s dream to interview some of Piaf’s many lovers. Detailed yet absorbing, Burke’s new book will thrill fans of the colorful cabaret star and will appeal equally to those who barely know of the legendary French songstress.

Without descending into gossip, Burke’s research uncovers the lurid longings as well as the almost superhuman stamina of Piaf, signature traits which fueled the singer’s eventual decline into drug and alcohol excess. (more…)

Starting today, new oil paintings by David Molesky will be on view at Carmel’s chic Winfield Gallery — strategically located smack dab in the fashionable center of everybody’s favorite tourist town-by-the-sea.

Dolores between Ocean & 7th - Mon-Sat, 11-5 and Sundays 12-5.

Just go and see. You’ll love these atmospheric paintings by romantic realist Molesky.

Before it closes, come up to the UCSC campus — Friday evening, March 4 — to take in the show of intaglio masterworks by the late Geoff Morten. Remarks and conversation, led by painter Frank Galuszka, will begin at 4pm.

You know where the Sesnon Gallery is - Porter College, UCSC. Upstairs.

I refer to The Marriage of Figaro - live at the San Francisco Opera House - and Das Rheingold, via HD simulcast from the Metropolitan Opera in New York. One experience involved a procession of time, travel, anticipation, the entrance into the great hall, the darkened theater, the murmuring audience and the ineffable sense of being surrounded by a living organism - the opera - about to unfold.

The other involves considerably less cost, much less travel - the opera was screened at a downtown movie theater - incredible crisp visuals thanks to intimate hi-def camerawork, even behind-the-scenes interviews before the opera, and remarkable acoustics.

Mozart’s much-loved froth about love, deception and marriage still seduces the ears with music so beautiful, so replete with joie de vivre that it forgives (more…)

And that means a chance to check out the paintings by Charles Prentiss, Sat & Sun, October 16 & 17 from 10am until 5pm.

To find out details and directions to Prentiss’ oceanview studio, go here.

Make plans to come visit the Eloise Pickard Smith Gallery at UCSC’s Cowell College, where two visually opulent shows will open on October 12.

Astonishing large-scale images by visual technologist Peter Harris, Flowers in the Digital Age will be shown in the Main Gallery, and in the Annex Gallery, a show of new work by painter Betsy Miller.

Closing Reception for both artists is on Sunday, November 21, 2-4pm. The artists will be present. The public is invited. Gallery hours are 11am - 4pm Tues-Sun. Contact gallery director Linda Pope, 831 459-2953, for details.

Sensitive figure paintings from a trio of top local artists, Tom Maderos, Barbara Downs and Claire Thorson, will be on exhibition through October 29 starting First Friday at Michaelangelo Gallery.

The Artist’s Reception - Friday, October 1, 6-8:30pm - will be held at the gallery, 1111-A River Street.

Sharing studio sessions together, the three painters have evolved rich and varying perspectives on the same model subjects, and this show will offer a vivid glimpse into the differences that style, perspective and palette can make on a finished artwork.

Shown here: Amanda Seated, by Tom Maderas, mixed media on linen, 20 x 16 inches, 2009.

Through September 29 you can catch the electrifying work of painter Frank Hyder, at the Walter Wickiser Gallery, 210 Eleventh Ave., Ste. 303 in Manhattan’s Chelsea district. Hyder’s large-scale artworks are front-loaded with richly saturated colors and threaded with visible and invisible spirals, votices and mysterious webs.

The title of the show — Persistent Dream — says it all. Hyder is a longtime artist and teacher, both in his native northeast as well as in South America.

A spicy feast for the eyes.

A recent graduate of UCLA’s renowned MFA program, Ian Pines continues to explore the wickedly inventive color work and lavishly gestural oil paintings he began while still an art major at UCSC. Here’s a sample of Pines’ highly original abstract style, played out in large-scale (e.g. 6 x 8 foot) canvases, and a brief interview with the Los Angeles-based artist.

Q: Ian—your abstract paintings remind me of Philip Guston by way of Willem de Kooning. Are you aware of any particular influences in your style?

A: That’s quite the apt observation. Like de Kooning, there are bombastic color choices forcefully yet thoughtfully laid on top of each other to make homely, sad, and whimsical forms similar to Guston’s.

Francis Bacon’s witty horror, stylized violence, and macabre non-sequiturs have always been my favorite. The immediacy of his work is something I strive for. I compare my work with the COBRA movement’s (based in Copenhagen, Brussels, Amsterdam which included such artists as Karel Appel and Asger Jorn) uses of abstract expressionism in the construction of figurative forms.  I am also influenced by Carroll Dunham’s work, especially of the 1990s, which places teeth and genitalia on abstract forms in order to dramatically and instantaneously anthropomorphize them. Eyes and teeth added to my compositions significantly help unify my paintings and give them a more contemporary twist.

Q: How did your MFA work at UCLA help you develop your creative instincts?

A: UCLA nurtured my creativity by channeling it into a certain rhythm (more…)

Maybe it’s just me, and if so, then you can ignore this observation. But I’m beginning to think that contemporary, especially young audiences have no idea how to respond to live theater. The serious kind, as in Shakespeare.

Worse. It’s entirely possible, at least based upon what I’ve seen lately, that actors and directors themselves are drifting away from creating coherent contexts for the spectacles they mount. Let me speak plainly: given postmodernism’s trashing of history, historical background and/or consideration for any and all authorship, the state of English-language theater seems to be suffering from serious identity issues.

Audiences raised on screen-mediated ‘entertainment’ are little inclined to suspend disbelief (more…)