Barnsdall Lives!!!

After a year of up and down, budget cuts and not, endless meetings and rallies and letters and begging and crying and weeping and nashing of teeth, the good news is, the Barnsdall Art Center lives. Classes are offered this winter session, starting January 22.

If you have not partaken, these classes are one of the L.A.'s great treasures. Classes are held in East Hollywood at the Barnsdall Arts Center, willed to the city by Aline Barnsdall, independent woman, thinker and lifelong supporter of the arts. Her Frank Lloyd Wright Hollyhock house is right next door for inspiration.

Classes are affordable, come in manageable 6-week chunks, and are taught by truly top of the line, working artists.

Today was registration day for kids classes. I arrived exactly when the flyers said to, at 8:45, and I was last in line. The hard core Korean mamas had been there since 5 am, camping out with fuzzy blankets, Ugg boots and folding chairs. I heard in the past the line has gone up and around the block. But with the center under seige for the last year, the public has grown confused. Lots of people don't even know classes are underway again.

So I am putting the word out. Sign up. For the foreseeable future Barnsdall and all its amazing teachers are here to teach us about what they love. Art will make you happy. I promise.

Try it.

Reflections on Art

Long, long ago, when I was a globetrotting twenty-something struggling to find my place and role in the world, we stopped our travels in Indonesia. We had been traveling for four months, my friend and I, and when we hit Jogyakarta, we just stopped. We needed to put down roots, if only for a week. Jogya, as the natives called it, is famous for its fabulous fabrics and batiks. They make most of the sarongs in the world, or at least the beautiful ones. My friend and I signed up for a batik class. We studied with a guy who was pretty famous. He did amazing sculptures and showed his work all over the world. And yet, he invited us into his run-down colonial courtyard to teach us art. Like everyone in the world, he was curious about America. And we were agonizing about what to do with our lives. He said I was talented. I had to make sure I kept doing art. I said my parents would never let me become an artist. He looked confused. He said, everyone needs to do art. I said people in America are artists as a profession--otherwise you didn't really have time. He said Indonesians believed that it was essential for the human soul that every person have some art they practiced, whether it was dance, music, drumming, painting, just something beautiful. When I said people in America were artists full-time, that was your job, he said that must drive them crazy. It must distort the art. Art is simply something everyone must do, to feel alive. You are not supposed to do it ALL the time, that is just as crazy as no art at all. It made me think. It was such a balanced way to look at the world. And he was so talented. So it was extra powerful from him.
Last night I started a new art class at the Barnsdall Art Center. It is a class in collage. For some reason the people in this class are so much more serious than those in the figure drawing class. We looked at artists, people took notes, we practiced new techniques. It is conceptual. And so fun!!!! I felt so overjoyed after the class.
I was reminded so vividly of the Indonesian artist and what he said: Everyone does need art in their lives. It is part of being human.