Past Stories
Golden Rules!
Unlike two-dimensional art, installation art often allows the viewer to actually enter the piece—walk around it, survey its angles and depth and sometimes physically merge oneself directly into it. While this characterist...
Unchained Medley
Sea turtles always seem to revisit their birth place to hatch their eggs. Penguins travel miles to the same area to have their young. While humans may not always return home to have families, there are a select few who…
U 2 Can Take Pix
I can’t remember the first time I picked up a camera, but I do remember the first Polaroid I emptied and the first time I opened the back of my dad’s old point-and-shoot, exposing the film of our family’s trip...
Keepin’ It Real
Walking down a dark stairway at night never made so much sense until the recent opening of Matthew Montecino’s “Reality Strikes Back” series at Division 9 gallery in Riverside. If getting past the day-old urin...
Off the Hook
LifeHouse Theater in Redlands, known for their original versions of popular themed musicals, has taken a trip to Neverland with a perky reworked performance of Peter Pan, directed and choreographed by Dustin Ceithamer. Written ...
The Boy Huck Club
The Roger Miller musical Big River: The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is worth a visit no matter where or when it is being performed. Having enjoyed a somewhat recent revival in Los Angeles and Broadway, the title has bec...
Leak of Contemporary Artists
Art galleries really exist for one reason alone: to showcase the work of emerging artists. If you want to see a master—say, Van Gogh or Pollack—go to an art museum. College-based art galleries always show off new wo...
United States of Mind
A poetry venue can be about more than just poetry. Just ask LionLike MindState emcee David M. Oliver (aka Judah 1), a nationally known poet who says, “I wanted an open mic but I wanted it different. I wanted a…
Delivering Ransom
In a small alcove of Pitzer College’s Lenzner Gallery, William Ransom’s carved-wood sugar droplets appear to pour out of the wall and ceiling. Shaped from scraps of fruit wood, these elongated forms suggest elastici...
She of the Acerbic Wit
Most people—at least most white people—probably first saw comedian Wanda Sykes in her brilliant turn as Jane Fonda’s personal assistant in the otherwise dreadful film Monster-in-Law. Everyone went to see the t...
The Only Thing We Have to Fear . . . is Amnesia
Our country is freaking out. People are losing their homes, their jobs, and their hopes for the future. Some people think our new president won’t be able to help—either because they’re swallowing the “so...
Macramé Made Hip
Last week, I spent two days at a cabin in Big Bear. It was homey—it was a cabin, after all—and among the forgettable knickknacks of wooden blue jays, “poker room” gambling signs, and rudimentary woven ba...
Collaborative Wardrobes
Washing and drying, mending and sewing, restoring and refurbishing—this is the specialized paraphernalia of modern creative expression?
Call it the blurring of art and barter economy.
Your Donations Do Our W...
One is All and All is One
This weekend, Process & Faith (an organization within the Claremont School of Theology) presents the Whitehead International Film Festival—a collection of humanity-driven stories from around the world that all have at...
Happiness is a Fun Gun
Just when you thought you were sick of guns—sick of people being shot with them, sick of the NRA making love to them and even sick of Liberals decrying their innate evil—along comes a show that does not make you&hel...
Coming into Focus
Although it may not be readily apparent, there’s a difference between being invisible and “in visible”—and not only because the latter reference is the title of Bunny Gunner’s new show. “Invi...
Rob “The Tumbling Bear” Harrison
He’s a master aerobatic pilot, respected attorney, innovative aerospace engineer, seasoned mechanic and when he skis, he skis black diamonds. He’s raced motorcycles and bicycles, and was a top-ranked swimmer. Still,...
Historical Buzzkill
So . . . the election is over. And while there are still a few holdouts to change—those Waco-esque diehards who believe their country has been usurped by the over-educated (yes, this is considered a slam), the liberals an...
!Ask a Mexican!
Dear Mexican: In a column some time ago, you mentioned the Aztec prophecy claiming that “their descendants would reclaim ancestral lands in the southwest U.S., and guess what.” I’d appreciate it if you shed a ...
Fertile Ground
Venus’ tortured flesh, the cherry red of blood and inquisitors robes, and the putrid green of rot litter Masami Teraoka’s formidable painting, The Cloisters/Venus and the Pope Bullfight. In Space 1975-1995 at the Ke...
Multiverse: Idiosyncratic Theorizing
Entertaining the premise of Multiverse, that possible parallel universes exist alongside, yet invisible, to our own, is a little like looking at the ceiling and wondering what it would be like to walk around up there. Like the ...
Inland Empire: The Art, the Architects, and the Big-Ass Building
Everyone wants to be an artist. So it makes sense that Inland Empire, Project Series 36 at the Pomona College Museum of Art, is the work of Predock_Frane Architects. Increasingly, the line between art and architecture is blurre...
JUMPIN’ & JEERIN’ WITH JIM CROW
While there are many motivations for creating art, one of the most profound is certainly “art as educator.” It’s not the most popular form with the masses, but then it doesn’t seek to be a Renoir or Mone...
False Idols Move Over!
Hot goddesses are in short supply. While any waif with a penchant for police cuffs and money shots can snag a momentary paparazzi spotlight, true goddesses, such as comedian Judy Tenuta, seem to shine in perpetual exultation. T...
Gold Colored Glasses
Artist A.S. Ashley has an abundance of childhood memories—not the least of which is eating an entire bottle of St. Joseph’s aspirin and having his father shove his hand down his throat to make the wee A.S. spew it u...
A Look at A Twilight Tattoo
Taking time out of her busy schedule, which will undoubtedly be full of massive amounts of ink, blood and of course needles, Riverside’s own artistic ink slinger Julie Lester took time to provide an insight on the art of ...
Art Empirical
In a conversation at his downtown studio at the Brewery, Roland Reiss, the Director of Painting’s Edge at Idyllwild Arts, insists that there was a time when artists did not learn in public. Perhaps nostalgically, he refer...
Made in China
If you think life as a struggling artist blows, try making it in China. On top of the crappy pay and living on the fringe of society, there was a time when you got your share of harassment from the…
