José Clement Orozco (1883 – 1949)

“Dia De Los Muertos” by José Clement Orozco

The NYTimes.com published an article this weekend in the art section about a new exhibit at the Whitney Museum of American Art that explores “the profound impact” of Mexican painters on American culture.

“Vida Americana: Mexican Muralists Remake American Art, 1925 – 1945” features artists Diego Rivera, David Alfaro Siqueiros, and one of particular interest to me, José Clement Orozco. According to the Times, Orozco came to New York in 1927, teaching easel painting and print making before moving to California for a 1930 commission at Pomona College in Claremont.

Sometime after then, my great grandmother Madeline Thomas Langworthy acquired an Orozco artwork, titled “Dia De Los Muertos” or “Day of The Dead.” According to a tag on the back, Madeline lent this signed lithograph to the San Francisco Museum of Art in December 1953, as part of a José Clemente Orozco Memorial exhibition.

the impact of these painters and muralists also appear in the footnotes of an earlier post, in which I discovered a WPA-era artwork painted around the time of these Mexican influencers by the other ancestral female artist on my Mom’s side of the family.

Sushi Boat? Sushi Skate!

Serve your next sushi meal (or party plater) on a mini handmade skateboard sushi tray made from laminated maple veneer just like a standard street deck skateboard. (fresh sushi not included)

I got an inquiry last week from a local skate shop that is looking for a few dozen sushi tray skate decks to use in a cross-promotion at a local sushi restaurant. I came up with this design over the weekend.

New Deal, No Deal

This week, my family art history research project led me to the basement of the Monterey Museum of Art, in Monterey, California, where a large mural painted by my great aunt Moira Wallace has been hiding in storage for decades.

Moira’s mural was among a collection of WPA-era art commissioned for Monterey High School in the 1930s and later moved to the cellar where they lived out their life in obscurity until 2003. My mom kept an early sketch of the mural in our family, though I’m not sure anyone ever knew it had a full-sized twin.

This morning, after months of art sleuthing, I reunited the sketch with the finished piece.

Permanently Delete Account

After more than 13 years sharing updates, I just pulled the plug on Facebook. I hit the “Permanently Delete Account” button around 6:19 p.m. The universe did not implode.

Bye, bye Facebook.

This Sunday at 9 pm PST I am going to shut down my personal Facebook account and associated pages. It’s the first step in a conscious effort to reduce my dependency on the social media platforms that are literally eroding our democracy and commitment to truth for commercial gain.

Instead, I’m going back to the open internet, reviving this here WordPress blog http://www.weekndr.com to post photos and personal updates. I hope you will bookmark it and check in every now and then, and leave a comment or send me a message if you want to say hi.