Cars, stars and parsing art (looking back on 1/25)

Saturday morning was going to be great; my drive across LA to the Santa Monica Beach House offers light traffic and a good parking spot. But my old Mustang had other plans; an unscheduled stop at the auto mechanic for an emergency repair.

 

I arrived late for my public office hours, shared this weekend with Star Tourz, a truck-based solo art exhibit with public questionnaires. Corrine Siegel parked her art vehicle at the Community Beach House and set up her display.

 

My Artist in Residence efforts, were outdoors on Saturday. I was sitting under a canopy with a table and sign, paired with Star Tourz. The weather was beautiful and the crowds were milling on the beach especially outside the café.  This helped my public office hours a bit; some of her visitors would speak to me.  The young woman gyrating with a hula hoop attracted some attention outside the van, as did the moving lift on the art truck.

 

But the Artist in Residence is a quieter form. The individuals who engaged me actively sought me out; the Austrian artists in residence from the MAK Center/Schindler House, and the 2013 Beach House Writer in Residence, coming in from Antelope Valley to meet this year’s creative. 

 

Form impacts function, when art and site are faceted. When we parse,dividing a sentence, artwork, or experience into parts, we identify their relations to each other sometimes with a loss of meaning. According to E. M. Forster, our human impulse toward understanding and sympathy may be aptly summed up in the coda of his 1910 novel Howard’s End: "Only connect.”

-Helen Lessick