Leaving La La Land

The end of my stay in LA is coming soon and this will probably be my last posting.  I have had an absolute ball here and am very sad to be leaving, although very happy to be going home for Christmas.  I shall be packing and partying for the next two days, oh and finishing the last few words of the 'great work' first draft. This blog has had over 1000 page hits (I wonder what that means exactly?) so thanks for reading my twaddle whoever you are!!

Some hidden gems of Getty art

Yesterday I discovered a part of the Getty galleries I hadn't visited before. I particularly liked three of the paintings which I've reproduced below.  They cover three of the main artistic genres -  a still life, a portrait and a landscape. I think I like all three because they are almost hyper-real representations.  Nothing too challenging or complex.  Nothing which requires great effort on my part to 'understand' them. Even the titles are straightforward. Just nice art...

Still life, tea set by Jean-Etienne Liotard, c 1781-3

Suzanne Le Peletier de Saint-Fargeau by Jacques Louis David, 1804

View of Bridge and the Town of Cava, Kingdom of Naples, by Jean Joseph-Xavier Bidault, 

1785-1790

San Diego Phenomenal

On Friday we Getty Scholars went on a trip to San Diego to see the 'Phenomenal: California light, space, surface' exhibitions at three locations at MCASD. This exhibition is part of the Pacific Standard Time: Art in LA 1945-1980 series of exhibitions which are on at the moment in and around LA.  Many of the works in 'Phenomenal' use light and its interactions with materials and the viewer. My two favourite works are the ones below. Larry Bell's installation consists of a series of cleverly treated glass panels - some of which reflect and some of which transmit light. As you walk around it you move from mirror to window and so on.

Larry Bell's installation

Thanks to:  http://franklloydgallery.wordpress.com/tag/larry-bell/ for the above image.  

Bruce Nauman's Green light corridor (copyright 2010 Bruce Nauman/ Artists Rights Society ARS New York, Photo: Pablo Mason.  For more details see:http://www.mcasd.org/artists/bruce-nauman

My other favourite work was this amazing narrow green lit corridor, which you squeeze through.  At the end you come out into a space with huge picture windows overlooking the Pacific.  The interaction of your eyes with the intense green light somehow gives an explosion of pinkness as you first glimpse the ocean.

The view at the end of the Green Light Corridor - the Pacific Ocean framed by a cut-away window.

What, to my mind, is more 'Phenomenal' than all the exhibits put together is the view over the Pacific Ocean across the sandstone shore platforms of La Jolla made famous by Emery and Kuhn in their 1980 paper in Marine Geology on 'Erosion of rock shores at La Jolla, California.' It's always nice to see somewhere that features in scientific papers!

Green ruins talk delivered

This afternoon I gave my talk to the Getty on the work I have been doing here.  Called 'Green ruins?' it reviewed the ways in which we might be able to link biodiversity and heritage conservation better - focusing on ruined sites. Everyone was very polite, asked lots of questions and gave me some useful feedback.  Whilst I find it nerve-wracking giving a talk, it always helps to focus my mind on what exactly I am trying to say.  Being the Getty there were great cakes to eat before, during and after the talk - but sadly, I didn't get any as I was too busy talking!  Here are some of the images I showed:

Engraving from 1804 compared with 21st century view - from Romantic ruins to 'sterile but stable' ruin

Photo from 1909 compared with 21st century view - from 'jungle engulfing a ruin' to 'ruin covered in algal slime'

Some alternative ways in which plants, animals, microbes and soil interact with ruins and their conservation.  I must have at least one triangular diagram in every talk I give!

Alternative points on a spectrum - there's always got to be a spectrum somewhere in my talks

Chaco Canyon ruins visit

I am just back from a four day flying visit to Chaco Canyon in New Mexico.  We left LA in warm sunshine and arrived at Albuquerque in the freezing cold and snow.  Luckily, Noreen, one of my graduate students who wants to work at Chaco Canyon on the ruins there, is a demon driver in cold and rough conditions and coped brilliantly.  The sandstone 'Great Houses' and ceremonial spaces at Chaco were occupied between about 850 and 1250 AD and are the visible remains of a complex and advanced society.  Think about what was going on in England at the same time - ruined medieval abbeys and cathedrals are now also some of the few visible reminders of the medieval period in our landscape.  At Chaco, the extreme climate (hot and dry in the summer, often very cold and occasionally snowy in the winter) is causing rapid deterioration to the ruins and reburying them in soil is perhaps the only way to preserve them - which is what Noreen is hoping to study.

Chaco Canyon in the snow

Santa Anna windiness

Yesterday and today have been Santa Anna wind days, when high speed winds blast through Southern California.  Coming from inland, they are generally warm and dry and VERY strong.  Yesterday they created wild and gusty conditions, resulting in lots of damage to power lines, trees etc.  The biggest damage we experienced at our apartment complex was a number of palm fronds in the pool.  Winds reached 130 km an hour apparently, and 400,000 homes lost power.  Flights were diverted from LAX. on Saturday I am heading off to New Mexico to the Chaco Canyon ruins site with Noreen and Jen (two of my graduate students). Although the site is in a desert, it is going to be COLD and probably with showers of snow as well.  Sadly, all my cold weather gear is in the UK, so I am going to spend 3 days whingeing and shivering I suspect.