ARTCOVER Magazine

The Art of Everything

Robin Mols

Dean Torrence

William Coupon

Todd White

ON THE COVER

Robin Mols - Self Portrait, oil on canvas, 1997.

Feature begins on page six.

“There’s something deep and visceral about the act of painting. It’s a magic act, all make believe. What we artists know about the emotion built into color and the speed of a line, is something we take personally.

“When I look at another’s work, say in a museum, I see the artist standing there, close up, inside a world of his own, every stroke revealing. An artist cannot hide from his mark. It’s like a fingerprint that the ‘system’ can decode and trace back to you. Are you sure you want to sign that canvas? They’ll know all about you anyway.”

The Art of Everything

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Nadaleena Mirat Brettmann

PUBLISHER AND EDITOR

Bryan S. Smith

EDITOR-AT-LARGE

Donna Marie Smith

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Philip LaTour

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The Art of Everything

I want to personally thank Nadaleena Mirat Brettmann for her visionary commitment in creating ARTCOVER Magazine. My aspirations are to build upon the unique foundation that she has established with this endeavor by exploring every 'artistic' opportunity that encompasses our world.

Art follows in the wake of commerce. The intent of all art is to communicate your feelings and emotions to another. Art has its rise in the need of human companionship.

You feel certain thoughts and you strive to express them. You may express them through music, through chiseled shapes, through painted canvas or through written words. In the end, all art is one.

The delight of creative work lies in selfdiscovery. Art is born of individuality.

ARTCOVER Magazine is published as an opportunity to spend some time together.

I believe that it's time to reveal more creative ideas, and recognize and laud those who conceive them.

Read on.

Thank you.

Bryan S. Smith

Bryan S. Smith

Robin Mols

Robin Mols is the son of a composer and musician. He leads an interesting life. From his stagehand experience at Woodstock (the original version) to independent study experiences throughout Western

Europe in 1969, he has established a unique and prolific career in the arts, including design, architecture, film, and a continued involvement in music and entertainment.

Woman to Woman, painted plaster casts on wooden base, 2004.

“The charcoal drawing of Christine was created during a series of nude studies I was making for the ‘Girls of Aspen’ exhibition back in 1973 at the Zune Gallery, Aspen, Colorado. She agreed to model for me, along with a dozen or so other ladies, some who immediately disrobed, others simply got real close to naked, but were sexy nonetheless. I let them decide. Chris was also my assistant for the famous Beaux Arts Ball bash at the Hotel Jerome on Main Street, ’73, Halloween Night. It was a Woodstockinspired party, meaning bigger is better. Christine’s career took off in NYC as a promoter for Paramount Pictures, and with notable companies like Universal and Disney before moving to Los Angeles where her connections in the industry helped her win a ‘Woman of the Year’ award for her contributions. She remains a dear friend.”

As his principles and philosophies evolved alongside a changing world, the visual patterns of his canvases did as well. His works, which you will have fun exploring in this issue, represent his thoughts: “The things I cannot escape are the things that emerge in these art pieces. Even vague images recede into the mysterious realm of perception.”

Robin believes man’s life is a brief interlude in an eternal array

of intersecting experiences. He says, “We have been given all the powers and energy necessary to proceed with hidden instincts to perform according to our evolved personalities. My role is the artist.”

He is well traveled with numerous years spent creating in Aspen, Colo., Santa Fe, N.M., and La Parva, Chile, where he and his artistic wife Cecelia own a home in the Andes Mountains.

“After the millennial turn, I began creating pieces in a non-conceptual manner. That is, I didn’t begin with a pre-conceived notion of what it would be or look like. The ’art’ emerged spontaneously. I was simply following the voice inherent in stone, wood, or canvas. I would perceive what it wanted to be. Technique had already evolved over the previous three decades, so I had no problem with execution except to allow the object to materialize. If a stone I found on the beach looked like a boat, I made it … a boat. Often, the process would take years. I allowed the piece to be born and become itself. This kept me engaged. The process was no longer simply manufacturing ‘art’ for public consumption.”

Between the Light and the Darkness, Yule Creek Marble, Colorado, 2014-2019.

“The ’art’ emerged spontaneously. I was simply following the voice inherent in stone, wood, or canvas. I would perceive what it wanted to be.”

“An example might be the Flame Series. I have been harvesting firewood for over 45 years, and keep a fire going for six to seven months a year. Fire is essential. It has a voice. One year, an ancient maple fell during a storm. When I was splitting the wood, the flakes looked just like a flame, curly maple enhanced. I made the ‘flame’ sculptures out of the material. The message was clear: fire is everywhere and in everything, matter, and spirit, and we cannot exist without it. It is an indelible part of life. Here, art becomes a symbol, a language.”

Fire #5, curly maple, concrete, oil paint, 2016.

‘In a Blink Blink Blink’

“Of course, not all the artwork emerged similarly. Portraits are portraits … but they are still unique because of the subject and the artist’s response to what he sees. In the drawing, ‘In a Blink Blink Blink’, the figures appear from a world all their own. It is a mystery to me where they come from. The beauty of art is that it continues to have a voice long after the artist is out of the picture. Then, 500 years from now, a person sees the image and deciphers what life was like five centuries before.”

In a Blink Blink Blink, pencil on paper, 2019.

“The beauty of art is that it continues to have a voice long after the artist is out of the picture.”

“The marble sculptures will last for a thousand years. Will mankind survive to grasp the message sent from 2023?

Art is uniquely human, and it draws us inward to reflect, to respond, and to enjoy what is born of imagination.”

The Bride, Crystal River marble, 2004.

“The oil painting, ‘Wall Metaphysical’, is about the afterlife. Every image on the ‘wall’ depicts what we literally see while we are alive, including dreams and imaginary things. The tiny people on the top of the wall have passed over. They entered through the door of death and are on the other side. They can see us, in spirit, and live in the ‘cloud’. We will all one day pass through the portal and enter the ‘other side’. Spirit does not die!”

Wall Metaphysical, oil on canvas, 2001.

Robin Mols (United States), Contemporary Painter Artist | Artmajeur

“Every image on the ‘wall’ depicts what we literally see while we are alive …”

Dean Torrence

By Bryan S. Smith

It was considered the last age of innocence, the mid-1950s. They were typical high school students wanting to get through school. Sports were the most important activity at that time. Music came second. Dean Torrence and Jan Berry were on the football team at University High School in West Los Angeles, Calif. They and a number of their teammates had a strange attraction to the locker-room showers where, after practice, they would all get together and harmonize the hit doo-wop songs of the day. “The echo sound we were able to produce in the locker room, due to the neat old tile, was just absolutely great,” says Torrence. “It made just about anybody sound good.”

As the football season came to an end, and the next season’s sport occupied the shower room, they were challenged to take their act elsewhere. Jan Berry’s parents set the guys up in their four-car garage. Some of the guys didn’t feel it was time well spent to now have to drive somewhere to sing, so, “It broke down to Jan and me wasting our time,” Torrence shares. “People would float in and out based on their girlfriend status at the time. Girls didn’t want to give up their guy to a bunch of other guys. Plus, they knew that Jan was extremely popular with girls, so they didn’t like that either. The first thing a girl would do was pull a guy out of the group because they knew that was the quickest way to lose him. We enjoyed singing with other vocalists as a vocal band, but with two guys – where we wanted to be Deon and the Belmonts – we were now the Everly Brothers.”

Jan and Dean went on to become an overnight sensation when they performed “Baby Talk” on Dick Clark’s American Bandstand in the early summer of 1959. “Baby Talk” exploded on the national charts, reaching number 10 almost overnight.

In high school, Torrence also had a second interest in art and art culture, which in those days was pin-striping. Teenage boys expressed themselves at that time by how they put together their car or hot rod. He bought a couple of brushes and visited a few pros to see how they did it. He says, “I wasn’t that good, but my friends that couldn’t afford the best pin-stripers thought my work was pretty good. I did hand lettering on cars and got pretty good at that.”

Once Jan and Dean started making music, Torrence dabbled in being somewhat involved in their packaging. He felt the music and the visuals should complement each other, especially when they started producing music about the California hot rod culture and the surf culture. In those days, most of the record companies had an art department, and they dictated what was going to be done to the record packaging. He says, “I realized that we needed to incorporate something of what we were singing about into the packaging and the graphics. That seemed at the time so abstract to these art departments. They just wanted to put our picture on

the package with some type and move on. So, it was always a big battle. They would let me do something on the back or on the liner where I could write the liner notes and maybe pick out a few pictures. That wasn’t what I really wanted to do.”

Their music defined an era that is still relevant today. It was really the only thing they knew enough about to write about [hot rods and surfing] at that time. Plus, it was something they enjoyed. It defined the late 1950s into the mid-1960s.

Jan and Dean’s marketing appeal was the casual sweater-and-loafer look. “It was what we were wearing,” says Torrence. “It was the first time the ‘look’ had been done. Our managers were real slick guys. They liked the suits and the thin ties, their little tie tacks and rings. In the very beginning, that kind of worked for us, but then, left to our own devices, we got tired of that and started just showing up wearing what we happened to be wearing at the time. In fact, we showed up at a television show and Jan was in a sweater because he had just gone to some school function, and I had just gotten out of a girlfriend’s pool and showed up in a bathing suit and a T-shirt. I remember the host of the show looking at us and saying, ‘It’s good to see that success did not go to your wardrobe.’ That was one of the coolest compliments we had ever received. The kids coming to our concerts wanted to be like us. They wanted to wear what we were wearing. What were they going to do, go out and buy a $300 suit? I don’t think so. We did understand what we were doing – it wasn’t just by accident. It would help to define us, that we were something different.”

When surf music first hit, Jan and Dean took their long boards to New York to do a Dick Clark show. “We wanted to see if we could get them on an airplane, get them in a taxi, and take them on the subway,” explains Torrence “It worked great. We got all sorts of publicity for pulling that off.”

Jan and Dean were #6 in selling singles of 1964, just behind Elvis, The Beach Boys, The Four Seasons, The Dave Clark Five, and The Beatles.

Continually pursuing their education, Berry entered med school at UCLA, and Torrence earned a BFA in Advertising Design from USC. On April 12, 1966, well into their career of making hit records, William Jan Berry, at the age of 25, crashed his Stingray into a parked truck on a side street in Beverly Hills. He was rushed to UCLA Hospital where he underwent multiple brain surgeries, and was in a coma for weeks.

“I could tell when Jan crashed that it was over,” says Torrence “It wasn’t the way any of us intended it to be over. I thought it was going to be a gradual thing, and we would eventually see the handwriting on the wall. This was pretty sudden. It was literally over in one day. I packed up my stuff from college, and headed out to find a job. Since my background was in design, I thought packaging would be a really neat thing. I understood the connection between the audio, visual, career building, etc. Art departments in record companies weren’t focused this way. I saw a niche market to sidestep art departments, and encouraged my musical friends who were still making records to hire me independently to design their album covers. In November 1967, I opened my graphic design studio Kittyhawk Graphics.”

Jan Berry beat the odds and emerged from his coma, pushing himself through many years of recovery with the support and help of family and friends. Over the next seven years, he learned to sing again, and it was another five years before he and Dean attempted an official Jan and Dean comeback. Torrence continued, “I started missing Jan when he had his accident. He was never quite the same after that. After the accident, he was almost a totally different person. The new guy I cared for, but we didn’t have anything particularly in common. It was fun to give him a vehicle to get out and perform live because he really loved it. As far as being a part of the team, he wasn’t because he didn’t really understand anything that we were doing or why we did it. He was kind of along for the ride. But it was a great ride and he enjoyed it, but being a part of the camaraderie, he had nothing to do with that, which was a shame, but it was what it was.”

“He went from having an IQ of about 175 to 68. It was very limited the kinds of things he enjoyed. For the most part, he liked to get on stage and perform his songs. Other than that, he liked to be in his hotel room and watch TV, or sleep and have room service.

“I believe that anyone who suffered that amount of brain damage would have been sitting in some rehab situation until they passed away. He got an extra 20 years out of it. We played 1,500 to 2,000 concerts in those 20 years, more than we ever did in the 1960s. He traveled with us to Europe. We played in the People’s Republic of China for a month, so he got to do some pretty neat stuff. Hopefully, he got some enjoyment out of it. It is a shame that his accident happened, but it could have also been a lot worse.” Jan Berry died March 26, 2004. He was 62.

Torrence’s graphics business took hold in the late 1960s into the 1970s when LPs were still popular. Their 12x12-inch size was a big surface for Torrence to work with. Then the gatefolds came on the scene – the album covers that opened up. Now, Torrence had a 12x24-inch surface to deal with. He says, “All of a sudden, packaging became extremely important, and I was right in the middle of it. By that time, I was one of the experts in the field, and doing quite well. I was getting published a lot. I won lots of awards, got nominated for three Grammys and won one. I never got nominated for a Grammy for music, which I thought was ironic, to say the least. Through the 1970s, repackaging oldies, or ‘catalogs’ as they called it, became very fashionable, so record companies started pulling music out of their catalogs or vaults and repackaging them. There I was, repackaging Jan and Dean music, and designing them the way I wanted to.”

Today, Torrence manipulates illustrations from a bygone era when most advertising was illustrated. He says, “I collected a bunch of those images over the years and scanned them into my computer. This entire idea started out as a greeting card line I was going to produce. They were never meant to be in a gallery.

“A friend of mine has a large crate label collection that I selected a

number of images from. When I started thinking about doing some Surf City-related stuff to help us create a branding of Surf City, I thought Orange County and having an orange being a part of our legacy and thematic ties was important. None of the crate labels had Surf City on them, and most didn’t have any reference to the ocean, so I tweaked them a lot, changing type and backgrounds, resizing and replacing specific elements.”

Torrence talked the city of Huntington Beach into trademarking the name “Surf City” as an official nickname, like the “Big Apple.” The official Web site of Huntington Beach is www.surfcityusa.com. It is tied to the spirit of the Jan and Dean song. If you visit Huntington Beach, you’ll see the Surf City influence all over the city.

Performing is still satisfying to Torrence. The Bel Air Bandits formed in the late 80s. The newest guy replaced Jan Berry, and is the son of a Beach Boy.

Currently, Torrence is performing with the Surf City Allstars Band. He says, “The bottom line is that we have all known each other for a very long time, and it is kind of like the guys getting together and instead of going camping or fishing, we go out and play music.”

To book the Surf City Allstars or any of the LEGENDS OF SURF MUSIC, please contact: David Logeman Productions, Inc. 818-268-5686 or email: surfcityallstars@sbcglobal.net

Surf City Allstars are the only “tribute” band on the planet where each and every member toured in the Beach Boys & Jan & Dean.

WILLIAM COUPON

creating

By Bryan S. Smith

William Coupon

I asked photographer William Coupon to comment on his image of Miles Davis. Here’s what he said:

“I love this shot. I sometimes can’t believe I took it. Especially since it turned out to be one of my most definitive and popular images. A musical genius caught off guard with a sleeping baby. Like she was saved from a fire. It was done of Miles Davis and my daughter, Hayley, when she was three weeks old. I had just finished shooting

Miles for the Japanese fashion designer Issey Miyake. It was to appear in Japanese magazines as an ad with an accompanying interview. All day, he was his gravelly-sounding self, being obnoxious and self-absorbed, trying to make it with all the young Japanese models on the set, a rather large presence in a smallish SoHo loft space. So, when I pulled Hayley out for the last shot of the day, he acquiesced, but probably unaware of what he was getting into. So, when he got home, he called me and said, “I don’t want

to see any photos of me and that white baby!” Geez. Didn’t he know that Hayley was my own daughter? I had done a small series of her with celebrities, like George Harrison, Herb Alpert, and Daryll Strawberry holding her in their arms. Years later, my daughter used to ask me, ‘Dad, did Miles Davis like children?’ I still don’t know what to say to that. All I know is, I love the elements in the photograph from the composition and tonal intensity to the expressions, to the contrasts, and juxtapositions.”

Photographer William Coupon has always prided himself on the diversity of the images he captures through a camera lens. “I have been criticized for having a certain approach to photography with respect to my backdrops,” he says. “Some people limit me, saying, ‘He does that one thing.’ The irony is that it always seems new to me when I do the backdrops. So, that’s really all that matters.” Coupon’s earliest backdrop was a piece of Belgium linen that became for him a moving canvas of possibility.

Jerry Garcia

Alicia Keyes

“I have taken a lot of photos that have complemented those, including my environmental pictures reportage-oriented but the bottom line is the diversity I have been able to work with, between tribal groups and presidents and world leaders a certain number of celebrities and sports figures. It’s always something new. It’s always fresh to me,” he says.

The key word in describing Coupon’s art is “relevance”. His backdrop series, which he began in 1979, today maintains freshness. “That’s the trick,” he says, “It’s like an old rock band. You must make the original songs seem fresh. I have been doing this long enough that I must do versions and variations within a theme.”

Lately, Coupon has been focusing his camera on the human figure. “I have been doing a bunch of nudes for the first time,” he says. “I started working with a 665 Polaroid film, which is a positive-negative film. It is a rectangular format and not a square. I shot a series of boxers, including Floyd Mayweather, Jr. I shot the last formal sitting of architect Philip Johnson. I get very good quality out of the film. It’s a variation of my earlier square work, or painterly portraits. These are more photodriven than painterly. Now, 28 years later, I’m still creating a new, fresh approach. Therein lies relevance, stylistically and thematically. I guess I’m still in business.”

He has been criticized for his nude series for shooting all beautiful women. Coupon’s nudes are more pulled back, more sculptural more of an overall beauty thing. It’s a completely different context. His still-life work is similar in context not focusing on the eyes or a facial expression.

“When you’re doing the nude, it is definitely more of this gestalt beauty,” he explains. “I’m not shooting a diverse spectrum of women. They have beauty all over them.

“The thing about portraits is that it is more about the face and the eyes. I have to be very careful because people want to look good in a portrait, and my pictures the way I like them is that they are not harsh, but they do not transmute an overly cosmetic value, either. I rarely get complaints.”

Brooke Shields

Muhammed Ali

“If someone perceives themself in a way that is not flattering to them, you can run into some problems when shooting portraits. I go for a real portrait. I don’t go overboard to try and please them. Someone has to accept themself to be in my shots. It’s not like I am doing anything glossy. If someone isn’t the most handsome guy or lovely woman, sometimes they will be a bit critical toward me because they are not getting something that is cosmetic.”

The artist feels his work used to be incredibly prolific, but now he picks and chooses his subjects more carefully. He says, “I pick and choose what I do differently. It’s not that I am in a rush to always create. Now, I can plan trips better. If I arrive at a shoot early enough, I can shoot for myself with my digital camera a point-and-shoot type of thing. I am getting a lot of interesting stuff doing that, which I would not have done in the past.”

All of Coupon’s images have an overt seriousness to them. A client may have a certain look or theme they desire that may be contrary to what he wants to see. The artist says, “A lot of times commercial clients want things that are substantially ‘up.’ I just lost a big job to a California company. Their comment was, ‘Your work is too East Coast; we want more West Coast.’ They wanted my stuff to be lighter. So, that’s how you lose $60,000. I can’t argue the comment. I can obviously do more smiley pictures, but that’s not the pervasive attitude I show in the work from my portfolio.

“When I shoot, I shoot very quickly. It’s like a deer-inthe-headlights business. What I really go for is the subject when they are between shots. I’m always going for that. When you shoot quickly, then you get that. A lot of my best pictures are between moments. When someone isn’t expecting to be photographed, when they are readjusting themselves or when they are turning toward a certain direction but not having turned all the way.

“The other element of shooting portraits is that people generally try to ingratiate themselves with you. They feel it will make a better picture in hopes that they will get something good. But, really, there is no correlation. Oftentimes, the reverse is true. Like Miles Davis and George Harrison they were pretty ornery and reluctant, a ‘Let’s get this over’ type of thing, and those are two of my best pictures I have ever taken of those subjects. The shot I did of George is really wonderful, and he hated it. I bought him a jacket, and told him to put his hands together in a sort of praying look. It is one of the most wonderful shots of him.”

Mick Jagger

George Harrison

Neil Young

President Ronald Reagan

Respect of the simplest form of art is what Coupon believes in. Pencil and paper are the beginning of an idea to create something that has never been seen before. He sometimes feels like the camera is a cop-out. “I am not a good enough painter or illustrator, so if cameras didn’t exist, I don’t know what I’d do. I feel fortunate enough that hopefully, I won’t have to make that decision.

“A good photograph is one that makes you see something for the first time. You see something uniquely associated with the image. If you make someone stop and think, that is good. A great one is one that does that, plus makes you move. The amount of images that go out every day, they all get watered down in the media. It just seems like photography is getting a bit muddled now.”

Donald Trump

Prince Philip

Hugh Hefner

Dizzy Gillespie

“The portraiture work is usually pretty quick. You’re given your slot of 15 minutes in a total of a half hour with the president, so I am usually done shooting in 20, and then we chat for 10, all small talk and pleasantry because, first of all, they are not quite comfortable relinquishing their power. So, when I come in and tell them to move in a certain direction, they don’t like losing their sense of control. That’s why with politicians the experience is like a flow it is not like a static moment. When I’m shooting, I’m creating this course of stills, so there is a certain manner that I am in control because I am hitting the button. It’s more obvious to me when I am photographing people of power.”

The multitude of Coupon’s experiences and the dimension of his photographic collection have inspired him to collaborate on the creation of a book entitled “Humanism.” It is a mix of his ethnographic portraits alongside his personalities, mixed as well with some of his environments.

There is a measurable divide between Coupon’s portraiture and ethnographic work which has left the largest impression on him as a photographer. He says, “When I look back at the work, I realize these indigenous people are very poor, but they always have this being of upright optimism. As bad as things are or can get for them, there is something in their eyes that defines hope. I kind of elevate that in them and look for that in them. Whereas, the presidents and the personalities that you know from the media the more familiar faces I make them look more vulnerable and more pedestrian. The point of the book is to show the juxtaposition between these poor people and these rather privileged people that are kind of on the same plane at that point. I’m bringing this one group up, and I’m bringing this other group down, creating equality between them.”

President Jimmy Carter

President Richard Nixon

When finally he puts his camera down to rest, Coupon hopes his photo story shows something of transcendence that they are not just looked at as a photography thing, but of something beyond that. He says, “I want my photos to move people by showing them other ways people live. I have been fortunate enough to travel and see a few different worlds, and come right back to America to realize that even here it is probably one of the most unique, unusual, and exotic places on Earth.”

The business of photography has changed dramatically over the years. Coupon never followed the money route. He continues to follow his instincts. He says, “The richness and rewards come from getting the images and the feeling you get when you have contact with people, not from any other reward. The main idea is the opportunity to meet people. The contact with people is more important than money. It has been a good vehicle for me to make a living.”

Through the lens of his camera, Coupon is more than making a living. He is living.

“When I’m shooting, I’m creating this course of stills, so there is a certain manner that I am in control because I am hitting the button. It’s more obvious to me when I am photographing people of power.”

Miles Davis

Harry Connick, Jr.

By Pietro Buttitta Owner and Winemaker for Prima Materia Vineyard and Winery

One of the many great things about the Bay Area is its location in the middle of wine country. In only two hours, one can visit most of the key wine regions in Northern and Central California, the Sierra Nevadas, and make it halfway to Paso Robles. But with all of this wine accessibility, also comes a lot of confusion about the different styles and traits that different regions produce. How do we know where to find something light and delicate or big and full-bodied? And how will it go with dinner?

One of the biggest clues is where the grapes come from. In general, the warmer the vineyard area, the more fruity and soft the wine will be. This is a general rule for most red and white wines because like most fruit, a certain degree of warmth is needed to ripen grapes fully and develop deeper flavor. Cooler regions, such as those near the coast, often produce grapes with less intense color and overt fruit, but often greater complexity and crispness, think Pinot Noir, but may be splendid with food. Warmer climates will produce wine with less acidity, more dark fruit characteristics, and often darker color as well, like a big Paso Robles Cabernet with high alcohol content.

Warmer regions will include parts of Lodi, Eastern Paso Robles, northern areas of Sonoma County, some of Mendocino and Lake Counties, Amador County and quite a few others. Cooler regions will include much of Sonoma County again – Sonoma is very diverse,

Southern Napa Valley – Carneros specifically, much of Mendocino County, Monterey-Santa Cruz and Western Paso Robles near the coast.

One other thing to notice is the specificity on the label of where the grapes come from. Every wine label will state somewhere on it where the grapes came from, and generally the more specific the information, the higher the wine quality should be. The level of detail often ranges from state “California” to county “Sonoma” to AVA (American Viticultural Appellation) such as “Russian River Valley” to specific vineyard “Litton Estate Vineyard.” For example, if your wine simply says “California” on the label, it will often be from many Central Valley vineyards of modest distinction, if any. A bottle stating “Kronos Vineyard” in the Rutherford AVA of Napa Valley is much more distinct, expensive, and, one should hope, of significantly better quality.

Part of wine appreciation is in visiting the vineyards, and exploring the unique geography and climate of different regions. So, when faced with wine choices, I encourage you to think of the region where a bottle is from. Is it from a hot, sunny area? If so, the wine should be more juicy, rich and full-bodied. Was the Russian River Valley in Sonoma cool and foggy, even in summer? Then, you can safely imagine those wines in a less ripe style, lighter in color, and perhaps with more spice and acidity. The uniqueness of the region should always Echo in a good wine. Salud!

The Art of Everything | Travel

By Donna Marie Smith

Are you ready to travel? The Big Apple awaits you, and the holiday season is my favorite time of year and the best time to visit New York City (NYC).

You may think this is a crazy suggestion, but if you are planning a holiday trip, it is best to book early like right now, for 2023 and New Year’s 2024.

I’ll be your friendly guide who will give you many suggestions of things to see and do. I’ll preface my suggestions by telling you that, yes, The Big Apple is expensive, but no more so than other large cities, but you only have to stay two nights/three days to enjoy the best of the holiday time in NYC; and, yes, crime is a problem, but my suggestions will try to keep you in areas that are considered safe for tourists; and, yes, many restaurants and businesses closed during the pandemic, but you still have many options.

Thanksgiving is the unofficial kickoff to the holiday season, if you feel a desire to travel to NYC then, plan to arrive so that you can experience the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade in person. You must see it in person at least once in your lifetime. It’s thrilling! (Best viewing spots: arrive by 7 a.m. anywhere along 6th Ave. between W. 38th St. and W. 59th St.) The weather in November can get cold and rainy, so come prepared, and remember – you can always watch the parade on TV in your hotel room, although it won’t be quite as exciting.

Dinner on Thanksgiving is usually a prix fixe meal (multi-course, fixed price) and it will be expensive. You have many choices – from traditional turkey to seafood to Italian, and other ethnic foods. I suggest that you check out Open Table (popular reservation website) and scroll through the list of restaurants open on Thanksgiving to make your choice and your reservation.

The day after Thanksgiving is called "Black Friday," NYC's biggest shopping day of the year. You'll also enjoy viewing some of my favorite holiday window displays at Macy's (6th Ave. @ 34th St.),

Saks Fifth Avenue (5th Ave. @ 50th St.), Cartier (5th Ave. @ 52nd St.), Tiffany's (5th Ave. @ 57th St.) and Bergdorf Goodman (5th Ave. @ 58th St.).

While you're on 5th Avenue, head for Rockefeller Center (50th St.) where you can rent ice skates and twirl around the rink in front of the famous statue of Prometheus, or just watch the skaters. Then, right across the street from Rockefeller Center, you may want to visit St. Patrick's Cathedral, the largest neo-Gothic Roman Catholic Cathedral in the U.S. It's impressive and a must-see for those who love architecture, those who worship, and those who simply enjoy a quiet place of beauty.

As an alternative vacation, you may want to time your visit to NYC to be here for the Rockefeller Center Tree Lighting. It's an annual tradition which features a magnificent tree, decorated with 50,000 lights and topped with an impressive Swarovski crystal star. This event is free, and it gets very crowded, so I suggest that you arrive no later than three p.m. to get a good spot. Try and enter at 5th Ave. between 49th and 50th Streets.

How about adding a Broadway show to your itinerary? Or, what about the Christmas Spectacular at Radio City Music Hall with the famous Rockettes? The dancers' choreographed high kicks are a spectacular sight indeed.

(For tickets for the Rockettes rockettes.com/Christmas.) (For Broadway shows and concerts during the holidays Broadway shows for holidays 2023 and scroll through the long list.)

I encourage you to plan for your visit soon, and start making reservations for your hotel, a restaurant or two, and possibly a Broadway show. Get an early start on your trip preparations, and you won't be scrambling later. One thing you won't need in NYC is a car rental because we have great transportation options here.

The Big Apple Awaits You! We hope to see you soon!

Todd White

On Stage, Telling Stories …

By Bryan S. Smith

Just about everyone knows SpongeBob SquarePants. And just about everyone now knows artist Todd White, a former animator on the Nickelodeon Studios team who came up with SpongeBob’s “look.” White recalled being handed a stack of marine biology books and given an explanation of what the show was about, and the challenge to come up with that look. He says, “They [the studio] had some basic ideas. It was going to be a cartoon, so I knew it wasn’t going to be too realistic.

“Working in a defined framework is also constraining and confining, and I wanted to be more creative. But when people in suits are telling you, ‘No, we want it done this way,’ you must do what they’re telling you because they are paying your bill.”

Today, having put the world of animation behind him, White gets to do what he has been doing his entire life – telling stories through his paintings. He admits he’s a lucky guy. “I am doing the same thing I have been doing my entire life,” he says. “Obviously, it is more elaborate, it’s more in-depth, and it’s more emotional. This is all I ever wanted to do. I sit down, I think of ideas; I carry a sketch book wherever I go. I’m watching people at airports, at bars, and restaurants. Sometimes ideas just come to me, and I sketch the basics of that idea. I usually have an idea of what the name of the painting will be, who the people are; there is usually a story. My whole thing is art should tell a story. I don’t always want you to know what my story is; I want you to get a story out of it when you look at it. I guess in a way animation tells a story, but that’s somebody else’s story. These are my stories.”

One of the biggest thrills White receives from people at exhibitions is when somebody tells him what they see in a piece. They share with him what a character in the painting is doing, and describe their friends and what happens in the scene. White reveals, “My work evolves from a combination of images and thoughts that combine to form a concept. It is rarely attributed to one person or thing. People ask me all the time if there is a celebrity in a certain piece – ‘Is that so-and-so’, or something like that. The only time I have done that is when I was asked to do it. I painted Lucinda Williams just because I’m a big fan. But typically, it’s people that I have created.”

And that is what White’s paintings are all about – they’re all about people. It isn’t just art – it’s life. We can get caught up with material possessions, fine clothing, and cars, and all that stuff, but it’s really all about people: their looks, their faces, their lips, their eyes, especially their hands. He shares, “When I am with people, I may glance at their

shoes or cuff links or whatever kind of trappings they’re in, but I’m more concerned with what they are saying to me than what they are all about. I like to try and read people. I love to feel what their energy is, and read what they are all about. I study people. That is what my pieces are all about – studying people in different situations.”

By bringing people front-and-center in his paintings, White virtually eliminates the need for backgrounds. He says, “When that’s your focus, does it really matter that the walls are blue, or that there is a bar in the background or a car or a couple of trees?” It’s not that he can’t paint backgrounds. In some of his new work, he takes the time to include them. Look at “Hard Candy” or “Sugar in Red,” which are included on his website, and you’ll see furniture, floors, and all kinds of details. There are other pieces as well, where he has painted people in living room settings or bar settings, and included elements of a background.

By bringing people front and center in his paintings, White virtually eliminates the need for backgrounds.

If I didn’t Laugh, I’d Cry

White is trying to control the viewers’ attention – trying to get the viewer to focus on the hands, the eyes, and the mouth; to focus on the body language, the contortion of the body, the body shapes, and what is being expressed through that. “That is where I want your eyes to go,” he says, “and if I put in a lot of other ‘items’, if you will, it can take away attention from that. But I will say this: there is a time and a place for backgrounds. If you go back and look at some of the figurative expressionists from the 1920s and 1930s, they painted in other elements. But when they painted in a single chair, per se, it was usually for a reason; it was usually to create

a feeling of limited environment. In one case, it may have been to create a sense of confinement, where they painted somebody into a corner, for example. There is usually a purpose behind including those elements, or to show you that the subject is not wealthy. Whatever it is, there was a reason for including a very limited amount of background. If you extend that to its logical conclusion, it becomes realism, doesn’t it? While I believe realism has its place, realism doesn’t convey the same sort of emotions necessarily that you get out of figurative expressionism. It’s a personal preference. For me, that’s my preference.”

Straight Shooters

White hopes his paintings are timeless, in the sense that he has captured a moment in time. “But I hope that it is a timeless moment in time,” he affirms, “one that could be happening anywhere, now or in the future.

“There has been a lot of focus from collectors on my fun pieces: the drinking pieces, and the nightlife out-and-about Rat-Pack-feel pieces. I think people relate to them a lot because they are about going out and having a good time with your friends, your girlfriends, or your wife – and let’s face it – that happens in every single generation. That will be happening a hundred years from now. I say I paint good times and sell happiness because that is the focus. To be honest, I don’t want to be known for just that. I would like people to also look at some of my darker pieces like ‘Hard Candy,’ that I referred to earlier. There is a darker side there. I understand people like happiness, and I don’t mind that label. It’s true that if my painting evokes an

emotion from you – and I do hear this from people a lot – that it always puts a smile on the face of the owner or the collector. What more can I ask for? I’m happy about that.”

Playing more with shapes and designs, White has recently been experimenting with bringing in an abstract element to pieces, but he is drawn to people, so, “I don’t think that will change,” he says. “But in terms of what I’m painting and the spectrum of what I’m painting, I should be so lucky to be compared to artists like Picasso. If you look at what he was doing, over the course of his lifetime, he evolved and changed. He started by painting realistic paintings, then went into abstract and his Blue Period and beyond.” White continues, “But, once he got away from the realism, he kind of stayed within the realm of abstract for the rest of his life, although he went through different phases.”

“I say I paint good times and sell happiness because that is the focus.”

Same Hell Different Devil

White feels he will keep changing and evolving. If you look at his paintings, you’ll see that it has happened already. If you look at some of the paintings he did when he initially became recognized in Southern California, he was very enamored of the entire human form, like the length of a person’s body and expressing their “leggy-ness.” He says, “I thought there was something uniquely original about just how lengthy we are. So, I was doing a lot of arms and legs that were very long. I have just evolved away from that; I don’t do that anymore. If you look at what I am doing now, the next exhibition I do, I would like people to see much more of the darker side. There is much more to life than just drinking and dancing and having fun.”

Two feelings come to mind when people attempt to describe White’s work, like the comment Larry King made comparing him to a modern Andy Warhol. “One is that I want to be known for myself,” he proclaims. “I am not doing soup cans and pop art. I don’t think of myself as a pop artist. On the other hand, my god, that’s incredibly flattering. I think what Larry meant was that it is very rare when someone comes along that is fresh and exciting, and generates a buzz. I am lucky that it seems to be happening to me, and Larry just took to the pieces, and he said what he said. I am certainly not going to argue with a man like Larry King.

“All of us have egos. Anybody who will sit in a studio for hours by themselves, pour their heart out onto a canvas, and then tell the world that they should buy it, has to have a certain level of confidence and ego in what they do. It’s true. You must be able to withstand criticism, stand by what you do, and be proud of it. I think that’s why a lot of people who are incredibly talented don’t ever become successful artists, because it’s rough out there in the beginning. I did the art shows in the parks, and at the local festivals. I’m not too proud to say that. I don’t want to burn out. I want to be around for a long time. In America, it can happen where everybody can latch onto a concept, and it becomes too big, and we all get tired of it. I don’t want to be that guy. There are other artists out there that that has happened to. Whatever they were doing took on its own momentum, and they no longer had control of it. I’d rather that not happen to me. If I can stay slightly below the radar, so to speak, I probably would.”

If White paints something he doesn’t like, he destroys it. There are very few of his pieces out there that have slipped through the cracks. He says, “I paint it, I live with it for a while, and if I decide it doesn’t move me, I just paint over it, or I just destroy it. There are some pieces that I have kept because I love them, but I’m a bit different. Some of my artist friends paint, and they don’t want to sell; they don’t want to let go of the piece. Whatever experience they went through to create it was so monumental, that the concept of parting with it is emotional to them. I have the opposite feeling. For me, the experience is the painting of the piece itself, not the final product. That’s the cathartic experience. Putting whatever it is on canvas –particularly the very emotional ones – once I go through that, I don’t need to see it anymore. My house is not decorated with my art. I have some pieces, of course, but I’m OK parting with it after I’ve finished that process. In fact, in some ways it’s like a relief; it’s like I just got it out of my system.”

Someone's Pretty Baby

“I believe what Van Gogh said, that to paint, you must draw well. He would go through all these sketches before he did his paintings. For me, that’s all it is. I work through the sketches to get to the ultimate piece. And to me, you can’t have one without the other. I am a concept guy, and I need to work through several sketches before I paint. If you go through the sketch method, by the time you get to the painting, you know what you want to do. You should see some of my sketches. There are some on my website. I’ve got Liquid Paper® on these things, eraser marks; I have taken Post-it® notes and slapped them over areas and drawn on top of that. It’s very much a work in progress, and sometimes there are half a dozen to a dozen sketches before I get to the final concept I want. So, by the time I am ready to paint it, most of the bugs, so to speak, have been worked out.” These

One of White’s proudest career moments was being selected by the Recording Academy to create the official artwork for the 49th Annual Grammy Awards. He says, “The Grammy piece I am very proud of.

“They said, ‘Hey, do what you want.’ They were hoping for a vertical piece. The idea behind the piece was music as a uniting concept. How music brings people together as a unifying force. It is the one thing we all have in common no matter what, no matter where you go. Everybody likes music; everybody is drawn to music; and everybody can relate and communicate through music, regardless of language or other barriers. That was the idea behind it. That is why the piece has different people in it from different walks. The only thing that I changed about it as I developed it was one of the instruments, and they wanted the Grammy somewhere in there. Originally, I painted the Grammy on a pedestal. I like the final idea of this hand floating in from off stage.”

You must hand it to White. He knows that people will always be his stage to tell his stories. Who knows? You just might see your story being painted.

NEXT TIME

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