December 25, 2011 – The Only Family with a Christmas Tree

Holidays tend to bring up a lot of memories and stories of celebrations in previous years. They bring up holidays past, the good ones and alas, the bad ones. One of my favorite Christmas stories was one my great grandmother used to tell.

It happened over one hundred years ago when she was a girl. She lived all her life in Buffalo, a city legendary for huge amounts of lake-effect snow. One particular December there was a massive snowstorm big enough to even close Buffalo down. So much snow that roads became impassable and no one could easily get in or out of the city. The storm hit about a week before Christmas. In Buffalo they are used to snow, but this time it was so bad that farmer’s could not make into the city. It meant that there were virtually no Christmas Trees to be found anywhere in the city. Just before Christmas, late one day, my great great grandfather saw a farmer coming in to town hauling a load of Christmas Trees by horse drawn sleigh. Of course he offered to buy one, but the farmer was frozen and not ready to sell. The farmer asked that grandma’s father just watch over the sleigh and the trees while he went and got warmed up and had something to eat. When the farmer returned a little while later, he gave my great great grandfather a tree for free. On the way home many men came up to him offering to buy the tree for huge sums of money. But he refused, and my great grandmother and her sisters and brothers were one of the only families in Buffalo with a Christmas Tree that year.

June 23, 2011 – The Conservatory

Add the Conservatory of Flowers to my list of favorite places in San Francisco. It was designed and modeled (on a smaller scale) after the greenhouses in Kew Gardens in London. Which is one of my favorite places in London. I always enjoy a good Victorian glass house.

This started back when I was about 10. San Francisco’s Conservatory was designed by the firm Lord & Burnham & Co. They also designed a similar structure for a Frederick Law Olmsted park in Buffalo. My grandfather worked at the one in Buffalo. I always remember those Sunday afternoon/early evening visits after the building was closed to the public. To this day, I kind of feel I should be entitled the same privilege here in San Francisco. Don’t they know my grandfather used to work in one of these?

I have read various histories about the Conservatory and there is some debate as to which facts are accurate. I will stick to the story I like best. In 1878 the building was ordered by local millionaire James Lick for his garden. Built to order in component parts, it was shipped from Great Britain. While the pieces were being shipped Mr. Lick expired. His widow had no interest in a white elephant of glass and wood. She generously donated it to the City for the new Golden Gate Park. The Conservatory is well built. It survived earthquakes in 1906 and 1989. Legend has it that the only damage in 1906 was the loss of three panes of glass. Afterwards the plants were brought outside and the building served as a makeshift hospital.

There may be some debate as to the older history of the Conservatory. I was here in December 1995 and remember what happened then. We had a very intense, windy storm blow in. Hundreds of big trees were toppled in Golden Gate Park and the Conservatory suffered some serious damage. The storm was blamed, but the biggest culprit was the City and a culture of neglect and corruption when it came to maintenance. In the aftermath of the storm local politicians including the mayor held the Conservatory hostage. They threatened to tear the Conservatory down. Fortunately the building was saved and restored after it was rolled into one of our massive bond issues. The politicians behaved as ugly as they always do, but luckily we got to keep this gem.

I walk around the Conservatory a few times every week, but only go inside a couple of times a year. I prefer those visits for the dampest and coldest winter days when I need a dose of the tropics.

April 26, 2011 – Olmsted

The Father of American Landscape Architecture, Frederick Law Olmsted, Sr., was born on this day in 1822. Even for Americans and Canadians unfamiliar with him, many of us know his work. Olmsted designed well over one hundred parks, college campuses, capitol grounds, zoos, cemeteries and some early green, streetcar suburbs. He is probably best known for co-designing Central Park, but his other commissions included the grounds of the U.S. Capitol as well as state capitol grounds in Denver and Salt Lake City. Large public parks in cities like Chicago, Detroit, Buffalo, Boston and Montreal. Many subsequent urban parks were heavily influenced by his work including Golden Gate Park in San Francisco. Olmsted also was responsible for the campuses of both U.C. Berkeley and Stanford.

Olmsted was far more than a brilliant landscape designer. To this day, his legacy is some of the most important and beautiful natural oasis in cities in the U.S. and Canada. His work in the 19^th Century continues to make urban life in the 21^st Century far more livable. Olmsted was the urban answer to his 19^th Century contemporary John Muir.

April 24, 2011 – Butter Lamb

For my entire life there has always been a butter lamb on the Easter table. The butter lamb is a small lamb molded or shaped from butter. The lamb traditionally has a red ribbon around the neck and a red paschal flag in its rump. The eyes are two peppercorns.

The butter lamb is an old Polish tradition that is adhered to in Buffalo (where I was born). Even after my family left Buffalo, we had one sent to us. I used to get one shipped to me here in San Francisco. I now have a mould and have been making my own butter lamb for years. I may very well have the only butter lamb in California.

The only Easter without a butter lamb was the one I spent with cousins in Poland 25 years ago. On Easter morning it was time for ham, kielbasa and the traditional Easter meal. All washed down with plenty of vodka. I asked where the baranek was? Baranek literally means “little lamb” in Polish. Lamb? No, we have ham on Easter was the response. I was trying to explain that I was looking for the butter lamb. My cousin Tadeusz, the oldest member of the family at the table, suddenly realized what I meant. He was surprised that I knew what a butter lamb was. He was even more surprised that people in Buffalo still kept the tradition as no one in Poland did anymore.

March 7, 2011 – Nag Champa

All the technology in the world, and we still don’t have odorama for computers. If only you could scratch and sniff today’s piece through your computer screen.

Incense can be very polarizing — there are people who just hate it and then there are those who burn it all the time. Like so many things, the key word is moderation. Nag Champa is my perennial favorite. I also will always associate with my late friend Fred down in Joshua Tree.

I grew up with incense. Mom even sold it in her hippie shop back in Buffalo. Of course, I didn’t quite understand that the main purpose of incense, back then, was to cover the smell of marijuana. But I was pretty young when I got the clue. We had tenants on the third floor who burned loads of incense. They made a big show of saying they burned the incense because my great grandmother cooked too much turnip. It was ridiculous. My great grandmother came over every Monday because my mom worked late. She would always be waiting for us when we got home from school and she also cooked dinner. After the incense incident, we had a lot of things like turnip and cabbage on Mondays. Grandma N wasn’t going to be told that her cooking was stinky.

As for nag champa — Last year, a friend had to go do some work at the studio of famous, local musician. I asked him, “What was it like?” He said, “The place “smelled like nag champa.”

February 28, 2011- Black and White

It feels as if black and white photography has gone full circle and returned to the realm of artists. Digital photography has eliminated the color snapshot. The black and white snapshot all but disappeared during the 1970’s. There was a brief period when it was still less expensive to have black and white film developed, but by the 1980’s the average consumer started paying more for film and development of black and white.

I have an old photo album of my grandmothers that spans about 20 years from the 1930’s to 1950’s. It starts with a period of teenage photos and ends when my own mother was about 10 years old. The album acts as a great timepiece of popular fashion and car culture. It also spans about 20 years in consumer photography. Every few years a new camera was purchased with a new type of film and a new style of printing. Ironically these old black and white photos have held up remarkably well. Their condition is great. The color snapshots and polaroids of my own childhood have faded and discolored.

I used to experiment with 35mm black and white photography but never even came close to learning what I was doing. I never took that class and developed my own film. This morning I found these ten year old photos from my first trip to Death Valley and mixed them in with one my grandmother took in 1937 (so the date says). Now I have to sort through the hundreds of digital images taken last week in the desert.

February 18, 2011 – Airmail

Yesterday I went to the post office to send something via airmail. In 2011 that seems almost quaint. But I do like to keep sending fun things via the mail. It was an appropriate thing to do yesterday. It was the 100th Anniversary of the first airmail letters, officially being sent by plane. On February 17, 1911 the letters made the trip from Santa Rosa to Petaluma. On February 18 (probably about the same time allowing for the international date line), the first letters were sent via air for a short distance in India. A century later, it’s obvious that airmail is towards the end of its life — in particular the airmailed letter.

Before 1911, correspondence was also sent via hot air balloon and courier pigeon. There was a brief time when you could send mail via zeppelin. If it were possible to send my mail via zeppelin, I’d run straight to the post office with a pile of letters.

When I was a kid I collected stamps. None of the stamps are of great value. I have a box of old commemoratives I bought at the post office. They have actually lost value when you adjust for inflation, but as they haven’t been cancelled, you can still use them. More of the stamps are beginning to turn up in my art. I also have those random foreign stamps on envelopes that people would give to a kid who collected stamps. My grandmother was a department store buyer in Buffalo. She would receive these small, hand sewn canvas packets from India with samples. I still have a few of those. Considering India’s role in airmail, it seems appropriate to dissect one for today’s piece.

January 3, 2011 – Flower Power

Today is my mom’s birthday. I dug up this old photo from 1969 of mom and her cart at the Allentown Art Festival in Buffalo. She was pushing flower power. To be exact, old, clay flower parts were decorated with spray paint. They were filled with potted flowers like marigolds and impatiens.

The project started when my mom took my brother and I too the dump behind the cemetery. There we were able to fill the truck of the Ford Galaxy with discarded flower parts. They were hosed off in the yard and set to dry before they were painted. I’m telling this story just to reinforce the crafty (and entrepreneurial) legacy in my family.

In the photo you might notice the sign that reads “You saw her on Channel 7 Late News.” The day before my mother wore a sticker above her navel that read “flower power.” They showed her on the late news that Saturday night. Mom was exposing her navel on TV years before Cher did it and scandalized America. Perhaps Bob Mackie was slumming it in Buffalo that weekend and got a little inspiration.