The December 2006 issue of "Palm Springs Life" magazine has an article entitled "How to Buy Art" that contains "Tips from The Experts."
One tip is to "Get your interior designer onboard," says Alec Longmuir, director of Buschlen Mowatt Galleries. "If you are seeking decoration and the value of the artwork is on how it matches your upholstery, a good designer will help you. If your tastes are more serious, there are designers who understand fine art and have strong alliances with good dealers."
These words sprang to mind at the Palm Springs Art Museum (click here for their website), which is currently hosting a godawful show devoted to the Roy Lichtenstein print collection of a wealthy Portland, Oregon real estate development mogul named Jordan D. Schnitzer.
Lichtenstein (1923-1997) earned his way honestly into the art history books with his 1960s Pop Art blow-ups of (other people's) cartoon artworks (click here for his foundation website).
His brash moment in the art historical sun, however, turned into a repetitive, mannered style that looks like some ungodly combination of Peter Max and Andy Warhol over the next 40 years, with expensive 300-edition prints for people who wouldn't think of buying art without their interior designer onboard.
Or as the artist himself is quoted above one of his dumber large pieces, "I guess I like the activity of deciding to do a group of prints. I don't particularly like the activity of doing one print. It just interrupts my focus."
God knows, one wouldn't want Roy to lose his focus, but in truth, it was all about how much money the market would bear.
At the entrance to the exhibit in the front lobby of the museum, there is a large, beautiful stone wall that was covered with workmen on Wednesday.
It seems that a nearby wall with a listing of donors' names was not considered to be prominent enough.
The solution is to cover the beautiful old stone wall that dates from the building's incarnation as a natural science museum with some monstrosity spelling out the names of local philanthropists who have their tax accountant onboard when it comes to buying art.
Downstairs there was another show featuring second-rate art, but at least it was sincere in its badness....
The show, which sprawled all over the basement, was the 12th annual "Juried Exhibition" of Art Council members.
The results were being sold off with "at least 30% of the proceeds" to go directly to the museum.
There were awards given in various categories, and the above watercolor by Suzanne Blau Greenberg was given "Best in Show."
I didn't agree with that choice or Melva Head's "Variations of Klimt" receiving "First Prize"...
...since my favorite piece by far was the large painting above by Ron Meyers with a fabulous title, "Dyke With a Pearl Earring."
Transporting oneself from Civic Center to the San Francisco Airport...
...has become easy and inexpensive thanks to the new BART line that extends past Daly City to Millbrae and the airport.
Of course, the new line is a disaster in terms of ridership because the urban planners somehow didn't bother wondering if people would change their commuting habits, even though the northern Peninsula was already being well served by the buses of SamTrans and the commuter trains of CalTrain...
...not to mention Highways 101 and 280.
The original plan was to have BART stop a couple of miles to the west of the airport and then have people transported by "people movers" to the actual terminals, but after enough uproar the plans were changed so that the BART train actually pulls into a station just off the new International Terminal.
The traveler is then supposed to take the AirTrain people mover to the other terminals for domestic travel.
However, you should not, and I repeat NOT, take the billion-dollar AirTrain because getting from one of its stations to the actual terminal usually involves elevators, stairs, escalators and a ridiculous trip to the basement garage.
Instead, if you're going to Terminal 3, which houses United and American Airlines, continue walking gaily forward and follow the signage down various corridors until you finish the short trip.
If you are going to Terminal 1, the following are instructions for a fifteen-minute walk that will get you there without undue hardship.
First, walk diagonally past all the empty ticket counters in the useless, multi-biillion dollar International Terminal, which opened sometime around 2001 when foreign tourists decided the United States wasn't looking all that attractive as a destination anymore.
The terminal was never necessary in the first place because there aren't enough runways to expand capacity, and the ecologically minded Bay Area was never going to fall in line with Mayor Willie Brown, Jr.'s egregious plans to fill in a section of San Francisco Bay for a few new runways. His point man on the landfill project, by the way, was his legislative hatchet man with the hippy-dippy name Stuart Sunshine.
The saddest aspect is that the recent incarnation of San Francisco International Airport was just about a perfect little airport, with its three contiguous terminals along an arc and easy driving entrances and exits. Now it's an overbuilt, overdesigned mess that is a monument to graft.
"Mo" Bernstein was the Airport Commission President for decades but he died in 1991, when the post was filled by one of the more unsavory characters in San Francisco, Larry Mazzola, whose multigenerational family dynasty gains its power from the Plumbers and Pipefitters Union which he leads. That's the same union that was recently charged by the federal government for fraud after they siphoned off millions of dollars of pension money to their casino operation at Konocti Harbor in Clear Lake. It's also the same union that is trying to tear down its neighboring Civic Center Hotel on Market Street because it despises poor people and wants to put up luxury condos in place of the SRO hotel.
But enough nattering about San Francisco's casual corruption, you need to know the secret path to Terminal 1. Cross the empty terminal diagonally until you're following a back corridor with a San Francisco MOMA store.
When you smell the burnt coffee at the Emporio Rulli cafe, hang a left.
Look for the signage that directs you to "Domestic Terminals."
Take a long escalator ride...
...to a lonely corridor...
...until you hit Peet's Coffee, which means you're finally in Terminal 1...
...which is almost as empty as the International Terminal.
There is signage on the walls that the AirTrain people mover station "is Getting Closer!" in 2007...
...probably after another billion dollars of public funds have gone down a very corrupt drain.
