Would love it if, when I searched “Menlo Park” on Tumblr, I got posts that were actually about happenings in the city of Menlo Park, and not just pictures of the Facebook offices. Just saying.
AUG 4, 1956 - STANFORD UNIVERSITY— Stanford’s ancient Medical School building in San Francisco, built in 1882, appeared doomed today following the announcement of a $21,950,000 campaign to develop a new Stanford Medical Center on the University’s campus at Palo Alto. Former President Herbert Hoover made the announcement, and will serve as honorary chairman of the fund drive. Its general chairman is W. P. Fuller III, San Francisco civic and business leader. Stanford Hospital and other research facilities located in San Francisco will be renovated under the new program, but Stanford School of Medicine will be consolidated in the new Medical Center on the Palo Alto campus. Construction of the first unit will begin this fall, and target date for completion of the Stanford Medical Center is March, 1959.
The Main Gallery in Redwood City has one of the best spaces around: a century-old house with wood floors that creak pleasantly as you walk from room to room. Some of the windows have that thick old glass that looks ripply at the right angle. Next door in the 1874 Dielmann House is Alana’s Cafe, with lots of flowers.
It all made for a nice wander today, past Andrea Rosenman’s whimsical cups and saucers fashioned from colorful felt, ceramic teapots by Susan Wolf and many other pieces. It’s enjoyable to discover the shelves of arts and rooms of various sizes.
I stayed a while with Nina Koepcke’s ceramic piece “I Never Saw Another Butterfly” (pictured above), which took in the sun with many other ceramics in a greenhouse sort of room filled with windows.
Palo Alto artist Florence de Bretagne has a team of lawyers backing her up as she creates six big murals at a local school. No, there are no legal issues; these folks are wielding paintbrushes.
De Bretagne, known for her optimistic palette and community involvement, enlisted attorneys from the nearby Kilpatrick Townsend firm to help paint murals at the Los Robles Magnet Academy in East Palo Alto. The artist goes to school during the week to get everything ready, and the lawyers pitch in on the weekends.
“I paint the backgrounds, trace all the whimsical flowers on the walls so that the lawyers are not too intimidated by the job,” de Bretagne told me. Other community members are also helping create the cheerful murals, which have themes including respect and responsibility.
This is the second school-mural project for de Bretagne, who originally studied law herself before choosing art as her career.
Pictured: One of the murals at Los Robles. Photo courtesy of Florence de Bretagne.
Gorgeous.
Sunset, Palo Alto.
I’m a Europhile. So sue me. You’ll see a lot of accents in my arts section: umlauts, accents aigus, accents graves, diagonal lines going this way and that. American computer systems often trip and fall on accents, so I write the dots and lines in pen on my pages and have the newspaper designers figure out how to make them work. Sometimes the designers don’t like me very much.
Fortunately, Designer Scott has a great sense of humor. Look how beautiful he made my Worth A Look section this week.
(Oh, you. This is just a dummy version of the page. The real one is fine.)
I had no idea.
SUBMISSION: Some of the tools used in my work as a bookbinder.
‘Palo Alto Forest’ seeks new digs
Wanted: a new home for a Palo Alto forest. That is, the collection of photos on glass, hung with wood, wire and acrylic, known as the art installation “The Palo Alto Forest.” PA photographer Angela Buenning Filo gathered and assembled the photos, which are taken by locals of their favorite trees in town. The work has been on display as part of the grand-opening exhibit at the swanked-up Palo Alto Art Center, but the show is coming down soon and the work has nowhere to go.
Art-center director Karen Kienzle is fond of the piece, but “we’re not a collecting organization,” so the center can’t keep it. “Maybe it could go in a corporate lobby?” she wondered aloud. “She doesn’t want to put it in storage,” she said of the artist. “She wants it to be enjoyed.”
To help out, email artcenter@cityofpaloalto.org.
Photo by Jim Filo.
* Awesome: Viewing the new Richard Misrach exhibit at the Cantor Arts Center.
* Only slightly less awesome: Wondering what the heck this guy was talking about.
Photo by me, hence the out-of-focusness.
It’s bothering me that the tablet is not lined up with the tablecloth pattern. Otherwise, all is perfectly well.
