Labor Day Weekend fairs and fun

50th Annual Kings Mountain Art Fair: Kings Mountain Community Center and Firehouse Woodside, CA. Labor Day weekend brings a few festivals to the Bay Area, including The Kings Mountain Art Fair (August 31, September 1 – 2, 2013), which presents juried artists exhibits in a glorious setting among the redwoods.
 More at:
http://www.examiner.com/article/labor-day-weekend-fairs-and-family-fun

The San Jose Museum of Art will be open this Labor Day, September 2, 2013

The San Jose Museum of Art will be open this Labor Day, September 2, 2013, due to popular demand for the exhibition "Annie Leibovitz: Pilgrimage."

The extra day is offered during the final week for the exhibition, in which world-renowned photographer Annie Leibovitz took a departure from her signature staged celebrity portraits and created an intimate, personal, and self reflective collection of seventy photographs taken on a journey through the United States and Great Britain between 2009 and 2011.

Included are photographs of homes and personal possessions of iconic historical figures as well as landmarks of American history. Pilgrimage, which has been on view at SJMA since June 6, 2013, has been well received and  has attracted more than 18,000 visitors to the Museum since the start of the exhibition. The exhibition will be on view through September 8, 2013.

More at: http://www.examiner.com/list/the-san-jose-museum-of-art-will-be-open-this-labor-day-september-2-2013

At the Asian: The Cyrus Cylinder and Ancient Persia

It's good to be king: "I am Cyrus, king of the universe, the great king, the powerful king, king of Babylon, king of Sumer and Akkad, king of the four quarters of the world..."

The Cyrus Cylinder, travels here from the British Museum and is making its West Coast debut at the Asian Art Museum.

http://www.examiner.com/list/at-the-asian-the-cyrus-cylinder-and-ancient-persia

Friday night at the musum

Friday night and I just got paid...I'm a fool about my money, no need to save...

Fun, frolic and festivities at the Bay Area Museums (and the price is right as well).
http://www.examiner.com/article/friday-night-frolics

'Water to Paper, Paint to Sky. The Art of Tyrus Wong'

The Walt Disney Family Museum is presenting the exhibition 'Water to Paper, Paint to Sky: The Art of Tyrus Wong.' Organized by Michael Labrie, the museum’s director of collections, the exhibition focuses on the life and work of Chinese-American artist Tyrus Wong—a celebrated painter, muralist, kite maker, lithographer, Hollywood sketch artist, calligrapher, ceramicist, and Disney Legend. At age 102, Wong is still a practicing artist today.

http://www.examiner.com/article/water-to-paper-paint-to-sky-the-art-of-tyrus-wong-at-the-disney-museum

At the Getty: 'Gardens of the Renaissance' and 'Sicily: Art and Invention.'

Two of my favorite art styles are now exhibiting at the Getty. Both shows will close this month and it's well worth the trip to LA to see them.

-->Painted with spellbinding precision, the pink-and-yellow-striped tulip shown here is among seven of varying colors featured in this book illuminated by Joris Hoefnagel for Holy Roman Emperor Rudolf II (ruled 1576–1612). Hoefnagel's naturalistic depictions of plants, animals, and insects rival the text in beauty.

In the era surrounding the Renaissance, the garden took on special significance as a symbol of religious sentiment, learned knowledge, and social status, and as a site for aesthetic enjoyment. The garden of a noble’s villa, by its various components, would signify the owner’s knowledge of, and acquaintance with, the broader world. 

Whether connected to grandiose villas or common kitchens, gardens in the Renaissance (about 1400–1600) were planted and treasured by people in all levels of society. Some cultivated gardens for the display and study of beautiful and rare plants, while others did so for sustenance. 

Manuscript artists depicted gardens in a variety of texts, and their illustrations attest to the Renaissance spirit for the careful study of the natural world. In a society then dominated by the church, gardens were also integral to a Christian visual tradition, from the paradise of Eden to the enclosed green spaces associated with Mary and Christ. Gardens are cyclical and impermanent; most planted during the Renaissance have changed or been lost. The objects in this exhibition offer a glimpse into how people at the time pictured, used, and enjoyed these idyllic green spaces.

Widely considered the finest surviving example of early Greek sculpture in the round, the so-called Mozia Charioteer above demonstrates the virtuosity and creativity attained in the arts of Sicily during the 5th century B.C.

"Sicily: Art and Invention between Greece and Rome" presents 145 objects that bear witness to the athletic and military victories, religious rituals, opulent lifestyles, and intellectual attainments that shaped Classical culture at its peak.

To settlers from the Greek mainland, Sicily was a new world of wealth and opportunity. Beginning in the late 8th century B.C., they founded colonies along the shores of the island they called Sikelia. Over time, young transplants from Greece proudly came to regard themselves as Sikeliotes—Sicilian Greeks. They brought their dialects and religious cults, transforming a land populated by native communities and North African settlers from Carthage into an important Greek territory. Abundant natural resources and fruitful crops fed a thriving economy that soon turned colonial towns into some of the most formidable and influential city-states in the Mediterranean.

More at:  http://www.examiner.com/list/at-the-getty-gardens-of-the-renaissance-sicily-art-and-invention?CID=examiner_alerts_article