Holiday in Heaven

Robert Rahway Zakanitch

Rococo Revisited (2008)

Gouache on Paper, 96'' x 72''

To visit the work of Robert Rahway Zakanitch in "From a Garden of Ordinary Miracles" at the Samuel Freeman Gallery in Santa Monica is to find oneself suddenly and unexpectedly adrift on a mighty cloud of joy: we're blessed, we're blessed, we're blessed, we are blessed.

There is a particular sensibility in this work, a way of looking at the world with love, a way of allowing magic and light to slip into your consciousness, which, along with the underlying tone of assuming the best in all of us, reveals a habit of mind that is enchanting:

Those who see all creatures in themselves
And themselves in all creatures know no fear.
Those who see all creatures in themselves
And themselves in all creatures know no grief.
How can the multiplicity of life
Delude the one who sees its unity?

These massive (96” x 72”) displays of flowers and creatures
(it's even more of a surprise in person!) allow one to become so absorbed in the experience of joyful seeing and awareness that one forgets oneself:

. . . in those moments when we forget ourselves—not thinking. “Am I happy? Am I having fun yet?” but completely oblivious to our little ego –we spend a brief but beautiful holiday in heaven.

But the forgetting is a sort of divine paradox, because in the forgetting, one feels most oneself in this intimate connection with nature and beauty and sheer goodness.

By “goodness,” you understand I mean moral goodness, and by “moral goodness,” I mean what is beautiful in the human spirit, from even the tiniest impulsive act of generosity or kindness or mercy. I mean take-my-hand goodness; I mean Gwendolyn Brooks’ “Maud Martha Spares the Mouse” goodness:

Maud Martha could not bear the little look.
"Go home to your children," she urged. "To your wife or husband."
She opened the trap. The mouse vanished.
Suddenly, she was conscious of a new cleanness in her. A wide air walked in her. A life had blundered its way into her power and it had been hers to preserve or destroy. She had not destroyed. In the center of that simple restraint was–creation. She had created a piece of life. It was wonderful.
"Why," she thought, as her height doubled, "why, I'm good! I am good."
She ironed her aprons. Her back was straight. Her eyes were mild, and soft with loving kindness.

Through some amazing grace, these works nudge you to spread your wings--to be a better person--to put a little love in your heart.

Street Art

I went to heaven Ventura for the holiday weekend.
If you are familiar with Ventura, you know of what I speak. If you are not--well, heaven awaits, in the form of the ocean, all those charming California bungalows, a mural of gigantic poppies and another of Monarch butterflies at an arts center, a lively farmers market in Ojai, with cheeses and chocolates that make you glad to be alive, the best thrift stores EVER on Main St., a wonderful coffee house called Palermo Cafe, where you can sit and write and write and write for hours on two cups of coffee (and everyone is very nice, and there is a WiFi password, besides), and and and. Not to mention the company. I am in love with Ventura.

Imagine my surprise and delight when I was walking downtown and came across a painted utility box. It was this one:

The city of Santa Cruz also has a similar wonderful program whereby artists are invited to use the ugly, putty-colored utility boxes as their canvases, and the utility boxes became these colorful, beautiful and/or funny and/or interesting landmarks throughout the city. The painted boxes changed my experience of waiting at traffic signals.

We are changing the world, all of us, every artist, every arts champion, we are changing the world, we are making it a better and more beautiful place, one step at a time, one utility box at a time.



P.S. I was also told San Diego has painted utility boxes.

In a Beautiful World

The first photograph that greets you at Nicole Morgenthau’s website is one of sheer exuberance: it’s a scene of quintessential Americana, and more specifically, of the wild, wild West, where there are wide open spaces and blue skies and amber waves of grain, where cowboys wander and trains rattle on tracks stretching for miles across the plains, and where you can’t help but kick up your heels and shout.

Though the motifs in Ms. Morgenthau’s work vary—Americana and the wild West here, tropical paradise there, everywhere an ephemeral glimpse into a moment—the photographs illustrate life experienced in the natural world with abundant joy.

These are images that make you feel happy just to look at them: a child lying in the brilliant green grass with her dog, a lime hanging on a tree in front of a coral-pink wall, a man with a smile so beautifully bright that you feel welcomed. In the images, a personality emerges: of one who is lively and curious, of one who will introduce you to the world as a beautiful place.

Ms. Morgenthau says that grew up in a not beautiful place, in the suburbs of New Jersey, where there wasn’t much that was visually stimulating. Craving a chance to see the world, she went West to college—and found what she was seeking. “You seek out what you want,” she told me.

What Ms. Morgenthau had always wanted was to create beautiful things, even as a tiny child, and so she started making art early: painting, drawing, sculpting. Now in her photography, she still seeks that beauty, whether it be found in a smile or in a scene outdoors. Her favorites among her work show people who are happy, vibrant with good energy, framed by (or maybe somehow interacting with) a beautiful landscape.

Sometimes it takes patience:

I love that high desert landscape, and I go there and hang out and wait for the good light. . . .you can’t count on good light. . . Fishing is a good metaphor. You can wait and wait and wait, and think it’s going to be perfect, and then the sun goes down, and it turns to muck. It helps to be patient.

In many of the pictures, there’s what I think of as a painterly effect in the use of intense, clean color, which gives a stronger voice to the image. Ms. Morgenthau says she tries to take a simple approach:

When things look cheesy. . . . it’s often because they are fake . . . . There’s enough beauty going on in the world without having to overdo it. I take advantage of beautiful vivid colors, like the lime tree and the red house in Mexico.

I used to shoot black and white in the days of film, but as clients demanded more color and we move to being more digital, you just have to be really careful about what you choose. If there is color, it has to be beautiful color.

I wondered whether Ms. Morgenthau sees the world differently than other people. Her response was that she doesn’t believe she does, but that she takes the time to look at what is there:

A lot of people don’t, and aren’t aware of their settings, they become aware only if it’s drop dead gorgeous and blasts them in the face.

This view of the tiny beautiful details that make up the world seeps into every aspect of her life:

We’re only here for a short time, and we take advantage of what’s around us, we’re open to different opportunities, not just visually, but when you’re more aware of your surroundings, you can’t not care about what’s going on around you. Being an artist, you have an opportunity to make change because of what you’re aware of and it’s really hard to ignore, the good and the bad.

And that truly is what art does for us, isn't it, that it wakes us up, it shows us different views of humanity and of the world, and it makes us think about what happens, and it makes us aware of ourselves, and it ignites all kinds of transformations, from the tiny ones that occur in our inner landscapes that become the great changes in our lives, and so that maybe we shift direction, and when enough of us shift in that way, the greater effect might be a change for the good in the world.

[photographs by Nicole Morgenthau.]