In the studio -- Pae White

Pae White’s cluttered, hilltop studio in Pasadena feels like the calm after a storm. About the size of a two-car garage, it is filled with muted California sunshine and animated by the sound of White’s dog barking at gardeners working on the beautifully landscaped property, next to the wilds of Ernest E. Debs Park.

On a recent visit, White, who has an exotic, natural beauty with long, curly hair and prominent almond-shaped eyes, sat at an enormous table scattered with the evidence of a period of intense productivity. Discarded sheets of printed plastic and test strips from a digital weaver in Belgium, which she finds “compelling” because of their randomness, are heaped on the chairs and floor. Nearby is a stack of plastic boxes filled with a portion of her vast collection of Vera scarves. In the corner, a new industrial laser nudges a vintage card table. Paolo Soleri wind chimes hang overhead, and swatches of metallic paint are daubed on the windowpane behind her.

Though she makes self-deprecating jokes about the anxiety that often accompanies her creative endeavors — “I always say to myself, why do I get into this situation where I have no idea how to do this?” — it is also clear that she thrives on the risk associated with testing unproven fabrication techniques on the large-scale, high-visibility, site-specific projects that have dominated her agenda of the last few years.

Still, while she seems to thrive on the anxiety associated with using a high-profile commission to test unproven techniques, White fantasizes about returning to the kind of meditative process she employed when she used to make more of her work by hand. 

To read my full article in Arts & Books, click here.

-- Susan Emerling

Photo: Pae White artist in her studio. Credit: Francine Orr / Los Angeles Times

Get ready for L.A.'s 'public dreaming'

The Hammer Museum is providing an opportunity for anyone who wants to test out Carl Gustav Jung’s theories of the collective unconscious in a collective setting by hosting a night of public dreaming in the Hammer’s courtyard on May 1. Hosted by artSpa and Machine Project and a merry band of “artist-psychonauts,” participants will be assisted in recording, understanding and documenting their creative urges and nocturnal visions.

“Liber Novus” is the name Jung gave his autobiographical magnum opus — an illuminated manuscript filled with images of hissing snakes, dazzling mandalas, bloody battles, radiating beings and a German text describing a man’s loss and rediscovery of his soul — before abandoning it midsentence in 1930 on the 189th page. An epilogue handwritten by Jung in 1959, which also leaves off midsentence, describes a 16-year effort that he acknowledges may “to the superficial observer appear like madness,” but which he credits with saving him from “the overpowering force of the original experiences.” 

Now this volume known as the "Red Book" is on display at the museum; to read about other public events around the exhibition and more on the volume, read my piece in the Arts & Books section.

-- Susan Emerling

Photo: an image from the book. Credit: the Hammer.

Laton: The little California town that served as a muse

Reporting from Laton, Calif. --  On a cool Saturday evening, with alfalfa fields rustling in the breeze and acres of walnut groves bursting into bloom, this quiet Central Valley farming town, population 1,200, threw open its doors for a party.

There were refreshments and speeches in the United Methodist church — closed for three years because of a diminished congregation, but now filled to overflowing. Outside, Fresno musician Patrick Contreras cranked up his electric fiddle and beckoned people into the two-block-long main street to cut the ribbon on a welcome sign for the unincorporated township, which had lost its previous sign to vandals.

Then, as if dueling for attention, the wail of Bobby Joe Neely’s one-man blues band drew the crowd to the front steps of the Laton Library. A young boy played air guitar with Neely, who was dressed in his signature red three-piece suit, while others danced in the street. As many as 1,000 people strolled around, before the rain came.

It wasn’t just the music that made this party different from the very few remaining civic events, like the Laton Rodeo Parade, which once a year draws the locals of this economically struggling town onto De Woody Street. The normally blank walls of the buildings were alive with video projections of local couples two-stepping in their Wranglers and ropers, and shots of the nearby walnut groves. Video monitors tucked into the few commercial storefronts played interviews with the citizenry. Throughout, a team of artists and MFA students from  Otis College of Art and Design in Los Angeles scurried about with walkie-talkies and video cameras, orchestrating and documenting the night’s events under the close watch of veteran artist and educator Suzanne Lacy.