When my Uncle Greg was a young man, someone gave him a paint-by-numbers kit for Christmas. But Gregory Doyle was an unconventional man. First, he was a brainy botanist specializing in genetics for the U.S. Department of Agriculture at the University of Missouri. (“I study the sex life of corn,” he said.) And second, he had a zany sense of humor. As the family story goes, he tried to fill in the number-coded boxes with the appropriate colors for a… Read More »
Anyone who thinks there is something dainty and precious about art has not yet encountered the work of North Coast sculptor Bruce Johnson. For decades, Johnson has created massive wonders from his favorite material — ancient redwood. His current show, “Uprooted,” runs through next April at the Paradise Ridge Winery and Sculpture Grove in Santa Rosa Johnson used roots, logs and copper boulders to create 11 new sculptures with titles like “Outburst,” “Rock Slide,” “Eko” and “Ion.” The photo of… Read More »
Do friends tell you that your child looks just like Charlie Brown, Lucy or Linus? Or even Snoopy? (Good grief, some friends.) Anticipating the 60th anniversary of the “Peanuts” comic strip next year, a panel of celebrity judges has agreed to jury entries in the “First Official Peanuts Look-a-Like Contest.” Moms and dads across the country are invited to submit photos of their children looking like one of these Peanuts characters: Charlie Brown, Snoopy, Lucy, Linus, Sally, Schroeder, Franklin, Peppermint… Read More »
We all know we live in ever-changing world, but have you ever considered how much even the maps of our world have changed? “Envisioning the World,” an exhibition featuring world maps from 1450 through 1700, runs from Friday, Oct. 2, through Jan. 17 at Santa Rosa’s Sonoma County Museum. One woodblock print map from the late 1400s shows the continents of Europe, Africa and Asia, and way over one side, a tiny sliver of land. That was the part of… Read More »
The time has come to rename this blog. The word “Arts” doesn’t cover it all. It doesn’t describe a blog that includes political humor by Will Durst, one-liners by Eric Idle, a long list of accordion jokes and a short shot at the latest “Star Trek” film. It is true that I do try cover visual arts and theater in Northern California and shall continue to try, even though both scenes have grown huge, and I am not an army.… Read More »
