Saturday, August 28, 2010

Wednesday, August 25, 2010

the future of space circa 1981

Please stand by. Author currently being pulled in twenty different directions. Once she is cloned up into a team, then she can delegate her various projects and finally get things wrapped up.

Sunday, August 22, 2010

happy birthday, ray bradbury


Sir, I too wanted us to be firmly on our strange and wonderful stepping-stone moon by now, preparing in earnest for Mars, but as the decades slipped by we strayed off that path. Even so, I haven't lost all hope that we find our strength and vision once again.

It was at Planetfest in 1981 in Pasadena where I tried to put into words my appreciation for all that you've given us, for your being my longtime writing mentor, sincere sentiments that were received with your considerable grace and good will... despite your having heard such comments hundreds of times through the decades.

Happy 90th birthday, Ray Bradbury, and all my regards until we meet again.


brenda cox giguere

* * *

Note: Name of artist unavailable but I am checking; the work is in conjunction with a proposed television project I caught wind of. Details as they become available.

Wednesday, August 11, 2010

forces of change

The story of a diorama in a series of photos and blog posts.

diorama for 'forces of change'



One of the highlights of my year has been helping out with a special project for the Oakland Museum of California. It was a real honor, and a positive experience.

This series of blog posts includes photos I took of a small diorama I designed and installed for a new room in the history wing of the Oakland Museum of California, part of a group of two dozen dioramas collectively called The Forces of Change: 1960-1975.

To tell the story of an era of great societal change, historians working on this exhibit wanted to address a variety of perspectives. Many dioramas for Forces of Change were already in progress, including several that spoke of various aspects of the unrest of the period- and rightly so- but there was a desire to complete the narrative by finding a California artist or two who could share a visual presentation with a more mainstream outlook... in other words, a square like me who hadn't spent the Sixties protesting.

My official, dignified quote for my friends reading this blog is that I was honored to participate; the more honest quote is that I did an undignified happy-dance around the house when I read the invitation!

The email arrived in February of this year, and the museum reopened, after its extensive and expensive several-year renovation, in June. The museum has always been wonderful, but the renovation makes it even more so; I urge everyone to see it if they can.

The project always felt good to me. For one thing, I've long been an Oakland Museum enthusiast and frequent visitor, having grown up in the Bay Area and a die-hard fan of museums in general. Interestingly, the historian who contacted me had no way of knowing of that connection, but it made the project feel even more appropriate.

Beyond that, I was excited about the prospect of, at the very least, helping correct the impression that it was an era consisting largely of dischord. For one thing, what would a modern history wing of a museum be without some mention of the Apollo space program and moon landing? As it turns out, my humble assemblage of ephemera appears to be the only display in the history wing that includes any visual references to perhaps the greatest achievement of modern man. (Even in a cultural, non-technological look at this period in America, surely our safely leaving the bonds of earth must be included in any comprehensive presentation). Be that as it may, my inclusion of this event in my diorama was an honest one, in that it was tremendously inspirational to me. And I definitely was not alone.

And so I dug out boxes of memoribilia I've been carrying around for decades (oh, the vindication!) and set out to create a kind of personal narrative, the story of how I felt about that time period. I chose artifacts I felt would be of interest to the general public, while accurately describing my interests, attitudes, and dreams about my place in the world of opportunities I saw ahead of me. I wanted the diorama to express two key ideas: gratitude, and inspiration. Except for the blue painting I created as a backdrop, all the items were from the period. I even included my first-ever oil painting, a tiny floral still life painted on shirt cardboard when I was in high school. I also included two old photo-booth photos of my mother and father, taken during their engagement, put into the display at the last minute as a gesture of love.

Eventually it would probably make sense for me to put all these diorama photos and some text on a website somewhere, arranged in a better presentation. There are a lot of what I think are cool items; some are self-evident, others less so. Regardless of where this all ends up, I will eventually go into a bit more detail about what everything means. For now, what you're looking at is a collection of personal memoribilia that I arranged to tell a story.

Each diorama in Forces of Change is 32" across, 24" high, and 24" deep, inset into a wall, sealed with a clear acrylic pane. These dioramas have their own separate room in the history wing, complete with period rock music and psychedelic lighting as one enters (see? I told you). First I created a scale mockup at home, shown here. Then I arranged the items in the prepared wooden box (interior painted black as per my choice, like my mockup) on the museum premises while things were still a construction zone. As an aside, mine was the first one completed and sealed, as things turned out. Eventually I will try to find some decent photos of the actual room and intallation and post them online, as well. The second of my museum links above has a photo of what the diorama boxes looked like in their raw state.

Author and historian Adam Nilsen, who recruited me for my small part of the project, couldn't have been better to work with, and treated me with great kindness and respect.

And so, my portion of Forces of Change, in photos. Clicking on each photo brings up a larger version, should you want a closer look.

Sincerely,

brenda

oakland museum diorama detail photos










oakland museum diorama detail photos










christopher coppola, outlaw (continued)

The first time I ever handled a firearm or shot at a target was with director Christopher Coppola on location for a low-budget Western. I still have the official NRA paper target where we tried our skills using a .22 gauge long rifle. He was a fierce competitor, but my very first shot was just a tiny bit closer to the bullseye than his first shot. Sorry about that, CRC!

Flush with unexpected success, later during this same production I would be called upon to shoot at an antique cowbell for an insert shot. That I was good at this sort of thing was as much of a surprise to me as anyone.

Good times.

Back in time to an earlier post about The Gunfighter: here

Thursday, August 5, 2010

Monday, August 2, 2010

productive writing weekend

New and improved habits, new level of productivity as the end comes into view. Progress!