Arts | Fotoeins Fotografie

Posts from the ‘Arts’ category

Santa Fé: fall colours, chile flavours

Above/featured: northbound on I-25 to Santa Fe – 8 Oct 2018 (6D1).

From different parts of the continent, we flew in and out of Santa Fé, which served admirably and comfortably as our base for a couple of day trips to Taos and Abiquiú (Georgia O’Keeffe Country). These would kick off our two-week drive through the American Southwest.

But Santa Fé is also important for these reasons:

• Established in 1610 as the seat of governance for province of New México within colonial territory Viceroyalty of New Spain.
• Oldest continuously inhabited state/territorial capital city in the continental United States.
• Near the northern terminus of 16th-century Spanish colonial Royal Road (Camino Real) from México City.
• Western terminus of the 19th-century pioneer Santa Fé Trail from Franklin, Missouri.
• Key destination in the original configuration of 20th-century highway US route-66.
• A delicious, flavourful, and spicy introduction to New Mexican cuisine.

( Click here for images and more )

Seattle: murals in West Seattle

Above/featured: Facing east at The Junction: SW Alaska Street at California Avenue SW. At left (northeast corner) is the red-brick Campbell Building from 1911, oldest in the neighbourhood and a designated City of Seattle historic landmark since 2017.

What: Paintings depicting the history of West Seattle.
Where: In and around West Seattle’s The Junction.
Why: Arts project with community and pride.

Technically, West Seattle is an area consisting of several neighbourhoods within the city of Seattle. Historically, West Seattle feels separate, a peninsula separated from the centre by the flow of water and peoples along the Duwamish river valley. West Seattle had incorporated as its own city in 1902, before agreeing to annexation by Seattle in 1907.

One key to West Seattle is “The Junction”: an intersection of 2 former streetcar lines “West Seattle” and “Fauntleroy”. As expected, commercial activity took root at the intersection and although streetcars have vanished, the nickname has remained as a simple useful designation.

A product of West Seattle, retired businessman Earl Cruzen (1920-2017) launched a local arts and community project in the late-1980s, inspired after visiting other towns in Washington as well as Chemainus on British Columbia’s Vancouver Island. Cruzen promoted the project with support among residents and business owners, generated fundraising efforts, and brought American and Canadian artists into the city to paint wall murals to highlight the history of people along the Duwamish river and the history of West Seattle. A total of 11 murals were painted, dedicated, and unveiled between 1989 and 1993.

Over time, the murals deteriorated and faded without touchup or maintenance. Members of the Southwest Seattle Historical Society engaged the community in 2018 with questions about the murals, and about raising money to support revitalizing the murals. In May 2018, Adah Cruzen honoured her late-husband with a gift of 100-thousand dollars to the West Seattle Junction Association to boost the restoration process.

So, what do the murals mean to the people of West Seattle?

( Click here for images and more )

London Bridge Studio: Pearl Jam, Temple o.t. Dog

Pilgrimage is a noun, defined as “a journey to a place of particular interest or significance.”

There are three things you need to know about this particular personal music pilgrimage.

One: the music that’s stayed with me came about because I was tuned to `70s radio; I learned I liked the sonic combination of guitars and drums. Some of those musical memories came from Seattle.

Two: sharing the same space where your favourite bands and songs were recorded hits a lot different than intersecting at your favourite band’s concert while seated waaaay up in the upper deck.

And three: on a recent visit to Seattle, I spent the morning in a recording studio just outside city limits. Little outside suggests some important music history was made here.

The two-storey building looks like a cross between a warehouse and ordinary office space. The surroundings include a small commercial complex and a storage-unit facility. Within a quarter-mile, there’s a gas station, some fast-food joints, and a shopping mall. This is the modest setting where London Bridge Studio resides in the city of Shoreline, WA, about 14 km (9 mi) north of downtown Seattle.

It’s unassuming and it’s also important to note how out of the way this location is from other popular places to visit. A little more effort is required to visit this place of living music history.

I’m more than curious, but there’s music that’s meant a great deal and stayed with me over the decades. Recorded in this studio are two important albums on personal playlist and timeline: Temple of the Dog’s 1991 self-titled album as tribute to Mother Love Bone’s Andrew Wood; and “Ten”, Pearl Jam’s 1991 debut album. Much of the credit goes to Rakesh “Rick” Parashar: born and raised in Seattle, first owner and co-founder of the studio, and producer for “Ten” and “Temple of the Dog”.

( Click here for images and more )

Vienna Hietzing Cemetery: F.Grillparzer, G.Klimt, K.Moser, O.Wagner

Previously, I provided short biographies for artist Gustav Klimt, artist and designer Koloman Moser, and architect Otto Wagner, and why they are important figures to the arts and culture scene in early 20th-century Vienna. These three figures are buried in Hietzing Cemetery in the 13th district of Hietzing at the city’s western periphery.

Located to the southwest of the former imperial summer residence Schönbrunner Schlosspark, Hietzing Cemetery is modest in size with an area of over 10 hectares (25 acres) and containing over 11-thousand graves. With the present site inaugurated in 1787, the cemetery has seen several expansion phases and survived damage from the Second World War.

I highlight the final resting places for Alban Berg, the Fröhlich sisters, Franz Grillparzer, Hans Hollein, Gustav Klimt, Koloman Moser, Strauss women, and Otto Wagner.

Friedhof Hietzing, Hietzing Cemetery, Friedhoefe Wien, Hietzing, Wien, Vienna, Austria, Oesterreich, fotoeins.com

2018 was the 100th anniversary of the deaths of Gustav Klimt (1862–1918), Koloman Moser (1868–1918), and Otto Wagner (1841–1918). Photo, 16 May 2018.

13. Bezirk, Hietzing, Friedhof Hietzing, Hietzing Cemetery, Friedhoefe Wien, Hietzing, Wien, Vienna, Austria, Oesterreich, fotoeins.com

Inside the front entrance – 15 May 2022.

Visitors to the cemetery can look northwest to see the glowing golden dome of Otto Wagner’s Steinhof Church at a distance of 4 km (2.5 mi). Photo, 16 May 2018.

( Click here for images and more )

Seattle: living black history in the C.D.

Oh Seattle: how is your black history defined?

With the city’s proximity to Vancouver, my time in or any understanding of Seattle was incomplete without an examination of the city’s non-white communities. I had questions about the black community and in particular why the city remains racially segregated. People of color, including black people, were once forbidden from buying houses in specific neighbourhoods because of their skin colour. The Central District (CD) thrived as a black community in the 2nd-half of the 20th-century, but now, citizens struggle with gentrification, displacement, and economic racism. There’s much more I need to ask and learn, but for now, I describe below a selection of landmarks highlighting contributions by and the historical impact of the black community to city and nation.

( Click here for images and more )