Golden Bowers

A few weeks ago, hubby and I took our first visit to the Bowers Museum in Santa Ana. It has one of the prettiest entryways, built in the Spanish style, I've seen for a museum.

This is a large mural which is mostly obscured by a tree.

I'm not sure what to make of this pruning work. Perhaps they were trying to create a pom-pom tree.

This is in a small garden off of a large hall.

This is a museum that covers a variety of subjects. We saw exhibitions on Beethoven's late works, art of the Pacific (specifically headhunters in New Guinea), early California settlers' artifacts, and 19th Century European paintings. 

I'm sure we will be returning there again in the near future.

Board Meeting

A couple of weeks ago Hubby and I went to visit the Surfing Heritage and Cultural Center in San Clemente. 

The centre has a very large collection of boards lined up with labels that trace the various developments in surfboard design and innovation.

These two boards are reproductions of the early Koa wood boards used by Hawaiian surfers.

This board was made in 1907.

Those below are other early boards which are very heavy.

Duke Kahanamoku was an Olympic swimmer who is credited with popularizing surfing.

Here is the very board from the photograph above.

The size and shape of boards changed as did the type of wood used.

This tail end of a board was used by a friend, Barrie, and her surfing partner, Pete, as champion tandem surfers.

Snarks and surfers often share the same water and not always in a friendly way.

Eventually, lighter-weight materials for surfboards were developed and they became more colourful.

The Weber Performer design is still widely ridden by surfers.

A mock-up of a board shaping workshop.

Barrie and her next surfing partner, Steve, (whom she married) continued to win surfing championships. Their surfboard shop Infinity Surfboard Co has been a fixture in Dana Point for many years and is the home of continuous innovation in surfboards, stand-up paddle boards, and other boards. Steve (aka Master Boehne) made me a custom board, part wave ski, part stand-up board especially for paddling sitting down on flat water.

For Real?

Last week, while my guests were shopping in Laguna Beach, I excused myself and went to the Laguna Art Museum.

It had been a while since I was there and the galleries looked completely different. Last time there were some modern art exhibits on show but most of the wall space was taken up with early California Impressionism works with a contemporary watercolour artist showing on the upper level.

This time it was largely modern art with a serious dose of whimsey.

My favourite show was called 'Faux Real' in which things are not always what they seem to be.

These vases were pictures of vases.

Usually photography is not allowed in museums in order to protect the copyright of the artists or the people/institutions who own the art. For this exhibition there was a sign saying that photography was not only allowed but even encouraged.

All the items on this table were made of fabric.

Cloth art supplies.

This was a very large cupcake that you could climb into through a door (seen on the right).

Road Trip 6

This is the final post about my recent road trip. This post backtracks a little and deals with a reoccurring site we saw on the coastal portion, California Missions.

Read about the California Missions here and here.

Because of our schedule, we weren't always able to go into the Mission because we arrived outside of their visiting hours. However sometime we could get pictures of the gardens through the locked gates.

Mission San Jose de Guadalupe.

Mission Santa Cruz.

Mission San Juan Bautisa.

Father Serra who founded many of the missions.

Mission San Carlos Borromeo de Carmelo.

Mission San Luis Obispo de Tolosa.

Mission La Purisima Concepcion de Maria Santisima.

Displays showing how the rooms would have looked during the Mission era.

Adobe bricks.

How the bricks are made.

MIssion Santa Barbara.

Chalk artwork in front of the church.

Father Serra again.

Distance to the next missions.

Mission San Buenaventura.

For a review of my visit to Mission San Juan Capistrano see here and here.