This painting is by one of my favorite artists, Sir John Everett Millais. Usually he captures women who are rich and opulent. What I like about this painting is how he is studying a humble seamstress in muted colors. She stares out the window pondering her future and her life. I wonder whatever happened to the sitter in this painting? Did her fingers bleed for the rest of time, becoming rough from years of labor? Did she ever escape the fate of this moment and leap through that window, or was she forever captured in this existence of hers? I wonder, will I ever leave the canvas that life is painting for me? I want to make sure that before the varnish dries, I'm happy with the finished portrait.

Dear Ether,

I had the most magical night on Wednesday with English gent.  He and I have been jonesing for art and culture for some time. We were so used to having our pick of museums and underground do’s in England.  We’ve been sorely missing it.  Los Angeles has a few good museums, but it just isn’t the same vibe as London.  There is The Getty which is more about the museum structure itself than the art and LACMA which has some amazing pieces, but once you go, you sort of have to wait like, 6 months before it changes its scenery.  There is a MOCA, but man is it a schlep!  There are a few other token little museums out there too, but I’m not privy to the art scene here.  One that is amazing is the Huntingon which I’ve been meaning to take English gent to.  The gardens are extraordinary with different themes, and the museum houses a Guttenberg Bible and original manuscripts from famous authors.  Los Angeles also has Frank Lloyd Wright homes you can check out, and I’ve been foolish and haven’t visited those yet.  But, there is nothing like the Tate or the National Gallery in Los Angeles.  I just spent 8 years visiting these places and getting to know them inside out.  The Rodin’s and the Rembrandt’s became old friends and I just miss them so much.  

Knowing our desperation for culture was dire, the Big Apple Beauty, who lives it up museum-wise in NYC, bought us tickets to The Pageantry of the Masters, which is a festival in Laguna Beach (about an hour and half drive from Los Angeles) that is the most remarkable event.  They plan it all year, taking painstaking measures to do the incredible: using live people to re-enact famous paintings using scenery that has been copied perfectly to mimic the artwork.  It is a marvel.  The paintings become 3-dimensional and the characters who play the roles in the famous artwork don’t even breathe, that’s how still they are.  They are literally painted with the exact brush strokes someone like Frieda Kahlo used. Human beings are transformed into art.  They also have a narrator who described the paintings, gives a history of the painter, all while beautiful music like Brahms and Beethoven are played by a live orchestra.  This is all done in an oudoor coliseum under the stars.  It’s simply magical. The amazing thing was none of these actors were being paid.  They were all volunteers.  Though the show only lasts a month (and is sold out a year in advance) the dedication and love for this Pageantry of the Masters is unbelievable.  I was so happy to have been part of the evening.

Laguna is a really interesting town because it is a real artists colony.  Every other store is a gallery and they are famous for paintings called “Plein Air” which literally means in the open air.  Originally started in Europe by the Impressionists trying to capture light from outside, they took their easels into the landscapes they were painting and captured the light as they saw it.  Normally they would sketch outside and then re-create colors as they remembered it in their studios.  But Plein Air allowed them to snag the tones in the moment which added a whole new spectrum of color to paintings changing the way light was looked at forever.  Laguna was the perfect spot because of the flawless weather, the sepia toned landscapes with the bright blue ocean and the warm sun, creating amazing shades of color reflecting off of nature.  These galleries house many of these incredible paintings and they are so unique.  Though the idea of the art came from Europe, I really associated it so much with America.  But maybe this was because the paintings I saw were of American landscapes.  

An example of Plein Air art. Truthfully, it's not my cup of tea. But you can see how the artist captures the landscape and is trying to grasp the light and nature.

I enjoyed seeing artists at work and learning about a new form of art.  We ate lunch outside with the sea as a backdrop and just had a wonderful escape from the drudgery we’ve been experiencing lately.  It’s really funny, as beautiful as Laguna was, both English gent and I felt the same way—that it just wasn’t us.  It was too laid back.  Too calm.  We’re not accustomed to people walking slowly and a more laid back way of life.  We’re so used to the hustle and bustle of a big city, it just seemed too small town.  I think we were happy to visit, but very happy to be going back to Los Angeles (which still doesn’t seem to suffice). 

I hope that English gent and I find our niche.  That we can figure out where we belong.  Like the artists in the paintings caught in a frame, English gent and I also feel like we are stuck in a place we can’t move.  We feel painted into the scenery, but unlike the characters in the Pageantry of the Masters, we don’t get to wipe off the make-up and return to our normal lives.  We are forever on a canvas waiting for our portrait to be finished, but we seem never to be able to get our opus completed.  I dream of being unleashed from my painted life and being free.  I still want to be colorful and creative, just not locked into the landscape.  Like the players in the show, I want to breathe.  

Dedicatedly yours,

—One of 365

PS: I’ve attached a slide show below for you to see behind the scenes of the Pageantry of the Masters. I felt that my description wouldn’t do it justice and I think you need to really see it to understand what it looks like and what goes into making it the marvel that it is. Remember, any people you see in the completed paintings are REAL!  I hope you enjoy!