Travel

Information and stories about travel.

Creation 1st Day

Ori Sherman at the Magnes Jewish Museum

November 1, 2022 / Art, California / By

In Twilight: Ori Sherman’s Creation 1986 — 1988

Ori Sherman was an artist and illustrator in San Francisco. He left the security of a job creating frames at a high end department store and started lettering and painting Jewish marriage contracts. Later he started to publish children’s books about Jewish holidays and texts. One of the last series he worked on while he was dying of AIDS was a series illustrating the creation as told in the first chapter of Genesis. The paintings were later bought by a collector who eventually donated them to the Magnes Jewish Museum in Berkeley, Ca.

The opening of a show of these paintings was on October 20, 2022. Richard Schwarzenberger, an old friend from our Kansas days, and Ori’s partner, gave a talk about Ori and the making of these images. The paintings were made over two years, 1986-88 and were published with text for children by Robert Alter in 1990. During the creation of these works, Ori was very sick, but whenever he felt well enough to work, he did so, even if it were the middle of the night. I knew Ori through Richard. He was very funny and kind and I have fond memories of hanging out with them both.

The paintings are a visual Torah. The flatness of the perspective and the rich colors hark back to illuminated manuscripts of pervious centuries, but the playful flora, fauna, fantastical beasts, angels and the cosmos give the images a very modern feel.

Ori Sherman was born in Jerusalem, 1934 and died in San Francisco, 1988.

Here is the link to most of the images and their verses in Genesis on my web site. And I hope you enjoy them. Scroll down the page to see the gallery.

California 2022

 

 

Lawn going down to the sea

Orange County in June

August 9, 2021 / California, Travel / By

/

A gallery of images from Orange County, specifically around Laguna Niguel is now up on the site. Rosy and I had a great time visiting our friend and relaxing in the coolness of the area. We were expecting very warm weather, but we got lots of fog in the morning and cool temperatures. By the coast the fog stayed around until the afternoon, looking like low clouds. We did have some sunny days, but they never got too hot.
The west coast has experienced some horrific conditions this summer—drought, fires, heat waves and other biblical plagues, but we had a very pleasant stay. The coolness was a break from the heat in New York and the water and beaches were beautiful to see.
Here is the link to the gallery

Everything is Bigger in Texas

August 7, 2021 / Texas, Travel / By

I am still amazed at the size of grocery stores in the heartland. Back in the day, say the eighties, stores were cramped and dirty: one cart wide aisles, little selection, lousy greens and dingy floors. There are now bigger stores, Whole Foods and Trader Joe’s have made beach heads with large stores. Still, the spaciousness of the floors with so much room around the displays is still a shock.

In coming posts I will write about the rest of our trip to California. See the gallery of images from Texas here.

San Antonio, Texas 2021

July 31, 2021 / Texas, Travel / By
River Walk, San Antonio
Evening on River Walk

To paraphrase Melville:

When we find ourselves growing grim about the mouth; whenever it is a damp and drizzly November of the soul; and when it requires a strong moral principle not to knock off people’s hats then—instead of signing up for a three year’s whaling voyage to the other side of the world—we headed out of town for a much more modest length of time and distance. This is our way of driving off the hypos after 18 months of being in the same few square blocks of the city of the Manhattos.

After so long in one place and so isolated from so many, it was hard to even plan to travel. We seemed to have forgotten how to travel, how to pack, plan. We finally overcame our hesitancy and left the city behind.

But we didn’t start out with great ambition, we were just going to see old friends and family in mostly familiar territory.

Except Texas.

My experience of Texas has mostly been trying to get from one side of the state to the other as fast as the law allowed. And the old Mac Davis song had been mostly true for me—“happiness is Texas in my rear view mirror.”

Growing up in Kansas I had enough of flat monotonous land that goes on forever with grain silos to mark the small towns along the railroads. But my childhood friend Louis and his husband, Sterling, who had performed the wedding of Rosy and myself, had moved to San Antonio the year before and had invited us to their new home.

We had a great time even in the hot days of summer. We went for walks and went sightseeing either in the mornings or later in the evenings. Of course the museums and indoor spaces are chilled to Alaska temperatures.

https://brochmann.com/texas-2021/