Poolside, Encino, CA - 1963. Part of the Charles Phoenix Archive printsavailable from Michael Dawson Gallery

Today The Wall Street Journal published “The Art World Goes Local”, an article by Kelly Crow mentioning the Michael Dawson Gallery in Los Angeles… dealer of prints from the Charles Phoenix Archive!

Click here to read the full article at WSJ.com.

View the Charles Phoenix Archive prints and more at the Michael Dawson Gallery & Bookshop.

Celebrate Halloween at LA’s legendary Bob Baker Marionette Theater, now in its 50th year. This Thurs & Fri night I’m thrilled to present… BOB BAKER’S HALLOWEEN SPOOKTACULAR! …a vintage puppet show extravaganza starring dozens of bizarre one-of-a-kind marionettes…

Get the back story!… with slides and classic TV and film clips I’ll tell the story of Bob’s unparalleled career, which began in 1932…

Delicious cake and ice cream served in the festive party room will follow the grand finale…a rare performance by he master himself! Your imagination will be inspired and your spirit will soar! And you may even get a little creeped out too!

$35 CLICK HERE FOR TICKETS & INFO



Here’s to Halloween, Bob Baker, and you!

Charles Phoenix
October 27, 2009

Among the crowd two suited men stand out gazing and pointing at the beautiful, bountiful harvest of pumpkins and gourds lined on wood platforms. A pumpkin tree is staged in the heart of town. It’s Christmas treeness reminds us that the season of santa is right around the corner. A Ferris wheel spins a block away. Welcome to the greatest pumpkin party in America!

Celebrating everything pumpkin has been happening in Centerville since 1903. The historic festival begins its 106th year today, right here in the center of Centerville, which, btw isn’t in the center of the state where the name would lead us to believe. It’s in southwest part of the state. They should change the name of the city to Pumpkinville?

Thousands of folks come every year from all around to admire the legendary pumpkin expo, catch a glimpse of “Miss Pumpkin Show” and enter biggest pumpkin contest. The record weight of 1524.5lbs was set in 2007. That’s a vegetable that could crush you! Fertilize your pumpkin patch generously with manure and Miracle Grow and you might grow one big enough to win the grand prize next year.

Not only are the pumpkins ogled and admired they get eaten too. Pumpkin cookies, cakes, pancakes, waffles, donuts, ice cream, cream puffs, brownies, taffy, fudge, burgers, blossoms and seeds are all on the menu.

The big star of the food show is the “world’s largest pumpkin pie.” It’s six feet across and has 40lbs of sugar in it. I wanna know where you get a pie tin that big? The super pie sounds yummy but no Centervilleian will touch it after four festive days of being on display and drooled on. So they feed it to some very lucky pigs. Oink, oink! Pigs like pumpkin pie and so do I. Don’t you?

Here’s to pumpkin everything in Centerville, the pie pigs and YOU!

Charles Phoenix
October 21, 2009

Twelve pancakes, about to be flipped, have just been remarkably well poured in a grid on a griddle. The cook, impeccably suited for the matter at hand in bleached whites finished with a snappy bowtie, has a spatula in hand, grin on his face and eyes on the bottle of beer in the hand of his less kempt pancake copilot. He looks to be on batter duty judging by the fact that he is standing before a generous stainless bowl of it. His look is that of a long sleeved paisley sport shirt and conversational apron stenciled with a caricature of himself at the moment.

Leafy vegetation, a moderately mod, two-slat-back, folding, wooden chair and a casually curled garden hose provide a lush backdrop, somewhere to sit and something to trip over. It’s a beautiful day in the backyard for a pancake breakfast. The barbeque is temporary. The bricks have no mortar holding them together. Oh how this inspires me to gather up a pile of used bricks and fashion a mortarless BBQ in my own backyard. When I do get my bricks organized in such a fashion I do hope I’m as well dressed as at least one of these two flapjacks!

There is something so special about being sociable over pancakes no matter what time of day it is or what size they are. Small, medium, large or silver dollar, dressed in real salted butter melted with syrup fresh from the sap of a Vermont maple, is a starchy, sugary, fatty Americana taste treat sensation of the highest order! Served alongside thick smoky bacon and farm fresh eggs any style reminds me of when I was a kid and we would occasionally, on a cold winter night, have breakfast for dinner, in the kitchen of course. If it’s too late in the season to have a backyard PANCAKE BREAKFAST CHEER PARTY have it inside during evening hours and call it the BREAKFAST FOR DINNER PARTY. But make sure not to forget the breakfast cheer!

Here’s to the cook, his co-pilot, mortarless BBQ’s, pancake cheer and YOU!

Charles Phoenix
October 12, 2009

Thursday Oct. 29th & Friday Oct. 30th, 2009, 8:00pm

* A Halloween Puppet Show Spooktacular featuring dozens of amazing vintage hand-made marionettes…

* Your host, Charles Phoenix, tells the story of Bob’s colorful life and career with vintage slides and classic film and TV clips….

* Cake & ice cream in the party room will follow the main event – an appearance by the Master himself!

PAST SHOWS:

Thursday, Oct 29th & Friday, Oct 30th, 2009, 8:00pm – Bob Baker Marionette Theater

A giant drive-thru redwood tree trunk provides a perfect perch for a billboard of one of the most bizarre roadside tourist traps I’ve ever discovered in a slide. Not only does this rural wonder claim to be a park of totem poles (and, who, tell me doesn’t like totem poles,) it’s also an aquarium where you can see “Ocean Wonders ALIVE – Like a Walk on the Floor of the Sea – Just Ahead.” Or in the case of this robin’s egg blue 1949 Plymouth, just behind! Judging by the mossy tree trunk this has to be somewhere in Northern California. Does any remember this memorable place???

Speaking of totem poles, I saw one just the other day. Not the traditional carved-out-of-a-tree-trunk type, oh no. It was a totem pole piñata that reminded me of a third grade art project that inspired me to get creative and make a rather stylish, if I do say so myself, totem pole out of five empty five gallon Baskin Robbins ice cream containers taped one on top of the other. Ultimately it was a paper mache affair complete with cutout cardboard wings and traditional colorful faces rendered in tempera, which I always think of when I occasionally enjoy an order of tempura in an exotic restaurant. But were not talking about delicious deep fried Japanese taste treat sensations right now, are we? This is about totem poles and paper mache!

And, if for some strange, odd reason YOU are inspired to have a totem pole piñata, or any other kind of piñata for that matter, but have neither the third grade inspiration and inclination to fashion one your self or…you have no idea where to find one…look no further – have I got the one-stop- shop piñata superstore for you! It’s a series of side-by-side, open-front warehouses at the corner of Los Angeles and 7th Sts. in LA, of course. Locals call it Piñata Palace. It has to be the greatest selection on earth. Fair WARNING to visitors of Piñata Palace… Your piñata imagination will be inspired and your tissue paper spirit will soar! And yes they do take special orders! And giant scale doesn’t seem to be a problem!

Here’s to roadside ocean wonders, totem poles, special order piñatas and YOU!

Charles Phoenix
Los Angeles
October 2009

A live comedy performance celebrating 50s and ‘60s road trips, tourist traps, theme parks, fashion fads, car culture, space age suburbia and… spectacular images of the Valley of the Sun. Followed by FREE donuts!

PAST SHOWS:

Friday, Nov 6 & Saturday, Nov 7, 2009, 8:00pm – Phoenix Center for the Arts

A six-pack of people sit tight in the lipstick red vinyl interior of a cool blue metallic Falcon Futura following a Galaxie 500 into a Walt Disney Adventure Through Time and Space. “Ladies and Gentlemen please keep your arms and legs inside the vehicle at all time-and remember, no smoking please!” I can hear it coming out of the car radio speaker as they pass through the fractured arched entrance. And how much are we lovin’ that smart little hat on that junior miss in the front seat!

The ultramod, multi-faceted time tunnel is framed by hundreds of yards of sheer fabric diffusing the hazy day sunbeams streaming through enormous wall of glass. I see at least one air condition duct in the time tunnel and that’s a good thing because no one wants to bake to death in their Ford motor car-time-machine-ride-vehicle on their way to experience Walt’s version of the dawn of life on land and far out future.

Barely visible in the distance outside the tunnel is the icon and centerpiece of the fair, the big globe officially called the Unisphere. Thankfully it stands to this day as a reminder of this two-year long worldwide corporate extravaganza of the absolute highest order. You can’t miss it while traveling between JFK and midtown Manhattan. SO-next time you’re in the neighborhood I HIGHLY recommend hoping out of your subway, bus, taxi, town car or limousine to experience it up close and in person. You won’t be sorry! If the Unisphere isn’t Americana I don’ know what is! Once you get beyond the shock and awe of standing before this timeless sculpture step into the original 1939 New York Pavilion now called the Queen’s Museum, where memorabilia from both the 1939 and the 1964 New York Worlds Fairs are displayed-not to mention New York’s most underappreciated tourist attraction-an absolutely GIGANTIC scale model of Manhattan that was created for, and remains in place, from the 1964 worlds fair! You will never see Manhattan the same way again!

Now, as to the whereabouts of the remains of the Magic Skyway Through Time and Space. Only the dinosaurs survived. We’ve been enjoying them at Disneyland since 1966 every time we ride the train around the park. Yes, those dinosaurs. Who knew they were leftovers from the world fairs. Disney recycles too. Who knows what happened to the far out future?

Here’s to Ford, Disney, the Unisphere, leftover dinosaurs and YOU!

Twin stacks of oranges give scale to this frightening fruit display leaning diagonally against an exhibit hall wall. Dozens more of the number one juice fruit and marmalade main ingredient are wrapped in turquoise tissue surrounding a soaring bat, perched owl, and startling wicked witch with big hands. Her teeth look like apples, her perfectly placed nose mole, a lime. FAIR FAIR WARNING: if you gaze into her eyes too long you may be cast under her spell. LOOK AWAY NOW!

At least I think this is a tissue and fruit collage craft project extravaganza. What else could it be? Whatever it is it’s workin’ for me! Whoever had the good sense to take this slide just barely let us know that the sponsor of this scary display is Pomona Fruit Exchange. The sign is half cut off on the upper right. Considering the fact that, historically speaking, Pomona is the Roman Goddess of fruit; the wicked witch display is an odd choice of motif. But apparently the judges didn’t think so. A blue ribbon hangs on the witches left shoulder. Witchipoo is a winner!

Speaking of the Los Angeles County Fair…yes, its that time of year again, fair time. And if you really want an Americana experience of the HIGHEST order I suggest you attend. But attend with purpose because there is a TON to see.

Get to the fair early. Make sure not to miss my famong my very faves… “the worlds biggest and oldest” miniature garden railroad, flower and garden pavilion, fine arts patio, and National Hot Rod Association Museum. Whatever you end up seeing and doing make sure you experience carnival fun zone during the MAGIC HOUR from dusk to darkness. The giant Ferris Wheel is always a great finale. Your Americana spirit will soar!

BUT…don’t kill yourself trying to see it ALL in one day because there is just too many attractions. After all this is the absolute LARGEST county fair in this fair land of ours just as it has been since it began in 1922, where it still takes place each year. It’s even larger than most state fairs. Have a grand ‘ol time and PLEASE have a BIG bite of every deep-fried-fatty-salty-sugary-fair-food for me! The homemade potato chips are my personal fried fave! Yum, yum, yummy’s in our tummy’s!

Here’s to county fairs, state fairs the freaky fruit witch and YOU!

Honey blond stained wood paneling absorbs as much light as it reflects behind a bespectacled, graying couple of terry-topped-vinyl recliner sitters clad in warm weather casuals. She crosses left, he crosses right. He is wearing a hearing aid not an iPod. Between them a circle of plastic skirts a lamp off-centered atop a mod, two-tiered end table shelving various periodicals and publications stacked like they’re being enjoyed. Married on the wall above them hang mass produced fancy framed, and picture-lit paint-by-numbers of Pinky and Blueboy.

The original Pinky was painted in 1794, Blueboy, in 1770, both in England. They weren’t married until Southern California railroad and real estate magnate Henry Huntington put them on display together in the 1920’s, at his namesake Library and Gardens in San Marino, CA, where they hang to this day. When Huntington bought Blueboy in 1921 for $182,000, it was the highest price on record for a painting.

In the 50s the fine art superstar couple became pop art icons when they were mass produced as paint-by-numbers and prints that hung in countless American homes. In the realm of pop culture couples Pinky and Blueboy rate right up there with Lucy and Ricky, Sonny and Cher, Barbie and Ken and Mickey and Minnie.

I remember when I was a kid seeing the originals for the first time while on a school field trip to the Huntington Library. We walked into the gallery. There they were in all of their glory and there I was, a chubby third grader wearing husky boy bell-bottoms from Sears. It was my first fine art moment and I’ll never forget it. I have enjoyed seeing Pinky and Blueboy ever since – the originals, the prints, and the paint-by-numbers! But I now refer to them simply as Pinkboy. You know, like Brangelina.

Here’s to the couple, Pinkboy and YOU!