Article by Miranda Seaver

Venue: The Regency Ballroom

Featuring: The Edwardian World’s Faire 2020

I was a weird kid. If you know me, even tangentially, this probably doesn’t come as much of a surprise.

I spent a majority of my formative years dressed in ill-fitting thrift store suits, making campfires at the park and carving Pink Floyd lyrics into tree stumps with my brother’s switchblade. I’ve since grown up, and every so often I have been hit with a sense of un-direction. I mean, where do weird kids go when they aren’t kids anymore?

On January 24, I learned the answer to that question: they go to The Edwardian World’s Faire.

The Edwardian Ball is described on their website as “an elegant and whimsical celebration of art, music, theatre, fashion, technology, circus, and the beloved creations of the late, great author and illustrator Edward Gorey”. You may recognize Gorey from his grim black and white drawings depicting old-timey, high society-types. Or, if you’re like me, perhaps you have vague memories of The Gashlycrumb Tinies, an alphabet book consisting entirely of children dying terrible deaths. I’ll admit I don’t know much about his work aside from the feeling of indescribable dread it gave me when I was young, so I turned to a more knowledgable friend to ask what she believed attracted people to the Gorey’s work and aesthetic.

“His macabre subjects and the gallows humor,” she said, “accompanied by the lifework that can range from stark to densely-packed with lines… And a lot of it, though not necessarily macabre, just feels bizarre.”

So what type of people are drawn together in the same of such a bizarre man?

I arrived to The Regency Ballroom about an hour ahead of time, which worked in my favor as the line stacked up quickly. What really struck me first was how elaborate the costumes I saw were. There was a blend of fashion and technology that fit in well coming from the culture of Silicon Valley. I was lucky enough to be in line behind Greg and Lora Price from Steamy Tech in Santa Clara. Their ensemble was drawing in a lot of attention from passersby, especially Greg with his modified top hat containing four wooden walls of light and moving gears. This was built by hand, as was the pendent around Lora’s neck that lit up and acted as a sort of decibel meter.

Steamy Tech works with laser cutters, 3-D printers, and basic programming to create motorized trinkets and kits you can put together on your own. And Greg and Lora are regulars at the Edwardian Ball, coming each year with a new wooden pin to give out. I saw several guests donning this year’s pin of a scroll and quill, along with designs from previous years. It was clear to me that there was a tight-knit community surrounding the Ball, of which Greg and Lora were a vital part.

When the doors finally opened to the crowd I was one of the first inside. And god, there was a lot to look at. The Edwardian Ball takes up three floors of the Regency Ballroom. When you first enter there’s the Grand Ballroom, a vast space with people on stilts and posed on platforms. There were a lot of photo opportunities, from the flying alligator in the center of the room to the set pieces modeling different Edward Gorey stories from previous years. Below that is the Vendor Bazaar, where artisans sell their handcrafted goods, and two stories up is a more intimate space, with the Fireplace Stage and the Museum of Wonders.

Needless to say, I was lost in a heartbeat and overwhelmed almost immediately. Three floors, each packed with entertainment for the entirety of the night. There was a period of time while the line along the block was filing in (There was a metal detector at the door and almost everyone’s costumes had some amount of metal in them), and I used that period to take in the space while it was still relatively empty.

I enjoyed the Museum of Wonders, a hall of oddities reminiscent of a carnival funhouse with a cage containing the severed hands of the Baba Yaga, and a mermaid skeleton displayed in a case. Outside of that I got to see Belinda Blair’s Mechanical Doll, a performance piece where Blair posed as an animatronic doll that would come to life and play a song on her ukulele for anyone willing to toss her a few coins or trinkets.

The street performer energy was strong here, from the actual performers to the lavishly dressed patrons. There was a figure in a fox mask with an luminescent cape that glided through the ball on a pair of roller blades, and another one in a massive skeletal headpiece. The show was incredible, yes, with performances by the dancers of Le Cancan Bijou and the incredible acrobatics and contortionists of The Vau de Vire Society. But what really struck me about the Edwardian Ball were the people that were attending it.

I got the chance to speak with a few of them, and with the ghost of my younger self on my mind, I asked them all what they would say to the weird kids of the past and future.

There was a range of answers, but what I heard again and again was that things get better. One man advised that old clothes come in handy – which, as a lifelong Goodwill advocate, I can definitely agree with. And I spoke with a young woman in a mohawk and ballgown about her thoughts on the subject.

“Don’t stop being weird,” she said. “Other guys are going to some lame house party tonight, and I’m going to have a fabulous time watching people be themselves and be amazing and feel great about themselves. And what’s not great about that?”

This really struck me. Because, while Edward Gorey’s work is rather restrained, the Ball is anything but. These people are here to celebrate – celebrate themselves, each other, and the spark in Gorey’s work that pushed them to continue. And there’s something wonderful about that. There’s a magical quality in the spectacle of it all, the sense of joy without judgement.

When I left the party was still going on, and I left with with a sense of community that I’d never known before. After this weekend the patrons of the Ball will go back to their everyday lives, scattered all across the Bay Area. They’ll be working their jobs, going about their days, perhaps even passing you on the street. You might see them draped in regalia, or they might look so inconspicuous that you don’t notice them at all.

So take their advice, reader, and keep it weird. You might feel like you’re the only one, but that’s far from the truth.

They’re out there. We’re out there. You just have to know where to look.

Revelers at The 20th Annual Edwardian Ball and Edwardian World’s Faire | Photo by Neil Girling

Revelers at The 20th Annual Edwardian Ball and Edwardian World’s Faire | Photo by Leori Gill

Revelers at The 20th Annual Edwardian Ball and Edwardian World’s Faire | Photo by Leori Gill

Revelers at The 20th Annual Edwardian Ball and Edwardian World’s Faire | Photo by Neil Girling

Article by Miranda Seaver

Venue: San José Museum of Art

Featuring: Beta Space: Pae White – Exhibition

I am a child.

I must be six, maybe seven, and my parents have dragged me along with them to the hardware store. They have their own business to attend to, so much so that they’ve all but tossed me aside so they could focus their attention on doorknobs and light fixtures. And since this is still the dawn of the Smartphone Age, I have nothing to distract myself. So I take to wandering through the aisles, toying vaguely with these artifacts of a life miles away form my own. It’s not much, but few things pass the time better than ascribing great intent to a meaningless subject.

Well over a decade later I still fall into similar habits. Some people call it “window shopping”, but that doesn’t quite capture what I’m sure we all did as children. The separation, I think, is comprehension. If you walked into somewhere like a hardware store today, you could likely place most of the items on the shelves. As a child, however, disconnected from context and vocabulary, it’s all shapes. Textures. Colors and light. That’s where the magic of these kinds of exploration comes in – from the gentle vulnerability of surrendering yourself to the sense memory of a new situation.

This is where we find ourselves in Beta Space, Pae White’s collection of old and new work organized to celebrate the San Jose Museum of Art’s 50th anniversary.

Pae White is a multimedia artist specializing in the exceptional quality existing in what most would consider mundane. Her current exhibit contains two notable installations that take up the space with an astounding scope. There’s foreverago (2017), a massive tapestry running at 127 feet long. It snakes through the center of the exhibit’s small room, coiling into little alcoves one can stand and be surrounded by cotton, cashmere and metal. You can watch it for it’s details, specially the scattered insects and depictions of psychoactive plants. Or you can let your eyes blur and focus on the colors and shapes, patches of silver and gold, and the most perfect shade of mauve.

The second biggest piece is AGAMEMNOMICS (2013), a massive collection of toys and tchotchkes lined up in a long case that stretches across most of the room. The work started off when White found a number of forgotten toys while in Vienna. With them she fashioned a chess set, and she took photos of nine different pieces and sent them to artists and fabricators all across the world, from Los Angeles to Germany and China. From there they created their own interpretation of the toy, made in the material of their choice. From that point on she amassed a series of mirrors in front of mirrors, reflections echoed enough to fade familiarity into only its barest outline.

And suddenly you’re a child again, wandering around your guardian’s orbit and taking in things you’re too young to understand. It’s a warm feeling, especially in the realm of art world academia, to see an exhibit from your heart and not your head. White’s work has been described as kinesthetic, being “as much a bodily as visual experience that plays with the senses”. Her focus is on our relationship with the ordinary, something that all too many of us take advantage of on a day-to-day basis.

You can do that for yourself even outside of Beta Space. Perhaps when you wake up in the morning you can dedicated a bit more thought to the things you usually ignore. Feel the way the bristles of your brush feel against your teeth, or how the heat gathers in your coffee cup. Curiosity doesn’t go away – not really – it just sometimes needs a little push to rise to the surface. That’s what Pae White is working towards.

So let her help you. Come loose yourself in Beta Space – at least, until your parents are ready to go.

Article by Jon Bauer | SAT, AUG 3, 2019, 10PM

Venue: Pier 70, San Francisco, California

Featuring: 2019 Gray Area Festival – Pierce Warnecke Live – ISM Hexadome

Endless Growth (Data Decay v3) is an audiovisual performance by Pierce Warnecke using data to illustrate dynamic ecosystems. Generated from data on population growth, pollution emissions, resource extraction, and global GDPs, this work questions how unbounded growth of humanity is incompatible with our finite planet—it may ultimately result in saturation and irreversible damage. Data Decay is an ongoing series of abstract sonification and visualization works, generated from datasets to convey interconnecting relationships through an audiovisual language.

Article by Jon Bauer | MON, JUL 29, 2019, 8:30PM

Venue: Pier 70, San Francisco, California

Featuring: 2019 Gray Area Festival – ISM Hexadome

From July 25 through August 3, the ISM Hexadome will be presented at Pier 70 in San Francisco in two parts. Each evening we will present the full Exhibition in two distinct Segments, featuring the exhibiting artists as listed.

Article by Jon Bauer | SAT, JUL 13, 2019, 8:00PM – 2:00AM

Venue: The Midway, San Francisco, California

Featuring: IllUM Art.Tech.Music (GAIKA vs. Madam X, The Flashbulb + More)

Article by Małgorzata Stanek

Lublin’s Old Town, a bustling historic centre, is home to many outdoor events and festivals, such as the Jagiellonian Fair in mid-August. The Old Town is lined up with ancient tenements, each with its own story to tell, they show that Lublin has always been a city of writers, poets, and artists.

At the heart of this historic quarter is the main square, the market square. Located centrally is a building known as the Crown Tribunal, dating back to the 14th century. The building has served many functions over the years. It was a town hall, then the crown tribunal. Today, it serves as a wedding palace and it’s also the entrance to the Lublin Underground Route.

The main streets fork from here. There are several entryways to the quarter: the Cracow Gate, the Trinity Gate, and the Grodzka Gate. The Cracow Gate is one of the most recognizable monuments of the city. It was a part of 14th century fortifications. It houses Lublin History Museum. The Trinity Tower is one of the highest viewing spots in the city. If you are not afraid of heights and love great panoramas, this is a good place to start hunting for great vistas of the city.

Maria Wirtemberska (15 March 1768 – 21 October 1854), was a Polish noble, writer, and philanthropist. In 1816 she published Malvina, or the Heart’s Intuition, considered Poland’s first psychological novel. [Wikipedia]

Adam Bernard Mickiewicz (24 December 1798 – 26 November 1855) was a Polish poet, dramatist, essayist, publicist, translator, professor of Slavic literature, and political activist. He is regarded as national poet in Poland, Lithuania and Belarus. A principal figure in Polish Romanticism, he is counted as one of Poland’s “Three Bards” (“Trzej Wieszcze”) and is widely regarded as Poland’s greatest poet. He is also considered one of the greatest Slavic and European poets and has been dubbed a “Slavic bard”. A leading Romantic dramatist, he has been compared in Poland and Europe to Byron and Goethe. [Wikipedia]

Julian Fałat (30 July 1853 – 9 July 1929) was one of the most prolific Polish painters of watercolor and one of the country’s foremost landscape painters as well as one of the leading Polish impressionists. [Wikipedia]

Article by Khatija Hussain

The Queen’s House is one of London’s most historic buildings and one of the only few remaining in Greenwich, London. This beautifully creamed stone paved palace brings the rich history of the lineage of the royals and how the monarchy was passed onto the Queen today. Some visitors have reported of a ghost that lurks in the Queen’s House, a photo was captured in 1966 of a hand but nothing further has been discovered until 2002, when a worker reported a figure dressed in a grey/white dress passing though the walls.

The Queen’s house was built in 1616 by Inigo Jones for the Queen Anne of Denmark, but it was put on hold once the queen had passed. In 1635, the Queen’s House was finished for Henrietta Maria, the wife of Charles I.

Although, Henrietta lived here until 1642, she was able to experience the house before she was sent into exile as her husband Charles I was executed for treason and starting the civil war.

The House holds over hundreds of paintings collected over the years and artwork created recently to celebrate the house’s 400th anniversary. The Queen’s House was closed off in 2016 to be refurbished to match the style of the original décor of the house. Inigo Jones’ architectural design was inspired from his journey from Italy and designed one of the first geometrical floorings along with the stunningly blue Tulip Stairs, which was the first geometric self-supporting spiral stair in Britain. This is where the supposed Queen’s House ghost was reportedly seen.

Each room in the Queen’s House presents paintings of the members that once stood in the house and the finest seaman in Britain. The King’s presence chamber is decorated with royal blue walls and outlined with a rich gold plated carved designs throughout the ceiling and corner of the room. This room hangs the portraits of the king and his courtiers who were royals, philosophers and naval officers.

The top left is a portrait of Vice-Admiral Sir Thomas Teddeman. The canvas below is of Vice-Admiral Sir William Berkeley. The top right is Vice Admiral Sir Joseph Jordan and the portrait below is Sir Jeremiah Smith. They were created in 1665/1666.

The gallery has many beautiful artistic works, some created were described as pen paintings displayed in the King’s antechamber. The pen paintings were drawn by the famous Dutch artist Willem van de Velde, the Elder. He was one of the artists to sketch naval battles that he had witnessed. The small room was darkened with grey walls to enhance the sketches and give the viewer a clearer visual of what each detailed mark of the naval ships looked like.

The pen paintings by Willem van de Velde, the Elder were of ‘The First Battle of Schooneveld 23 May 1673’ This was sketched in 1684 (the bottom left). The second sketch was of ‘A Kaag and a Galjoot Close to the Shore with Witte de With in the ‘Brederode’ Leaving the Vlie, 9 June 1645’ (bottom right). The pen painting above was of the ‘The Battle of the Sound, 8 November 1658’. This was fully drawn in 1660.

The Queen’s Privy chamber is filled with portraits of the Tudor Family, the Stuart Family, and the Hanoverians. Each royal family had their turn in ruling England in their own way whilst working with parliament.

The gallery hosted a talk in the Queen’s Privy chamber by a volunteer named James Ears. He delivered a fantastic detailed and informative talk on these three bloodlines. Discussing how each member in these families came to power. The Tudors time was before the Queen’s House and Queen Elizabeth I was just shy of her 70th birthday before she had passed away and remained childless with no one to pass the throne onto. James I of England (6th of Scotland) was next in line for the throne. He was known for being influential and was quick with settling deals with parliament and others. James I was the transition from the Tudors between the Stuarts. The story of how the Hanoverians took the throne continues to be how the monarch is run today by her majesty Queen Elizabeth II.

The Queen’s House last room ends with a very detailed painting on the roof of many influential figures in history. This gallery has so much to offer, it is a lovely day out for taking the family and learning something new about England. The queen’s house is not the only place to visit, with this historical site, the Maritime Museum is nearby along with the Royal Observatory. These monuments are the last original historical buildings left in Greenwich that make up some of the history of London and the current royal family.