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Womens History Month : Zelda Fichandler : Pioneer of Theater
Zelda Fichandler was a pillar in the regional theater movement, leading Washington’s
Arena Stage for 41 years. She produced 400 shows and directed more than 50 for a company that helped spur the growth of professional theater away from Broadway and inspired the creation of non-profit theaters around the country. In 1950, Zelda’s ArenaStage was Washington D.C.’s first fully integrated theater, at a time when city parks and recreational facilities were not yet integrated.
Later, as Head of NYU’s Graduate Acting Program for 25 years, Zelda trained Marcia Gay Harden, Rainn Wilson, Mahershala Ali, Dianne Wiest, James Earl Jones, Stacy Keach, and Jane Alexander.
This September marks what would have been Zelda’s 100th birthday. To honor her legacy will be two new books;
– An oral history from Routledge, To Repair the World: Zelda Fichandler and the Transformation of American Theater
– A collection of Zelda’s essays, speeches, and manifestos put together by Theatre Communications Group, The Long Revolution: Sixty Years on the Frontlines of the American Theater -
Porcupine Viral Sensation on TikTok
The global best-selling book How to Hug a Porcupine: Easy Ways to Love the Difficult People in Your Life, with an introduction by renowned author and psychologist Debbie Ellis, has taken the internet by storm more than a decade since its release. The book, which offers valuable insights on how to navigate difficult relationships, has become a recent viral hit on the popular social media platform TikTok.
How to Hug a Porcupine is an inspiring and practical guide for anyone struggling with challenging relationships. The book offers a unique perspective on how to handle difficult people and situations with compassion and understanding.Years after its release, the book has seen new life as it gains traction on TikTok, with users sharing their personal experiences and insights after reading it. The book’s relatable and insightful content has struck a chord with many, leading to its viral success on the platform.
In her introduction, Dr. Debbie Ellis, the wife of the late psychologist Albert Ellis, praises the book for its practical and compassionate approach to dealing with difficult relationships. She also highlights the importance of empathy and understanding in building healthy connections with others.
How to Hug a Porcupine, published by Hatherleigh Press and distributed by Penguin Random House, is available worldwide and has been translated in several languages. With its timely message and valuable insights, the book is sure to continue making waves on social media and beyond.
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Celebrating Black women with an exhibition featuring artwork by Elizabeth Salaam and Jean Cornwell Wheat, Reception: Thursday, March 21, 4 – 7 pm
We are Women: Jean Cornell Wheat
and Elizabeth Salaam paired with
“Beautiful, Brilliant & Brave:
A Celebration of Black Women”March 18 – April 18, 2024
FREE and OPEN to the public
Reception: Thursday, March 21, 4 – 7 pm
Musical performance by Mariea Antoinette
FREE parking in Lot # 1, in STAFF parking ONLY.Artists Websites: https://www.elizabethsalaam.
com/
https://www.artpowerequity.com/about-3 Can’t join for the events?
Visit us during our regular gallery hours:
Monday through Thursday, 12-5 pm.For appointment outside of regular hours email request to: amoctezu@sdccd.edu
For additional information, visit: https://www.sdmesa.edu/art-gallery
or call (619) 388-2829 during business hours.San Diego Mesa College,
Fine Arts Building, Art Gallery, FA103
7250 Mesa College Dr. SD 92111
Closest entrance is through Marlesta/GeneseeImage credit: Jean Cornwell Wheat, Snail, 2023, 48″ x 36″, acrylic on canvas;
Elizabeth Salaam, detail from Bitch I’m from Here, 2024, mixed media.With panels celebrating local women and artwork delving into personal narratives of displacement and connection, this dual-themed exhibit shines a light on Black women’s experiences in America. Artwork by Jean Cornwell Wheat and Elizabeth Salaam is paired with 2014’s “Beautiful, Brilliant and Brave: a Celebration of Black Women” curated by Starla Lewis and Aisha Hollins for the Women’s Museum of California. Presented by the Mesa College Art Gallery in honor of Women’s History Month this exhibition will be on display from March 18 – April 18, 2024, with a reception on Thursday, March 21 from 4 – 7 p.m. featuring a special musical performance by Mariea Antoinette.
There will also be additional programming including story telling, music and workshops. An artist talk is scheduled for Wednesday, April 17, 5 – 7 pm. The gallery is closed for Spring Break: March 25 – 29.
The exhibit “Beautiful, Brilliant and Brave” consists of biographical panels recognizing the contributions of twenty female Black leaders with connections to the San Diego region. San Diego Mesa College president Ashanti Hands and retired San Diego Community College chancellor Dr. Constance Carroll are honored in this iteration and included with several notable artists, educators and community activists.
Gallery director Alessandra Moctezuma took this as an opportunity to highlight two local Black women artists belonging to different generations: Jean Cornwell Wheat and Elizabeth Salaam.
As a mixed race child adopted into a white home and raised in a white town, Elizabeth Salaam grew up with a deep sense of disconnection. As an adult, in hair salons and living rooms and around kitchen tables, she finally found herself in deep conversations with other Black women. For this new body of work, Salaam plaited synthetic hair into braids, and used seed pods, branches and plaster-cast body parts to weave together narratives of displacement and to explore the multifaceted experience of being Black in America. The braids also symbolize the bonds between women in all cultures and the fundamental element of community in the health and wholeness of a human being.
Many of the braids in the exhibition were crafted in communal settings, and their abundance embodies the spirit of togetherness and resilience. Through “Re-Mother,” a large womb-like chair woven with braids and adorned with breasts, and its companion “Re-home,” a film that captures the intimacy of Black women braiding together, the work highlights the significance of community as a source of nourishment and a place of comfort.
Painter, sculptor, multi-media artist, and a professor of art history, Jean Cornwell Wheat invites the viewer into her personal realm in artworks that cover a variety of topics. Cornwell Wheat moved to San Diego from Harlem in 1966, and the cultural life of this historical Black epicenter shaped her unique and timeless perspective. Her canvases are vigorous and engaging. In the exhibit there is a large portrait of author Toni Morrison, who stares at us with an intense gaze and a luminous landscape that breaks up in a cubist prismatic composition. An abstracted nude and a lush enlargement of a snail’s shell, both rendered in warm flesh tones, speak to earthiness and our connection to Nature. A female head, regal as an Egyptian goddess, is actually a depiction of the only artwork that survived the 2007 fire that destroyed the artist’s studio: a bronze bust burned to reveal amazing flecks of brilliant colors.
Ms. Jean, as she’s affectionately called, is a mentor to under-privileged youth in San Pasqual Valley. In 2023, the San Diego Museum of Art acquired one of her paintings for their collection.
Gallery Hours: M, T, W, TH 12 – 5 p.m. (Or by appointment.) Closed Fridays, Weekends & Holidays. For additional information, please visit: https://www.sdmesa.edu/art-
gallery or call (619) 388-2829. -
The Fondation Maeght, in the French Riviera, celebrates its 60th anniversary this summer
The Fondation Maeght, the first foundation for modern and contemporary art in France, will celebrate its sixtieth anniversary in the summer of 2024. Founded in 1964 by the art dealers, publishers and lithographers Marguerite and Aimé Maeght, it was opened in Saint-Paul-de-Vence by André Malraux and immediately gained official recognition as serving the public good. The anniversary will be marked by a major summer exhibition, “Bonnard-Matisse, a friendship”, the opening of new exhibition rooms – dedicated this year to the permanent collection – and a month of celebrations including concerts, dance performances, film screenings, lectures and more.
Fondation Maeght © Photo : Olivier Amsellem – Archives Fondation © Successió Miró / © ADAGP, Paris 2024Over 60 years and more than 150 exhibitions by great artists of the 20th and 21st centuries, the Fondation Maeght’s unique perspective has made a strong impression on the history and dissemination of art. Seeing the story of art through the prism of the friendship between the Maeght family, the Foundation and the artists makes it possible to move away from traditional academic approaches: art and life permanently bound together, from exhibitions to the Nuits de la Fondation evening events (dance, theatre, music etc.), picnics, dinners, boat trips and more. But after all, wasn’t it the artists themselves who encouraged the Maeghts to overcome the pain of losing their second son with a long trip to the United States in the 1950s? And then, by founding the Foundation, inspired by the major American figures they visited on their travels: Barnes, Guggenheim, Phillips…?
To celebrate this anniversary, the Fondation Maeght is presenting an exhibition designed specially for the occasion, “Bonnard-Matisse, a friendship, for the 60th Anniversary of the Fondation Maeght”. From the 29th of June to the 6th of October, the exhibition will focus on the friendly, respectful relationship between Pierre Bonnard and Henri Matisse and explores their links with the Maeght family, who saw the two artist friends as geniuses of the 20th century, while sharing the greatest – and the most everyday – moments of life with them.
Several themes surround this central focus, illustrated with many rare works and documents, including exceptional loans granted for the occasion. The exhibition explores the individual characters of the two masters but also, in mirroring one other, the specificities of each artist in their approaches to the same subjects: self-portraits, the street, the Mediterranean light, the painter and the model, etc.
This summer, the Fondation Maeght is also opening the new spaces created in 2023 and 2024, hanging a selection of iconic works from its collection. The architect Silvio d’Ascia, who was invited to design the new extension, has come up with four new rooms, two of which offer a unique view over the valley through large windows beneath the Giacometti and Miró courtyards. The Fondation Maeght will now be able to offer temporary, themed or retrospective exhibitions at the same time as hangings of its permanent collection in dedicated spaces. The extension to the building was designed with the greatest respect for the tree-lined site and the historic building by Josep Lluís Sert.
Finally, the Foundation, whose history reminds us that all artistic disciplines are intertwined, is planning a month of celebrations for its sixtieth birthday. These will run from the end of June until the 28th of July, the anniversary of its opening in 1964, which was marked by a memorable concert featuring Ella Fitzgerald and Yves Montand. In 2024, the Fondation Maeght is once again scheduling dance performances, concerts, lectures, doctumentary films about Bonnard and Matisse, conferences, childre’s workshops, etc.
The Fondation Marguerite et Aimé Maeght was the first foundation in France dedicated to modern and contemporary art. Its public interest was recognised by ministerial decree on 15 May 1964. Since 1981, Adrien Maeght, Marguerite and Aimé Maeght’s son, has been Chairman of the Foundation’s Board of Trustees. The Board is made up of 11 members, including representatives of France’s Ministry of Culture, the Department of French Museums and the Ministry of the Interior, as well as four members of the Maeght family and four qualified individuals.
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Explorer’s Club Member Jennifer McConachie Offers Guidance on Outdoor Adventures
No matter the conditions, if you embrace them, you can find a way to train for multisport.
Multisport is the new frontier for extreme and endurance sports. And more specifically, it is the act of combining multiple human-powered sports together to explore, go on an adventure, and challenge yourself.
It is also an all-weather, all-season activity! It is easy to be deterred by extreme weather, but multisport is all about taking on the extreme. Below are a few ways to embrace the weather for multisport training:
1. More than Mountain Snow: When conditions are snowy, this gives a great reason to try familiar multisport sports, like running or biking, in an new enviroment, in this case, in the snow.
This winter I ran to a predetermined destination on fresh powder, then switched to biking along the same path home, with a few off-piste detours to add challenge to my workout. I didn’t need to travel to a mountain town to try the sport of snow biking. I simply waited until my region got snow and hopped on my mountain bike to give this new-to-me sport a try. A few other ideas for embracing the snow for multisport training include cross country skiing, skate skiing, ice skating, snowshoeing and ice paddling.
2. The Heat & Sun: During the high heat of summer, try adding water sports into your multisport repertoire for a built-in way to cool down and get refreshed.
For beginners, run to your local outside pool during lap swim hours, swim a mile, and then run home. If not a runner, then try biking or walking. For more advanced swimmers who are comfortable in open water, run to your open water swimming destination. For those of us who live in land-locked areas, try lakes, reservoirs, and even rivers! Once you have mastered the run/swim multisport or bike/swim multisport, add a kayak after or even a kayak and a stand up paddleboard for additional ways to stay active, workout, and train for multisport in the heat and sun.
3. Cold & Tropical Rain: Rain is a wonderful tool when it comes to multisport training. Tough conditions like cold rain on long runs can help prepare you for challenging races to come.
When in tropical climates, where you might already be getting wet from showers each day, head to the water to try local iterations of sports. For example, try outrigger paddling while in the Pacific. When in coastal areas, either in the heat of the tropics, or cold of northern climes where wetsuits are needed, go for whitewater rafting, coasteering or canyoneering. You can take advantage of local geography, conditions, and your situation for more multisport options than what might be easily available on a daily level at home.
Using the weather to train for multisport allows you to tackle adverse conditions, try new sports and sport combinations, and prepare you for whatever may come on race day in any extreme direction.
About the Author
Jennifer Strong McConachie is an ultrarunner, mountaineer, marathon swimmer, distance paddler, and multisport athlete. An Outward Bound graduate, she is also a Fellow in the Royal Geographical Society and member of The Explorers Club. She trains for mountain ascents around the world, including several of the Seven Summits. Jennifer has several certifications in fitness teaching including from the American Council on Exercise. As a professional speaker, presenter and trainer, she leads groups and workshops on business goal setting and leadership. Jennifer has written two books Go Far: How Endurance Sports Help You Win At Life. and Go Multisport
Praise for Go Multisport
“If it feels like an adventure to you, then it is an adventure! Multisport gives you the freedom to interpret adventure in the way that works for you.” —Alastair Humphreys, National Geographic Adventurer of the Year
“Jennifer has done an incredible job providing us all with a clear and concise picture of how important and powerful adventure can be in all of our lives.” —Ray Zahab, Arctic world record holder & author of Running for My Life
“Go Multisport offers fun, inspirational advice for adding spice to our exercise, training, adventures, and life.” —Roman Dial, author of Packrafting! & national bestseller The Adventurer’s Son
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Unveiling the Goodness of Naked Oats: A Power-Packed Breakfast Solution
Are you in search of a nutritious and convenient breakfast option that will kickstart your day with gusto? Look no further than Naked Oats – the delicious high-protein powder that promises to satisfy your taste buds and fuel your body for the challenges ahead.
Picture this: Less than thirty seconds of preparation, and voila! Your breakfast is ready to go when you wake up, ensuring you start your day on the right foot. But what sets Naked Oats apart from the rest?
Firstly, let’s talk about protein. With a generous serving of 20 grams of grass-fed whey protein per serving, Naked Oats ensures you get the necessary fuel to support your muscles and keep you feeling satiated throughout the morning.
But that’s not all – Naked Oats goes beyond just protein. Packed with 7 grams of fiber, this powerhouse powder supports digestive health, keeping you feeling light and energized as you tackle your daily tasks.
What truly makes Naked Oats stand out is its commitment to quality and transparency. Say goodbye to artificial sweeteners, flavors, or colors – Naked Oats prides itself on offering a natural and wholesome breakfast experience. Plus, it’s GMO-free and soy-free, making it a safe choice for those with dietary restrictions.
Certified gluten-free, Naked Oats ensures that everyone can indulge in its goodness without worrying about gluten-related sensitivities. And let’s not forget the irresistible aroma and taste that will leave you craving more with every sip or spoonful.
How To Use
- When: Prepare our high-protein oats the night before to enjoy a quick and easy high-nutrition breakfast. Or mix with your preferred milk and enjoy immediately!
- Mix: For protein oats, add two rounded scoops to 8 fl oz of milk and refrigerate for 5+ hours. For a protein shake, add two rounded scoops to 6-12 fl oz of your preferred beverage and blend for 15-20 seconds.
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So, why settle for ordinary when you can GET NAKED with Naked Oats? Experience the Naked Difference today and discover a breakfast solution that’s as nourishing as it is delicious.
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