By STEPHEN MOTIKA Palisadian-Post Contributor George Herms is radiant. Currently a visiting scholar at the Getty Research Institute investigating the theme of ‘duration,’ he is being celebrated by a 45-piece, 45-year survey of his career in an exhibit at the Santa Monica Museum of Art. ‘The show, ‘George Herms: Hot Set,’ was curated by the legendary Walter Hopps, who died last month, and presents one of the most distinctive careers of the post-war Los Angeles art scene. ‘While Herms describes himself as a junk artist, his art is not junk. His assemblages are created out of the trash and waste of our industrialized, consumer-driven society. He collects scrap metal from the highway, scavenges abandoned cars and buildings, and assumes ownership of the discarded and forgotten. He spoke of his artmaking process in a recent interview with the Palisadian-Post. ”I combine raw materials that so often show the passage of time, the duration of erosion. These are objects that can become alchemically transformed.’ Herms is the alchemist. He intervenes, moving the objects and pieces around in space, over time, until they take shape. Herms sees this as the ‘dancing of objects before they settle down into a composition.’ He often adds his own drawings or letterpress type. The artist Marcel Duchamp called this type of work’ found objects altered by an artist’s intervention”the assisted readymade.’ ‘ ‘ Herms started the assemblage work while living in Hermosa Beach in 1956. ‘I began to beachcomb and put together small tableaux of found objects,’ he says. He was influenced by Robert Motherwell’s book on the Dada movement as well as the other artists he was meeting, most importantly Topanga-based Wallace Berman (1926-1976), considered to be the ‘father’ of the California assemblage movement. ‘He was 22 years old. It was through Berman that Herms first met Hopps, who, with Edward Kienholz, founded and directed the Ferus Gallery on La Cienega, which exhibited many important Los Angeles artists during the late 1950s and early 1960s. ‘Hopps went on to direct the Pasadena Art Museum during the 1960s, where he curated the exhibitions that made him famous, shows dedicated to the work of Duchamp, Kurt Schwitters, and Joseph Cornell. During the Schwitters exhibition, Hopps displayed 13 of Herms’ collages in another gallery. ‘The previous year, Herms had been included in the Museum of Modern Art’s ‘The Art of Assemblage’ in New York. By 1961, he had joined the annals of art history. ‘Herms is now the last California artist from that period still creating assemblage. A big, new work in the Santa Monica Museum show, ‘Thelonious Sphere Monk,’ was completed late last year. The piece is a salute to the jazz pianist Thelonious Monk, whose music is the one thing Herms would take with him if forced to live on a desert island. The tableau comprises of an upright piano in which an unrolled, coffee-stained lampshade serves as the sheet music; a stained bumper rests on the keys; a large, rusted metal sphere stands on top; and about a dozen other pieces of found and assembled objects are included. ‘Herms doesn’t like to explain the work of art in total; he might share a bit about the inspiration or its formal aspects, but he wants the viewer to consider the work on his own. He will tell you that many of his pieces are homages to individuals, especially the poets, musicians, and artists who have influenced him. He calls this work his ‘homagery.’ ”Donuts for Duncan’ was made after the San Francisco poet Robert Duncan died in 1988. Herms took the piece to Duncan’s memorial and shook it so that it made a huge noise; it is both a work of art and a musical instrument. The circle appears in much of Herms’ work, as does the cross. In ‘Southwest Photo Opportunity,’ Herms mounted a rusted bicycle wheel and a cruciform on a piece of weathered newsprint. The assemblage represents his travels through the Southwest and ‘faded browns and silvered woods’ of the land. ‘Herms, who turns 70 in July, was born and raised in Northern California. He enrolled in the College of Engineering at UC Berkeley, but lasted only six weeks. After reading Beat poet Philip Lamantia’s (1927-2005) ‘Erotic Poems,’ he started writing and soon after, making art. He moved around a lot before settling in Topanga Canyon in the 1960s to raise his daughters. (He also has two sons, ages 15 and 20, who live with their mother.) He taught at Cal State Fullerton, UCLA and Santa Monica College, and spent much of the last two decades living in downtown Los Angeles, where Elsa Longhauser, executive director of the Santa Monica Museum, first encountered his work. She described it for the Post: ”I walked into a cacophony of stuff, the space of an inveterate collector with every kind of castoff: cars, machines, books,’ she says. ‘Longhauser, who arrived at the museum (and in Los Angeles), five years ago, is committed to showcasing local artists who might not be widely known. She met Herms, visited his studio, and was convinced that he needed a show. When he mentioned Hopps’ name, she knew that he was the key. ‘She invited Hopps to curate, he said ‘yes,’ and they were on their way. They all agreed that they wanted the exhibition to distill the cacophony of the mass of Herms’ work. Both Herms and Longhauser talked a lot on the phone with Hopps, who was living in Houston, where he had been a curator at the Menil Collection for 20 years. For Herms, it was a time to reconnect to his friend of years past, talk about his art, and swap stories about the jazz clubs. For Longhauser, it was the chance to work with the legendary curator whom she had read so much about. She was also going to gave Hopps a chance to curate his first show in L. A. in two decades’an exhibition that ended up being his last. His career started and ended with the Los Angeles artists of the 1950s. ‘Hopps was too ill to participate in a preview party for the exhibition, so the actors Dennis Hopper and Dean Stockwell substituted. Longhauser considers their participation to be ‘a tribute to Walter.’ For an event on March 8, a conversation with Herms, Hopps ‘showed up looking completely handsome,’ she recalls. ‘He spoke for about an hour and was completely brilliant and scintillating. He commanded the stage in a very powerful and profound way. The last thing I could imagine was that he wouldn’t be with us a week later.’ Hopps died at Cedars-Sinai on March 20. On May 3, on what would have been his 73rd birthday, the museum will host an artists’ tribute to him, which Herms is organizing. Herms, who still speaks about his late friend in the present tense, sees Hopps’curatorial method ‘like the recipe for a good highball. The taste experience is always clear and unmuddied.’ While the other Getty scholars have presented academic papers during a weekly seminar, Herms took them for a tour of his exhibition. Being among scholars has given Herms the chance to reflect on his work in a historical context. He believes that art needs to ‘further the humanist tradition’ and to break down boundaries between people. He asks himself: ‘What is it beyond the work of art that will sustain the race?’ There is no answer, but Herms believes that working with junk and ‘raw materials’ represents something that might encourage a viewer to think about not only what is beautiful and important in art, but in life as well Longhauser sees Herms as a ‘romantic,’ and he stamps all of his work with the word ‘LOVE (with the ‘e’ backward),’ but it doesn’t keep him from dealing with the harsh realities of the world around him. He may be one of the few artists to have lived through the ’60s who still believes in peace, love and freedom. ‘George Herms: Hot Set,’ curated by Walter Hopps, is on view at the Santa Monica Museum of Art through May 14. Contact: 586-6488 or visit http://www.smmoa.org.

To call Larry Mantle a radio talk show personality is an anemic description of his 20-year position as host of KPCC’s daily interview/call-in program ‘Air Talk’ on National Public Radio station 89.3. Nothing about ‘Air Talk’ resembles what we have come to conjure as a radio talk show. Mantle is not doctrinaire, didactic nor self-promoting. Rather he uses the luxurious two-hour time slot ‘to dig beneath the conventional arguments to a place where we can talk about underlying assumptions, comparative measurement and even the history of a perspective.’ Mantle will share details of some of his interviews over the past two decades, many of them contained in his recently published ‘This is Air Talk’ (Angel City Press) on Tuesday, April 26, 7:30 p.m. at Village Books. In ‘This Is Air Talk,’ Mantle includes conversations with 21 men and women on a wide array of local, national and international topics. Guests have included Jimmy Carter, George Foremen, Frank Gehry, and Jack Welch. His prodigious preparation (four hours a night for research), plus his authentic curiosity, with no stain of gossip or pandering, results in fascinating and informative conversations. Mantle is particularly adroit at arriving at a fresh, unplowed level of discussion with the more practiced famous people, who so often slide through interviews on autopilot. In talking with former General Electric CEO Jack Welch, for example, he was able to build a report that stimulated Welch into thinking about his personality and how he navigated his career to accommodate it. Mantle’s conversation with Alexa Albert, who wrote an insider’s view of the prostitutes at the Mustang Ranch in Nevada (‘Brothel’) results in a sensitive, human portrayal of what is often thought of as a dehumanizing, humiliating profession. A native of Los Angeles, Mantle was raised by his very young parents, who were 15 and 16 at his birth. His grandfather was a physician with an open mind, who would invite Larry to accompany him on house calls and would engage the young man in a wide range of conversation topics. ‘I grew up surrounded by intense family discussions about politics, science, religion, race, the nature of fulfillment and how best to relate to others,’ Mantle writes in the forward of his book. ‘I loved being with my parents and grandparents, talking with them about the world. This probably explains why I’m an expert at nothing, but interested in everything.’ Mantle carries his enthusiasm and critical thinking into his interviews and creates an intimate relationship with the listeners all over California, and real conversation.

Laura Shepard Townsend will talk about ‘The Gypsy’s Song,’ her historical novel about a Rom (gypsy) girl who flees from Romania during World War I to Venice, California, on Thursday, April 28, 7:30 p.m. at Village Books, 1049 Swarthmore. Joining Townsend to celebrate will be Palisadian flamenco guitarist Charles Henry Schwartz and dancer Patricia Purwin. The couple will open with an escobilla d’alegras, a brushing dance, segue into a buleria, and finish with the mother of flamenco forms, the solearis. Because the Rom rarely associate with anyone but their own kind, little is known about these secretive and romantic people. Townsend will give an illustrated presentation on what she has learned about the wisdom of the Rom in the early 20th century, a time when ‘the gypsies’ wandered about the world in their painted and gilded wagons. Townsend will also discuss the writing of ‘The Gypsy’s Song,’ read excerpts and sign books. Since coming to California in 1975 Townsend has produced commercials and later moved over to writing scripts for films and commercials. Over the last eight years, she has been plotting her quartet ‘Destiny’s Consent,’ and writing ‘The Gypsy’s Song,’ which is the first in a series. In Book One she lays the foundation of Angelica Grastende’s journey. Grastende, a Gypsy girl, lives an idyllic childhood within her Rom ‘klan’ in the Europe of 1913. Abruptly, this all changes with the onset of ‘The Great War,’ when the persecution of the Gypsies becomes increasingly more violent, and a great misfortune occurs to the klan with a terrible reprisal. Angelica and her family are forced on an odyssey, which takes them over the Atlantic Ocean and eventually across the America of the 1920s. Born to entertain, all find jobs in a small family circus, and small, daring Angelica becomes a celebrity flying on the trapeze. The Gipsy Kings have kindly donated a copy of their new acoustical CD, ‘Roots,’ which will be raffled off Thursday night. Wine and cheese will be served.

By KAREN WILSON Palisadian-Post Intern Emeritus What’s love got to do with it? That’s what Palisades High School sophomore Taylor Gray wondered when she first sat down with her mentor, Elizabeth Gill Brauer, a local scribe who was about to educate her on the value of channeling emotion into one’s writing. Recovering from a breakup, Gray, 15, felt she was too angry to write about love. Brauer, she says, ‘inspired me to do it,’ and using her favorite medium, poetry, Gray was able to churn out verse after verse. ”It was the literary breakthrough Brauer, 57, envisioned when, two years ago, she signed on to participate in Writegirl, a Los Angeles mentoring program which pairs professional writers with promising teen wordsmiths in need of guidance. ‘After being a television writer for 25 years, I was jaded and cynical, and my wings were clipped creatively,’ says Brauer, whose credits include the seminal teen angst series ‘My So-Called Life.’ Now teaching screenwriting courses at USC’s renowned School of Film and Television, Brauer finds that ‘being a mentor has helped me get back in touch with who I originally was as a writer. I have a true love of words’language clarifies, edifies, and inspires.’ ”As Brauer discovered the joy of fostering young writers, Gray was across town in Inglewood, realizing that her daily journal writing was turning into a full-blown passion for the written word. ‘When you write from your heart, it can help release problems,’ she says. ‘I love it.’ A family friend caught wind of the Writegirl program and knew it would be up Gray’s alley. ”This past January, she and Brauer had their first after-school meeting at Starbucks Coffee in the Palisades, a tradition they have carried on, meeting for an hour of java and prose every Thursday. The two also attend monthly four-hour workshops at Hollywood’s Yucca Community Center, where they explore new styles of writing with other Writegirls from the L.A. area. ‘Before I met Elizabeth, I’d only written poetry,’ Gray says. But at a recent workshop, she branched out and created her own five-page screenplay, the saga of a girl abused by her boyfriend. Through her exposure to fellow members of the program, ‘she now knows that there are other people simpatico with what she loves,’ Brauer adds. ”The weekly Starbucks sessions have been helpful, Gray says, in furthering her development as a writer. ‘I don’t need to edit my work much anymore, because she’s taught me how to avoid being too wordy.’ Agrees Brauer, ‘She’ll write something prosaic, and I’ll show her how a couple of words can make it less so… the trick is not to impose’I have to respect the fact that Taylor wants her language to sound a certain way.’ ”No question Brauer has an easy time making Gray feel at ease; a former Palisadian-Post ‘Mother of the Year’ award recipient, the Hancock Park native majored in English at UCLA before moving to the Alphabet Streets in 1979 and raising two daughters with husband Jon, who works for Merrill Lynch. An active parent during her daughters’ tenure at both Palisades Elementary and Crossroads School, she found it difficult adjusting to an empty nest once her girls left for college. By chance, she stumbled across the fateful Writegirl ad in her monthly Writers’ Guild newsletter. ‘Ours is different from a mother-daughter relationship,’ Brauer says, referring to herself and Taylor. ‘I feel like I’m a confidant for her, someone to learn from’and how better to do so than through an art form?’ Attests Gray, ‘Elizabeth has given me inspiration and confidence in my writing.’ A voracious reader, the loquacious, bubbly Gray estimates that she owns ‘oh man, at least a hundred books,’ and, like a typical teen, favorites include the young adult series ‘Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events.’ It’s no surprise that her favorite school subject is English, and she takes pride in her ability to complete in-class writing assignments at top speed. ‘My teacher will tell us to write a poem, and in five minutes, I’ll have a whole page,’ she says. ‘My friends come to me for homework help.’ Published in last year’s Writegirl anthology, Gray is currently awaiting word from Seventeen magazine, which is considering publishing ‘Smile on a Stick,’ her tongue-in-cheek essay about the ills of being the only girl in junior high school without braces, for publication in an upcoming issue. Supporting their daughter through the early phases of her writing career are mom Dana, who owns a small flower shop and works as a receptionist at a venture capital firm, and stepfather Damien, an L.A. County fireman. ”Sharing the same playful sense of humor, Brauer and Gray both delight in writing together. A recent Thursday afternoon exercise called for Gray to write an entire story from the perspective of a cellular telephone. During another, Brauer handed the teen a coffee mug, sunglasses and breath mints, and Gray had 60 seconds to churn out a mini-story about each object. ‘Eventually,’ Brauer smirks, ‘I’ll try and get her to create a sonnet.’ Not that Gray will be running for the hills. ‘I just love to write,’ she says. ‘I don’t know what I’d do without a pen and paper, without my fingers and hands. If I didn’t have any hands, I’d die. Take my feet’but not my hands.’