Author: Michael Chappell

One of my Facebook acquaintances, Eldon Daetweiler, has put me in mind of my salad days in Fresno. Eldon has flourished there, with his business, Fresno Modern, functioning as a virtual clearing house of all things in the Eichler/Neutra/Schindler mode. Or should I more accurately say, to give credit to extraordinary Fresno based talent, the Robert Stevens/Gay McCline/Walter Wagner mode. My hat’s off to Eldon. Some of the rest of us have flown, and sad that this has happened, for in my own case specious reasoning resulted in my rushing to the connoisseurship I felt could only be garnered with education and rubbing elbows in a more sophisticated environment. Quite a lot of what I turned my back on was, on reflection, manifestly as good as anything I ran towards.

Central to all this was my good fortune to enjoy a time of significant, albeit brief renaissance in Fresno’s Tower District, a commercial strip that takes its name from the exquisite art moderne masterpiece that is the Tower Theater. Plenty has been written about it, but it is nonetheless worthwhile for my blogophiles to peruse the theater’s website. Moreover, it anchors an area of satellite buildings from the late 1920’s through the early 1960’s, rather underutilized just at the moment. For a brief bit in the early 1980’s, following the restoration of the theater, the neighborhood enjoyed a flurry of activity- shops, restaurants, and services- and with that flurry the ad hoc designation of Fresno’s gay ghetto. Sounds trite now, but at the time, it was the center of a wonderful experience, with many establishments along Olive Avenue, the district’s main commercial thoroughfare, though not manifestly gay, all gay friendly. What no one saw on the horizon to affect this was the specter of HIV which eventually decimated the local gay community as it had everywhere else. That, and the waxing and waning of fashion, the vicissitudes of commercial enterprise, and real estate values have taken a toll on the Tower District.

It’s interesting to consider, much as I enjoyed living and recreating in the neighborhood in the 80’s, one other factor might also be influential. That is, the gay community, arguably, no longer feels quite the same imperative to maintain its own turf. While that’s not such a good thing for the Tower District, such a phenomenon is certainly a better thing for society at large. Mind you, I am hardly suggesting that Fresno is a bastion of liberalism, and has a ways to go to fully embrace the diversity that includes its gay population. But, then, the same can be said about most communities. It is nice to know, however, that the past is hardly forgotten, with the city’s gay pride parade still annually traversing Olive Avenue.

It is also nice to know that the welter of mid century architecture in Fresno, including notable buildings that survive in the Tower District, are recognized and, possibly, more broadly celebrated now than they have been in the recent past. I applaud urban pioneers like well-known landscape designer Robert Boro, whose new offices are now on Van Ness just south of Olive in a newly rehabbed vintage building, whose other occupant is interior designer Michael Weil. Is there a re-renaissance on the horizon? I can hope, of course, and say- paraphrasing the poet- Eldon Daetweiler, Michael Weil, and Robert Boro, may your tribe increase.

I freely admit that the Facebook phenomenon, actually just about anything in the electronic age seems more than a bit alien. Us with our avocation makes this rather easier to understand. Psychically we have feet comfortably planted in the 18^th century.  Mind you, despite our métier, Facebook is lots of fun, and after watching ‘The Social Network’, it’s abundantly clear that, say what you want, the site is still largely a beauty contest. What is yet impossible to communicate electronically, however, are those areas of sensual beauty that exceed the visual. With all that, even the visual leaves something to be desired as, no matter the pixels, one can’t substitute beholding the object of one’s desire firsthand. That’s actually why I read art history in London. An object based discipline, one wants to be around the objects with which London’s collections, more than anywhere else in the world, are replete. I have often heard it said that American art historians are distinguished as those who come up with lots of methodologies and build elaborate tropes- something that they might not necessarily do if they had access to, and consequently gloried in, more of the objects they write about with such prolixity. ‘In the flesh’ is a phrase that has so much to recommend.

Moreover, one finds comeliness not just in the visual, even when the visual as virtual is as accurate as current technologies can make it. I was reminded of this in spades, showing a discriminating client the hidden interior drawers of an exquisite William and Mary period japanned cabinet. While we are always asked what we’ve found in the innumerable hidden drawers our many items bought and sold over the years have possessed, my standard rejoinder has always been ‘Period dust.’ But in the most recent instance, I asked my client, with her nose within the cabinet interior, to inhale deeply. And by way of showing her how, I did, too. Nothing, I mean nothing can replicate the aroma that time has wrought in old wood, consonant with 300 years of existence. And of course, this is a sensual side aspect of beauty that is impossible to communicate electronically. Assuming one has simply a connoisseurship of the visual, I can only say that you are forgoing an experience possibly not resulting in a stir to the genitals, but possibly so, but certainly otherwise exceptional.

Reminded on the news this morning that today’s the official kickoff of the Giants season with their annual Fan Fest at AT&T Park, in its honor I wore my only bit of orange and black outerwear, an old Burberry shirt that has yet to make it to the rag bag.  For once, it turned out I made the right decision, as riding to the galleries this morning on Muni, those handful of people not garbed in team colors were, shall we say, conspicuous.

Giants mania is hardly a local phenomenon, unless you wish to consider a fan radius of 500 miles local. Astonishing the numbers of people who traveled just that far to queue up for today’s event. For those very few of you who may be looking down your toffee noses about this sort of thing, I can only say you must not have watched even 30 seconds of either the Giants playoff or World Series performance. For those of us in San Francisco, the link goes much, much deeper, with the Giants players and the Giants organization deeply connected with what goes on here. Clearly, fan loyalty is reciprocated by at least an equivalent in kind factor. No greater expression of that mutuality of regard can be imagined than that of the Giants World Series victory parade. It was my privilege to watch it just around the corner from our galleries, and the photos we took I’m happy to reprise on our Facebook page. Click here to view the album.