When I decided to learn to draw I had no idea I was going to discover a world of boundary crossers and metaphor makers who value negative space and think symphonically. Drawing, I discovered, is more about perceiving relationships than making marks on paper.

Every quest starts somewhere and my quest to learn to draw began at the Los Angeles Academy of Figurative Art in Los Angeles. I dropped by one Saturday afternoon for a free drawing class. The instructor spoke to the class about the history of drawing before demonstrating several techniques.  After the presentation a model stepped onto a small stage and disrobed under the spotlights.

I tried to maintain proportion and perceive relationships as I sketched, but the drawings did not look very good and I felt confused and disoriented. My quest had begun.

The instructor recommended a book entitled “Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain” by Betty Edwards. That evening I googled the title and discovered that a course with the same name was about to start at the Otis College of Art and Design on Lincoln Blvd.

The instructor for the course at Otis was Linda Jo Russell who appears in the acknowledgments of the book. The author thanks Linda Jo for her “unfaltering devotion to our efforts.” My quest was taking shape.

Linda Jo has been teaching people how to draw for over forty years. She has conducted classes and workshops in the United States, Europe, and Japan. The Otis College of Art and Design on Lincoln Blvd in Los Angeles is her home base.

On the first night of class, without giving us any instruction, Linda Jo sat on a stool and told us to draw her portrait. The process of trying to draw Linda Jo’s portrait involved looking at her and feeling my arm lock as I shifted my gaze to the blank page in front of me. After awhile I managed to sketch a likeness, including an attempt to draw the light reflected in her glasses. When she saw my drawing, Linda Jo asked if her eyes really glared like that. Drawing people can go badly very fast when you don’t know what you are doing.

As the course progressed we engaged in drawing exercises that made us perceive contours and object edges. Linda Jo told us that people often confuse what they already know with what they see.

To curb the conflict between what is seen and what is known, and to bypass internalized symbol systems and predetermined ideas, we performed blind contour drawing exercises. Blind contour drawing involves drawing objects without looking at the paper. Learning to draw, I was beginning to discover, is really about learning to see, which is different from just looking.

“Drawing needs to be taught,” said Russell. “For the most part people need instruction to be able to draw.”

The struggle to bypass internalized symbol systems and predetermined ideas is often resolved when students discover the ability to perceive negative space. Negative space is the area around an object that shares an edge with the object. “Negative space is new learning for most people,” said Russell. “Drawing is easy if you can access negative space.”

In class we explored negative space by drawing chairs, boxes, vases, books and candles. “In the beginning when you look at negative space you get a strange feeling. After awhile the brain begins to cooperate and you feel more natural looking at it,” said Russell.

Once you get a feel for negative space you start to see it everywhere. Driving home after class I found myself observing negative space around cars on the freeway and between electrical wires and telephone poles on the street. Awareness of negative space revealed touches of previously unnoticed rhythm and beauty in the clutter of the urban environment.

Linda Jo encouraged us to listen to classical music when drawing because it often helps people bypass internalized symbols and perceive forms as they really are.

We learned to be mindful of measurements and landmarks when drawing a face. All landmarks in a drawing are related to the distance from eye level to the chin. The base of the nose and closing line of the mouth must be located in relation to this basic unit of measurement. Other important measurements include the distance from eye level to the top of the head and to the back of the ear. You start to see triangular relationships everywhere in a drawing when you work with these relationships.

Proportion is critical to the success of a drawing. The nose is at least as wide as the eyes are apart and the mouth is slightly larger. The base of the nose is more than a third but less than a half from eye level to the chin. The central axis of the face always runs through the third eye and the twin peaks of the lip, regardless of foreshortening. Break the width of the eyes into thirds.

Linda Jo introduced sighting techniques that make relationships between angles and proportions easier to see. We explored light-logic in the context of drawing highlight, reflected light, crest shadow and cast shadow.

There seems to be moment during the process of drawing faces when an image comes to life and takes on the imaginative quality of a waking dream. I discovered this phenomenon one time when I was making a copy of a drawing executed in 1889 by Kathe Kollwitz entitled, “Self-Portrait in Profile, Facing Left, II.”

As I drew, I realized that the figure I was making did not look like the one I was trying to copy. I was agitated by what I perceived to be a failure to reproduce what was right in front of me.

I started scrubbing out lines and redrawing, checking back and forth between my drawing and the one I was trying to copy to see if things were synching up. When I drew in this state the drawing became worse.

After awhile I just allowed my own drawing to unfold. When I worked this way I discovered that I was deeply involved in the process of drawing, even though the image did not look like the one I had been trying to copy.

When  I brought the drawings based on the Kathe Kollwitz piece to class  Linda Jo asked me if they represented the same person. “Yes,” I replied they are both copies of the Kathe Kollwitz drawing but one of them looks like the 17^th century English poet John Keats and the other one looks like the 19^th century poet Arthur Rimbaud.”

A few people in the class laughed supportively and murmured hesitant approval. Linda Jo looked at me seriously and said, “We like your drawings Michael, but there are problems with the proportion of the head and the location of the ears.” She pointed out the areas of concern and reexplained the principles that we had been taught the previous week.

Then she told us that a drawing does not have to look exactly like the person or thing being drawn to be a good drawing and she encouraged us to keep developing our drawing skills.

The skills we were learning, she explained, were intended to enable us to understand the principles of drawing not to produce photographs with a pencil. “There something is going on with you,” she said to me smiling.

To draw well, all of the requisite skills must be integrated and available to the artist simultaneously. One evening Russell brought a book to class entitled “A Whole New Mind” by Daniel Pink. “The ability to draw requires that we learn to think symphonically and assimilate new associations and ideas. To put it musically, you must orchestrate,” she said.

Pink uses the term “symphony” to describe the capacity to “synthesize rather than analyze; to see relationships between seemingly unrelated fields; to detect broad patterns rather than to deliver specific answers; and to invent something new by combining elements nobody else thought to pair.” Pink maintains that learning to draw is one of the best ways to understand and develop the aptitude of “symphony.”

Our last assignment was to draw a self portrait. We worked with an elaborate setup involving a mirror, a viewfinder and a lamp. To make the self portrait we had to incorporate all of the skills learned to date.

After setting eye and chin levels, finding the base of the nose and breaking the width of the eyes into thirds, I began to draw. For the next hour I pulled light with my eraser and searched for values by pressing harder with my pencil.  Slowly a likeness began to emerge as I applied the various techniques that Linda Jo had patiently taught us over the summer.

Check out the Los Angeles Acadamy of Figurative Art.

See what’s going on at the Otis College of Art and Design.

Learn more about Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain.

Visit Daniel Pink’s website.

Read about Kathe Kollwitz.

On January 19, 2010 Joe Sacco spoke to a standing room only crowd at Skylight Books in Los Angeles about “Footnotes in Gaza”, a journalistic report in comic book form that covers two under-reported atrocities committed by Israeli soldiers against Palestinian civilians on the Gaza Strip in 1956.

Sacco, a cartoonist operating as a journalist, has created an illustrated history with many layers. On one layer Sacco presents a brief history of the Gaza Strip and the historical reality of the atrocities in the refugee camps at Khan Younis and Rafah. “The Israelis claim the Palestinians were resisting but I found no evidence of that,” he said.

Sacco’s reportage draws on hundreds of interviews with Palestinians as well as photographs from the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) archives in Gaza City.

Between November 2002 and March 2003 Sacco interviewed older Palestinian men about the atrocities. These interviews are the journalistic basis of the book’s memory layer. Sacco’s panel by panel reconstruction of Palestinian memory invests the objective reality of the killings with emotional and psychological truth.

Using eyewitness testimony he reports in graphic detail how civilians were shot in their homes, against public walls, and on the street. Older Palestinians sometimes confuse wars and events and many are evasive because they fear retribution. A portrait of a civilian society traumatized by war slowly emerges as memories of death and destruction are voiced.

Another narrative layer of the book shows Sacco gathering material for the book he is going to write. Sacco belongs to the autobiographical tradition in American comics and he is a character in the transparent story he his telling. Readers watch him party with journalists in Jerusalem and press Palestinian men in refugee camps for information about the past. Sacco includes the dynamic process of interviewing Palestinians and sifting through their narratives as part of the illustrated story.

Sacco immersed himself in the rhythms of Gaza. We watch him rent an apartment in the Rafah refugee camp, eat glazed chicken in Sea Street restaurants, wait for days at check points and throw himself against a wall to avoid Israeli gunfire.

We are with him in his apartment in Rafah as he drinks coffee and smokes Cleopatra cigarettes with Abed, his Palestinian guide. We watch them build a huge chart that cross references the testimony of eye witnesses with historical events.

Sacco’s treatment of contemporary Gaza adds another layer to the story. Sacco reports that the refugee camps are often indistinguishable from the towns they border. The commercial bustle of Sea Street in Rafah is contrasted with the destruction of Palestinian homes by Israeli bulldozers.

With the lights dimmed at Skylight books, Sacco stood beside projected panels from his book and explained that the atrocities in Gaza are just a footnote to the history of the Suez Canal Crisis and Egypt’s 1956 war against the combined forces of Israel, Britain, and France.

Sacco read part of a speech made by Israeli Chief of Staff Moshe Dayan in 1956. The speech, which also forms a scene in the book, contains an expression of empathy toward the Palestinian people:

“Let us not today cast blame on the murderers. What can we say against their terrible hatred of us? For eight years now they have sat in the refugee camps of Gaza, and have watched how, before their very eyes, we have turned their lands and villages, where they and their forefathers previously dwelled, into our home.”

During a vigorous question and answer period a woman asked Sacco how the Palestinian people responded to his style of comic book journalism. Sacco explained that political cartoons have an important place in the culture of the Palestinian people and he referred the audience to Naji al-Ali, a prolific Palestinian cartoonist who was assassinated in London in the summer of 1987.

Naji al-Ali is the creator of Handala, a ten year old boy in rags who stands barefoot with his back to the viewer. Handala is powerful symbol of Palestinian identity and independence.

Sacco, who wrote the introduction to “A Child in Palestine: The Cartoons of Naji al-Ali,” portrays himself as having earned the respect of his Palestinian friends.

“Joe we like you very much. We don’t want to lose you. The bullets don’t distinguish between us and foreigners,” a friend cautions one night as Israeli bullets snap in air above them.

Sacco brings marginalized people to life in his book and treats them with respect as he tells their story.

With “Footnotes in Gaza” Joe Sacco has transformed the comic book into a compelling journalistic platform that holds those with power accountable for their actions and gives a voice to people who have none.

Learn more about Joe Sacco at Fantagraphics Books.

Listen to a BBC interview with Joe Sacco about “Footnotes to Gaza”.

Visit Skylight Books.

Read about Naji al-Ali on Wikipedia.

“A performance is not a contest but a love affair.” Glenn Gould

The Calder Quartet, whose members are graduates of the renowned Julliard School in Manhattan, performed Mozart’s G-minor Quintet at Zipper Hall in Los Angeles on March 22, 2009.

People adore this particular composition. Mozart evokes suffering and irony in a minor key and then, in a major key, resolves the tragic themes.

Imagine you are in the Los Angeles audience listening closely to the subtleties of the music.

Suddenly the concentrated warmth of the listening experience is broken.

Someone in the balcony has started to cough. He is producing a rattling, phlegmatic sound that mars the beauty of the music.

Several people turn their heads. One of the musicians seems to bristle. The offender surveys the audience from his perch on the balcony and coughs again. He seems to be competing with the musicians for the attention of the audience.

Mozart’s G-minor Quintet has become the soundtrack for the drama of his head cold.

Live musical performances, especially classical and art music concerts, are often delayed, marred, ruined, and spoiled by audience members who cough, hiss, wheeze, and even yell during events.

“I am of the very strong conviction that live performance is sure to ruin the musical experience for everyone,” said Jet Dee, author of “Nailing Shut the Coughin’: GPAADAK the First Step to Improving the Musical Experience.”

(The acronym GPAADAK stands for “Gould Plan for the Abolition of Applause and Demonstrations of All Kinds.”)

Dee, a musician deeply influenced by the ideas of the late Canadian pianist Glenn Gould, maintains that live performances of classical music are in fact anti-musical dilutions of the aesthetic experience.

The signs are everywhere. The aesthetic damage caused by noisy audience members is alluded to in the programs distributed at the Concert Hall in Los Angeles.

“As a courtesy to the musicians and your fellow patrons, please turn off all pagers, mobile phones, watch alarms, or other electronic devices prior to the concert, and refrain from talking, coughing, or unwrapping candy during the performance.”

Once in the hands of audience members, however, these programs often become a source of noise as people rifle through pages and roll publications up to tap out beats during concerts.

“I detest audiences. I think they are a force of evil.”  Glenn Gould

In her article, Dee presents plenty of examples of conductors throwing down the baton when they cannot take audience noise and disruption any longer.

Sir Thomas Beecham admonished London audiences in 1934 for talking as he was conducting Fidelio, Beethoven’s only opera. Beecham threatened to restart the overture from the beginning every time someone spoke. In Glasgow in 1936, he turned to the audience during the conclusion of La Boehme and demanded that they “shut up!”

During a performance of Tristan and Isolde in Dallas in 1975 Jon Vickers, a tenor playing the part of Tristan, interrupted his performance of the dying lover to tell the audience to shut up and stop coughing.

In 1993 Alfred Brendal stopped a performance of Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata at the Kennedy Centre in Washington and told the audience he would resume the concert when they had finished clearing their throats.

Kurt Masur walked off the stage without saying a word in the middle of a 1998 performance he was conducting with the New York Symphony due to the cacophony of coughing in the audience.

Michael Tilson Thomas left the stage in anger while conducting a symphony by Mahler in Miami that was marred by incessant hacking in the audience.

“I have seen bad behaviour first hand at various concerts,” said Dee.

The program of the last symphonic concert she attended, performed by the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra in 2008, included Bartók’s Piano Concerto No. 3 and Strauss’s Don Juan.

“During the evening, there were three distinct distractions coming from my immediate seating area. A man wearing patent-leather shoes kept rubbing his feet together. A person clothed in polyester had an itch that apparently couldn’t be sufficiently scratched, and some idiotic patron failed to turn off his cell phone which rang in the middle of the performance,” she said.

“All three of these events inevitably occurred within the pianissimos of the second movement of the Bartók Concerto, which is my favourite part. I was most incensed. I don’t really attend concerts much any more.”

Behavioural problems at concerts are legion. Christine Gengaro, assistant professor of music at Los Angeles City College, recalls a time when the hidden side of a companion’s character surfaced in the middle of a show.

“I attended a Hollywood Bowl concert and the person I was with insisted on answering his phone during the concert. He’s screaming – can you hear me? – into the phone. I was mortified. I tried to suggest that he stick his phone where the sun didn’t shine, but he didn’t understand the rules of attending classical concerts. He didn’t care. Needless to say, I never went anywhere with him again.”

Sometimes people just can’t help making noise during a concert.

“I saw Hamlet on Broadway many years ago, right in the middle of the cold and flu season,” said Gengaro. “There was so much nose-blowing, sneezing, and coughing that I was completely distracted from the drama. I wanted to Lysol the entire theater.”

At the Calder Quartet performance in Los Angeles the noise reached a crescendo as the patron exploded in a fit of coughing that involved throwing his head back and forth and mixing the sound of rustling polyester with the sickly sound of phlegm.

After this discordant outbreak a security guard appeared on the balcony and led the man out of the auditorium. The concert continued without interruption and the audience listened with rapt attention to the music.

But more often than not concert halls are sealed shut when the music begins. Ushers and security personnel stand in the hallways outside, leaving musicians and audiences to their fate.

Throughout an April 2009 performance of Berlioz’s Symphonie Fantastique at the Concert Hall in Los Angeles, a man in the audience hollered incomprehensibly at the conductor. Like a fan at a sports event, he seemed to be shouting instructions in attempt to change the direction of the performance.

“Taking action creates more of a disturbance,” said Dee.

“I have seen, and heard, more than my fair share of musical moments ruined, not only due to loud and obnoxious spectators and hangers-on, but also by patrons who were trying to do the right thing by hissing and shushing everyone who dared make a noise,” she said.

“Neither of these extremes is desirable. Both create polarities which, in my opinion, should have no part of the musical environment. Indeed, they create more of a Coliseum-like atmosphere that can really induce all kinds of unwelcome anxieties and emotions in those hearts that are sincere enough to be attempting to convey something from the stage,” said Dee.

“I can honestly say that I do not recall ever feeling better about the quality of a performance because of the presence of an audience.”  Glenn Gould

Gengaro points out the fact that concerts are not performed in a perfect world.

“Musicians understand that certain noises – coughs and sneezes – are inevitable at live events. We try our best as audience members to control our own coughing and sneezing. We’re disappointed when a noise enters at the absolute wrong time – during that crucial rest – but we all understand that life is imperfect.”

However, there are limits to what listeners will endure.

“When someone’s really being a jerk, however, you have to make a choice. Which is going to be less disruptive: the idiot making noise or me telling the idiot to shut up,” Gengaro said.

Audiences have been known to abuse performers with noise.

Roberto Alagna, a tenor, was booed off the stage during a performance of Aida at La Scala opera house in Milan in 2006.

The Los Angeles Time reported audience reaction in April 2009 after the Polish pianist Krystian Zimerman criticized American foreign policy from the Concert Hall stage:

“About 30 or 40 people in the audience walked out, some shouting obscenities. Others remained but booed or yelled for him to shut up and play the piano.”

“There is a very curious and almost sadistic lust for blood that overcomes the concert listener.”  Glenn Gould

The tension between audiences and performers is not restricted to the worlds of classical and art music.

“During various shows by bands and performance artists, there have been audience members who threw things, who yelled loudly to try and disrupt the proceedings, who beat on chairs – in fact, a friend of mine actually had a student’s desk thrown at him on stage by a drunken fool during a concert. I have seen performers pulled, unwittingly, into crowds that seemed to have no respect for their well-being,” said Dee.

Mario, a bartender at the Silver Lake Lounge on Sunset Blvd in Los Angeles has seen people talk right through entire acoustic performances. “People just don’t care,” he said. A sign in the doorway of the lounge reads, “Please don’t chit chat during acoustic performances.” People ignore it.

Jerry Scott, first place winner in the Finger Style Guitar competition in the 2009 Topanga Banjo Fiddle Contest knows how to handle unruly audiences.

“I’ve cut a few gigs short because of audience noise levels. My dream is to perform for an attentive, focused, quiet audience who I can take along with me on my musical journeys,” he said.

Christine Gengaro takes a practical approach to the reality of audience noise.

“I hear the noise, but unless it’s ridiculously loud, it doesn’t distract me. I always tell my students to try practicing now and then with other background noise. It helps hone concentration. And if you’ve ever played an open mic night, you know that you’re going to be competing with waitresses taking orders, and drunk people being rowdy, and other noises. You have to be able to keep focus among those things.”

Audience members, however, are resourceful when it comes to finding ways to interfere with performances.

“People come up to me mid-song and start talking, which of course is a huge disruption,” said Scott.

“I earnestly believe that recording is the best means to experience music,” said Dee.

“I know what I am getting into when I agree to go to a performance. I have no room to really complain. Recently I promised a friend that I will attend his live performance. This will be the second live performance I have attended this year. Hopefully it will be the last.”

Read Nailing Shut the Coughin’: GPAADAK as the First Step to Improving the Musical Experience by Jet Dee.

Explore Christine Gengaro’s insightful essays at Tales from a Whales Belly.

Visit Jerry Scott’s website and listen to his original recordings.

Watch the Calder Quartet perform Mozart’s “Dissonance” Quartet K.465 and other beautiful music.

To learn more about Glenn Gould, visit Glenn Gould: Variations on an Artist, a website maintained by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation.

Chefs Jaime Martin Del Campo and Ramiro Arvizu create menus for La Casita Mexicana that draw on the culinary tradition of Jalisco, their home state.

Mole, a Mexican sauce, is at the heart of the La Casita Mexicana experience. Jamie and Ramiro, following recipes passed down by their grandmothers, prepare at least three types of mole involving dozens of herbs and spices.

Baskets of corn chips covered in warm mole appear on every table at La Casita Mexicana. The moles – tinted red from chile peppers, white from chocolate and green from pumpkin seeds – suggest the colors of the Mexican flag and give guests a taste of the complexities and pleasures of Mexican cuisine.

The chefs are passionate about sharing the flavours of Mexico with others. Jaime and Ramiro frequently travel in Mexico searching for new recipes and ingredients. They regularly demonstrate cooking techniques on Spanish television and appear at festivals all over Los Angeles throughout the year.

As a result, La Casita Mexicana has developed a reputation as the soul of Mexican cooking in LA.

“Mexican cooking is magical. It is a ritual. You have to respect the ingredients. You have to know how to use them, how to treat them, how to combine them. The magic is in the combinations,” said Ramiro.

Jaime and Ramiro, like their grandmothers before them, believe that flavour is influenced by the mood and sensibility of the chef, as well as by the ingredients used.

“When you cook you have to be in a good mood, ” said Jaime.

Tradition warns against the dangers of the evil eye – el mal de ojo – at harvest time and in the kitchen.

“Grandmother would not let anyone touch her corn,” said Ramiro. “If someone looked at her when she was making the tamales she would say that the tamales were not going to cook right and she would make that person touch her.”

Jaime and Ramiro inherited molcajetes from their grandmothers. They often use the molcajetes during cooking workshops they host throughout the year.

The molcajete, a mortar and pestle tool carved out of volcanic rock, is used to grind spices, herbs, and corn. The porous texture of the basalt stone becomes seasoned after years of grinding and produces unpredictable flavours. The personality of the molcajete changes over time.

Jaime and Ramiro encourage people to keep ancestral traditions alive and use the molecajete at home.

La Casita Mexicana is a comfortable space characterized by warm orange and brown earth tones. The walls are decorated with blue fleur de lis that invoke Mexico’s colonial past and symbolize the influence of Spanish gastronomy on Mexican tradition.

An image of Our Lady of Guadalupe, in a heavy wooden frame, hangs on the wall, along with dozens of rave reviews from newspapers and magazines.

The chefs publish special menus at Christmas and Easter, which makes La Casita Mexicana a popular destination for families during holiday seasons.

Located in the south LA suburb of Bell, La Casita Mexicana attracts people from all over Los Angeles.

“We are very lucky,” said Jaime.

La Casita Mexicana
4030 East Gage Ave
Bell, CA 90201

(323) 773-1898

Monday – Sunday
9:00 a.m. – 10:00 p.m.
Street parking. No alcohol.

The Americans, a collection of black and white photographs by Robert Frank, changed the history of photography when it was published in the United States in January, 1959.

In book reviews, the corporate media expressed outrage, but on the street, where many of the photographs where taken, people rejoiced. Popular Photography magazine characterized the book as “sick”. Jack Kerouac called it “holy”.

This fall the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York is honoring Robert Frank and his work with a 50th anniversary retrospective. The Americans will be on display at the Met until January, 2010.

Frank grew up in Switzerland during the second World War and he moved to New York in 1947 when he was 23. “I think he came to America looking for a new direction,” said Los Angeles photographer Jerry de Wilde.

Working for magazines such as Harper’s Bazaar, Vogue, and Fortune in the late 40’s and early 50’s, Frank mastered the technical aspects of photography.

He created the The Americans during a road trip across the United States in 1956 and 1957. While driving he developed a passion for the music of Hank Williams that he heard on the car radio.

“I was sympathetic to a minority. Being Jewish I knew what it was being a minority so my sympathies were with the people who were that,” he said during an appearance at the National Gallery of Art in Washington earlier this year.

Frank was arrested twice while traveling in southern states. The combination of his European accent and a camera made police suspect that he was a Communist or spy. Many of his subjects did not know they were being photographed. Frank strove to be invisible when he worked.

Young people were particularly energized by Frank’s images which cracked open a new way of representing America. “There is a certain raw honesty in Frank’s work that appeals to young people. The images affect your whole body,” said de Wilde.

Frank put himself in dangerous situations and documented people and places not usually portrayed in published photographs at the time. America is symbolized in his work by jukeboxes, graves, urinals, crosses, tenements, trolleys, bars, cafeterias and department stores.

Many of Frank’s images convey an unsettling feeling of emptiness and menace that is transcended by the quiet dignity of his unsuspecting subjects.

Frank’s compositional style marked a radical departure from what Americans had come to expect in photography. Subjects are often out of focus, picture planes are unbalanced, and exposures are inflected by noise and grain.

“The photographs in The Americans are very hypnotic,” said Michael Rouse, a filmmaker in Vancouver, British Columbia. “He violated all the rules and created some really uncomfortable images. He did something completely different. I don’t think its been repeated.”

Frank shot from the hip and worked intuitively. With his 35mm Leica, he exposed themes of power, racism, inequality, and alienation. “He is always looking out to find the truth and the truth is always changing, just as the world is,” said de Wilde.

Frank’s photograph of three young men in New York City stands out in The Americans as a rare moment when the photographer interacts with his subjects. In an interview with Sarah Coleman, Frank described the image as one of the happiest photographs in the book. “There’s something to be learned from that,” he said.

In 1978 in Los Angeles, Jerry de Wilde created a remarkable portrait of Frank. In the picture, Frank rests his chin on his hand and looks directly at the camera.

“That picture captures the essence of what I have always felt,” said de Wilde. “Keep your eyes open and your mouth shut. Shoot some pictures. Be invisible as Robert says. When you see something that interests you follow it. See what happens. Don’t jump into it. Let it evolve.”

Robert Frank offered direction as de Wilde’s interest in photography grew.

“I went up to him in New York and asked him to look at my pictures. What he said opened up a whole new world for me. He said they are pretty pictures but what are they about? What are they trying to say? Then it hit me. Photography is a vehicle for personal expression. Not just snapping pretty pictures. Robert said, ‘You should go out and shoot your people’. So that’s what I did.”

de Wilde went on to produce a body of work in the 1960’s that includes many important photographs, including a famous image of Jimi Hendrix setting his guitar on fire at the Monterey Pop Festival in 1967 and Coretta Scott King protesting the Vietnam War in Washington in 1969.

Frank’s influence on American photography has been profound. Several generations of photographers have followed de Wilde and walked through the cultural door that Frank kicked open. Allen Ginsberg, also mentored in photography by Robert Frank, spent a lifetime taking black and white photographs of his friends. The photography of Nan Goldin, Joel Meyerowitz, and Larry Clark is inspired by Frank’s fusion of photojournalism and street photography.

Jerry de Wilde shared Frank’s advice about photographing your generation with his daughter Autumn de Wilde, who is well known for her photographs of alternative rock artists like Beck, The White Stripes, Elliott Smith and Death Cab For Cutie to name a few.

“I think my daughter picked up the same thing. The ability to see something that interests you and then follow it. She started taking pictures of her friends. It is amazing what she is doing now. She brings a freshness each time to a job. Her work with the White Stripes is very casual. Like Robert she is not afraid of taking chances and making mistakes in order to get something good,” said de Wilde.

“There are certain things that are timeless. And that body of work of Robert’s is timeless. People will be able to identify with The Americans for centuries,” said de Wilde.

• Watch the Transmopolis interview with Jerry de Wilde.

• See how the Met is celebrating Robert Frank this fall. Highlights include a concert by Patti Smith and a rare screening of “Cocksucker Blues”, Frank’s underground documentary of the Rolling Stones 1972 U.S. tour.

• Click through a slide show of Robert Frank’s photographs.

• Listen to Robert Frank in conversation with Sarah Greenough at the National Gallery of Art in Washington.

• Check out Autumn de Wilde and Jerry de Wilde: Two Generations of Counterculture Photography on the MorrisonHotel Gallery website

• Visit Jerry de Wilde’s website.

• Visit Autumn de Wilde’s website.

• Go to Michael Rouse’s website.

• Robert Frank and The Americans by Sarah Coleman features an interesting interview with the artist.

• Look at the first draft of Jack Kerouac’s Introduction to The Americans.

Obama’s masterful use of social media technology during the election campaign heightened expectation that he would flip a switch and reveal a new design.

Not surprisingly, a dramatically redesigned site appeared on the Internet immediately after Obama became president.

Information design was overhauled as well.

For example, under the term “Your Government” the Bush home page linked to pages entitled “The President’s Cabinet”, “USA Freedom Corps” and “Faith Based & Community Initiatives”.

The Obama home page, on the other hand, uses the term “Our Government” and links to pages entitled “The Executive Branch”, The Legislative Branch”, The Judicial Branch” and “The Constitution”.

For many the Obama page appears fresh and light, as if it were designed to reflect the principles of transparency and hope that were the touchstones of his campaign. Others see the page differently but there is no denying that people all over the world noticed the change.

George Spencer,  a computer programmer living in Halifax, Nova Scotia, said the new web site “has a modern, elegant, open feel.”

“It is more modern and highlights the government’s intentions and achievements. It’s easy to pick out something of interest. The links along the top of the page seem to be oriented toward educating the public – something I suspect is a priority, in the larger sense, for the Democrats,” he said.

People responded to the redesign with artistic savvy as well as political concern. Christine Gengaro, a music teacher at Los Angeles City College in California said, “It’s striking to see how much more visually stimulating the Obama page is. It’s like someone actually designed it. It’s very savvy because it doesn’t overwhelm you with text, the way Bush’s page does. There are plenty of links if you’re interested in something, and the lead story has a beautiful photograph and really draws in the eye.”

Tom Goulter, a film editor living in Wellington New Zealand, said, “Descriptive is very much what the Bush website was. Clunky and full of styles and tones that date the site firmly to the era it represents. It’s got a tinny, try hard tone to it, as if someone’s nephew was asked to look at what people were doing on the Internet and just ape that as transparently as possible, so as to provide a quick, unobtrusive front for Government information dispersal.”

Michele Wang, a technology trainer living in New York City saw the page in the context of design trends. “The three column layout of Bush’s is very dot com era design. I like Obama’s slideshow feel right at the top and then essential links at the bottom. With only that one piece of real estate on the page, you can flip to three other features which are definitely more sophisticated,” she said.

K. Andrews, a lawyer living in Ottawa, Canada, saw historical significance in the photograph of Obama with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.

“President Obama’s home page is definitely catchier because of its focus, clean lines and deep blue colour in contrast with the Scarlet uniforms of the Mounted Police, “ Andrews said.

“The last time a U.S. President got this close to the Scarlet may have been when British and Canadian marines were burning the White House down during the War of 1812.”

Jesslyn Hendrix, business analyst in Los Angeles, California noticed the sudden presence of Spanish on the White House website.  “I find it telling that although the Bush administration touted its support for and relationship with our southern border neighbors, only the Obama page has a link to the Spanish translation of the site,” Hendrix said.

After Obama’s design was revealed people began to see shortcomings in the Bush design.

“Overall it looks as if Bush hired an old school PC neocon contractor to do his website and Obama hired some hip Mac web designer that deejays on the weekend,” said Michael Rouse, a filmmaker in Vancouver, British Columbia.

Hendrix said that the Bush home page conveyed a sense of “we’ve got to have a web page because everyone else is doing it.”

Not everyone has been totally convinced of the integrity of the Obama design, however.

Goulter feels that “The script/serif juxtaposition and subtle gradients make it look a little bit more like the web page for a West Wing type movie or television program than the actual website of the real centre of power in the West. It’s like too much work has been done to imbue the fonts with vaguely playful dignity and the colors with a deep, reassuring solidity. It feels like a lovingly-crafted fiction, prescriptive of what the administration aims to embody rather than simply descriptive of what it is.”

Andrews mixed praise for Obama’s website with skepticism of his politics.

“The new website wins hands down based on form over substance. This conclusion should not be taken to mean that President Obama’s policies and actions also have more form than substance, as this may or may not be the case,” he said.