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Los Angeles Times
16-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Los Angeles Times
New exhibit at Newport Beach Library showcases local artist's depictions of Route 66 and coastal Orange County
Joan Gladstone showed enough promise as a painter to get accepted into the Boston University College of Fine Arts. It wasn't long after she arrived on campus that she found herself grappling with a question countless other talented 18-year-olds standing on the verge of the rest of their lives have asked themselves. 'In my freshman year I thought, 'How will I ever make a living as an oil painter?'' said Gladstone, who now resides in Laguna Beach. 'And I didn't have the confidence back then to stick with it.' She switched her major to journalism. That led her to a successful career running her own public relations firm. Gladstone said she never lost her passion for the visual arts and visited exhibits as often as she could. She tried to keep her skills sharp by taking classes offered by the city of Laguna Beach beginning in 2007. But she just couldn't afford to make art her priority, given her other responsibilities. 'After dabbling in classes, I'd do a painting and I'd feel a month or two would go by and I'm starting all over again,' Gladstone said. 'I'm kind of going backwards; I'm not progressing because I'm not investing the time in it.' She described painting as a dormant 'seed.' And it wasn't until she started to step away from her first career that she began finding time to truly nourish and cultivate her latent talents. 'We have to be realistic about not trying to do too much at the same time, and that was my problem,' Gladstone said. 'I was trying to run a business. We had huge, important clients and [I was] taking art classes at the same time. And it just didn't work. I think we need to give ourselves permission to say we may have to do things in stages.' Looking, back, Gladstone said she's grateful opportunities life offered eventually led her to a point where she could fully dedicate herself to art. Her work, much of which offers a local's perspective of the sights and culture of coastal Orange County, has been displayed at John Wayne Airport as well as art shows in Huntington Beach; she's planning another show for Los Angeles in September. Earlier this month she debuted the first five of a new series of paintings she has been working on, inspired by trips with her husband across iconic Route 66 in 2009 and 2024. Those, as well as six of her paintings showcasing life and landmarks in Laguna Beach and Newport Beach, are on display at the Newport Beach Central Library through Aug. 31. Her Route 66-themed series, with a nod to its upcoming 100th year, evokes 20th century Americana with depictions of signage travelers may have spotted along the 2,448-mile 'Mother Road' from Chicago to Santa Monica. In her pieces Gladstone casts the signs and billboards in the bold, primary colors they would have brandished when they were new, rather than the faded shades they grew into after decades bleaching in the sun. The addition of subtle lighting effects with precisely blended paint adds a layer of depth, instilling a shimmering, lifelike quality to much of her work. For many travelers, the signs in Gladstone's work served as either beacons offering respite or landmarks guiding their progress. Several library visitors who stopped to chat with the artist as her pieces were installed recounted the first time they saw the exact same scenes she had painted. Many of those signs had been either destroyed or removed by the time she made her second trip across Route 66. Her latest work is partly an effort to catalog and preserve these artifacts. And 10% of proceeds from sales of prints and originals from the series will benefit the Route 66 Centennial Commission. Other pieces she has on display at the library celebrate the culture and mood of coastal Orange County. These include depictions of the Main Beach lifeguard tower in Laguna Beach, the Balboa Fun Zone's Ferris wheel, a stack of surfboards on the sand and more. Prints in a variety of sizes, as well as a limited collection of original paintings, are available through her website. She also invites patrons to stop by her booth and connect at the upcoming Sawdust Art Festival, which runs from June 27 through Aug. 31. 'I meet so many people at the Sawdust who are retired, and they're blossoming because they've gone back to music or art or writing or some creative pursuit that they just did not have time to do when they were working and raising a family,' Gladstone said.
Boston Globe
05-03-2025
- Entertainment
- Boston Globe
Joan Baez on her Boston roots, a new exhibit about her life, and ‘A Complete Unknown'
Artwork aside, the exhibit showcases photos and ephemera: Martin guitar. young Baez and Bob Dylan photos, the March on Washington, anti-war protests. Dress and jewelry worn on the album cover of 'Diamonds and Dust.' Advertisement For Baez fans, this looks to be a walk through her life. For Baez herself, 84, the items and the location of the exhibit itself are a trip back in time. Get Starting Point A guide through the most important stories of the morning, delivered Monday through Friday. Enter Email Sign Up 'Mostly all of this just brings me back to Cambridge, my Boston days, because they were such an important part of my life. It was the beginning of the folk boom, and I was the right person at the right place at the right time,' says the former Belmont resident, Cambridge Folk scenester, singer and ('for about six hours') a Boston University College of Fine Arts student. I called Baez to comb through her memories of the exhibited items. We also talked 'A Complete Unknown,' painting with lipstick in France, and 84 years of attempting to save the world. Q. I love that you agreed to do this exhibit. People must ask you to do things like this all the time like this. A. Well, yes. Q. [laughs] A. One of my [assistant] Nancy's jobs is to figure out amusing, polite, interesting ways of saying 'no.' It's almost always 'No.' Artwork by Joan Baez. Courtesy Q. So most of these items are from your home? A. Most of them came from my home. Like the Einstein thing I gave my mom — I don't know where Nancy found it. Q. The Einstein drawing is from 1957. So Nancy really looked through your archives. Advertisement A. And my mom kept everything. Q. What are a few items that stand out from this exhibit? Do any bring back particular memories? A. Anything written in my original handwriting — those remind me of different eras of my life and what I went through. I think probably the most interesting is the photo of me in a bathing suit on the beach. I remember the photo; I don't remember the day. We were gonna start a revolution and have world peace. How'd that work out? Q. The March on Washington photos must strike a chord. A. Sure. I mean, that's one of those universal things that will always be top of the list. I'm looking at the list now to see. Oh, you know what? 'Military Man with Angel Child' I painted with food on the wall of a French cafe. All the dark stuff was chocolate. I squished up vegetables to try to make green. I used my makeup for skin tones. Lipstick for the reds. Q. Also on this list: 'the Rolling Thunder Revue bath towel.' I didn't even know there were concert towels. A. You know, I don't remember that, but apparently there were. At least it means some of us took baths. The Rolling Thunder Revue towel. Matthew Pacific Q. What did you think of 'A Complete Unknown'? A. I thought it was a good movie. It was a fun movie. I couldn't get involved with people who are fact-checking and all that stuff, because it's a movie. The music was fantastic. I've become friends with Monica [Barbaro, who played Baez]; she's a sweetheart. I think people did a fairly good job in it. [Ed Norton as] Seeger was fantastic. Advertisement Q. Did Monica ask to study with you? A. I offered. I wanted to make myself available. I got to know her a little bit. She was a little shy. She came to Q. You must be getting peppered with questions about the movie and accuracy. A. Well, yeah. Yourself, for instance. Q. [laughs] Exactly. A. It's front and center. If there's any criticism, it's that the Civil Rights Movement was going on at the same time— there was no real mention of it. On the other hand, Dylan was a bubble. You were either in it, or you weren't. And when you're in it, nobody's paying attention to anything else. I managed to keep feet in both camps for a long time. Q. True. I interviewed Elijah Wald, who wrote 'Dylan Goes Electric!,' which the biopic is based on. A. Awww. Yeah, I didn't move to New York. That's a whole fantasy. I was a Boston/ Cambridge girl until I moved west with my boyfriend. We bought a Corvair and drove cross-country, to the dismay of my father. Q. Since the last time we talked, you were A. It's always lovely to go back to that area, my stomping ground. I have different little stomping grounds, but the Cambridge/Boston area is really a big home-base. Advertisement I mean, the first night I sang at Club 47, my family was there — that was it. My boyfriend was outside, walking back and forth in the snow. He didn't want to come in. He didn't want me to do all that commercial stuff — like singing for my family. [laughs] Then by the next week, there were plenty of people there. That was my beginning. Q. Any cause that you're feeling right now? A. It's a world. Almost everything else is irrelevant at the moment. I'm making a [protest] t-shirt and sign. I'm just gonna f—g walk around with it. What have I got to lose? We're losing everything. Might as well go down with some grace. Interview has been edited and condensed. Exhibit information at (Children $17 - Adults $25) Lauren Daley can be reached at ldaley33@ She tweets
