California

Randy Grubb's Decoliner. Photo by David Lansing.

From our Palm Springs correspondent:

We’d heard about the Vintage Airstream Trailers show during Modernism Week and headed over to have a look at the decked-out Caravels, Safaris, and Bambis. Our favorite, however, wasn’t an Airstream at all. It was Randy Grubb’s Decoliner, an odd beast that looked like a cross between a 50s bus and a hot-rod Globetrotter.

Randy had driven the Decoliner, which has an open-top flying bridge (so it can be driven from either inside the cab or from on top of the roof), all the way from Grant’s Pass, Oregon, where he is a glass-blower when he isn’t messing around with cars. It took him 20 months to construct the beast which is made from a ’73 GMC motor home chassis, a 455 Oldsmobile engine, and a hulking 1950 COE (Cab Over Engine).

This thing is just meant for a long road trip.

Some of the 250 hand-blown glass eggs in Michael Petry's art installation in Palm Springs. Photos by David Lansing.

From our Palm Springs correspondent:

One other fabulous exhibit currently at the Palm Springs Art Museum: Michael Petry’s  “The Touch of the Oracle.” The concept behind this is a little difficult to explain but let me try. In a gallery with a blond hardwood floor, Petry has hung 100 gold mirrored droplet-shaped glass vessels that have something to do with the Greek myth of Danae, who was impregnated by the god Zeus in the form of a golden rain shower. So the 100 golden vessels are like sperm.

On the hardwood floor are 250 hand-blown glass “stones” or, really, eggs. In short, the golden sperm hanging from the ceiling is preparing to impregnate the multi-colored glass eggs. Okay, the story sounds a bit lame, I agree, but the exhibit is really quite stunning. Even if you ignore the whole “golden-rain-impregnating-hand-blown-glass-eggs” thing.

The Touch of the Oracle continues through July 29.

100 gold mirrored droplet-shaped glass vessels hang from the ceiling.

David Hockney's "Sun on the Pool Los Angeles," a composite of Polaroids from April 13, 1982.

From our Palm Springs correspondent:

It was the perfect Easter Sunday in Palm Springs: blue sky, mid-80s, and not a trace of wind. A day for either sitting by the pool or, perhaps, looking at pools in the form of a visit to the Palm Springs Art Museum to walk through their special exhibition  “Backyard Oasis: The Swimming Pool in Southern California Photography, 1945-1982,” part of the Getty Foundation’s Pacific Standard Time exhibition currently running in more than 60 museums in Southern California.

There was so much eye candy here but our favorites were the series of David Hockney Polaroid composites, such as the one above, comprised of dozens of individually shot Polaroids of a backyard swimming pool. So very clever and so very entertaining.

Backyard Oasis continues through May 27.