Our second day began at 9:30 as we joined the Palm Springs Historical Society's Inns, Architecture and Glamour Tour.

The same fire destroyed the neighboring historic Community Church, designed by architect Charles Tanner in 1935. On February 21, 1954 President and Mrs. Eisenhower worshiped in the church during a week-long visit to Palm Springs. Here they both sit behind a chain-link fence. I hope someone has the vision to save these properties and restores this premiere space.

Nothing says "Palm Springs" more than lazing about one's hotel pool. With a sunny 75° degree day, it was a must.

Next stop was at the Palm Springs Art Museum.

Greeted by Anthony James' Cosmic 80" Great Rhombicosidodecahedron, I knew we were in for a unique treat.

I loved Meditations in Glass. What an interesting medium. This exhibit presents selections from the museum's permanent collection that "invite contemplation and stimulate reverie."

"Each object inspires meditation in different ways. A glass chair may pose the question of whether art can be functional. An abstract work may stimulate associations with nature. Thoughts might occur to us, such as what is the horizon? How does light behave here? How does an artist convey infinite space? Other sculptures invite contemplation of the self. We may consider the fragility of the human body, its beauty and mortality. How do artists portray invisible things, like emotions or breath? Though glass is typically associated with utility, the works in this gallery demonstrate how it can be a material for metaphor."

My ultimate favorite was this Old Couple on a Bench (1995) by Duane Hanson. You can't believe how many double takes people took or how long we all lingered, looking to see if they were breathing. Wow!

Duane Hanson's hyperrealist sculptures portray everyday people while scrutinizing class, race, and the aging body. The painstaking realism of Hanson's Old Couple on a Bench conveys a sense of human presence, which is heightened by its placement in an art gallery where one might expect to encounter visitors resting on a bench. His sculpture plays with cultural stereotypes of who is a typical tourist. In speaking about his sculptures in 1977, Hanson said, "The subject matter that I like best deals with the familiar lower- and middle-class American types of today. To me, the resignation, emptiness, and loneliness of their existence capture the true reality of life for these people... I want to achieve a certain tough realism which speaks of the fascinating idiosyncrasies of our times".

Yes, I waited for some sort of movement, but it never came. Hyperrealism indeed!

One work that had some patrons baffled was Deborah Butterfield's Jerusalem Horse #1. In 1980, the artist traveled to Israel to create a number of works at the Israel Museum. Jerusalem Horse #1 was the first of five sculptures she produced during her month-long stay. She selected the materials from junk yards, building sites and the city dump. The locally found steel determined the horse's posture and also expressed her feelings about the decades of civil unrest and war-torn environment of Jerusalem. She arranged the contorted strips of metal into the form of a full size reclining horse that she said "has the kind of energy that makes it about ready to jump up." An experienced rider, Butterfield also commented that a horse will only lie down when it is very secure in its environment. Cool! BTW, Ms. Butterfield has another horse on my blog, here.

There is even a Pablo Picasso here. I enjoyed La chouette en colère (Owl with Raised Wings). I'm not sure I knew about Picasso the sculptor!

A large portion of the museum held this survey of Phillip K. Smith III's experiments with light and change which spans almost two decades.

This selection of free-standing objects, wall-mounted works, and immersive installations demonstrates the breadth of the artist's mastery of his medium. Drawing from elements of painting, sculpture, and architecture, Phillip deploys a pared-down vocabulary of pure forms, reflective surfaces, and continually changing colors to create absorbing perceptual and atmospheric effects.

Describing the influence of desert light on his work, the artist noted, "When I moved back to the Coachella Valley in late 2000, I had a reawakening to the beauty of the desert. The daily light phenomena affected me and naturally found its way into the work. I'd drive home west heading towards the sunset every day for 14 years. That daily experience with the setting sun had me asking: How can I create the perfect gradient that sense of the ephemeral that if you look away, you may miss it? How could that quality make its way into my work?" I, too, feel that way about the desert's palette... breathtaking!

How interesting is this? In his tapestries resembling traditional Ghanaian textiles, Serge Attukwei Clottey employs plastic cut from jugs used to carry water in his home community. These jugs, imported from the west as cooking oil canisters, have come to symbolize water shortages in Accra. The jugs, "came to Africa and we used the oil and then reused the gallon for storing water, which basically has become very symbolic in our Ghanaian lifestyle for everyday survival. As an artist, I use the gallons, I manipulate them, and I send back to the west what they left behind."

Simphiwe Ndzube uses old clothes, bits of rope, ribbon, wheels, wigs, and other found objects to create fantastical and exuberant paintings. His work is inspired by having "grown up surrounded by so much suffering, violence, and hunger, but to have also seen the very same people balancing out, to live their lives beautifully, colorfully, making time to dance and embrace." His work thus features an attempt at balance: "I find the work communicates a violent past in a way that's almost psychological in its visual rendering. I've often heard people are confused by how they are drawn to most of my work, but something about it sits somewhere slightly uncomfortable, sort of on the edge." Yet Ndzube wants viewers to relate to his work "because, after all, we all hurt, and it's part of life."

This is truly an example of photos not doing an art piece justice. Tam Van Tran's Nonceptual Space demands close examination. Created with acrylic, spirulina and staples on paper and museum board, the artists wows with complexity.

This is the reverse side, look at all those staples!

Angela Ellsworth's Seer Bonnet XVIII (Ruth) blew me away. Again, a must see to believe piece. Constructed with 31,863 pearl corsage pins, fabric, steel, and wood, it is really something.

This work by Gerald Clarke made me smile and be in awe. Continuum Basket, constructed of aluminum beer and soda cans mounted on a satellite dish, was inspired by Mr. Clark's Cahuilla heritage and the desert and mountain environment of his homeland.

He combines common objects and materials to express traditional ideas in surprising forms. In this work, Clarke has arranged 1,884 crushed aluminum cans on a satellite dish to create symbols representing tobacco flowers and bats, inspired by the traditional motifs featured on two historic Cahuilla baskets in the museum's permanent collection. Incredible.

Dinner time found us in the Elrod Sculpture Garden.

The evening's pop-up curated local food was provided by Popping Off Pies.

Cindy and I shared the delicious Walter White, with garlic olive oil, fresh spinach, Betty White sauce, and roasted garlic.

We were entertained by two very fun DJs who leaned toward the 80s. Fun stuff.

A stroll through the Thursday night VillageFest introduced us to local talent and illuminated sites.

We parked by the museum and returned to see Fault Line Meditation. Created by Palm Springs artist Jevpic, the long, jagged red line in the dirt represents a metaphoric walk along a “fault” that encourages shifting focus from blame to reflection and healing. It doesn't look like much until it is illuminated at night and then worth a stop.