March 19, 2013 marks the 10th anniversary of the U.S. war against Iraq. To commemorate the somber occasion I am presenting fifteen separate articles pertaining to the Iraq war that I wrote for this web log from 2004 to 2009, starting with the earliest post and ending with the most recent. Each piece discusses individual or cooperative artistic responses to…
Brothers and Sisters… this errant one, whose feet have trod along Hollywood’s golden starred paths of sin, and whose lips have tasted the many bitter fruits of lasciviousness so common to my City of Lust Angeles… this willfully disobedient soul has had an epiphany! Ah yes! I was walking in the desolate wilderness of the San Fernando Valley, plodding along…
On February 7, 2013, my father Joe Vallen passed away at the age of 88. Multiple medical problems led to his death, but his primary difficulty was a weak heart. I was at his side at the final moment, whispering my goodbyes into his ear. He died peacefully. On October 28, 1924, José Jesus Valenzuela was born in Guaymas, a…
Starting January 19, 2013 and running until April 15, 2013, Maurice Merlin and the American Scene, 1930–1947 will be on display at The Huntington Library in San Marino, California. Tracking the life and times of artist Maurice Merlin, the Huntington exhibit is the very first museum presentation of the artist’s works, even though he passed away sixty-six years ago. The…
Given the abysmal level of cultural literacy in the U.S. at present, it is utterly astonishing that some 50 years ago a nationally televised popular show like Leonard Bernstein’s “Young People’s Concert” series even existed on mainstream TV. By comparison, today’s television broadcasting only provides further evidence that we have slipped into the New Dark Ages. On January 18, 1958,…
This is but one of the drawings I made depicting the world-renowned Hollywood Boulevard in the summer of 1980. My pen & ink urban landscape described the celebrated street as I had observed it in the 80s, before it was transformed by waves of gentrification that began in the mid-1990s. My artwork portrayed an elderly resident waiting for a bus…
I am pleased to announce that a silkscreen poster I created in 1987, To Protect and Serve the Rich – Jail the Homeless, is part of the exhibit, Prison Nation: Posters On The Prison Industrial Complex, held at the UC Merced Kolligian Library at the University of California, Merced. The show travels to five other venues in California’s San Joaquin Valley…
The American poet Ogden Nash once wrote, “Every New Year is the direct descendant, isn’t it, of a long line of proven criminals?” This past year certainly had its share of iniquitous events, in spite of that, we can still find evidence of joyous affairs and incidents in the wreckage of the year now passing. Yes… “life is good.” As…
