The Rest of the Story

On March 26, my longtime Olympic friend Brian cornered me (a second time) nudging for a conclusion to the mid-Games cliffhanger posted from PyeongChang in February.

"Time flies when you're having fun," I shrugged.

In our memberships with the International Society of Olympic Historians, Brian and I occasionally summon our inner Paul Harvey, the on air storyteller who, for years, wove detailed color into his radio broadcasts. 

At Brian's request, finally now on April 27 (started April 12), here is the rest of the story:

On the day of my mid-February PyeongChang post, I had a second news story in the works to follow-up the pin trading tales of the Games' first week. 

In that one afternoon at the Main Press Center, it was fun to meet not only the Team USA women's figure skaters at their first press conference of the Games, but also a British reporter I nicknamed "Stephen Merchant's doppelganger" seated near my blogging station. 

The incomplete post -- including answers to my questions posed to Mirai Nagasu, Karen Chen and Bradie Tennell -- was drafted under the headline "Hello, Ladies" in reference and reverence to Merchant's short-lived HBO series, of which I was a big fan (as big a supporter of ladies' Olympic figure skating). 

But here's the deal: I caught a nasty head cold during the middle weekend of PyeongChang, and by the afternoon in question the congestion and coughing was rough. Dog tired, facing a 45-minute snowy mountain commute, and an early morning slated for the next day (to attend figure skating in coastal Gangneung), it made sense to grab a bite, call it a night early and catch some ZZZ's in my AirBNB. 

This plan worked except for sleeping in the next morning and getting a call from my AirBNB hosts who wanted to present me with a going away/New Year's gift. By the time we connected in person, the day's schedule was pretty much shot except for meeting a friend for an evening women's hockey match. 

Illness persisted for three more days, with better health not at all aided by my attendance at a string of outdoor (and Arctic cold/windy) events including a rescheduled downhill ski event and cross-country ski competition. 

Then there was the packing process including nearly a thousand new Olympic pins in need of sorting and two-week's worth of dirty laundry. I would have gladly traded pins with anyone who could read the Korean script on the AirBNB's new clothing washer-dryer. 

The search for new lodging (one-night only at the sweetest Art Hotel on the planet ... resting in a giant bowl-shaped bed) then getting there (a long drive south of Gangneung) devoured a day.

And then the ultimate distraction from blogging arrived ... from Russia with love. 

You see, during Sochi 2014 I made and new friend while attending the Cultural Olympiad concert performed by American jazz musician Brian Lynch. When the Grammy-winning trumpeter asked the mostly-Russian audience whether they knew the location of Milwaukee (where his family was watching the Sochi concert via Skype), I hollered from the balcony my approval of the Wisconsin city much to the amazement of the packed house, the band leader on stage and to a Moscow-based interpreter/translator seated on my row. 

The Russia-born linguist, a woman named Valentina, spoke fluent English then and now, and after four years of friendly Facebook messaging, in January 2018 she accepted my invitation to "meet me in PyeongChang" like good folks sometimes do in St. Louis. 

So the morning after the Art Hotel and viewing its museum (including a Pinocchio collection) and expansive modern sculpture garden, I took the speed train to Seoul's airport to greet Valentina then bring her back to the Olympic city.

Valentina proved to be a very funny and fun-loving travel companion. On our first day of re-acquaintance, she opted to join me for a Korean Cultural Olympiad event, which turned out to be a musical version of a popular folk tale.

The program hinted "audience participation" in the second act, and guess who got picked to go on stage and perform a Korean "fan dance" in female costume?

Answer clue: It wasn't Valentina. 

She instead delighted in snapping photos and video proof of my on-stage humiliation (the mostly female cast dressed me in the finest Korean silks and placed me center stage for a "fan dance" to the glee of, well, everyone but moi.

After the show, Valentina and I shared hearty belly laughs while losing count of the middle-aged Korean women smiling and proclaiming me "the star" of the performance.

Sorry, ladies. No autographs!

Though there was no time to blog about it, the next day my Muscovite buddy and I trekked to the furthest-afield venue to experience the women's ski event at which Lindsey Vonn ended her Olympic career and Mikaela Shiffrin earned a bronze.

Valentina was a natural at securing blog-friendly photos of Slovakia's yak-like fans, and the two of us managed to get her into the venue press center for Shiffrin's press conference. Kinda fun to get in the last question for the two-time gold medalist and her approach to the Beijing 2022 Games (I will post this interview at a future date). 

A long bus ride, a lost mobile phone, countless pin trades, two days and at least two Korean barbecue meals later -- as well as a 90-minute drive down the South Korean coast to meet V's longtime mentor (an interpreter and his wife who worked at the MPC for the Olympic Athletes of Russia), and it was already time for Valentina and I to hit the PyeongChang Olympic Superstore, attend the Closing Ceremony and then drive 3.5 hours back to Seoul.

Between work assignments, venue visits, meals and drive times, I think we averaged about four hours of sleep per night, making for one exhausted Olympic blogger by the Monday after Games' end.

Valentina must have enjoyed my company, too, for she said "meet me in ... Istanbul" as a follow-up experience. We're both flying in to the Turkish tourism capital on May Day.

Before our reunion on the other side (west end) of Asia, there's one upcoming 2018 Olympic experience yet to unfurl: The USOC's announcement of the Team USA Awards presented by Dow in Washington on April 26, followed by the athletes' visit to The White House just like in 2016.

Of course my credential request is submitted, and here's hoping for more time to blog this month following a visit to D.C.

And that is ... the rest of the story.

Photos by Nicholas Wolaver and Valentina Kucheriavenko

Fun With Finster

Private collection not for re-use.

Three months is a long time to pause from blogging.

Unfortunately, the day after the most recent post, my mother died in hospice care while I awaited flights home from Sochi and Frankfurt.

Upon returning to my home state, where my dad was recovering from a January stroke, there were many weeks of anxious work to try helping with his recovery.

Though there were days of improvement, unfortunately he also died, on April 15 (perhaps fitting given his 35+ year career working for the Internal Revenue Service).

It's been a tough many weeks.

Sincere thanks go out to family, friends and readers (some acquaintances, some strangers) who sent notes of condolences.

Finally home in Atlanta for more than a few days, a couple of weeks ago I took some time to explore a North Georgia destination that lingered on my "to do" list for a good long while.

Paradise Garden in Summerville, Ga., is tucked away in the mountains of North Georgia up the highway from Rome and a few clicks south of Chattanooga, Tenn.

For the uninitiated, the Garden in this case is the proper name given to the private residence of Rev. Howard Finster, an Alabama-born minister who, in 1976 (approaching age 60), enjoyed his first "visions" from God telling him to spread His word through art -- 5,000 pieces of art, to be exact.

Finster tackled this assignment in earnest, and by the early 1980s his faith-inspired work made it to the homes of many friends and fans, and onto the covers of music albums by R.E.M., Talking Heads and others, not to mention into the marketing plans for big companies in Georgia and beyond.

He transformed Paradise Garden from a densely wooded patch of swamp into a living work of art, transforming others' trash (and his own tools and collection of bottles, machinery, toys, junk and "stuff") into treasured and unusual immersive experiences, with many bones of his work -- mosaic walls and footpaths, a workshop, chicken coop, garage and corridor of items inspired by and gifted to the Garden -- still on view.

In my part-time P.R. assignment at the High Museum of Art, I take monthly walks over to the Folk Art section to view their large assortment of Finster objects billed as the "largest public collection of objects from Paradise Garden."

Prior to the Summerville sojourn, it was fun to see the easy-to-recognize self-taught objects in the National Gallery of Art, Milwaukee Art Museum and other destination museums in the U.S.

The trek to Paradise Garden taught me a lot -- I recommend a visit. In the new visitor's center attached to a previous Finster workspace, guests should take time to view the videos including interviews with the artist, including an appearance on The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson.

Out in the Garden, take time to view the fading Keith Haring while it's still there, and also the Cadillac covered with hand-drawn and painted portraits beyond saving but surprising morsels of Finster's handiwork not yet touched by the on-site restoration team.

During the afternoon on site, I learned of two other Finster experiences of note. Sadly, this blog post is too late to preview today's Finster Fest 2014, which continues this afternoon (Sunday, June 1).

But readers have a full-year to trek to the World of Coca-Cola in Atlanta, which last week mounted a special exhibition titled "Howard Finster: Visions of Coca-Cola" featuring a private collection of Coke-inspired Finster creations, including a few for which there is an Olympic connection.

For five-ringed aficionados, be sure to view the Atlanta Olympic Coke bottle cutout painting (among the first works visible at the exhibition entrance) -- Finster was one of many artists from around the world who created Olympic/Coke bottle folk artwork for the 1996 Games. The exhibition also includes some rarely-displayed items from Finster's studio, including a stool, brushes and other artifacts of his home. For any Finster fan, this is a must-see exhibition.

The downtown Atlanta display also teaches a self-taught technique Finster often employed (Paradise Garden also features more details on this process from a private commission).

To create portraits or patterns he intended to re-use, the Reverend took a snapshot or other image of his subject, drew a paper illustration in his own hand, then created a cutout version he could use to recreate the likeness many times (as I understand it, Finster referred to the cutouts as "dimentions" -- see example in photo at base of this post).

This technique also evolved into some shapes for his more popular works on boards, such as cars, shoes, wagons, dinosaurs or beverage bottles, helping with consistency of form while permitting customization and -- back to the original vision and mission -- an effective manner of spreading God's word across the world.

Finster needed a little help, perhaps, as he eventually created more than 46,000 numbered works, and many thousands more unnumbered, executed before and after his original vision from God, which he saw in the form of a smiley face of paint on his fingertip.

Back at Paradise Garden, Olympic-minded collectors may wish to purchase a fine-art print featuring Finster's non-Coke take on the "OLEMPICS" in the form of numbered prints priced at $500, featuring an Atlas-like figure holding up a globe with hand-written messages about Atlanta's Games.

Not a bad vision for the Olympic world.



Photos by Nicholas Wolaver, with thanks to the World of Coca-Cola for a ticket to the exhibition and museum.

Section of Howard Finster's hand-painted Cadillac.

 

One of two covered wagons on view at Paradise Garden studio entrance.

 

View from entrance to special exhibition "Howard Finster: Visions of Coca-Cola"

Detail of Howard Finster's 1996 Atlanta Olympic Coke Bottle.

 

Private collection items on view
in the World of Coca-Cola exhibition.

 

Example of cut paper "dimention" by Finster.
Paradise Garden includes further examples
of cutouts Finster used to create and repeat
portraits of individuals from presidents
and private commissions to personal
friends and family members.

Sochi-Milwaukee Trifecta

Some readers of this blog know my home base is Atlanta and home town/family are in Oklahoma.

Milwaukee is where my heart resides since my long-time girlfriend lives there in suburban Delafield, Wis.

Each time we drive by the Pettit National Ice Center in nearby West Allis, there's a five-ringed reminder of Milwaukee's ties to the Winter Olympics.

And it's good to see the Journal-Sentinel's Gary D'Amato in Sochi after shaking hands at the Team USA Media Summit last year.

The Sochi Games includes 15 Wisconsin Olympians, according to this Carnival Cruise Lines gallery of U.S. athletes (see photo atop this post).


The last 24 hours in Sochi yielded a trifecta of other big Milwaukee-in-Sochi connections.

Through our work for the Citi Every Step of the Way program, on Friday we hosted media at USA House to speak with speedskating Olympic Champion Dan Jansen. With a few clicks, anyone may support his charity of choice, Olympians For Olympians, and it was fun to learn more about his Sochi experience and current projects in the Carolinas.

Later that evening, another Milwaukee hero and a personal favorite athlete from Calgary, Albertville and Lillehammer -- Bonnie Blair -- arrived and cheerfully visited with colleagues, friends and fans.

After spotting Blair in the Vancouver Olympic Village in 2010 (she was so friendly then, too), I was very happy to help her snap a few photos with members of the Kellogg's team (for which I am a freelance contributor) who gave an enthusiastic Blair her own Tony the Tiger hat and mittens.

Visiting with Blair I learned she now resides only a mile from my girlfriend, and we've both frequented the same grocers, pizza parlor and Delafield steakhouse -- unbelievable!

Blair also wants folks to know she is new to Twitter and loving it. And her sister's favorite cereal is Frosted Flakes because "They're Gr8!"

Then came the most surprising Milwaukee-Sochi moment, this time with a Grammy Award winning jazz musician.

With the Cultural Olympiad underway across Sochi, the centrally located Winter Theater -- a 75-year-old historic venue at which the International Olympic Committee Session took place -- hosted a Russia-USA cultural exchange concert tied to the U.S. Department of State.

The theatre is down the road from my hotel, so I bought a ticket and enjoyed a great balcony seat similar to the upper rows of Milwaukee's historic Pabst Theater.

Between songs, Milwaukee-born jazz trumpeter Brian Lynch introduced his band then gave a shout-out to Wisconsin.

His on-stage expression was surprise and smiles when the mostly Russian audience reacted to my cheer of "Go Milwaukee!" from the back row.

Who knew two would-be cheese-head Americans were in the house?

We both learned later a young couple from Chattanooga, Tenn., also attended.

After the show, which included mostly new works by Lynch set to debut in a stateside tour this spring, Lynch posed for photos and spoke with a few reporters, sharing that his agent got the call about the Sochi gig awhile ago but he did not plan to attend Olympic events (according to his website he has a Moscow concert on Monday). We agreed to connect again in Wisconsin, and jazz fans there are in for a treat.

Only at the Olympics do these connections seem common and "normal." It will be fun to see a fellow Georgian, bobsleigh Olympic bronze medalist Elana Meyers, compete later this week.

No Oklahoma athletes spotted yet, but on the lookout. Borrowing from Lynch's catalog, "It Could Be" there is one Okie athlete somewhere in Sochi.

Photos by Nicholas Wolaver

I [dot] Roy Lichtenstein at Chicago Art Institute

During the 1990s, a friend introduced me to the official Cultural Olympiad poster series for the Games of the XXIIIrd Olympiad at Los Angeles, including an iconic equestrian-themed work I purchased (one of my first Ebay finds). And during a college spring break trip to New York, another friend pointed out a massive Roy Lichtenstein mural in the lobby of a Manhattan building -- loved it!

These two events, and later reading Lichtenstein's 1997 obituary in the New York Times (which I vividly recall, as his distinct work jumped off the page during morning reading at my first full-time P.R. job in Atlanta), form my earliest introductions to an artist now among my all-time favorites.

My apartment includes that early Ebay purchase of "The Red Horseman" poster from LA84, as well as a large poster from the Museum Ludwig Köln featuring a Lichtenstein titled "Landscape with Figures and Rainbow," and small snapshot photos of other works in museums visited through the years.

You can imagine my delight to learn of the Chicago Art Institute exhibition "Roy Lichtenstein: A Retrospective" opening in May. After patiently waiting to return to The Windy City last week, I at last experienced the exhibition with my girlfriend. Borrowing from the show's souvenir button design (inspired by "I [heart] N.Y." T-shirts) ... I [dot] Lichtenstein.

With thanks to the Chicago Art Institute public relations team for the media pass, what follows are an array of afterthoughts from two visits to the exhibition, first on June 16 then a return June 24 (yes, the exhibition is worth multiple visits). The press release for the exhibition provides a good overview, as does this museum video on the installation process.

"Roy Lichtenstein: A Retrospective" includes more than 160 works by the American artist. The entry arcade is flanked by two large works portraying architectural features, among the many building blocks and areas of study Lichtenstein explored during more than 50 years of painting.

We delighted in the cheerful Disney-inspired "Look Mickey" in vivid red, blue and yellow, with thousands of hand-painted dots that are part of so many of the works (we learned how the artist employed stencil and toothbrush to apply these points of paint on later images). And before diving into many advertising- and cartoon-inspired canvases in the second gallery, the exhibition provides a handful of compare and contrast works showing early Lichtenstein creations (most are not easily recognizable as Lichtenstein) juxtaposed with 1990s "Brushstroke" works -- with just a few paintings, visitors can see the huge leap Lichtenstein made from what was popular in art circles to his own brand of pop art.

Around the first corner, and around every turn in this exhibition, are wonderful surprises. Eyes meet the Lichtenstein everyone knows -- comic strip couples embrace while jet fighters and submarine commanders unleash attacks. The first big corner in this exhibition reveals themes of Early Pop (including common items from detergents to sneakers and jewelry), Black and White (with larger than life golf ball, tire, radio and desk calendar canvases -- don't miss the Magnifying Glass) and the first glimpse of War and Romance themes.

The most intriguing surprise early in the exhibition: ceramic busts and coffee cups (we liked how the stacked coffee mugs were just a few steps from the brown and yellow "Cup of Coffee" painting). The 18"x 45" "Hot Dog With Mustard" sort of jumps out as much as "The Ring (Engagement)" as the first Lichtenstein explosion in the exhibition (the red and black facets moving outward like the blasts of "Whaam!" in the next room).

Returning to the Black and White section, we marveled at the advertising-inspired "Large Jewels" as another of the early surprises to enjoy. So much to love in this exhibition -- we spent almost an hour in only the first two rooms!

The big guns are out in the room of comic war and romance paintings. The best treats: the aforementioned "Whaam!" facing a U-boat commander screaming in "Torpedo ... LOS!" as well as "Bratatat!" and "Takka Takka." I was humming Lionel Richie tunes upon spotting "Cold Shoulder" (with an eerie, forlorn message of Hello ... in a caption bubble almost crying off the canvas) and "We Rose Up Slowly" with its couple kissing like Brook Shields and her partner in "Endless Love" movie scenes.

"Roy Lichtenstein: A Retrospective" rounds the bend to unveil several more explosions and brushstrokes, with some curious three-dimensional works of porcelain enamel on steel. Several private collection works are shown here and in the landscapes series in the next gallery. Most impressive are the "Perforated Seascape #1" (as visitors cross the room this 3D work comes alive in vivid red, white and blue) and two Rolux-infused paintings titled "Seascape" and "Pink Seascape" (amazing and so surprisingly Roy).

Rounding another bend takes your breath away. It is amazing to see "Landscape with Figures and Rainbow" -- the real one rather than my apartment poster -- on loan from Germany measuring an enormous 8' x 10' (awesome!); the room features Lichtenstein's amazing history of art celebrating his take on Henri Matisse, Pablo Picasso, Morris Louis and others. We spent the most time evaluating the sculptures in this section, as well as the 120" x 102" canvas "Laocoön" inspired by a major European sculpture (blending brushstrokes, dots and more colors than any other painting in the room).

Modern works, Mirrors, numerous studies (including the study for my favorite "The Red Horseman" and my girlfriend's favorite "Alka Seltzer" in pencil and crayon), angular/geometric shapes classified as Perfect/Imperfect and Artist's Studio works build the exhibition's third crescendo with a room of Nudes (with the floor-to-ceiling "Nudes with Beach Ball" drawing a lot of attention. The concluding gallery unveils the surprise of Lichtenstein's landscapes (many with Asian themes) and a return to the brushstrokes. Amazing. And the enormous scale of the landscapes offers an unintended "Where's Waldo" game to find the tiny philosopher or boat captain in a couple of the monumental works.

Obviously, we loved "Roy Lichtenstein: A Retrospective" and highly recommend a visit while its in the Chicago Art Institute through Sept. 3, at the National Gallery of Art in Washington Oct. 14 to Jan. 13, then in London and Paris throughout next year. I also recommend the exhibition catalogue with 368 pages and full color images of hundreds of Lichtenstein and related works. I don't typically use/recommend museum audio guides, but this exhibition's audio tour includes so many archived Roy Lichtenstein interviews it is a must-listen for the first-timer or longtime fan.

One thing that struck me, reading the catalogue and other museum writings through the exhibition, is the absence of reference to Ben-Day dots, often used to describe some of Lichtenstein's artistic process. My hunt through the catalogue continues, but I am curious to know whether the curators purposely avoided use of the Ben-Day reference, which also is absent from the audio guide. Was there a copyright issue of the word Ben-Day? What was the point of ommiting Ben-Day descriptions? It's not even on the dot-edu link for the exhibition.

Whether or not the dot answer is determined, the "Roy Lichtenstein: A Retrospective" exhibition is outstanding. Period.
Photos by Nicholas Wolaver except the LA84 poster from this link