Click on over to KCET’s Artbound to read about Tony Corley, founder of the Black Surfing Association, as he recalls his early life on the Central Coast and his lifelong quest for unity amongst Black surfers.

Tony Corley: Evolution of the Black Surfing Association

Corley shares his personal memorabilia that documents his founding of the BSA.

Travel along the coastal route of the El Camino Real and explore the rich, diverse cultural and artistic identity of San Luis Obispo County. This installment in the series celebrates the mavericks, pioneers, and experimental thinkers of the county.

Two designers I greatly admire are the architect Julia Morgan and the book artist Meryl Perloff.  To my delight these two creatives converged in a lovely way.  Artist Meryl Perloff created this beautifully rendered replica of a playhouse designed by Julia Morgan.

JULIA MORGAN, ZEGAR PLAYHOUSE (Dec 2012)
By artist Meryl Perloff
San Luis Obispo, California
(Photo | Cate Trujillo)

From the artist
“While not a scale model, this structure is my impression from photographic records  of the playhouse designed by Julia Morgan for the daughters of Steve Zegar, her devoted driver during the period of the design and construction of Hearst Castle. This smallest of Morgan’s projects resides in San Luis Obispo. The model is constructed of binder’s board, handmade Lokta paper, coarse sandpaper, mylar and wood trim. Clay pots of flowers complete the image of this caringly composed structure.”

(Photo | Cate Trujillo)

About the Zegar Playhouse
San Luis Obispo County is home to San Simeon, the greatest of Julia Morgan’s commissions. It is also the location of her smallest job, the enchanting playhouse Morgan designed and built for the daughters of Steve Zegar, the local taxi driver. Morgan continued a full-time practice from her San Francisco office, so she devoted most weekends during the 1920s to design and on-site supervision of construction at San Simeon. Morgan would leave her San Francisco office late on Friday afternoon to catch the coast train, sketching during the 200-mile trip to San Luis Obispo. Upon arrival, Morgan would dine on oyster stew and coffee near the station and then join Zegar for the journey up the coast. Their friendship was forged during the many trips they made back and forth over the years between the train station and the construction site on the hilltop nearly 45 miles away.

(Photo | Private Collection)

According to previous owners, the playhouse was designed in 1925 on the back of a brown paper bag, as Zegar ferried his passenger up Highway 1. On other trips, Morgan made time to supervise construction and soon the Zegar girls were playing in a custom-designed Julia Morgan house right in their own backyard.
(Special Collections, Cal Poly San Luis Obispo)

Cal Poly’s Kennedy Library announces the opening of their fall exhibit, Atelier Morgan: The Personal Archives of Architect Julia Morgan with a reception from 3-4 p.m. on November 9 in the library, followed by a lecture from 4 p.m. to 5 p.m. in the Business Rotunda at Cal Poly by historian Victoria Kastner.

The exhibit, which is designed to travel to other libraries and galleries, presents visual representations of Morgan’s craft and design aesthetic. It will be shown alongside Cal Poly architecture student work inspired by her design principles.???Featured in the exhibit will be reproductions of Morgan’s student work at the cole de Beaux-Arts in Paris, William Randolph Hearst commissions, civic work with YWCAs and residential commissions.

Exhibit Dates
    •    The exhibit is open during regular library hours, November 9, 2012 – January 11, 2013.
    •    Location: Robert E. Kennedy Library, Learning Commons 2nd floor.

Opening Reception
    •    Friday, November 9, from 3pm- 4pm at the Gallery at the Commons, 2nd Floor, Kennedy Library

Opening Talk
    •    Victoria Kastner, Historian for Hearst Castle (Hearst Lecture Series, Sponsored by CAED)
    •    Friday, November 9, from 4- 5 p.m. in the Business Rotunda, Cal Poly
The College of Architecture and Environmental Design’s 2012 Hearst Lecture Series features Victoria Kastner, historian for Hearst Castle and author of two books: “Hearst Castle: The Biography of a Country House” and “Hearst’s San Simeon: The Gardens and the Land.”

All events are free and open to the public.

Image Credit: Julia Morgan Studio Portrait, Paris, c. 1900 | Courtesy Special Collections, Kennedy Library

The latest Central Coast installment for KCET’s Artbound highlights the architecture of Mark Mills.

http://www.kcet.org/arts/artbound/counties/san-luis-obispo/coastal-modern-mar…

Designing primarily along California’s Big Sur Coast, Mark Mills was an experimental architect of structures of an organic quality with emphasis on modern elegance that was informed by the building sites’ natural landscape.

More images: http://www.flickr.com/photos/slomuse/sets/72157631569757944/

Travel along the coastal route of the El Camino Real and explore the rich, diverse cultural and artistic identity of San Luis Obispo County. This installment in the series celebrates the mavericks, pioneers, and experimental thinkers of the county.

A piece for the Kennedy Library’s Banned Book Week display.

More info: Banned Book Week 2012

The Catcher in the Rye – JD Salinger | Altered book by Cate Trujillo

Banned Books by Mark Bieraugel

Snow Falling on Cedars by David Guterson | Altered book by Jan Kline

Yard Bombs in Kennedy Library’s Atrium

Enjoy the latest installment of Arts & Culture Along the el Camino Real:
The Shakespeare Press Museum offers a collection of rare equipment and early examples of printing that spans 150 years of California printing. Printing scholar Laura Sorvetti shares the history behind the type.
ARTBOUND | KCET
http://www.kcet.org/arts/artbound/counties/san-luis-obispo/print-like-its-1897-the-history-behind-the-shakespeare-press-museum.html

The Shakespeare Press Museum is not a rumination on Romeo and Juliet but rather a working 19th-century printing museum located at California Polytechnic State University in San Luis Obispo. The museum’s collections are behemoths of a forgotten era of printing: metal and wood type, printing presses, and a library containing early examples of printing in California and the West. The museum’s pioneering beginnings originate with Charles “Shakespeare” Palmer, whose private collection of printing presses and type were donated to Cal Poly in 1964. (A predilection for poetry earned Palmer his Shakespearian nickname in high school.) The California Polytechnic State University (Cal Poly) campus adopted Palmer’s moniker and the museum was named in his honor, officially dedicated as the Shakespeare Press Museum in 1966.

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Travel along the coastal route of the El Camino Real and explore the rich, diverse cultural and artistic identity of San Luis Obispo County. This installment in the series celebrates the mavericks, pioneers, and experimental thinkers of the county.

Read the entire series:

Season 1

Season 2