Simple gifts of Shrinky Dinks

It may be bad form for a journalist to say she's sick of bad news. But in the car yesterday, I'd had enough of the recession, and put on Bernstein and the NY Philharmonic instead. "Appalachian Spring" cheers you right up.

It made me wonder why anyone didn't think of playing the actual "Appalachian Spring" at the inauguration, rather than that tepid spin of "Simple Gifts." And really play, not soap-on-the-bows "play." (If we can send a man to the moon, can't we find a way to heat up cold musicians?) It's a piece that embodies all the burgeoning optimism of the day. Plus, for folks who think classical music is highfalutin', there are passages that kinda sound like the movies. Even our previous prez might've dug Copland's "Hoe Down."

Speaking of accessible art, I feel strangely connected to an exhibit of paintings done on Shrinky Dinks, as anyone who spent a portion of her childhood baking suncatchers might.

I was reading the other day about this Palo Alto show, of works by an 85-year-old Russian prince who paints scenes from his exile's life in Windsor Castle on shrinkable plastic. My friend K.K. called. Naturally, he said the whole thing was a hoax. Well, the gallery does bill the artist's work as "fantastical," but apparently Andrew Romanoff is one of those Romanoffs.

Before I'd had a chance to ascertain the truth, K.K. was working it out on his own. At first he speculated that someone had made a bunch of Shrinky-Dink paintings for whatever reason, and was pushing them as "art." But then he stopped himself. If you go to the trouble to make the art, he said, isn't it actually art, regardless of the motive? You can label a painting Folk Art or whimsy or primitive, but not fantastical. It exists. It's hanging on the wall in front of you. Make of it what you will.

The Shrinky-Dink paintings aren't my glass of tea, but I salute the effort that went into creating them. The artist was telling his life story, in his way, in his chosen medium, even if it makes journalists titter. I have more respect for someone who bakes a collection of plastic napkin rings in the oven than someone who stands up in front of the nation and lip-syncs the national anthem. Sing out, Louise. Even if your piano strings are freezing and your voice cracks and you forget your lines, at least it's real.

Pictured: A painting by Andrew Romanoff

Councilman Cohen's canvases

Some folks in Menlo Park take their local politics reeeeally seriously. I covered the city beat for the Almanac a few years back, and I can still picture that crowd squeezed into a kitchen on election night in 2004, and the roar after it looked like Andy Cohen had won a City Council seat. People expected Kelly Fergusson to win -- and they both did -- but it was Andy's victory that really sparked the tumult.

Menlo Park was the most polarized beat I have ever covered (beating out Woodside, East Palo Alto, Atherton, Hillsborough, San Mateo County and the San Jose Unified School District). Are you for us or against us? Everyone was on one side or another of absolutely everything. It got exhausting.

So it's nice to hear about Andy Cohen in the arts world, fuzzy feature writer that I am. I've always liked his offbeat sense of humor. Oh, wait -- does that mean my coverage of Menlo Park was biased?

Anyway, the Almanac's Sean Howell told me that Andy is having his first public exhibit of his paintings. His landscapes and still-lifes are up at Little House, some from his hiking and camping days. Sean said Andy started painting because he was tired of words (he "learned as a lawyer that words can be used to distort").

Little House reports that Andy's paintings will be up "for another week or two," Monday through Saturday from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Call Joan Currie at 650-326-2025, extension 229, for details.

Councilman Cohen is also teaching a Little House class on nature journaling Feb. 27 through March 27. Please, don't be that guy who shows up to yell about land use.

Pictured: Andy Cohen's painting of an abandoned farm, courtesy of www.AlmanacNews.com.

Visual art in Palo Alto: I'm still here

Weren't there a lot more places in Palo Alto to see visual art when I started this job in '05?

I used to visit the hip British canvases at the Chelsea Art Gallery (now closed) . And my old English teacher Joseph Fuchs' oils of Venice at Voshan Gallery (also closed). And Susan Kraft's powerful paintings at the ART21 Gallery (you get the idea).

Lament.

For now I take our new A&E intern, Ashley Ramirez, around to see my favorite PA pockets of art and try to stay upbeat about the Economy of Woe. Yesterday after sampling the Warholesque candy exhibit at Gallery House (edible jewelry by Edith Schneider and giant sugary Gummi photos by Pete Zivkov), we wandered upstairs at Keeble & Shuchat Photography. Hey, if the blandest conference room can be a permanent art gallery, there's hope.

Amanda Kaufmann is showing rural photos with a bathtub-in-the-front-yard kind of charm, but we especially liked the work by Marilynne Morshead. Mainly because we couldn't tell what most of her photos were. The one I've pictured above is "Discovery," also the title of the series. Is it a metaphor for the recession jungle? Wait, we weren't going to talk about that any more. All the photos in the black-and-white series have a half-familiar look, the glow of an old movie you don't remember seeing, or a ghost light in a theater no one goes to any more.

"Orbs" is my favorite (go here and click on "Discovery" to see it, the seventh one down), picturing what looks like engraved glass balls with circles of light at the center, against a dark background. One ball in the back peers over the others, maybe nervous about the future, but still looking.