'Artful' Spring '19 CA-Modern

Beauty, as they say, is in the eye of the beholder, and art, well, for most of us it's, "I don't know much, but I know what I like."

Consider the spring 2019 issue of CA-Modern magazine, then, to be your ticket for viewing a whole gallery of artistic shades of mid-century modern life, all wrapped up in 36 pages.

The most conspicuously arty feature in the new issue is undoubtedly features editor Dave Weinstein's profile of abstract painter Chris Trueman, but there are also artistic takes on avant-garde jewelry, Bay Area architecture, and even old-school lunchboxes.

"The best lunchboxes are beautiful little works of portable art—optimistic, cute, full of bravery and danger, featuring frilly fashion and puppy dogs and kitties—art that is aimed at children six to roughly 14," according to a colorful CA-Modern Flashback story in the spring issue, 'Lunchbox Love.'

The four-page story is littered with lustrous boxes, illustrated with photographs of everyone from the Beatles to the Munsters, from the Lone Ranger to the Last Supper. Several are courtesy of Oakland artist and collector Dee Adams, one of several lunchbox aficionados included in the article.

"If you think the love of lunchboxes is just about nostalgia—well, you're mostly right," the story concedes, adding, "But it's about art too, and history."

Design history is also the name of the game in 'Not Long For This World?,' which warns of history in the form of noteworthy California modernist buildings being displaced by 'progress.'