Vladimir Kagan's Blog

California Here I Come!

California Here I Come!

From the Dirty Side To The Shaky Side...( it didn't shake!)

Copyright Vladimir Kagan September 30, 2012

 

You know you are heading for L.A. when all the passengers are chic – hip and young! 

That’s the good news; flying America Airlines in cattle class is no fun: ancient planes vaguely refurbished, seating so tight that you can’t open the flip table without ramming your stomach (that of course is more applicable for me with my huge belly), A single small TV screen to serve the entire cabin with film selections meant for dolts… all amenities are additional, if you want to call the purchasable food as such. First Class and Business Class were carved out of the economy section with a sliding divider wall… (If American goes bankrupted… it is well deserved…. Haven’t any of their executives ever flown Jet Blue?)

 

My trip was built around a work schedule, but leave it to me to turn it into two great Blog adventures!

  Ralph Pucci's invitation to my opening in Los Angeles at the Pacific Design Center

I will regale you with business first. My friend Ralph Pucci runs a tight ship with showrooms in New York and Los Angeles. Each September is fashion week and an opportunity to welcome the fall season with a design event. Ralph’s parties are not your Gala openings with passed hors d'oeuvres and selected cocktails, (Ralph is famous for serving white wine and water only – your choice of gas or plain.) None-the-less the turnout at these events is anything but mundane. They are parties colonized with California’s B.P.s (Beautiful people): tight jeans, fashionistas dresses and the most extravagant high heeled shoes that only a mannequin can prance around in. The opening was laced with VIPs, real and wannabees plus a contingent of pumping-iron guys in sleeveless t-shirts flexing their muscles. In other words, it’s a scene not to be missed… To lure an audience Ralph sagaciously builds these events around a design celeb…. This time it was Ralph’s favorite octogenarian - Me!

The showroom looked magnificent with ample space devoted to each of my designs in a museum setting. Ralph has excellent taste in vetting his exhibits. I shared the limelight with an immensely talented muralist, Jeff Quinn and the creative lighting designer, Ted Abramczyk, whose light fixtures dangled into your face or drink if you weren’t careful. The party was topped with a private dinner at the famous Châteaux Marmon in Hollywood… (Everyone will remind you that John Belushi had his last supper there.) The acrid fumes of marijuana lingered everywhere in the air.

 

A panoramic view of my exhibit at Ralph Pucci's showroom in Los Angeles with Jeff Quinn's impresive mural in the background

 

A quartet of new introductions - The Ondine Wing Chair, Boomerang Mosaic Tile Coffee Table, Swan Sofa and the Cygnet Floor Lamp - all originally designed in the 50's

A Double Chest of Drawers from the 50's and a table lamp dating back to 1948 - re-introduced at Pucci's

LA is not all of California and Malibu does not consider itself to be a part of LA. Malibu-ians are either stars or stargazers. The most expensive home naturally are on the water... More precisely, the Pacific Ocean... (Not on the beach) that would be too easily accessed by the public! These houses (originally funky beach shacks built on fragile stilts overhang the ocean with the water sloshing under their feet 24/7... Today these relics have been converted into multi-million dollar McMansions. They are built cheek to Jowl with barely three feet between them. No parking space except for the owner and possibly a staffer ... Woe to the visitors coming for a party! (My hostess, who qualifies as a stargazer, assures me they are worth $40,000,000 and upward!)

The stargazers are no paupers... Their homes just fall short of the multi-million of those on the ocean. There is no town... Only cute little discreet shopping Malls with excellent eateries for Californian's health buffs... veggies and of course the Yoga studio… Cars are God... There are neither sidewalks nor bicycle paths... Signs warm pedestrians to stay off and if you are a jogger... God help you between the ubiquitous rattle sakes hiding in the brush and guard dogs lurking behind every gate. One advantage of these salubrious communities is that it takes over an hour from downtown LA... Keeping the riffraff out. Though Illya was smartly dressed in jeans, open collar and a blazer and I wore the mandatory "shades"', neither of us qualified as celebs. However, my hostess knew where each and everyone lived. As I am the original country-bumpkin I had no idea who any of them were!

 

The only photo I have of Malibu is this impressive display of flags at Pepperdine University, commemorating the dead heroes of 9/11... a flag for each person lined up with military precision  

 

The next day we left Malibu for Santa Barbara, the other playground of the rich and famous. The drive gets prettier as we headed north along the costal highway past rock outcroppings (that look might iffy were there to have been an Earthquake), around gracious curves with the Pacific gleaming on the horizon. Everything in California is an hour away and Santa Barbara appeared right on schedule. It’s different from the flashy Malibu, more verdant, peopled by normal folks with the rich hidden in the hills. Our mission was precise: we were going to show Illya some California waves! His latest passion is surfing and we were in the surf capital of southern Cal. The Surf was not up to its usual reputation, a detail Illya appreciated, but they were the perfect “baby waves”, three to five foot high, rolling gently between the reefs. Our new friend, Dr. Michael Trambet knew precisely where to go. Hollister Ranch, world famous for its diversity, beauty and most of all, privacy. The Ranch is a colossal privately owned membership affair. (You don’t trespass!) For Illya and Michael it turned out to be an afternoon in heaven, while I sat on the beach enjoying the solitude and watching the seabirds that scurried on the water’s edge or flew majestically on silent wings in their everlasting search for food.

The picturesque Coastal Highway on our way to Santa Barbara

The magnificent coastline of Hollister Ranch and the emptiness of its beach

Illya coming in on a gentle wave - the boys heading out to the sea

My steady companions for the two hours that I enjoyed the solitude of watching the seabirds scurrying back and forth in quest of food.

 

Illya and Michael enjoying a cold beer after an enjoyable afternoon of surfing

Saturday opened a new opportunity: wine tasting in the hills of Santa Barbara County. We drove East in Michael’s exquisite Porsche Panamera. The landscape changed from verdant green to golden fields and dark olive trees… the vistas opened over miles of rolling hills and blue sky. We stopped in the little village of Los Olivos  in the Santa Yens valley , a cluster of Victorian houses representing all the vineyards in the neighborhood. Our destination was the Longoria vineyard’s wine boutique where we enjoyed the balmy afternoon in an unprepossessing garden tasting wines served by very knowledgeable young ladies who did their best to give us a buzz (and therefore buy more wines), these wines were not cheap but superb examples of California Pinot Noir. Syrah and Tempranillo grapes.

Tawny hills and distant views of the Pacific as we drove through the wine country

The little village of Los Olivos and the unprepossessing wine tasting garden

Michael's comfortable four door Porsche Panameric and its sexy tail light

On Sunday afternoon, Laden with gifts and trinkets, we departed from LAX (airline lingo for Los Angeles Airport) for our flight to Seattle….

 

Do we want to go back to visit Santa Barbara… You Bet we do!

 

Sibling Rivalry

 

 

My Daughter The Jeweler

Copyright Vladimir Kagan September 16, 2012

Jessica Kagan Cushman

"I want equal time" was my daughter Jessica's reaction to my recent Blog about "My son the Artist". Of course she is right. ... She deserved it! Bred with the same family affliction, she has carved out a successful career as a jeweler under the label “Jessica Kagan Cushman”

In all fairness, Jessica did try the corporate route, working for 15 years as a management consultant figuring out how to explain the complexities of retirement benefits to employees. Not surprisingly, that mantle didn't fit her. The tragic loss of her 21-year-old son sealed her fate. Jewelry had always been the true lifeblood of her existence - buying not making the stuff. Suddenly a light lit up: Dad did scrimshaw! (A delicate craft requiring infinite patience and diligence) It is literally scratching images onto a whale's tooth with a thin sewing needle perused from Erica's sewing basket. “I am usually a quick sketch artist - drawings on envelopes or paper table clothes in a restaurant, developing a new design, later enhanced with a dash of color with a magic marker. I am not your typical engraver on an unforgiving object like a whale’s tooth”. In the sixties, whale ivory was not considered contraband. It was readily available for virtually pennies in the "gifty" shops of Nantucket. I don't know what possessed me... probably the historic environment of my adopted Island Nantucket, with its history of Whaling. Sailors did exquisite scrimshaw to pass away idle time on their ships. The ultimate fashion statement on Nantucket has always been ownership of a hand-woven reed basket with elaborate carved or engraved ivory covers. These baskets are simply known as Nantucket Baskets.  They are highly coveted at antique shows and auctions and depending on the maker, fetch outlandish prices.

The Nantucket Basket skrimshaw I engraved for Jessica in 1974

I made basket covers for Erica, my two daughters and a few lucky friends. It was a moment in time long forgotten until Jessica got the bug. She had been collecting antique ivory bracelets for years, purchased at backcountry fairs and flea markets. Why not scrimshaw them with pithy saying; Jessica was never shy for words and this was her golden opportunity to immortalize them on these bracelets. Her new career was launched! 

Jessica's closet - her treasure trove of collected jewelry (the other side are her shoes - as colorful as her jewelry)

 

Jessica's Woolly Mamoth ivory skrimshawed necklace and her "save the Elephant ivory - resin bracelets

Jessica’s bracelets became an instant success. From her first exhibit at Madi Weinrib’s chic gallery at ABC Carpet, her next big hit was Barney's, Colette in Paris, Moss and Bergdorf’s. Jessica was on a high… outselling her artist brother and even her Dad… Instead of using Elephant ivory she discovered fossilized Woolly Mammoth Ivory gathered in the far reaches of the arctic (since it is tens of thousands of years old, it not considered an endangered species). Next she realized she needed to knock herself off before someone else did so she produced an affordable version in "save the elephant" Ivory: resin! Fashion Magazines, Movie stars, "W", and fashionistas all began collecting Jessica's baubles avidly.

i

Jessica's upscale jewelry for Berdorfs and Collette in Paris

 

 

Gold bobles cast from found objects

Jessica's handbags and totes

...and for Nantucket she designed these woven baskets with floral lids

Success begets success and she needed to expand - next came handbags emblazoned with her outrageous sense of humor. Followed by exhibits in prestigious fashion shows in America, Paris, Berlin and Japan.Production became her growing pain...She moved production overseas… that dreaded concept reviled by decent people. Yet there is nothing in our daily lives, not our cell phones, those beloved I-pads nor the clothes we wear that is not made in China. For Jessica it required un-enjoyable trips to factories in Dongguan followed by production snags, unfulfilled delivery promises and all the growing pains of an expanding business…. Jessica ended right back in the corporate swirl that she so happily abandoned all those years ago. This time a second light hit her: licensing! Outsource the drudgery and stick to the fun – the design process. In January her licensed designs will be launched at the Atlanta Gift Show on wine glasses, napkins, wine bags, candles, ipad cases, tote bags and jewelry! Meanwhile, she is continuing to create her unique fine jewelry with diamond-encrusted ebony, blackened silver necklaces, bracelets and earrings that she sells at Bergdorf Goodman and other high end stores the world over. Her imagination bubbles over. Each morning she awakens with new ideas. Her studio in Redding, Connecticut overlooks her garden and a bucolic pond. Jessica has found her niche.

 

   

Jessica's bucolic view out of her studio window

 

To see more ofJessica’s bags and fun jewelry go to www.jessicacushman.com

Jessica’s fine jewelry can be seen at Bergdorf Goodman in New York and Stanley Korshak in Dallas. She adds new pieces every month.

 

 

How I spent my 85th Birthday

FLYING THE RIGHT-HAND SEAT OF A SINGLE ENGINE AIRPLANE AT 85

Copyright Vladimir Kagan, September 9, 2012

 

What do you do on a sunny day in Nantucket to celebrate your 85^th birthday? Well George W. H. Bush jumped out of an airplane and parachuted safely to the ground. I am not quite that brave. But I did ride shotgun in the co-pilot’s seat of a Beechcraft Bonanza and flew it over Nantucket at 1,000 feet. What an exhilarating experience.

 

My daughter jessica and I about to board our friend Rob's plane for a buzz around Nantucket

Rob Havens, our house guest about to take us for ride in his Bonanza

Your VFR rated Private Pilot in the co-pilot's seat ready to taxi down the rundway

 

Views of Nantucket Harbor and the nearby Island of Tuckernuck and the tiny seal Island where normally thousand of seals bask in the sunlight... but there were none to photograph... probably out to lunch!

Your co-pilot talking on the squawk-box and taking a photo of the final approach to Nantucket Airport

Yup, I actually do have a pilot’s license and in my more daring days flew to Nantucket from such exotic places as Fitchburg, Massachusetts, where I was designing furniture for Selig Furniture Company. You might well ask, “Who is Selig?” They existed and closed long before most of you were born. (The most memorable design I did for them was the Snail Table; still collectible and showing up regularly in classy auction-house catalogues)*…. I was even more daring than that and flew gliders. On fall weekends while Erica and the children had a picnic, they could watch me shoot landings as I was taking gliding lessons at Wurtsboro airport in the Catskills. Gliding is a white-knuckle sport; there is no engine and therefore no second chance at a missed landing.

 

Flying in my days was often referred to as “flying by the seat of your pants” and that was quite true because if you lost altitude quickly you experience partial weightlessness and very light in the “toosh” while a rapid pull-up sank you deep into the seat. (This was graphically brought home during flying lessons while flying under the hood.) I achieved a Private Single Engine license VFR (Visual Flight Rules) It allows you take on none-paying passengers and to fly as long as you can see the ground. IFR (Instrument Flight Rules) is a much more sophisticated rating… you can fly above the clouds and still know where you are. For us simple pilots IFR stood for “I Fly Roads” a desperate means of finding your way back to an airport when the weather deteriorated.

 

The cockpit dashboard was a simple thing with few instruments: A push-me-pull-you knob that is the throttle and controls the RPMs (Revolution Per Minute) of your engine, a red button that controls the mixture of air to fuel (nothing quite like it in a modern car but not unlike the spark control in my Model T)… A dashboard-mounted magnetic compass told you where you are heading. A black ball floating in a curved glass tube is the turn coordinator… There was a miniature airplane in a round dial that showed your attitude vis-à-vis the ground. It had a horizontal line for the horizon and as you banked (turned) the horizon line twisted left and right… the little plane remained constant. Reading that took a lot of practice and faith. If everything lined up, you were flying straight and level… when the horizon line dropped below your plane you were actually climbing – above the horizon you were descending, when it twisted left or right it indicated your turns. If the little plane did a combination of these things, …. you are turning and climbing or descending… (look-out it could give you vertigo) ….For up and down, there was an altimeter that read your feet above sea level… not the ground, so if you were flying over mountains, you had to take that into your calculations… Oh yes, and if you forgot to set your altimeter to the ground elevation of the airport from which you were taking off… forget what you are reading on the altimeter. There were two fuel gauges; one for each fuel tank… you had the option draw from either tank or both. There was one more important instrument: the Airspeed indicator. That was very, very important cause if you don’t keep up your airspeed… you stall… you never want to do that in an airplane. You made certain that the intake hole of your Pitot tube was open… that’s the little “L” shaped gadget mounted into the frond end of the wing, usually out of reach on a high winged plane…In the air, it drives your airspeed indicator… Additionally, there were a few important ground checks you had to follow… check your fuel for water condensation… there are usually three check point located at the lowest section of the aircraft. Water in the fuel of an airplane is fatal. You checked your oil level and made certain that your tanks were filled up. (Searching for cheaper fuel at another airport could be terminal) That’s a lot of stuff to monitor plus keeping your eye open for other air traffic and following a flight chart on your lap (they were much like road maps except you’re looking for rivers, lakes, towns, cities and most significantly airstrip of any size for an unexpected emergency landing.) The VHR radio was your best companion… it kept you in touch with the guys on the ground, who in turn told you what’s happening around you… and if you got into a panic, they will try to talk you home. There are only two words that can describe flying: “Stay Cool”… way before it ever became the buzzword of the hip.

 

There are progressive categories of pilot’s licenses: private single engine, (VFR Visual Flight Rules) private twin engine, instrument rated (IFR Instrument Flight Rules) and then you go on to the exotic categories of commercial, multi-engine, turbo, jet, etc. If you can’t at least get to an IFR rating you had better not fly to Nantucket (I did and I was lucky and am living to brag about it).

 

Erica and I, circa 1960 with my chartered Cessena 150 or was it a Piper Tri-Pacer???

I flew Erica and the kids to Provincetown and Martha’s Vineyard for desert, I took my mother flying over the Catskills to see her house in Woodstock, taking off and landing at Kingston airport; one of the hairiest little fields located right under  the Kingston – Reinbeck Bridge. My most audacious in the air experience was flying the whole family from Williamsburg, Virginia to Washington National Airport. An impudent undertaking that only a seasoned pilot should ever attempt. But I was young, foolish and lucky. I chartered a plane with a pilot who was to return the plane to Williamsburg. I blithely assumed that my co-pilot would be an experienced pilot. I was wrong, he was a kid who had never been to D.C and was building time. It was the blind leading the blind! We survived. The sobering experience cured my reckless illusions.

 

The Bonanza I was flying on my birthday is a machine of a different breed. The instrument panel is loaded with exotic aviation gadgets way beyond my kin: transponders to tell the ground who and where you are, electronic compasses. GPS, numerous radios you had to monitor and change constantly, instruments that told you if you are straying from your course… the radio conversation is staccato and confusing instructions keep coming at you… you must listen for your tail number cause nobody on the ground know your name.

  

the instrument panels of a modern single engine aircraft

Thank you…. NO…. I do not want to own a modern airplane! - but it sure was exhilarating!

 

 

History

    

Some 1950's Snail Tables found on Google Search