Watercolors, Newport, Dana Point, & THATCamp

Gordon McClelland gave a GREAT talk on the history of "California Watercolor in Orange County" at the Orange County Historical Society on Thursday! I figured he'd do a fine job for us, but even I was very pleasantly surprised at the amazing (original!) art he was able to round up for us, and the way he offered something both to the newbies and to the long-time aficionados. It was a great night to be at Sherman Gardens.

Today I'm sharing a few photos taken that evening. The image above is a Rex Brandt illustration/map of great places to paint along Orange County's coast. The map includes a few surprises, like the Hurley Bell Inn in Corona Del Mar and Shellmaker Island in Upper Newport Bay. It also depicts the Brandt-Dike School of watercolor painting at Brandt's home. I'm told that great Mid-Century house and the large lot it sat on have been completely carved off the hillside and replaced with a large condo complex.

This second image shows Gordon talking about a Barse Miller painting depicting a spot on the Irvine Ranch. The photo below shows some of the crowd gathered for the program. I was happy to see a bunch of new faces in the audience, as well as old friends.

The Dana Point Historical Society will celebrate their 25th anniversary with a special reception and short program at the Bluff Top Trail at Violet Lantern and El Camino Capistrano, Sept. 26, at 6pm. The Society was founded in 1987 as "part of the effort to preserve public access to the Bluff Top Trail as well as  the stone remnants of the 1925 Scenic Walk and the 1930 Dana Point Inn Arches."

I just spent two days at the "THATCamp" conference on technology in the humanities, held at Cal State Fullerton. The local organizer was Colleen Greene, social media guru at the Pollack Library. Among her innumerable projects, she's working on Orange County Fallen Heroes, which honors local men and women "who made the supreme sacrifice by laying down their lives in our nation's wars and conflicts." Although she only has 43 entries on her website thus far, she's working on researching and inputting information for nearly a thousand more. I'm sure this will be a lengthy process, but certainly a valuable one.

As for the conference,... One thing I learned this weekend was that a LOT of different software/technology is being developed to share historical photos and other documents online in ways that allow geo-referencing. It's sort of the next big leap from sites like Flickr to things that are more focused, or more versatile, or more professional. But it still seems too early to tell which "apps" will win out.

Happily, the conference wasn't too steeped in the amusing jargon one might expect from academics. But I did get a kick out of this (overheard) pip: "Best practices for conceptualizing funding streams."