Mendocino

[zyzyly]

Comments

[eleanor.livejournal.com]

I've been there, recognized it right away!

[purple7luv.livejournal.com]

GORGEOUS. That sky really makes it....
bravo!

[etroutski.livejournal.com]

"Hey babe, mind if I braid your hair while you fix that broken column?"

OR: "If you stand real still they won't shit on you!"

--trout

[coollibrarian.livejournal.com]

Beautiful photograph.

[kenmora.livejournal.com]

It's at once melancholy and funny.

[myasma.livejournal.com]

I would like to know the story behind it. It just has to have a story.

[zhenzhi.livejournal.com]

that's a beautiful statue. what is it for?

[myasma.livejournal.com]

I don't know. It is on top of a building--some sort of meeting hall. I had planned to go back and see what it was before we left the area, but forgot.

[myasma.livejournal.com]

I really like Mendocino--it has a genuine feel to it.

[myasma.livejournal.com]

thank you!

[myasma.livejournal.com]

Really. Odd, isn't it?

[myasma.livejournal.com]

thanks!

[myasma.livejournal.com]

Have you? Know anything about it?

[eleanor.livejournal.com]

Yes, a little.

The building was originally a Masonic temple, the imagry classic Masonic symbolism. Unfortunately, offhand, I don't remember that it is, although I bet that there are people reading this that do. I may have information somewhere.

Mary Lou Packard was a prominent local figure who was an environmentalist and is credited with saving the Mendicino headlands. She was also an artist, and was Diego Rivera's assistant for some time. She did a woodcut of that sculpture, of which there were (I believe) 500 copies made. I would love to find one, do online searchs and ask in galleries every now and then.

[moodtobestewed.livejournal.com]

Umm, does that angel have a beard and mustache? I don't think I've ever seen an angel with facial hair.

[jeffholton.livejournal.com]

Actually, I was just there a few days ago. I like the pizza place (bakery, really) across the street, and I went to the corner by the bank to read the plaque because my wife begged us to stop in at Sallie Mae (not to be confused with Sallie Mac) next door and I was bored senseless by the provincial Frenchness of it. Ennui.

But, anyway, yes, it was carved by the first Grand Master Poobah (or whatever his title was) of the Masonic Lodge there in Mendocino, which is now the First (and only?) Bank of Mendocino County. (It does me no end of amusement to note that the Presbyterian Church in town is still a Presbyterian Church--one of the oldest on the West coast--but that the Masonic Temple is now a bank! Now, to be fair, I'm sure someone can come up with a town somewhere in the country where the opposite is true.)

The title of the carving is "Time and the Virgin."

I can only guess what it symbolizes, given that Time is probably about to poke her with that sickle (after he's done braiding her veil) or something.

(Can you tell what she's holding on to? I can't.)

By the way, myasma, I cannot imagine what angle you had to be at in order to snap that picture. Fess up? I'm most curious! Where were you standing?

We stayed here:



...which is just at the next corner down from the bank, back towards Hwy 1.

I also got a couple interesting shots a few hundred yards away from both, here.