Frank Matranga is a genial mix of passion, persistence, and ambition. On at least a couple of occasions, the longtime Manhattan Beach resident and ceramist – or potter, if you will – has volunteered for a job or a commission he wasn’t exactly qualified for, but then rose to the occasion and mastered it.
Matranga is also one of six current members of the Twigs, an art group consisting of seasoned art veterans whose works will be on view for two weeks, with a reception this Saturday evening, at Cannery Row Studios in Redondo Beach. In addition to Matranga, the artists include painters Winston Marshall and Allen Bollinger, digital artists Michael Rich and Bob Witte, and sculptor Mariann Scolinos. There will also be pieces by classical sculptor Aldo Favilli, another member of the Twigs, who passed away just this past month.
Matranga and his wife, Casey, live in the house that Matranga purchased in 1970. It has since been extremely modified and reflects Matranga’s interest in Japanese art and culture. He spent several months in Japan in 1977, but more on that later.
Matranga and his wife, Casey, live in the house that Matranga purchased in 1970. It has since been extremely modified and reflects Matranga’s interest in Japanese art and culture. He spent several months in Japan in 1977, but more on that later.
Off to the races
“I grew up in Alhambra,” Matranga says. “I’ve always been an artist, even as a child.” Even then, “I was carving wood, and I would make all the guns and knives for all the kids in the neighborhood. My dad had a nice workshop in the garage, so I had use of the tools. I’ve always had an affinity for tools, but not ceramics. I hadn’t thought of ceramics.”
Matranga went to college as a design major, and earned his B.A. in Fine Arts from California State University Los Angeles. His job as a high school ceramics teacher came about as the result of a little deceit and some chutzpah or moxie, as in Sure, I can teach a class in ceramics. He then enrolled at Chouinard and took a six-week crash course, with Otto and Vivika Heino as his instructors. The latter was dubious: You’re gonna teach ceramics and you don’t know anything about it? That’s about it, Matranga replied.
After teaching high school ceramics in Whittier for four years and also taking night classes in ceramics, Matranga did his post-graduate work at USC under the guidance of Carlton Ball. He received his Masters in Fine Arts in 1960. He was soon working with Raul Coronel at the Ceramic Design Showroom in West L.A. After a couple of years, Matranga decided that either Coronel would make him a full partner or else it was time to move on and open his own studio.
Although Coronel wasn’t ready to go the partnership route, he did help Matranga get started, and apparently the two are close friends to this day. Meanwhile, Matranga says, “I was looking for a shop everywhere. I went to Pasadena, I was looking in Santa Monica, and I found this building in Redondo Beach. The rent was good, and the size was good for a studio.” He bought it and set everything up. “And I thought, that’s it; I’m gonna be a potter fulltime.”
Well, not so fast.
A friend of his called and said there was an opening at the college where he taught. “He said, the ceramics teacher got hurt in a terrible auto accident and they’re looking for somebody to come in for one semester and teach ceramics.”
While Matranga had little interest in going back to teach at a high school, he thought that teaching at a college would be nice. “I went in with a very cavalier attitude,” he remembers, “and I said, ‘Here’s my work…’
“And they said, ‘Oh, please take the job.’ Because it was September, and everybody had a job – they were struggling to find a teacher for this class. So, okay, I took the job for one semester. Then she [original teacher] came back from her accident and said, ‘I don’t want to teach ceramics anymore.’”
Matranga was offered the job. That one semester turned into 20 years.
Finally he quit, and for the second time set out to be a fulltime potter. This time it was for keeps.
“I grew up in Alhambra,” Matranga says. “I’ve always been an artist, even as a child.” Even then, “I was carving wood, and I would make all the guns and knives for all the kids in the neighborhood. My dad had a nice workshop in the garage, so I had use of the tools. I’ve always had an affinity for tools, but not ceramics. I hadn’t thought of ceramics.”
Matranga went to college as a design major, and earned his B.A. in Fine Arts from California State University Los Angeles. His job as a high school ceramics teacher came about as the result of a little deceit and some chutzpah or moxie, as in Sure, I can teach a class in ceramics. He then enrolled at Chouinard and took a six-week crash course, with Otto and Vivika Heino as his instructors. The latter was dubious: You’re gonna teach ceramics and you don’t know anything about it? That’s about it, Matranga replied.
After teaching high school ceramics in Whittier for four years and also taking night classes in ceramics, Matranga did his post-graduate work at USC under the guidance of Carlton Ball. He received his Masters in Fine Arts in 1960. He was soon working with Raul Coronel at the Ceramic Design Showroom in West L.A. After a couple of years, Matranga decided that either Coronel would make him a full partner or else it was time to move on and open his own studio.
Although Coronel wasn’t ready to go the partnership route, he did help Matranga get started, and apparently the two are close friends to this day. Meanwhile, Matranga says, “I was looking for a shop everywhere. I went to Pasadena, I was looking in Santa Monica, and I found this building in Redondo Beach. The rent was good, and the size was good for a studio.” He bought it and set everything up. “And I thought, that’s it; I’m gonna be a potter fulltime.”
Well, not so fast.
A friend of his called and said there was an opening at the college where he taught. “He said, the ceramics teacher got hurt in a terrible auto accident and they’re looking for somebody to come in for one semester and teach ceramics.”
While Matranga had little interest in going back to teach at a high school, he thought that teaching at a college would be nice. “I went in with a very cavalier attitude,” he remembers, “and I said, ‘Here’s my work…’
“And they said, ‘Oh, please take the job.’ Because it was September, and everybody had a job – they were struggling to find a teacher for this class. So, okay, I took the job for one semester. Then she [original teacher] came back from her accident and said, ‘I don’t want to teach ceramics anymore.’”
Matranga was offered the job. That one semester turned into 20 years.
Finally he quit, and for the second time set out to be a fulltime potter. This time it was for keeps.
“Yeah, I can do that”
Even while supplementing his income by teaching, Frank Matranga was getting his work out there, and being noticed.
“I just took one step, then I took another step and another step, and all of a sudden you just fall into it. Me, I’m in ceramics, that’s what I do. Then, little by little, I started getting exhibitions and commissions. In 1970 I got this huge sculpture commission for the Sears store in Escondido. They wanted seven murals going around the store.”
Each mural was to be 20 by 30 feet. The largest mural Matranga had attempted up until this time was a great deal smaller, maybe the size of a door. But he wasn’t fazed: “I said, Yeah, I can do that.”
He laughs. “And they gave me the job; they said okay.”
The company wanted the murals to depict scenes from San Diego County, and Matranga created dozens of drawings. Then he made models for them to look at. In turn, they handed him $20,000 and said: Start the commission.
“Then I had to run around and find a place to do it,” Matranga says, “because 20 by 30 feet, that’s a big floor space to do a mural.”
He found a studio in Highland Park and hired three of his students as assistants. He laughs as he recalls phoning the clay company: “I want 38 tons of clay delivered to this site.” And gradually, over the next year, the seven murals were completed and shipped to Escondido. (The Sears store is gone, but four of the murals have been saved, thanks to local architect Rob James.)
After this, Matranga says, “The commissions kept coming. I just kept doing it and doing it and doing it. It was just one of those things. You dig in. Kismet. You fall in this thing and it just started going well.”
Among those commissions he’s most proud of, Matranga points to the entryway ceramic murals for six L.A. County libraries that he created during the 1970s and ‘80s. His work is in restaurants and banks and private homes. Altogether, there are at least 57 murals that bear Matranga’s signature, and he’s not done yet. In 2002, he was included in Who’s Who in American Art.
Even while supplementing his income by teaching, Frank Matranga was getting his work out there, and being noticed.
“I just took one step, then I took another step and another step, and all of a sudden you just fall into it. Me, I’m in ceramics, that’s what I do. Then, little by little, I started getting exhibitions and commissions. In 1970 I got this huge sculpture commission for the Sears store in Escondido. They wanted seven murals going around the store.”
Each mural was to be 20 by 30 feet. The largest mural Matranga had attempted up until this time was a great deal smaller, maybe the size of a door. But he wasn’t fazed: “I said, Yeah, I can do that.”
He laughs. “And they gave me the job; they said okay.”
The company wanted the murals to depict scenes from San Diego County, and Matranga created dozens of drawings. Then he made models for them to look at. In turn, they handed him $20,000 and said: Start the commission.
“Then I had to run around and find a place to do it,” Matranga says, “because 20 by 30 feet, that’s a big floor space to do a mural.”
He found a studio in Highland Park and hired three of his students as assistants. He laughs as he recalls phoning the clay company: “I want 38 tons of clay delivered to this site.” And gradually, over the next year, the seven murals were completed and shipped to Escondido. (The Sears store is gone, but four of the murals have been saved, thanks to local architect Rob James.)
After this, Matranga says, “The commissions kept coming. I just kept doing it and doing it and doing it. It was just one of those things. You dig in. Kismet. You fall in this thing and it just started going well.”
Among those commissions he’s most proud of, Matranga points to the entryway ceramic murals for six L.A. County libraries that he created during the 1970s and ‘80s. His work is in restaurants and banks and private homes. Altogether, there are at least 57 murals that bear Matranga’s signature, and he’s not done yet. In 2002, he was included in Who’s Who in American Art.
Big in Japan
It was during the latter 1970s that Matranga was introduced to Chico Shibuya, who was visiting from Japan, and they hit it off quite well. “He said, You know, Frank, you should come to visit me in Japan. You can work in my studio, you can live in my house, and you can eat in my restaurant. And I thought, That’s the greatest deal I ever heard.”
The college where he was teaching granted him a sabbatical.
“I became Japanese,” Matranga says. “I just didn’t want to be American, I wanted to be Japanese. I got absorbed in the culture and the people just couldn’t be nicer to me. And when you’re a potter in Japan you’re a big deal.”
During the five months he was there he worked with young Japanese potters and he also met Shoji Hamada, one of Japan’s leading National Treasures. Matranga had a one-man show in Yokohama, and when he returned two years later he had two one-man shows in Tokyo and was even featured on TV.
Out on a limb
So let’s talk about the show that’s opening at Cannery Row. It’s untitled, or is called “Untitled,” but perhaps each of us wants to know why the group calls itself the Twigs (and for that matter, is Mariann referred to as Twiggy?).
“We used to be with the Hermosa Art Group,” Matranga explains, “and then the Redondo group kind of got involved, and pretty soon there were about 50 people in this group and it was getting unwieldy. And we just decided – the six of us (this is pre-Aldo Favilli) – we didn’t want to be included in that. There was too much backbiting and too many people. So what we did, we just branched out from this group. And Winston said, ‘Hey, we just branched out — why don’t we call ourselves the Twigs?’” Matranga laughs. “And that was it.”
This was back in 2001. Another reason why these individuals chose to go their own way was because they’d already been around the block, so to speak, and had paid their dues. Matranga emphasizes that they weren’t being snooty, but they’d long since achieved a certain level of accomplishment. “We had a reputation to uphold,” he says, “and we didn’t want to be dragged down by people who weren’t up to our interests – because this is a totally consuming interest with the six of us.
“I really like being with these guys and Mariann because they’re all very talented and we get along. At least twice a month we like to go on trips to Los Angeles and visit other galleries and find out what’s going on in the city. And then once a month we have a meeting at one of our houses and we talk about art in various forces, and that’s a very important part of the group, too: We bounce things off of each other.”
Presumably he means ideas, and not pillows or stale fruit.
The Matranga household has prime examples of work by other members of the Twigs, as well as such locally known artists as Robi Hutas, Wilfred Sarr, Jerry Young, and Edie Pfeiffer.
Aldo Favilli – the seventh Beatle, so to speak – joined the group about four or five years ago.
“Winston used to work with Aldo at Mattel as a graphic designer,” Matranga says. “We found that he had this great background in classic Italian sculpture.” There’s a statue in front of the American Martyrs Church in Manhattan Beach that Favilli created with his son. Favilli, unfortunately, had been battling cancer for the past couple of years and he passed away only three weeks ago.
It was during the latter 1970s that Matranga was introduced to Chico Shibuya, who was visiting from Japan, and they hit it off quite well. “He said, You know, Frank, you should come to visit me in Japan. You can work in my studio, you can live in my house, and you can eat in my restaurant. And I thought, That’s the greatest deal I ever heard.”
The college where he was teaching granted him a sabbatical.
“I became Japanese,” Matranga says. “I just didn’t want to be American, I wanted to be Japanese. I got absorbed in the culture and the people just couldn’t be nicer to me. And when you’re a potter in Japan you’re a big deal.”
During the five months he was there he worked with young Japanese potters and he also met Shoji Hamada, one of Japan’s leading National Treasures. Matranga had a one-man show in Yokohama, and when he returned two years later he had two one-man shows in Tokyo and was even featured on TV.
Out on a limb
So let’s talk about the show that’s opening at Cannery Row. It’s untitled, or is called “Untitled,” but perhaps each of us wants to know why the group calls itself the Twigs (and for that matter, is Mariann referred to as Twiggy?).
“We used to be with the Hermosa Art Group,” Matranga explains, “and then the Redondo group kind of got involved, and pretty soon there were about 50 people in this group and it was getting unwieldy. And we just decided – the six of us (this is pre-Aldo Favilli) – we didn’t want to be included in that. There was too much backbiting and too many people. So what we did, we just branched out from this group. And Winston said, ‘Hey, we just branched out — why don’t we call ourselves the Twigs?’” Matranga laughs. “And that was it.”
This was back in 2001. Another reason why these individuals chose to go their own way was because they’d already been around the block, so to speak, and had paid their dues. Matranga emphasizes that they weren’t being snooty, but they’d long since achieved a certain level of accomplishment. “We had a reputation to uphold,” he says, “and we didn’t want to be dragged down by people who weren’t up to our interests – because this is a totally consuming interest with the six of us.
“I really like being with these guys and Mariann because they’re all very talented and we get along. At least twice a month we like to go on trips to Los Angeles and visit other galleries and find out what’s going on in the city. And then once a month we have a meeting at one of our houses and we talk about art in various forces, and that’s a very important part of the group, too: We bounce things off of each other.”
Presumably he means ideas, and not pillows or stale fruit.
The Matranga household has prime examples of work by other members of the Twigs, as well as such locally known artists as Robi Hutas, Wilfred Sarr, Jerry Young, and Edie Pfeiffer.
Aldo Favilli – the seventh Beatle, so to speak – joined the group about four or five years ago.
“Winston used to work with Aldo at Mattel as a graphic designer,” Matranga says. “We found that he had this great background in classic Italian sculpture.” There’s a statue in front of the American Martyrs Church in Manhattan Beach that Favilli created with his son. Favilli, unfortunately, had been battling cancer for the past couple of years and he passed away only three weeks ago.
In part because of their shared Italian heritage, Matranga says, he and Favilli were simpatico and got along well together. “I always had the feeling that he liked me because he could come over and be very Italian with me.”
“At the memorial service,” adds Casey Matranga, “they said that at some point Sophia Loren was brought over to Mattel, and she was told that there was somebody from Italy on staff. The person giving this wonderful talk was Aldo’s best friend. He said everybody was jealous because Aldo was the only one that got a kiss on the cheek from Sophia Loren.”
Untitled, the group art show by the Twigs – Allen Bollinger, Winston Marshall, Mariann Scolinos, Michael Rich, Bob Witte, Frank Matranga and – in memoriam – Aldo Favilli, opens Saturday, June 2, with a reception for the artists from 6 to 10 p.m. at Cannery Row, 604 N. Francisca Ave., Redondo Beach. The gallery is open from Thursday through Sunday, 12 noon to 7 p.m. The closing reception is on June 17, from 2 to 6 p.m. Call (888) 366-1988 or go to canneryrowstudios.com. ER
“At the memorial service,” adds Casey Matranga, “they said that at some point Sophia Loren was brought over to Mattel, and she was told that there was somebody from Italy on staff. The person giving this wonderful talk was Aldo’s best friend. He said everybody was jealous because Aldo was the only one that got a kiss on the cheek from Sophia Loren.”
Untitled, the group art show by the Twigs – Allen Bollinger, Winston Marshall, Mariann Scolinos, Michael Rich, Bob Witte, Frank Matranga and – in memoriam – Aldo Favilli, opens Saturday, June 2, with a reception for the artists from 6 to 10 p.m. at Cannery Row, 604 N. Francisca Ave., Redondo Beach. The gallery is open from Thursday through Sunday, 12 noon to 7 p.m. The closing reception is on June 17, from 2 to 6 p.m. Call (888) 366-1988 or go to canneryrowstudios.com. ER
No hay comentarios:
Publicar un comentario