Herb & Dorothy

Thank you, Venetians. You once again led me to a wonderful film via "Local Favorites for Venice, CA" on Netflix, and affirmed my belief that I live amongst some real cool cats.

I saw Herb & Dorothy last night, and am still just brimming over with love for it today. Herb and Dorothy Vogel are now-famous art collectors, whose love and dedication to art - and to each other - is so moving and real ... it's contagious.


It also reminds one of how extremely important art, music, dance, creative writing, theater - ART in all forms - are to have in our schools as part of every child's education and expression. Especially now when California is broke and public schools often can't keep up with basic education requirements, we see the temptation to get rid of what administrations might consider frivolous or whatever, but it's SO important it makes me crazy to even imagine making kids go without.

I used to have a kid's class on Saturday mornings at Venice Arts called Art Discovery. I just made it up every week, and had "Guest Stars" come in to help teach the things I didn't know how to do myself. My brother would come in and make a jam band with the kids. My friend Denise would show them how she makes molds for toys at Mattel. My friend Shane taught them how to be tough guy actors. Vavine taught hula. I would wake up Saturday mornings after a long night out and think "Tie Dye today?", with both dread and humor. All of this tangent being said, it IS important. I ran into a Dad of one of my former kids this morning down at the beach, and he told me that the boy is playing trumpet and making movies now - at 10. He was exposed to ART every Saturday morning, and he is a cool little kid now, and I suspect will grow up to be even cooler.

Herb and Dorothy grew their art collection in their tiny one bedroom Manhattan apartment to the size and import of such greatness that when they decided to DONATE it all to the National Gallery in D.C., it took FIVE full Semi sized trucks to transport it all. They still live in the same little apartment, and Americans and visitors have been given the GIFT of seeing all their art displayed forever. Watching the film, you learn about all the art pieces from their regular person point of view, and I found myself feeling both smarter about art, and inspired to create, and share.

Check out Herb & Dorothy ... it will do your heART good.