Chuck Jones Center

Last night when I came home from the Chuck Jones Center / Laguna College of Art and Design gallery opening I fully intended to write up the show. I promised Craig Kausen that I would talk up his Grandfather`s center for creativity.

So why am I late on my promises to keep? When I got home at 9:30 there was an urgent call from Antran Manoogian, President of ASIFA-Hollywood. I got sucked into the rescue of the Dick Huemer Murals. Making phone calls to former students to get them together to help move the sections of the walls that have been cut away from the demolition site. It looks like we are going to be able to save them.

Back to the promises to keep. We are 2/3`s of the way through a Chuck Jones Center co-sponsored event. It started with the screening yesterday of rare Chuck Jones animations. Lovingly picked for us by Eric Goldberg. I loved his choices. He did a frame by frame of the smear cells in the Dan Backside bar scene from the Dover Boys. It was great!

The Chuck Jones Center is a non-profit 501 (c) 3 origination, just like ASIFA-Hollywood. Their stated goals are:

• Archival preservation of Chuck`s art

• Imagination Centers at children`s hospitals (the first one is at Children`s Hospital of Orange County)

• Scholarship awards for character animation students

• Museum exhibits both local and traveling (this show is mounted at Laguna College through January 18th and then will travel to museums throughout the country)

• Weekend workshops with guest directors and art teachers.

That is the event still to go in this weekend. Eric Goldberg and Bert Klein (Boys Night Out) will be meeting with students at 11:00 AM for portfolio review and one on one training sessions. How cool is that?

I was at Chuck`s last public appearance, also at the Laguna College of Art and Design. There was a showing of Chuck`s art. Johan Klingler was head of the animation department at that time. He had been one of Chuck`s students at Cal Art. They were very close. Johan later told me that Chuck knew that he was not long for this world.

What impressed me the most about that show was 2 life drawings from the 1955 Don Graham masters class. Chuck hung that show. He picked the artwork. He picked those drawings. One of them worked and was a fine Chuck Jones drawing. The other one was a failure, didn`t work, didn`t gel.

Chuck did that. He hung a failed drawing in his last ever show on earth. He knew it, he had to know. What an amazing gift for those of us that had the eyes to see it. As artists we all have failed drawings that we hide from the world. Being professional is, partly, knowing which drawings to hide. To hang one of your failed drawings out there as a lesson for the world to see, that`s gutsy. That is why I love Chuck Jones the person, not just Chuck Jones the amazing animation director.

The Chuck Jones Center, http://www.chuckjonescenter.org/, is working not just to preserve the legacy of Chuck Jones, but to pass in on to others through education, a very worthy cause!

I will be filing another report on this event later tonight, thanks to the kindness of Aubry Mintz, the animation chair at Laguna College of Art and Design, http://www.lagunacollege.edu/, Aubry has kindly invited me to stop in and observe this morning`s session.

If there is anyway you can get to the gallery show while it is still at the Laguna College of Art and Design please do yourself a favor and come on down to 2222 Laguna Canyon Road, Laguna Beach, CA 92651  ¶ 6:36 AM