By Johnny McDonald | Balboa Park Update

Auto Museum features historic wooden vehicles

San Diego Automotive Museum’s current Woodies exhibit will run through May 27. Executive Director Paula Brandes said in a press release, “This exhibit defines the art of wooden cars through the years, from the depot hack to the iconic surf car.”  There are currently 14 cars on display.

In addition to the automobiles, the exhibit includes videos of movies and TV shows that highlight Woodies, and a display depicting the process of restoring wooden cars. Cars on display include a 1932 Ford V-8, 1964 Austin Mini Countryman, 1950 Plymouth Super Deluxe, 1924 Model T Depot Hack and 1931 Ford Model A Boattail, among others.

“Building cars out of wood has a long and interesting history,” Brandes said in the release. “The first automobiles were mostly wood, at least the chassis and body.” The 1860 Concord Stagecoach was an early means of transport composed almost entirely of wood.

“By the time of the Model T, post World War I, the Depot Hack had become a practical vehicle for carting passengers and luggage to the train depot and back,” Brandes said in the release. “As Depot Hacks evolved into station wagons, or estate wagons, resort and hotel operators chose to use Woodies for transporting visitors to and from their facilities. They wanted to project an image of romanticism from times past.”

OH! Zone fundraiser at the Fleet

The Reuben H. Fleet Science Center held their 11th Annual OH! Zone fundraiser on March 10. Proceeds from the event go to educational programming and school scholarships. “The OH! Zone is my favorite ‘un-gala’ of all time,” said Fleet Science Center Chair Lori Fleet-Martin in a press release. “The best part is that it benefits the math and science education of our local San Diego County students.”

The Social Scholarship Program was launched nine years ago to help underfunded schools make field trips to the Science Center as part of their curriculum. The program brings approximately 100,000 students to the Science Center each year.

Greg Stevens, executive director of Pfizer Global R&D, spoke on the importance of the evening and why science education is important to him.

“As a scientist and parent, I am alarmed at the way science is taught within our public school system,” Stevens said in a press release. “Dumping of factual information for kids to memorize, often at a young age, just so they can do well on some test and only forget what they learn, often leads them to resent and hate science,” he said.

Stevens said the Science Center give children and adults a chance to learn together “through hands-on, interactive exhibits that bring out the scientist in all of us. However, my interest in the Fleet goes well beyond the exhibits that the public readily sees to what is not readily obvious and that is what happens behind the exhibits,” he said.

Sixth Century exhibit as MoA

San Diego Museum of Art’s presentation of Echoes of the Past includes 14 objects from Xiangtangshan and three related Sixth Century Northern China works of art.

The exhibition disperses sculptural fragments with a set of media projects, including an immersive video installation; a documentary film directed by Judy Hoffman about the present-day environs of the cave sites; and an interactive touch-screen related to the monumental stone fragments on view.

It is an exploration of one of the most important groups of Buddhist devotional sites in early medieval China. A video installation, multiple touch screens and research kiosks enable visitors to digitally envision the caves as they appeared before their tragic despoliation, or robbery.

Material furnished by the museum indicate the caves were carved into mountains of northern China and that the Buddhist cave temples of Xiangtangshan were the crowning cultural achievement of the Sixth Century Northern Qi dynasty.

The limestone caves were severely damaged in the first half of the 20th Century, when their contents were chiseled away and offered for sale on the international art market.