Teenagers on Ice

On the 7th of March, 2010 the Ice Chalet Skating Rink in the Rolling Hills Estates, Promenade on the Peninsula mall generously hosted a night of free skating to Valmonte residents from 6:00pm to 8:00pm. Many brave souls with no previous experience gave it the college try and got better each lap around the Arena. Those that have spent childhood years in colder climates got reacquainted with gliding on ice and enjoyed the cool comradery.

However, there were an elite few who put us all in our place with their grace and expertise. Laney Diggs, 17, and Stephanie Valasek, aged 14, are two such Ice Angels.

These young athletes skate two to three hours a day, seven days a week and more time is added when they have an upcoming event. Working so hard on their skating does not leave time for much else so they have given up activities like Girl Scouts and Cotillion.

This sport can also be costly. There are traveling expenses; this April Stephanie is very excited to be competing in Toulouse, France with the Los Angeles Ice Theater. Costumes that must allow for ease of movement and present a smooth appearance are pricey and they need at least two costumes per year. The material that delivers this combination is a knit fabric and damages easily. The special, over-the-boot tights that cover the entire skate can run after a single performance. “Gloves, too - it’s up to a pair a week!” explains Christie, Stephanie’s mom. The costumes are designed by their various designers and choreographers who have the task of melding the design with the music. The girls compete with several musical genres - “In the Mood” by Glenn Miller, the overture of a 1960’s movie, “Irma la Douce” and “Les Mis”.

Laney began skating at age 5. She is 17 and a senior at Palos Verdes Peninsula High School. She now trains in Harbor city, but trained in El Segundo alongside Evan Lysacek, who won a gold medal in the 2010 Olympics in Vancouver. At the time I spoke to her she was 15^th in the nation in the senior solo category with USFSA, the United States Figure Skating Association. She currently skates for the All Year FSC, Figure Skating Club. In 2010 at the US Championships, Laney became the Senior Bronze Ladies medalist in the Pacific Coast Sectional Figure Skating competitions. She says that experience is her life’s “defining moment”. Her favorite city that she has skated in is Vancouver, Canada and when she’s not skating, she likes to cook, read, watch basketball with her family, and has Olympic aspirations.

Stephanie, 14, started skating when she was three. Like all kids she went on to include many extra curricular pursuits to her calendar but the love of skating grew by leaps and bounds – literally! She has outgrown the Rolling Hills Estates Ice Rink because it is not long enough for some of her jumps. She now skates at five different rinks from Burbank to Harbor City. Stephanie helps teach the Learn to Skate classes every Saturday to give back to the rink where her career began.

Christie Valasek knows how hard these kids work at their sport and realized there was no High School Varsity letter available to them. After presenting their case to the school athletic director, it was agreed – skaters would get their due recognition as they certainly deserve the letter. For the first time in PVPHS’s history, on April 17^th, 2010 at the Rolling Hills Community Covenant Community Center at 735 Silver Spur in Rolling Hills a banquet will be held to present Varsity letters to these accomplished kids. Tickets are $20.00 which includes dinner. Call Christie Valasek at 310.722.0605 for more information and ticket sales.

See what can happen from a little fun in your neighborhood?! And to think – I had never been inside the Rolling Hills Estates Ice Chalet before - all the while kids have been building a future there. It’s a friendly and well maintained rink where one can go watch local teams play hockey or just practice standing up… on blades.

“Thank you so much for doing this!” I heard as I was leaving. Yes – thank you!

BuzzNet Tags: Valmonte Living Magazine ~ May Issue 2010,Ice Chalet Skating Rink,Rolling Hills Estates,Promenade at the Peninsula,Figure Sakting Club,Valesek,Diggs,FSC,Los Angeles Ice Theatre,Niki Chanel

A Frog into a Prince

Pat Cox is one of Valmonte’s amazing artists. Her home on La Selva Place, the hundredth built in Palos Verdes Estates, is filled with her intuitively skilled and constantly changing art work. Her chosen medium is “Assemblage” (you say it with a French accent). The art form is defined as ‘the putting together of disparate parts into a new whole using stuff from everyday life, both found and manufactured, fragmented or intact.’

To facilitate her craft she is a self-proclaimed ‘avid collector of junk’. Though some of her junk, mind you, are antiques and airplane propellers. “The materials I choose determine both its structure and its content. I look for things that fire me up and catch my attention.” Many of her pieces she considers unfinished because they still ‘speak’ to her. “My work explores the mystery and power of found objects through combination, alteration, juxtaposition and layering. The goal: transformation… the ordinary into the extraordinary, the frog into the prince.”

To accomplish these lofty goals she has had to become a painter, a welder and a carpenter. “I marry the materials.” The results are elegant, fluid and meaningful. Some contain love letters; others are built from space debris. A spindle becomes a vase, a bone relives as a bird, cotton and wire become the most intriguing of characters locked in a glass tube. Her home is a fascinating gallery of thoughts and feelings.

Pat started her artistic journey as a painter and over time, moved onward to collage. The process of collecting and rearranging paper to create an image evolved yet again - into the world of 3D - a sculptural form of collage. This practice of piecing together found objects for art’s sake was popular in the 1920’s and had notoriety in the 30’s. When it again took center stage in the 50’s the name Assemblage was coined and gallery goers know it is still alive and well today.

Many artists became quite famous for this type of work, Picasso being one of them. His exploration of found objects, along with the influence of Georges Braque, laid the ground-work for Cubism when these artists went back to painting. Joseph Cornell put his assembled worlds in boxes and is said to have been on the path to Surrealism. Elsa von Freytag-Loringhoven (the Dada Baroness) made Assemblage more famous than herself and she is suspected of being a source of inspiration behind “Ready Made” art – art made from manufactured and recognizable items like urinals and bicycle parts.

The ‘objets d'art’ that Pat Cox creates are more figurative in nature than Robert Rauschenberg’s, more narrative than Marcel Duchamp’s work and hold more mystery than Man Ray’s studio art. Each of her pieces invites you to find your place in it. Some enchanting and others bold; sliced submarine parts rearranged into a giant piece of jewelry appearing to hang weightless over a fireplace. Shrines of every size and topic seem to give homage to the mummified cougar lurking from a high shelf… or maybe it’s the Apollo 18 titanium Rorschach; each fantasy world is yours for the imagining and as fascinating as the next.

And, yes, they are for sale.

BuzzNet Tags: Valmonte Living Magazine ~ May Issue 2010,Palos Verdes Art Center,assemblage,Niki Chanel

Phil Norman Design Group

Phil Norman is what you might call an interior architect.

Phillip Norman grew up in Iowa and graduated from Iowa State University in 1991. Though he didn’t much like the cold winters, Iowa State offered the top ten Architectural programs in the nation and Phil studied them all. Once he had added Interior Design to from ASID (American Society of Interior Designers) to his resume, he left for Southern California… with only $400.00 in his pocket. He didn’t know a soul there but managed to get as close to the border as possible - San Diego, for the warmth.

He went through the yellow pages in the designers section looking for work and got hired as an assistant. It wasn’t long before he was working on his own projects. In 2004 he started his own business in Palos Verdes, which he loves for the “small-town-in-a-big-city feel, and the sense of community”.

That same year Phil met Tawnie, a Los Angelian - born and bred, and they married shortly thereafter. Their daughters are Payton, who is almost two and four year old Casey. Cole, the only boy, is three.

The company offers much of what Southern Californians enjoy by concentrating on the South Bay residents from Manhattan Beach to PV. The Design Group primarily focuses on the residential customer. What is unique about the firm is they’re really good at bridging construction to decorating. “We can talk plumbing to pillows.” They work with local architects on projects yet are very approachable from an individual’s standpoint. “That’s a reflection on our Midwest roots!” says Phil, with a smile.

When they are not tiling your bathroom or landscaping your yard, the Norman’s enjoy the beach and hiking. A walk along the eastern cliffs of the peninsula takes them to their favourite restaurants, Trumps and Terranea.

You can visit the Phil Norman Design Group showrooms at 2780 Skypark Drive, #120 in

Torrance, Ca. 90505 or call them at 310-325-3751 or find them on the internet at www.normandesigngroup.com .

BuzzNet Tags: Valmonte Living Magazine ~ May Issue,Palos Verdes Peninsula,Phil Normans Design Group,Niki Chanel