Summer Vacation Part 4- More Seattle

 On the 5th we went into Seattle again to do some exploring.  We ate at Beecher's Handmade Cheese and then walked all over Pike's Place Market.  We watched them throw fish and Red Fish pushed her way to the front and caught one with another kid.  It was disgusting and splashed all over her face.  The girls got little bracelets made with their names on them.

Her face right after catching a fish

 We took a very long walk down to the pier to look at the ships and then we went to the Seattle Art Museum for the last hour it was open.  We just ran through a few of the exhibits. Red Fish was so exhausted that she started to cry and told me that she really wanted to see all of the art and have me tell her about it but she was just too tired to pay attention.  I'm going to have to take her on a little art museum date sometime soon to make up for it.  We tried to cram so much into a few days that she was just completely exhausted.

We spent the evening back at B and R's house and gathered around the fire pit for smores and stories. We missed one family from the group picture because it was getting too dark to wait for them.  It was a pretty big group that made the trip to Washington.  The four of us thoroughly enjoyed ourselves.  We had such a wonderful time with everyone.

Andy Warhol Day

 Today we took a field trip to an art museum for a children's art hour.  We spent some time looking at primary colors and Andy Warhol prints.  Then we went in a classroom and did blue yarn paintings and a yellow themed watercolor resist painting.

New Fish was very proud of her red, pop art inspired sculpture.  While our paintings were drying we took a quick run through the Islamic art exhibit.  I really need to make an effort to take my girls in to the museum more.  It's a bit of a drive but worth exposing them to beautiful art.  They have short attention spans for the exhibits but it will only get better from here.

Lovely L

 In every period of my life, I have been fortunate to find a few really good, close friends.  I have some from childhood, highschool, really good friends in college (including Two Fish) and a few friends I really rely on in adulthood.  Lovely L has been my friend in every period of my life.  There is something about having a friend for over twenty years who knew funny things about your childhood, knows your family, knows you inside and out.  Someone who has loved you through awkward stages, stupid mistakes and your highest points.  Lovely L is that friend.  Irreplaceable.  I have seen her over the past few years but it has been four years since we had an extended visit and it was SO SO FUN. I won't wait that long for a visit ever again! 

 We shopped (new purse and sunglasses) we watched beloved tv shows, we ate out, we had sushi, we tried out new makeup, we had pedicures, chatted endlessly about every topic imaginable, played with Little Miss C and had a pretty chill weekend.  It was fabulous.

We spent our last day at the J. Paul Getty museum.  The highlight was an amazing exhibit of Gustav Klimt's drawings, The Magic Of Line.  It just happened to be Klimt's 150th birthday as well and we loved celebrating with his artwork.  I have always loved his paintings, especially when he got progressively more avant-garde with The Virgins, The Kiss, Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer etc.  I was actually slightly dissapointed to learn that the exhibit would be all drawings because I had no idea I would be so intrigued by them.  I absolutely loved the exhibit.  

Most of the work was on loan from the Albertina Museum in Vienna and it was an impressive collection.  The evolution of Klimt's work was fascinating.  The earliest studies in the exhibit are from the 1880s and show a style completely detached from his later work.  They are extremely traiditional. His subtle use of white chalk and the supple texture of the skin is beautiful. His studies for the Shakespear theatre were inspiring.  The body of work between his fully developed studies and his more avant-garde drawings was a little blase but his final arrival at stark sensuous lines and the total removal of spatial reference was fascinating.  

We also visited my "best buddies" of the museum.  Van Gogh (be still my heart), Monet, Degas, Turner, Gaugain, Cezanne and Toulouse Lautrec.  Always good to be in the company of the great ones. Van Gogh's Irises was displayed under glass for insurance purposes.  Apparently they are afraid the paint is so thick that someone could secretly break a chip off.  Apparently they think Monet's Haystacks isn't thick enough for someone to steal a piece.  There was a tiny part of me that secretly wanted to steal a piece to prove them wrong.  Good thing I would never desecrate a masterpiece.

We ended the day with a trip to a Mozzarella bar for a cheese tasting and quick dinner and then it was off to the airport for me.  I'm pretty sure my girls barely missed me because they were so thrilled to have Daddy, Grandma and Aunt Lee Lee spend time with them!

LACMA

I had a few hours to myself today in LA.  I did an internship here when I was nineteen and it was fun to do a tiny bit of wandering.  I'm surprised at how little seemed familiar.  Things change fast.  I stayed in a hotel by myself last night and that creeped me out a bit.  I'm not used to spending much time alone now that I'm a Mom.  Funny that I had no problem moving across the ocean by myself at a young age with no living arrangements but now staying in a hotel for a night creeps me out.  I'm getting wussy. 

The main attraction for the day was a trip to the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.  It is full of happy memories for me.  My Dad took me to see all of the paintings from the Van Gogh museum in Amsterdam when they were displayed in 2000.  One of the highlights of my life.  I also spent a lot of time there when I was 19.  I would sit for hours in the different rooms.  That's the best way to see an art museum- a little at a time so it can soak into your soul.  Unfortunately, today was a bit of a drive by.  I was literally running around the buildings trying to see a few of my favorites and some of the new things that have been added since I was there last.

Picasso- Head Of A Woman

I adore the permanent collection at the LACMA.  Being in the pressence of that many beautiful works of art feeds my soul and inspires me to go home and create. It cements in my mind the importance of art as a part of our culture and educations. I'm going to have to find a way to incorporate more trips to art museums and shows into my life and try and get my kids to them.  I think my favorite pieces change with each trip but this time I was especially enamoured with many of the bronze sculptures.  There are a series of heads made by Matisse and Picasso's Head of A Woman were were the most striking this time.  I've always loved the B. Gerald Cantor Sculpture Garden with Rodin's works especially the Monumental Head Of Pierre De Wissant.  The LACMA's collection of Giacometti bronze forms are also a sight to behold.  I especially love his elongated forms.  They make me want to fill my home with art.

I also really loved the section of German artists and the avant-garde expressionists. Two of my favorite Albrecht Durer prints are on display at the LACMA, St Michael And The Dragon & The Four Horsemen of The Apocalypse.  They are breathtaking prints with incredible detail.  Vasily Kandinsky (not my favorite of his but still enjoyable to see) Ernst Ludwig Kirchner's Two Women and Willem De Koonings' mass of molten forms, Seated Women were all fun to see.  I wish I had more time to examine them closely.

De Kooning- Seated Woman

Kirchner- Two Women

Seeing work by certain beloved artists feels a bit like visiting old friends.  Just walking past George Segal (Woman At The Window), George Brague, Modigliani, my beloved Degas  and his ballerinas is always a treat. Some of them inspired me to think of future projects with my kids.  I need to introduce them to Miro and and Paul Klee.  We have more printmaking to do.  We must do some Calder inspire mobiles and make more large format paintings.  I'm pretty sure spray paint is involved in our near future.  There is simply too much art to make and too little time to do it.

I am not a huge fan of American portraiture but I did take a few moments for the best: Homer, Cassatt & Whistler.

There were new things at the LACMA that I hadn't seen before.  I didn't know Matisse had done any mosaics of his paper collages and they have a massive piece intended for a patio.  How would that be to have at your house? There is a whole building of contemporary art which I find inspiring but nothing jumped out in my memory. A display of James Bond movie credits was so fun.  I'm not a James Bond fan but I do love the style and the artwork.  I've made several pieces inspired by them.  

Now it's off to the train station for a few days with Lovely L!

San Francisco- Day 4

I think we've zig-zagged across most of the city now.  We've been relying mostly on the public transportation and doing a whole lot of walking.  We rode the bus everywhere today.  On one bus there was a ninety-four year old woman who gave us a pretty great laugh.  She was hitting on the bus driver and telling all sorts of wild stories about her life.  Apparently she is like Alaska, everyone knows what it is but nobody wants to go there.  She definitely made our ride more interesting.


We went to Golden Gate park and The de Young museum.  They have a nice permanent collection.  There are a lot of American works including many colonial pieces and many from the Hudson River school.  There were a lot of landscapes, which aren't my favorite.  The hard thing about living so far away from great museums is that I have to visit them all in a few hours.  It's difficult to absorb that much work in a short amount of time.  I'd prefer to be able to see parts of the collections over extended periods of time so that I could digest them more easily.  S'est la vie.

The main reason for visiting the de Young was to see the Pablo Picasso exhibit they are currently hosting.  It contains just over 100 of the artist's personal collection, usually housed in the Musée National Picasso.  It was a great exhibit comprised of paintings, sculptures, drawings, and prints drawn from every phase of the artist’s career.  I enjoyed seeing the wide range of artistic movements and styles that Picasso went through during his prolific career.  There were pieces from his blue period, rose period, expressionist, cubist, proto-Surrealist, Surrealist,  and Neoclassical.  Seeing them all together gives you a real respect for Picasso's scorn of fixed ideologies.  Picasso's ability to assimilate new ideas, political influences

I wish the exhibit had been curated slightly differently.  It seemed to jump around too much. The works weren't really placed together thematically or chronologically.  I almost think placing them chronologically would have been the most interesting so it would show his progression through different styles and also demonstrate how he sometimes revisited previous periods and worked in multiple pictorial modes. 

The work in the exhibit is filled with paintings I have seen frequently.  I couldn't help but hear lines from my kid's Picasso book, Painting with Picasso (Mini Masters), in my head since many of the pictures were in the exhibit.


The exhibit is definitely worth seeing.  I always enjoy Picasso and seeing them in the flesh is always so much better.

San Francisco- Day 1

 For my 30th birthday (which isn't until November) my Mom took me to San Francisco, California.  It has been a long time since I have gotten to spend this much time with my Mom and this is a trip we have actually tried to take twice before so it was long overdue.  Two Fish is home with the girls.  My mom and I flew in late last night and we were off early this morning to see the sights.  We are staying right near Fisherman's wharf and we will be here until Monday.

The first thing we did this morning was go to Boudin's bakery for sour dough french toast.  Yum.

We went to pier 39 and did some shopping and saw the fabulous sea lions.  We ate lunch on the pier and watched the sea lions lounge about and try and push eachother off of the pier.

We went to Ghiardelli square and visited some of the art galleries.

The best part of the day was visiting the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.  It seriously made my whole body buzz with excitement.  It has been so long since I have been in the presence of truly great artwork all in one place.  One thing home is missing is access to a great art museum.  The permanent collection is very nice.  I really wish I could visit them with my children and really let them experience the art the way it was meant to be experienced rather than showing them pictures in a book.  Sigh… Someday.

Anyway- we had tickets to the Stein exhibit and it was completely amazing.  It may be the best exhibit I have ever visited aside from when the Van Gogh museum exhibit came to the LACMA when I was in high school. 

Gertrude stein and her brothers Michael and Leo were extremely influential in the early 20^th century Bohemian Parisian art scene.  They befriended most of the most avant-garde artists of the time period and filled their homes literally floor to ceiling with paintings and sketches by these “wild beasts” and fauves’ artworks.  It was an astounding collection.  The exhibit features real photographs of the insides of the Stein homes that are literally mind blowing.  The collection was beyond amazing.  The pieces now reside all over the world and in dozens of museums and collections.  I can only imagine how much work went in to securing them for this exhibit. 

The exhibit is interesting not only because of it’s vast coverage of Matisse, Picasso, Renoir, Cezanne (one Lautrec) and other 20^th century artists but the story of the Stein family’s connection with the artists.  I loved seeing a note from Picasso inviting them to lunch to “check out the latest Gaugains.” As if that is a normal everyday occurrence.  Some of the exhibit notes talk about Leo and Gertrude Stein having artistic differences and arguing over the importance of the cubist movement and practically dissolving their relationship.  I can only imagine the raging discussions that went on in that home.  The epiphanies that took place in those walls must have been incredible. 

The Steins had sketches and portraits of themselves by Matisse and Picasso.  They had Picasso’s early sketches preparing for Le Demoiselles d’Avignon.  They studied with these artists and have notebooks filled with notes. They introduced Henri Matisse to Pablo Picasso and inspired a bitter rivalry.  Sarah and Michael Stein were almost single handedly responsible for introducing Matisse’s work to the US.  I’m excited to read more about the Stein’s relationship with all of these people and about how the exhibit itself came together in the book I purchased of the exhibit. 

Completely inspiring and amazing.  A truly lovely day.  I’m such a lucky girl my mom brought me and lucky my wonderful husband is taking care of the girls.

Recent Art Shows

It is no secret that I'm a big supporter of the arts. I love music, theater, visual art etc. Lately, I've gone to 2-3 art shows every month. Some of them have been great, some not so great. I don't exactly make it to the MET frequently but I try and support local artists and shows. Here are a few of my favorites from the last few months.

The Perfect Fit: Shoes Tell the Stories- an exhibit of objects made from shoes or made to look like shoes. My favorite was a bracelet made of barbie shoes. Really fun to walk through.

Rebecca Jacoby: The Visitors- Lot's of fun color and bold lines.

Painter Grant Fuhst; sculpture by Adrian Praze: It was a dark and creepy, much like a lot of my own artwork. I loved the puppets. It made me want to do more fine art. If only there were more hours in the day.

Carl Bloch: The Master's Hand

The exhibition featured five large altarpieces. Four of these have come from Lutheran churches in Denmark and Sweden. I recognize a lot of Carl Bloch's work but seeing them full size is a spiritual experience. As a member of the LDS Church, I have been exposed to a lot of Bloch's work. Reproductions of his work have been very popular in our church.
Bloch's spiritual sensitivity and the level of detail that went into these paintings is amazing. They have a true pressence that create a sense of being in a spiritual space, like visiting an old church. I love that the paintings seem to show the compassion and humanity of Christ. The exhibit made me reflect on my own relationship with Christ. I love the power of artwork to reach across the boundaries between various people and speak to them.

My Mother in law also got me a book on Carl Bloch for Christmas that I recently read. The Masters Hand: the Art of Carl Heinrich Bloch. It has some beautiful prints and great information in it.

World War 2 Art

This week, everything I read and the play and art show I saw were all about World War II and the Holocaust. The Diary of Anne Frank- I read the book and saw the play this last week. I'm actually a little taken aback at how much I loved the play. The play notes promised to deliver the girl, not the myth of Anne Frank and that was exactly what we got. I wasn't expecting it to add so much dimension to the story. Anne was brought to life as this annoying loquacious young girl. Her theatrical personality and need to show off endanger the people around her. She doesn't totally graps the seriousness of their plight or the danger of the world she is hiding from. But how could she at such a tender age? Anne is constantly writing every personal detail of her life along with details about the people around her. It is poignant and sad and perfectly captures the identity of a young girl who is coming of age in disturbing circumstances. The play and book are both heartbreaking and beautiful. It may have been my favorite play I've seen this season.

During the show's intermission we saw the art show: Testament to Topaz featuring art by internees from the Topaz Internment Camp during WWII . It was a powerful experience. A great reminder of the importance of art and it's place in history. It was inspiring to see how these people chronicled their internment experience and interesting to read of the main teacher's need to share art and it's healing qualities with the people around him. It's is frightening to think that this internment camp ever existed. Terrifying to know that this incredible violation of rights occured on US soil. It seems unimaginable to me that the constitutional rights and civil liberties I often take for granted were stripped from these people because of racial bias, public sentiment, and wartime hysteria. Yet in April 1942, President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s Executive Order 9066 sanctioned the immediate evacuation and internment of more than 112,000 people of Japanese ancestry living in coastal areas from Washington to California and as far inland as southern Arizona. To see artwork created during this time is a revealing experience.

The art school taught over 600 students ranging in ages from 6-70. Sixteen teachers taught 95 classes per week on 23 subjects, including figure drawing, still life, architectural drawing, anatomy, and commercial art. The show we saw had a very small sampling of some of the artwork created in these classes.

The Book Thief by Markus Zusak

I wanted an easy book to get through. I've read too many heady books lately so a young adult novel seemed like a good choice. This World War II story is narrated by Death, who tracks the story of a nine year old girl, Liesel Meminger living in Germany. Liesel steals a series of books that move her story along starting with The Gravediggers Handbook. This morbid bedtime story is very apropos to the events going on around Liesel and her foster parents. I liked the addition of Max, the Jewish man they hide in their basement and I loved the character of Liesel's best friend. He was the most relate-able person in the book. Overall, I liked the general direction of the book. I didn't get quite as attached to the characters as I would've liked but it was worth reading.