Yep, I feel this way (& why shouldn't everyone?).

Labels: Art, J's Photos

Labels: Art, Beauty, J's Photos, Simplicity

Went to the Museum of Modern art to see the Tim Burton exhibit.

More to come...I liked it

What do you think?

Labels: Art

I walked by the Municipal Building in lower Manhattan last Friday.

Ever walk by something a million times & never know the amazing story that goes with it?

I'd always wondered what statue was up there.

I finally looked it up & came away with a interesting story.



The statue of Civic Fame on top of the Municipal Building was installed in 1913 & is a gilded figure designed by Adolph Weinman. Standing barefoot on a sphere, she wears a flowing dress & a crown of laurels to signify glory.

Audrey Munson(1891-1996) was an American model & actress, she was the model or inspiration for more than 15 statues in New York City including this one.



The model for "Civic Fame", Audrey Munson, had an even harder & more intense life. At the turn of the century she was a supermodel for sculptors and painters. In some sense that yielded a much more permanent record of her than most of today's supermodels will enjoy as there are literally dozens of important sculptures of her in New York City & around the world bearing her likeness. When the movies came about, she became an actress & entered history books as the first known woman to star in a movie fully naked.

Here's
the Wikipedia article (if you want to know more...like geekhead me).
This woman had the most unusual & tragic life. From the height of fame...through a court case involving a doctor who killed his wife to be with her...to entering a mental asylum at the age of 39 where she died at the age of 104.

Labels: Art, Beauty, NYC, Photos

I love all sorts of museums because you can never be sure what's around the next corner.



Nenuphar (French for water lily) was built at Andrew Calder's workshop in France for the 1968 opening of the Smithsonian American Art Museum. It is one of the artist's stabiles, or fixed sculptures, and the lyrical shapes cut from sheet steel convey the same gentle, graceful movement as his mobiles. Six silhouettes evoke the dark reflections of the water lily's flowering stalk and curling leaves. In fact, Calder conjured the entire intricate world of a windswept pond, varying the tendrils to suggest the shadowy presence of birds and fish among the lilies.



OK...I sort of get it now.



The cool thing about sculpture to me is how it looks in it's surroundings.

Labels: Art, DC, Flowers, Photos

He makes me feel...

Pretty & girlie & just a little bit naughty.

Labels: Art, Mmmm, Photos

Maira Kalman is an artist that I just discovered online (illustrator, designer, author...all things I lump under the term ARTIST).

She posts on this lovely NYTimes site.

Labels: Art, Style

"The more I'm with an object -- whether it's a model or a piece of the country -- the more I begin to see what I've been blind to. You start to get what's beneath it. You see deeper within it."

The artist Andrew Wyeth died on Friday.

Wyeth said he painted "basic truths."

"Painting objects that mean a lot to me, that have an emotional feeling, and I have the deepest love for a hill or a tree as I have for a human being, sometimes more,".

My childhood art teacher gave me a huge compliment by saying my watercolors reminded her of his work.

It could have been my ability to sit for 5 Saturdays straight in the same spot in my yard

...painting the same tree...or corner of the yard.

I'd paint blades of grass & tiny veins in leaves.

I used muted colors like he did.

When I finally took a school trip to the

Whitney Museum to actually see his work it blew me away.

My art teacher was nuts...

But she did give me a tremendous love of Andrew Wyeth & for that I am grateful.

Here are some of my favorites:

Labels: Art, Colors

Come on...read it...it's for a good cause...plus, trying to guess what each piece of art is...is half the fun...OK...it's more difficult to tell what they are in person, you get lost in just seeing so many cans...I guess my photos sort of spell out what each of them are.

"Canstruction is the most unique food charity in the world.

A foundation of the Society for Design Administration (SDA), Canstruction is a design/build competition currently held in cities throughout North America. Teams of architects, engineers, and students mentored by these professionals, compete to design and build giant structures made entirely from full cans of food.

They display their creations then donate all the cans when they dismantle the art.



"Since its inception, ten million pounds of food has been donated to aid in the fight against hunger. Initiated by the Denver, Seattle and New York Chapters of the SDA in 1992/93, Canstruction now has over one hundred individual competitions scheduled to take place during the 2007-2008 cycle."



"Canstruction demonstrates that everyone CAN make a difference, one CAN at a time. The public is invited to bring canned foods to donate to City Harvest when viewing the exhibition."

Check HERE to see if it's in your city.

Labels: Art, Photo a Day, Photos

Taken @ 10:45 this morning in lower Manhattan.

"Jeff Koons's art enacts the basic exchange of public sculpture. We literally see ourselves in his alluring reflective surfaces; his buoyant forms reach deep into our childhood with its accompanying feelings of hope and optimism."

OK, that's what one person sees...& I don't disagree in the least...I'd tack on that I love most public art, it adds joy to my day just to see it out of the corner of my eye while I'm rushing by it. I also love how it interacts with it's surroundings, reflects the city back to us...& sort of gives a soft contrast to all the hard lines & angles of the buildings surrounding it on all sides.




What do you think?

Labels: Art, NYC, Photo a Day, Photos

Four ‘giant’ waterfalls have been created in New York City this summer as part of a public art project designed by Danish artist Olafur Eliasson. One of the waterfalls (shown above) will be constructed beneath the Brooklyn Bridge, while the others will fall from free-standing scaffolding towers on the East river.

“It’s about seeing water in a different way,” Eliasson told a news conference on Wednesday, unveiling plans for the waterfalls, which range in height from 90 to 120 feet...around the same as the Statue of Liberty from head to toe.

Come see my PHOTOS HERE. (Click on slideshow all the way to the right).



I had a great time viewing these waterfalls from a pier at the South Street Seaport & from a boat ride. The change they made to this busy part of the city was calming & beautiful. They made you take time out of your busy day...time to slow down & just enjoy.

Labels: Art, Beauty, NYC, Photos

Have you ever had the feeling that you have everything figured out in life because you heard this song playing in the ladies room at a restaurant in the South Street Seaport during a day off in the middle of the afternoon? You sort of take it as a sign. Oh, & you're spending the day looking at ART
(many photos to come) with your friend & you've had a bit too much to drink.

Then, the feeling goes away as fast as it came & you actually know that you still have nothing figured out but that little bit of time spend dancing in the bathroom certainly helped.

Do you know what I mean? Even just a little bit?

Labels: Art, Videos

I'm a big fan art the art of children's books.

The stories most of all...

But also the painterly art of some of them.

You might not know who Tasha Tudor is...

But I guarantee that you've seen some of her illustrations.

If you didn't see some of her art as a child, you've undoubtedly seen it on a calendar or a card.

What drew me to it mostly was the delicacy of her drawings & her intricate borders of trailing flowers. She was also known for her glorious gardens.

In honor of the illustrator & gardener Tasha Tudor, who died in Vermont last week at age 92, here is a favorite quote of hers:

"Life isn't long enough to do all you could accomplish. And what a privilege even to be alive. In spite of all the pollutions and horrors, how beautiful this world is. Supposing you only saw the stars once every year. Think what you would think. The wonder of it."

Wait...I also like this one..."I believe in moderation in all things, except gardening and antique collecting." I'd add a few things to the list...but that's just me...

Labels: Art, Beauty

I've loved this photographer's images for a while now.

His working name is Rankin (a little pretentious with the one name...but I'm over it).



Such sensuous images. I kind of devour them.



Hungry yet?



I recently found out that he codirected a movie & I'm not sure if I should give it a go.

Can I ask you to watch the trailer & give me your thoughts? Would you watch it?

It's called "The Lives of the Saints". Have you seen it? Did you love it? Was it as visually beautiful as his photography?

OK...enough with the questions from me.

WATCH THE TRAILER

Let me know what you think...pretty please.

Labels: Art, Movies, Opinions

The Pleiades, (1885, oil on canvas) by Elihu Vedder.
According to Greek mythology, the Pleiades were the seven daughters of Atlas & the nymph Pleione. The swirling ribbons were meant to symbolize the pleasures of the vine (I just liked the colors & the swirly-ness).



What did I like here?



They were setting up the Victorian Christmas tree.



Do you see why I love places like this? What's not to appreciate?



& he was singing too.



I just thought she looked like you'd think an art museum patron would look like.

Labels: Art, Photos

I got to the Metropolitan Museum of Art at about noonish. This place is massive. The building runs from 82nd up to 86th Street & you can not even see a quarter of what there is to see in one single day.



Spying down from above.



Francisco de Zurbarán painted The Crucifixion in 1627...I can't even comprehend how long ago that is & how remarkable it is we still have it to appreciate.

"Zurbarán gained the nickname Spanish Caravaggio, owing to the forcible, realistic use of chiaroscuro in which he excelled.

Chiaroscuro (Italian for clear-dark) is a term in art for a contrast between light and dark. The term is usually applied to bold contrasts affecting a whole composition, but is also more technically used by artists and art historians for the use of effects representing contrasts of light, not necessarily strong, to achieve a sense of volume in modelling three-dimensional objects such as the human body."

Too much information? Tough shit.

I spied this painting (oil on canvas) from across the room & I had to move closer.



I have to find out the name of this school...it's a posh private school across the street from the museum...beautiful, grand old building...Marymount maybe?...I'll find out.

Anyway...more photos to come. I took the subway down to Grand Central Station next, hit their market, then walked south, then west on 38th Street...like I said...more photo coming...it was a good day.

Labels: Art, Photos

Everywhere you walk around NYC you see beautifully blooming flowers on taxis.

They just popped up out of nowhere recently (you can't help but notice).

Turns out they are the result of thousands of children's imaginations.

I'm a complete sucker for any public art project & their power to heal.

A couple of years ago I found myself walking in Central Park under The Gates created by Christo & installed by the people of NY.



It transformed the park.

The spirit of these flowers traveling around NY are making the streets sort of magical.

"Hundreds of schools, hospitals and after-school programs throughout the City and beyond are participating in Garden in Transit. And thousands of adults are volunteering to lend a hand for what Mayor Bloomberg describes as a "mammoth, once-in-a-lifetime effort." When complete, the project will be a tangible lesson in the power of teamwork and collaboration."



Read about it HERE.

Volunteer to help HERE.
(I will if you will.)

Labels: Art