Art and friends...

Busy day yesterday. I'll go backwards chronologically and first say I met up with an old friend last night (oops, not old, not old, I didn't mean old, bad choice of words.... I mean "longtime friend", haha).

I've known Erika since the 5th grade, but haven't seen her in about 5 years. Don't ask me why, but I guess I'm pretty lousy about keeping in touch with folks. But she called last night and said she and her son Hayden were at Cabela's Sporting Goods, so I went there to hang out with them.

You know with some friends it seems like things have never changed. We sat and talked and laughed our asses off right in the middle of the store. It was great, I haven't laughed that hard in a long time. So we sat on the display furniture and talked and next thing we knew they announced the store was closing! Time flies when you're having fun. We definitely need to get together more often. I think it keeps our sanity intact by going crazy every once in a while with the right person.

Now about earlier in the day...

I had to write a paper about a trip to a museum for my Art Appreciation class. Back when I was in that art contest I had received free VIP tickets to the Nasher Sculpture Center in downtown Dallas, so I figured it was a good time to go there. I had 2 tickets, but lord knows I can't manage to find anyone else who could bear to visit an art gallery, so I went by myself. That's okay, I'll give the other ticket to somebody in my class who still needs to write their paper. Anyway, I took a few photos of some pieces I liked. If ya don't like art, ya may as well go on to the next website, because I'm about to ramble about it. And these are just my own thoughts on these works, just my humble opinion of what I find interesting about them. It may or may not be what the artist originally intended.





First, here's the artist Willem de Kooning with a piece known as "Untitled IX", an oil on canvas. This painting has quick gestural brush strokes that hint at shapes. At first glance your eyes try to make sense of the lines... it's human physiology that if your eyes see something your brain tries to identify the shape. In this painting you instantly see the head and chest of a woman, and you almost feel like legs are there too, but if you look closer and try to follow the lines the legs disappear as if they don't really exist. The body is an illusion made up of lines.






This next piece is by David Smith and titled "Two Circles on Yellow and Green". The story behind his paintings: Smith was a sculptor that would spray paint onto pieces of sheet metal to construct into his sculptures. As he sprayed each piece on the floor, when he moved the piece of metal away of course the silhouette from the overspray remained on the floor. He realized these sprayed forms were artistic in their own right. When World War II diminished his supply of metal he decided to start painting instead, using these spray techniques.

So, on this painting the white "objects" are unpainted areas of exposed canvas. What I found interesting was the indication of perspective- the sharp edges made some shapes appear closer, and also floating in space, and other shapes seem further back due to the blurred edges and dull colors. It may sound elementary, I know. But I liked how this artist made it look like a painting of sculpted objects.



And of course you can't talk about museum pieces without showing a Picasso... this is his "Nude Man and Woman".

I'm not going to try to critique this one, I don't know where to begin. And I couldn't paint a Cubist style picture like this just the same that I couldn't draw a caricature. Heck I can't even draw a cartoon. Just not in my mindset, a different type of mind paints styles like this. I don't have an abstract mind, I'm more of a realist. But, I do find them interesting nonetheless.

And this concludes my art rambling. Go out and enjoy a museum sometime.