Saturday, December 28, 2013

Saturday, December 28, 2013

Tonight's picture was taken in December of 2008. Around Mattie's neck was a beautiful wreath his art teacher and classmates made for him. The leaves of the wreath were constructed from paper and on each leaf was a message from Mattie's classmates to him. This wreath hung on the back of our front door until this fall. The wreath carried special and yet painful memories for us. When Mattie was sick he received many cards, messages, and at times visits from friends. In the beginning Mattie enjoyed all of these things, but as his disease progressed Mattie retreated within himself and no longer appreciated noise, visits, or at times being in and amongst the "well world." This was a hard reality to accept, and therefore Peter and I also became absorbed in the world of cancer, sickness, and eventually death and dying. It is very hard to move from that world back into the "normal" world. Mainly because we know what the alternative looks like.  

Quote of the day: Change your thoughts and you change your world.  ~ Norman Vincent Peale

I began my morning with this sighting! A huge hawk
right outside my parent's home in a tree. He looked so regal and beautiful, yet I have seen up close and personal the kind of damage a hawk can do to a small bird. Several hawks have come to our bird feeders in DC, and plucked sparrows right from the feeders and killed them. To me these are noteworthy birds and this one definitely caught my attention this morning. 


My mom and I ventured for the day to the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA). I was introduced to LACMA when I was a high school student. I remember taking an art history class in high school, and though I had been exposed to art all my life, this class really made me turn a corner. I learned back then in my teens that art spoke to me and evoked certain feelings. Needless to say, I have been intrigued by art all my life and I think those who tell me they don't appreciate art or like going to museums, just haven't experienced the right art for them yet. I will never forget my art history teacher and she certainly took our class to some great museums in LA. Funny how such memories can come back just by visiting a place. 

We saw a special exhibit today entitled, Calder and Abstraction: From Avant-Garde to Iconic. One of the most important artists of the twentieth century, Alexander Calder revolutionized modern sculpture. Calder's most iconic works, coined mobiles by Marcel Duchamp, are kinetic sculptures in which flat pieces of painted metal connected by wire move delicately in the air, propelled by motors or air currents. His later stabiles are monumental structures, whose arching forms and massive steel planes continue his engagement with dynamism and daring innovation.

Installing a sculpture exhibition—particularly one in which works are bound to walls, sit on pedestals, hang in the air, hover close to the ground, and vary significantly in scale—can be tricky. In developing this exhibition, the senior curator reviewed historical photos of Calder’s studio and presentations he designed and compared them with exhibition design from the past 40 years. During Calder’s lifetime, displays seemed to mimic those found in his studio: crowded together, overlapping, presenting a riotous cacophony of competing forms far removed from contemporary concerns of conservation and visitor-circulation paths. In the past few decades, museum exhibitions have had to grapple with these real concerns, which are exacerbated by increasingly large museum crowds. Extensive plinths, protective barriers, and pedestals mitigate intentional or inadvertent touching, but can hinder the viewer’s ability to relate intimately with the works. Clearly, from the curator's perspective, decisions about density, space, light, and color would need to be weighed against concerns for the safety and protection of the art.

This mobile of Calder's is entitled, Laocoon (1947). Here is an interesting fact, in 1995, at Christie's in NY it sold for $992.500!!! I have seen Calder's works before, but never 50 at one time and in one huge space! I can't say you finish this exhibit and say..... how beautiful, or how exquisite! Calder was an engineer by training and therefore, I am not sure I see artistic beauty as much as creativity and fascination with structure, form, and the dynamics of movement. But for those who have never seen one of Calder's mobiles, they are huge. Much bigger than a person! Their size alone makes them impressive along with the fact that they move or dance gently with any breeze. 

Another aspect of planning the show that was critical to the curator was the desire to slow down people’s pace while looking at the works of art. She purposely limited the exhibit to feature 50 objects—giving the art ample space to breathe. The curator also wanted to encourage people to spend more time with individual objects so that the gentle movement could be observed in the mobiles. If you take the time in the show, you can easily understand the observation that Jean-Paul Sartre made in the 1940's after visiting Calder’s studio: “But suddenly, when the agitation had left [the mobile] and it seemed lifeless again, its long majestic tail, which until then had not moved, came to life indolently and almost regretfully, spun in the air, and swept past my nose.”

To see the entire exhibit, go to this slideshow:
http://www.flickr.com//photos/lacma/sets/72157638119901055/show/with/11088061416/

After the Calder exhibit, my mom and I went to see a new exhibit by David Hockney. Hockney is considered one of the most innovative artists of the postwar era. British-born David Hockney has, throughout his career in Los Angeles and England, adopted various new media in order to investigate perception. Embracing cutting-edge technology including Polaroids, iPad and iPhone drawings, and most recently film, Hockney explores new ways to depict movement through multiple perspectives of a singular event. This exhibition introduces Seven Yorkshire Landscape Videos (2011), in which eighteen cameras, fixed to Hockney’s car, record drives through Yorkshire’s landscape. The film is displayed in a multi-screen grid that generates a larger, intensified image. For Hockney, these multiple perspectives “force the eye to scan, and it is impossible to see everything at once… [It] gives back the choice to the viewer, and hence…brings about possibilities for new narratives.”

I am not sure I have ever seen a Hockney work of art. So after seeing this landscape video above, we went in search of Hockney's painting entitled, Mulholland Drive: The Road to the Studio. This painting is part of LACMA's permanent collection and this photo doesn't do it justice. Mainly because it is enormous. At least 10 to 15 feet long!!! It takes up an entire wall and the colors jump out at you. Basically he painted this to capture his drive from him home in the Hollywood Hills to his art studio on Santa Monica Boulevard. The sheer size and colors are remarkable.

Also part of the permanent collection of LACMA is another Calder mobile entitled, Hello Ladies. These three mobiles behind me are the "ladies." The wonderful part about the ladies is they are within a fountain and there are water jets that occasionally hit the mobiles. When the water hits the mobiles it makes a lovely sound and also turns the mobiles. This is a very clever and peaceful outdoor exhibit. 

I have visited LACMA before for many years but frankly I never knew that one could walk from the museum to the La Brea Tar Pits and Museum. They have now opened the gates between the two museums and therefore we migrated over the Tar Pits Museum. That may not sound like a big deal, but this museum was Mattie's favorite place to visit in LA. The museum is SO kid friendly and does a great job at capturing the mind and imagination regarding prehistoric animal life. Basically natural asphalt has seeped up from the ground in the area around the museum for tens of thousands of years. The tar is often covered with dust, leaves, or water. Over many centuries, the bones of animals that were trapped in the tar were preserved. The George C. Page Museum is dedicated to researching the tar pits and displaying specimens from the animals that died there. Outside the museum is this model of a prehistoric elephant captured in the tar. I have many photos of Mattie in front of this model. It seems simply impossible to accept that the model remains, but not Mattie. I emailed Peter this photo today and asked him to guess where I was! Naturally he knew and responded within seconds! One can never forget what one's child loved and became animated over!

At the Tar Pit museum is Pit 91. This is an overhead view of the pit. Basically this is where scientists excavate prehistoric animal bones from the tar. They comb through a 6 inch layer of tar each year. This has been going on for decades. 

These are fun facts about Pit 91. Mattie just loved all of this kind of stuff and it continues to be a very odd feeling to walk the paths Mattie once did and know that he isn't physically with me. Other people around me have their children growing up along side them. Mine, not unlike these animal fossils, is long buried and it takes purpose and determination to keep Mattie's memory alive.