Wednesday, August 19, 2015

Wednesday, August 19, 2015

Tonight's picture was taken in August of 2003. We took Mattie to the Los Angeles Zoo for the first time. The Zoo has a wonderful children's section, that provides many hands on opportunities for children to pet and get to learn about sea creatures and farm animals. As you can see Mattie was bending over to try to touch the rays in the pools. He was so tiny though that we needed to hold onto him, otherwise he could have easily landed up right in the water. 


Quote of the day: The two most important days in your life are the day you are born and the day you find out why. ~ Mark Twain

One of the first things I received this morning in an email, was a wonderful three minute video clip that was taken at the IPOS/APOS conference we attended in Washington, DC in July. At the conference, leaders in the psychosocial field were interviewed, and Dr. Andrea Patenaude, a member of our Standards Core development team and the Director of Psychology Research and Clinical Services at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute (Boston, Massachusetts) was selected to talk about the Standards initiative. Andrea forwarded me this clip today, which Peter and I were thrilled to receive it. The video was recorded by the American Society of Clinical Oncology (a professional organization representing physicians of all oncology subspecialties who care for people with cancer).  

http://video.ascopost.com/conferences/2015-ipos-apos-world-congress-of-psycho-oncology/standards-for-psychosocial-care-of-children-with-cancer/

The $1.3 billion Center opened to the public on December 16, 1997. The Getty Center sits on a hilltop in the Santa Monica Mountains, just off the San Diego Freeway. From there, visitors can take in the aspects of Los Angeles's landscape—the Pacific Ocean, the San Gabriel Mountains, and the vast street—grid of the city. Inspired by the relationship between these elements, architect Richard Meier designed the complex to highlight both nature and culture.

When approached from the south, the modernist complex appears to grow from the 110-acre hillside. Two computer-operated trams elevate visitors from a street-level parking facility to the top of the hill. Clad in Italian travertine, the campus is organized around a central arrival plaza, and offers framed panoramic views of the city. Curvilinear design elements and natural gardens soften the grid created by the travertine squares.

Natural light is one of the Getty Center's most important architectural elements. The many exterior walls of glass allow sunshine to illuminate the interiors. A computer-assisted system of louvers and shades adjusts the light indoors. The paintings galleries on the Museum's upper level are all naturally lit, with special filters to prevent damage to the artworks.

The view from on top of the Getty Center!

There are many wonderful water elements at the Getty Center (like this big stone structure you see here). But because California is undergoing a severe drought, all fountains have been drained of water. It was very sad to see these features barren. It throws off the serene and peaceful atmosphere of the space. 



We had the opportunity to see two wonderful exhibits today. One featured the chalk drawings, the cartoon transfer process of these drawings onto wood, and the paintings of the Renaissance master, Andrea Del Sarto. I really learned a lot about the painstaking work of cartoon transfers and I provided you with a SHORT clip of the technique below if you are interested. But in essence Del Sarto was ahead of his time, because the technique he used was equivalent to carbon copying things, or in essence the xerox! 

Del Sarto always drew his material FIRST before painting it! This was quite typical for Renaissance artists and though his subject matter was religious, his subjects were always that of family and friends. For example his wife was always his model for when he wanted to paint the Virgin Mary. 

Andrea Del Sarto: The Renaissance Workshop in Action

This major loan exhibition celebrates the transformation of the art of drawing by Andrea del Sarto (1486–1530), one of the great Florentine Renaissance artists. Moving beyond the graceful harmony and elegance of his elders and peers, such as Leonardo da Vinci, Raphael, and Fra Bartolommeo, Andrea brought unprecedented realism and immediacy to his art through the rough and rustic use of red chalk and the creation of powerful life and compositional studies. Comprising rare drawings and panel paintings from key international collections, the exhibition fully illuminated Andrea del Sarto's inventiveness, creative process, and workshop practice. 



Almost Invisible: The Cartoon Transfer Process (a short video clip that shows you this process)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=177&v=46_wiOboDk4

Edgar Degas: Russian Dancers and the Art of Pastels

"Dancer taking a bow"

We actually participated in a tour of this exhibit. The docent gave us a fascinating psychological portrayal of Degas. I have always known him to paint dancers and clearly I figured he was fascinated with form, shape, and the precision of capturing these elements. However, I never really gave much thought to why there was so much negative space (empty space) in his pieces or why his subjects never seem to be interacting with one another. In many ways, Degas painted subjects in the same way he lived his life. Which was in isolation and devoid of connecting with people. So it makes perfect sense that we see a dancer in isolation here, separated from the rest of the corp de ballet. He painted through his own lens and I think it revealed a lot about his own inner turmoil. 

This pastel (which is chalk and oil media combined) is entitled, "Waiting." One could ask themselves, waiting for what? Our docent had us all speculate and we all had different interpretations of what the dancer was doing versus the woman in black next to her. Some people thought the dancer was waiting for an audition, or was waiting for results of the audition, and some of us thought the dance just got injured and was waiting and rubbing her foot to determine what would happen next. Needless to say the tell tale Degas sign were..... NO interaction between the subjects and a lot of negative space! Also notice the contrast between these two people, one in vibrant clothes and appears to be young, and the other more mature and wearing dark and rather solemn clothes. 

Yet as Degas aged, he developed cataracts. With that his color palate changed. Our docent explained to us that apparently the last two very clear colors someone with cataracts can see are orange and yellow, which is why these colors were so prominent here. But what stands out tremendously in this pastel piece entitled, "Russian Dancers" was that there was no negative space and the dancers are actually interacting with one another. 


There is great controversy not only around Degas' art work but also around the way he lived his life. He has been accused of being anti-Semitic and over the course of history lost many of his close impressionist buddies due to disagreements around the Dreyfus Affair (The scandal began in December 1894, with the treason conviction of Captain Alfred Dreyfus, a young French artillery officer of Alsatian and Jewish descent. Sentenced to life imprisonment for allegedly communicating French military secrets to the German Embassy in Paris, Dreyfus was imprisoned on Devil's Island in French Guiana, where he spent nearly five years). In addition to that, I learned Degas had issues that fell somewhere along the Autism spectrum. Or at least that is how we would describe them in today's day and age. I have to say I learned a great deal about the man behind the pastels (of which he did OVER 700 of them besides oil paintings), which helps to give me further insights into his works.