my inspiration lately...
Showing posts with label art. Show all posts
Showing posts with label art. Show all posts
22 September 2011
08 September 2011
Paula Scher, Designer
"And it doesn’t smell right! It doesn’t smell like an art
supply; it smells like a car."
- Paula Scher on computers
I'm taking an intro class to graphic design programs this semester, and my professor showed us this video on the first day. I have to say that design and the world of typography are some things I know nothing about, so seeing videos like this is rather eye-opening for me.
Posting may be light around here as I adjust to my new and enormously stressful workload, but I will pop in to say hello and share fun things as often as possible.
17 July 2011
Etsuko Ichikawa, Artist
This is the most interesting and unique art form I've come across in a very long time, possibly ever.
If you're looking for inspiration of any kind, take in this article from the anthropologist.
Then visit Etsuko Ichikawa's personal site for even more brilliant work. Wouldn't you love to own one of these?
21 May 2011
Auguste and Camille
I went to the Musée Rodin yesterday. It was part of my 'last things to do in Paris before I leave' tour of the city. It's a pretty tiny museum but the works that they have are just incredible. I've been reading up a little on the nuts story of Auguste and Camille too. I can see her folie in her works, her crazed nature. How she was driven towards that. I can't even imagine how it really was.
This one Rodin piece, Je suis belle, really caught my eye. It's a man clutching onto a woman who's folded up in his arms. These pictures are from different angles so you can see the whole thing (photographing sculpture is so tricky like that). I think the one below it, Femme accroupie, was a study for this one. Just amazing.
Claudel did a bunch of sculptures in what looked like jade or this lovely green marble. Just all kinds of awesome stone, really. I love how in La Vague, the wave looks like a bunch of men crashing on the women. I don't know much about her at all, but I feel that she probably represents a large population of late 19th century women who shared these sentiments towards men at the time. I read somewhere that after Rodin stopped seeing her he continued to support her financially, but she was constantly trying to be free from him. That says a lot.
In L'Age Mûr, she's pulling Rodin away from death and old age. I think it's one of the most beautiful and tragic things ever made, this one. When I get to heaven, I'm going to give her a really big hug. |
| Rodin, Je suis belle |
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| Rodin, Je suis belle |
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| Rodin, Je suis belle |
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| Rodin, Femme accroupie (Crouching Woman) |
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| Camille Claudel, La Vague (The Wave) |
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| Camille Claudel, Gossipers |
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| Camille Claudel, L'Age Mûr (The Age of Maturity) |
05 May 2011
Gustave Moreau
Yesterday I visited the Musée Gustave Moreau with my art history class. The building is literally Moreau's house that he gave to the state to be made into a museum, on the promise that nothing would be touched or moved. Apparently he even arranged each painting and truc in every room just as it looks today, one hung above the other like tiles of wallpaper. The building is a three-story time warp into the awesome 1800s.
Moreau is typically associated with the Symbolist movement, so most (if not all) of his works have to do with Greek mythology. He trained at the École des Beaux-Arts, failed at winning the Prix de Rome twice, and was buddies with Chassériau and Degas. He never married and lived with his mother until she died. He worked constantly in his atelier, which he renovated into a large gallery before donating his home to the state. There are fold-out cabinets installed along the walls that display his drawings and studies like posters in a gift shop. So. Prolific.
19 April 2011
On being culturally well-read
and why we can't know everything. Damn I love NPR!
This article speaks to my innermost overachiever. The girl who tried to read a book a week at age 7. The girl who tried to read a book a week, for a summer, at age 15 (and succeeded this time.) The girl who can't get enough music, even if it means her computer is starting to give notifications of an almost-full hard drive. The girl who tried dancing, who tried piano lessons, who tried the saxophone, who sings in the shower. Who tried to make herself completely ambidextrous in pre-K. Who makes lists of movies to see, people to look up on wikipedia, and who learned French just because it sounds beautiful.
Sigh.
Yet, I persist. My new favorite paintings, seen at the Magritte museum in Brussels. I like his work so much more than I thought I did.
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| L'Empire des lumières, 1954 |
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| La Magie noire, 1935 |
15 April 2011
Update
I'm sitting home in Paris taking a petite pause until later on when I'll be boarding a bus to Brussels for the weekend. Last week was spent in Spain: Zaragoza and Barcelona. I took 8 rolls of film. I swear this blog will be so much more interesting and up-to-date once I have a scanner at my disposal again.
Here are some paintings I saw in Barcelona at the Museu Nacional d'Art de Catalunya. This museum is unlike any other I've ever been to. It's very Catalunya-specific, but the variety therein is incredible. The 19th and 20th century paintings by obscure artists that you don't learn about in AH101 were just phenomenal. They're potent enough to remind anyone why art in general, as a practice, is so brilliant.
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| Joaquim Mir, Poble escalonat, 1909 |
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| Joaquim Sorolla, Retrats d'Elena i Maria amb vestits valencians antics, 1908 |
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| Lluís Masriera, Ombres reflectides, 1920 |
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| Ramon Casas, La mandra, 1898-1900 |
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| Ramon Casas, Primero pasarás sobre mi cadáver, 1893 |
And last, but certainly not least, Picasso's Los Pichones series (located at the Museu de Picasso in Barcelona, also a 'must' if you're in town.)
More to come on Courbet and his influences.
on a musical note (ha! pun intended)...
I have a really neat book at home in NY called Conversation Pieces: Poems that Talk to Other Poems, and I've been thinking lately that it would be cool if a publication existed in the same vein but for music. There's probably something out there already, but either way I'd like to make my contribution:
06 April 2011
My list
I'm making a list of things to do in New York upon my return. I have a feeling it's going to be an amazing summer... but right this very moment I'd like to teleport to the Met and stare at this painting. It's one of my favorites, and I miss standing in front of it for minutes upon minutes.
In my search for the photo (which doesn't do the work justice; in real life the painting takes up a whole wall), I came across an interesting essay by Mona Hadler that discusses this painting and some other key works of Manet's œuvre. As I'm almost positive it's copyright infringement to copy/paste an academic publication in my ho-hum blog, here's the link to the PDF/JSTOR citations, etc.
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| Édouard Manet, Woman with a Parrot, 1866 |
21 March 2011
19 March 2011
Louise Lecavalier dances "Children"
I went to see Children / A Few Minutes of Lock on Tuesday night this week. It is of the most beautiful things I've ever seen happen on a stage in front of me... I really hope they come to New York. Here's a miniscule taste of what the show was like:
02 March 2011
inspiration + idioms
My host mom taught me a fun little idiomatic phrase over dinner tonight. She was complaining that she always forgets to salt the vegetables, but she insisted that ça va because it's much better than oversalting them. She told me that when the cook oversalts the food, people usually say "le cuisinier/ la cuisinière est amoureux(se)!" which means "the cook is in love!" The idea is that the cook was so busy daydreaming about his or her petit(e) ami(e) that they weren't paying attention to the amount of salt going into the pot. How cute is that?
I bought these two postcards at the Musée d'Orsay this weekend. The left is a colored photograph of Monet in his garden at Giverny (where I'll be visiting soon!) and the right is the painting La Toilette (1896) by Toulouse-Lautrec. They have a [hopefully] cozy home on my desk.
27 February 2011
So I'm finally reading Pride & Prejudice
after years of watching the movies and discussing it with family and friends. I enjoy how truly frank and ballsy Lizzy is in the book. My plan is to rewatch the BBC mini-series when I'm finished with the book, as I haven't seen it since I was quite young and watched it with my mom.
I'm reading the little red Collector's Library edition, and in it are these wonderful drawings by victorian illustrator Hugh Thompson. There's a shocking lack of good quality images online of his work, but here's what I could find.
'And your defect is a propensity to hate everybody.'
'And yours,' he replied with a smile,
'is wilfully to misunderstand them.'
tit-for-tat. tête-à-tête. witty banter. j'adore l'époque victorienne.
23 February 2011
16 February 2011
Little Otsu this week!
Little Otsu is a truly amazing publishing company and online shop that's based in Portland, OR. (I've featured their products before, remember?) They support green publishing and independent artists– two things I care for so deeply! The Little Otsu blog has a fun little featured series where readers submit photographs according to a theme. I turned in three photos for the theme Living Things Among Us and they are officially live! Check them out here.
Big thanks to Little Otsu for featuring my work! I am so thrilled to be included among all the amazing artists featured on the blog.
In other news, here is a wonderful sculpture I saw at the Louvre today.
View the whole Messerschmidt exhibition online here. They're most amazing faces I've ever seen. And they were made in the 1700s, which surprised me because it seems like a very contemporary (though classical technique-wise) concept, sculpting screaming/grimacing people. N'est-ce pas?
07 February 2011
Sculpture
The sidewalks are covered in loogies, dog poo, and very serious looking people.
I bought some postcards of beautiful sculptures and tacked them up in my room.
Lyon this weekend was wonderful. Pictures to follow.
I cannot wait to go back to the Musée des Beaux-Arts.
Learning (in another language) how to use a photography studio is no easy task.
This stuff: saving my knuckles since I've been in Paris.
Monoprix is an amazing store (think: cheap cool clothes + B&N + ginormous grocery store)
Seeing two completely straight men kiss each other on each cheek makes me so happy.
And it happens so often here!
It's official: I must cut back on the amount of cheese I'm eating. No bueno.
But the ham can stay.
I can't stop listening to Blue. I feel 15 again.
Sitting on the métro and reading a French magazine makes me feel like a local.
Choosing themes for my work is proving to be a challenge. In time the theme will choose me.
I feel like I've been gone forever.
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| Joseph Chinard, Juliette Récamier |
08 January 2011
03 January 2011
Mia Rae of BeWakeful
I fully support Mia Rae's incredible design aesthetic. It's funky, colorful, and totally unique. It's easy to see that this is a creative person who does what she loves every day. We need more of these types!
purchase at her etsy shop
02 January 2011
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