Strange Greeting

"Egg for Pauline" by Barbara Benish
This strange sculpture adorns the entrance to the Chapman art building. Yes, it is fitting that something strange greets those who enter my home away from home; art students are considered weird, so why not have strange building adornments? However, even we art students are perplexed as to why this piece was gifted as a part of our permanent collection. A giant orb of steel and scotch tape, that hovers like a cloud over the entrance doors...thank you?

Cold?

Fall is finally in swing here in Orange, and here is how you can tell. There are no falling leaves as there are in locations where seasonal change happens with great distinction, no, the change can be distinguished by the mutterings of those around me. "It's so cold!", "I need a heavier coat!", "I think I need to go back to my room for my Uggs", "Let's go make hot chocolate." The temperature dropped to the mid 60s tonight; in my book that means it's still t-shirt weather.

Ooooo...what a little fooball can do

Would you peg me as the type of girl to love football? Well, if you said no you would have guessed correctly. I do, however, work for the Chapman football team. This came about as a fluke, really, where I happened to be in the right place and possess the incredible ability to use a telephone and a computer. I have been the assistant to the recruiting coach for almost two and a half years now, but I've never seen our team play. Tonight, however, I did catch a glimpse of the scoreboard as I drove past the field to my dorm and to my amazement the Panthers were beating the Occidental Tigers 21 to 7; they were in the last two minutes of the fourth quarter so my assumption is that they have won a game. On this rare occasion I salute the men in black and red who presumably played a good game tonight. Bravo.

The Sculpture that Drunk Students Climb

This large steel sculpture, The Levitation of the Enchanted Princess by Tony DeLap, is one of the scupltures on our lovely campus that most people look upon with confusion. Few actually know the name of the structure and many express the sentiment that it should have swings for use between classes. It interests me that among the many surrounding sculptures, this is the one most students want to interact with. The material is steel, not an entirely warm material, and the color gray is not typically an inviting one. However, the whimsical shape and the location upon two grassy mounds make up for the colder features of the work. At night, drunk students take the sculpture as a challenge and climb to the top where they sit as if conquering a playground structure. Today, this sculpture gained a new place in my heart as it became the location where I sat down and recieved the news of a devestating fire near my home town. Nestled beneath the shadow of the "Enchanted Princess" I learned from my mom of the deaths of some of our local firemen, and the near deaths of a couple of my peers. Today The Levetation of the Enchanted Princess has proven to be an interactive sculpture in more ways than I had ever imagined it could be.

The Chapman University Art Scene

Among the many works of art in Chapman University's permanent collection, this painting "Lluvia" by Victor Hugo Zayas is one of my favorites. Formerly hung in the main office of the gallery, it is a painting that immediately calls attention to itself. Both the scale of the canvas, approximately three to four feet tall, and the heavily impastoed surface are impressive. In person the canvas reveals the depth of shadow allowed by the thickly applied paint; a genuine shadow is cast by the exagerated layers. The dark tones help keep the painiting from becoming just another light impressionist study, but the technique calls up ideas of the impressionsits defying traditional methods of painting. I'm not sure where Chapman aquired this painting from, but I like it.

Inferior Water

There is no water like the water that comes from the pipes in my home town. I would never dream of actually drinking the water from the fifty year old pipes in my dorm, especially after witnessing the havoc they reak upon our shower. The fluid they call water in our dinning hall is useless if not flavored with lemon or tea, and although I am often teased about my practice of taking gallons of water back to Orange with me from home, I can't help but continue this practice. The water of the city simply tastes like ...a city. Despite the fact that rain falls the same down here as it does in the mountains Idyllwild water is simply superior.

Wait...how much is that canvas worth?

"La Reve" Pablo Picasso 1932

Recently a Picasso painting was maimed due to an overly gestural talker with a retinal disorder. That's right, millionair Steve Wynn made an agreement to sell his Picasso "La Reve" for $139 million; which would have trumped the $135 million paid for the Gustave Klimt portrait of Adele Bloch Bower. During one of his last displays of the painting, Wynn gestured too widely and punctured the canvas with his elbow. The value of the painting is considered by experts to be immediately depreciated, but Steve Wynn has stated that he will use the incident to raise awareness for his disease (retinitis pigmentosa). Well, if nothing else there are millions of art history students who now have one more obscure piece of information to add to an already extensive list of obscurities in the history of art.