Wordless Wednesday

"Cityscape" by Bela Kadar 1877-1955

Songs About Art

"When I paint My Masterpiece" by Bob Dylan
Oh, the streets of Rome are filled with rubble,
Ancient footprints are everywhere.
You can almost think that you're seein' double
On a cold, dark night on the Spanish Stairs.
Got to hurry on back to my hotel room,
Where I've got me a date with Botticelli's niece.
She promised that she'd be right there with me
When I paint my masterpiece.

Oh, the hours I've spent inside the Coliseum,
Dodging lions and wastin' time.
Oh, those mighty kings of the jungle, I could hardly stand to see 'em,
Yes, it sure has been a long, hard climb.
Train wheels runnin' through the back of my memory,
When I ran on the hilltop following a pack of wild geese.
Someday, everything is gonna be smooth like a rhapsody
When I paint my masterpiece.

Sailin' 'round the world in a dirty gondola.
Oh, to be back in the land of Coca-Cola!

I left Rome and landed in Brussels,
On a plane ride so bumpy that I almost cried.
Clergymen in uniform and young girls pullin' muscles,
Everyone was there to greet me when I stepped inside.
Newspapermen eating candy
Had to be held down by big police.
Someday, everything is gonna be diff'rent
When I paint my masterpiece.

Wordless Wednesday

"Nocturne" by Richard Hayley Lever 1876

Grace Hartigan

At the age of 86 Grace Hartigan has died. She was famous in the art community because of her association with the New York School during the 1940s and 50s. Her abstract expressionist works during that period made her one of the most celebrated artists of the period; according to Time magazine, it was her "bold pictorial expressions of everyday American life, and her highly-coloured examinations of commercialism [that] were often seen as a precursor of the Pop Art movement." In lieu of a memorial service, a retrospective of her work will be on display at the Baltimore Museum of Art.

Wordless Wednesday

"Georgia O Keeffe and Orville Cox" by Ansel Adams

Songs About Art

"Painting by Chagall" by The Weepies
Thunder rumbles in the distance, a quiet intensity
I am willful, your insistence is tugging at the best of me
You're the moon, I'm the water
You're Mars, calling up Neptune's daughter

Sometimes rain that's needed falls
We float like two lovers in a painting by Chagall
All around is sky and blue town
Holding these flowers for a wedding gown
We live so high above the ground, satellites surround us.

I am humbled in this city
There seems to be an endless sea of people like us
Wakeful dreamers, I pass them on the sunlit streets
In our rooms filled with laughter
We make hope from every small disaster

Everybody says "you can't, you can't, you can't, don't try."
Still everybody says that if they had the chance they'd fly like we do.

LACMA, I missed you.

After constant assignments to visit the LACMA during college, I never thought I would truly miss those vast, pretentious, galleries. It felt good to go back though; it turns out that I even missed the cranky gallery guards. I was able to see the new contemporary wing, which is quite impressive, and contained work by artists such as Andy Warhol, Marcel Duchamp, Franz Kline, and Robert Rauschenberg. Here is my favorite Rauschenberg, "Canyon" 1959. If you look at it in passing the canvas is interesting enough, but when you really stop to examine the details it really becomes interesting; a photograph of stars, spare tin, pieces of an old shirt that have been integrated into the canvas.


This is a Picasso and, while Picasso was talented, he created so many works of art that I almost expect to see at least one in every museum I go to. This painting amused me though because I can almost swear that Picasso painted a cubist mullet.


I was most looking forward to seeing the Richard Serra sculptures. They are massive metal coils in the bottom layer of the new contemporary wing. Visitors get to walk through the sculptures, touch them, and examine the rusted walls.

Wordless Wednesday

"Vampire" by Edvard Munch

Book Exchange Update

This is my housemate Fahim; his reaction to the Fairway book exchange might have been the best reaction I've seen yet. We went to the store to get eggs today, and as he passed by the book exchange his eyes widened with excitement. "Books! I need a new book." However, as he browsed through the selections I could see the disappointment spread across his face, nothing but romance novels. He looked at me and plainly stated, "I will NOT 'Ride the Stallion.'"