Archive for June, 2008
>
On Thursday I went to my community college to hear an artist give a lecture. The lecture was the first in a series of annual talks about contemporary art – due to the recent opening of the Nerman Gallery of Contemporary Art on campus. I was excited to go, having heard of Mark Bradford before from the PBS series Art 21. I love contemporary art, however, I am always worried about knowing too much about the artist – because I was conditioned as an art student to think contemporary artists were all a bunch of nutcases.
Nutcase is a broad term – and I use it to describe artists that when profiled for films shown to high school kids – seem to have nothing to little in common with the average quiet mouse Midwestern kid like me. However, this guy, Mark, is extremely amazing and talented as well as down to earth and sensible about his work. He showed us his early paintings, and his collections of photographs that he is always taking of things he encounters. What was most interesting to me was the signs – he takes street signs – those horrible neon signs that say things like “Divorce – $50″ or “Complete Funeral Video $100″ and sometimes leaves them alone and sometimes tears, cuts, scrapes, parts of them away and collages them into large amazing works of art.
He is currently working a project in New Orleans – part of a bigger artist project that is opening on Halloween this year. I am excited to learn more about that. But the thing that practically put me in tears was that he talked about the need to individuate and push yourself as an artist and at the same time listen to and accept the help of others. It is in incredible balancing act and something I (on my small scale) try to keep in mind all the time.
>
>
Buffy enjoys waking up at 6am for a morning walk. Then she promptly goes back to bed after her breakfast. Her favorite place to sleep is the back of the sofa.
About mid morning she is adored lovingly by Danny and me. She perks up for a moment to be admired.
She’ll even sit up for a good minute just to see what her options are….
But then it is back to bed. It is exhausting being so cute. Can you blame her?
Good night, sleep tight!
