"Draw Me Ishmael"

30 June 2025: I hadn't realized this exhibit was still at the Peabody Essex Museum and was thrilled to get a chance to see it. What a gem this museum is, too. I will think about Anila Quayyum Agha's beautiful "All the Flowers Are for Me" for a long time, too.

"The Artist Signs Her Masterpiece, Immodestly"

8 January 2020:

This is very good: "The Artist Signs Her Masterpiece, Immodestly," by Danielle DeTiberus.

"...Between this violence and the sleeping
enemies outside, my name rises. Some darknesses
refuse to fade. Ergo Artemitia. I made this—I."

Love this bit of commentary from the poet: "Ultimately, then, this poem is an ode to survivors and to Gentileschi’s exquisitely manicured middle finger to the idea that she could be erased or silenced.”

Art with friends...

19 November 2017: "Guys, we had a day!" --my good buddy, Hannah, towards the end of a very satisfying trip to DC.

Sylvia Plath at the National Portrait Gallery, Vermeer at the National Gallery of Art, and Ai Weiwei at the Hirshhorn. A fun day with these two lovely people!

"Harlem Heroes," Part II

4 September 2016: Sunday was just a perfect day. Tim and I, along with his nephew and our good friends Hannah and Cory, headed into DC. We saw the exhibition I first posted about here. It was amazing and I found myself more moved than I had anticipated. Such powerful picture of such determined, beautiful people. We also saw Hiram Power's The Greek Slave, which I remembered reading about when I was studying The Marble Faun, so that rocked. And an unexpected pleasure? The Romaine Brooks exhibition. I didn't know anything about her before yesterday (Tim did, so he was really excited to see it), but now I am thoroughly intrigued by her.

After the museum, we headed back to Tim's for croquet and lobster (seriously--how posh are we?). What a fun day.

"Still Life with Apples"

2 July 2016: For our last morning in NYC, we stopped by MOMA, a place I hadn't been in a very long time--and certainly the last time I was there, I didn't appreciate its varied treasures. I want to pick one work to highlight here as the "good thing," and have gone through so many options even while writing this post, but I am going to go with Cézanne's "Still Life With Apples."

Day in DC

28 June 2014: On Saturday I visited the National Gallery of Art with a couple of friends. We saw an Andrew Wyeth exhibit, a Mary Cassatt/Edgar Degas exhibit, and spent some time with the Impressionists. (The museum has a special Van Gogh on loan.) After the National Gallery, we had lunch and then wandered down to the American History Museum and spent some time there. Then we headed home. It was a lovely day, and yes, once again, just what I needed.

Mood lifters...

So if, like me, you find yourself feeling frustrated or even slightly, to quote my nephew, "yucky" today, try one of these to lift your mood:

1) Rep. Mike Weinstein's awesome campaign ad. This catchy little tune was stuck in my head for a hour or so yesterday.

2) Six thing from history that everyone pictures incorrectly. My favorite line (about what Greek statues really looked like): "Ancient Greece looked more like someone crashed their LGBT pride parade into a Mardi Gras Festival."

Moments

Also in late August, I bookmarked the video below. I found it on The Daily Dish, whose guest blogger had found it at Jonah Lehrer's site. Lehner's words say it perfectly: "I won't waste too many words trying to explain this stunning video, which is by Will Hoffman and the folks at Radio Lab. At first glance, it's a mere collection of ordinary moments - a falling teardrop, an escaped balloon, a dive into a pool - but I think it's also evidence that the things we see everyday, when carefully framed, can ache with ignored beauty."



You could so use this in a composition or creative-writing class, couldn't you? It reminds me of that quotation from Tobias Wolf that I posted back in July. Just substitute "art" or "film" or any other medium for "fiction" and you'll see what I mean: “In fact, we’re always living next door to worlds that we don’t suspect and the best fiction suddenly illuminates that thing that’s been beside us all along and makes us see it for the first time and makes us enter another world.”

Words as Images

Very cool stuff...

Via Andrew Sullivan.

Touching Strangers

Anyone but me think this is kind of awesome? Read about the photographer's project here. You know, some days I am the most cynical-leave-me-alone person you could imagine. But even then, there is, deep down, a part of me that gets all mushy for these kinds of images.

Edward Hopper

An article over at mentalfloss.com explains that yesterday was Edward Hopper's 126th birthday. I've grown incredibly fond of Hopper's work lately--probably through conversations about it with my father, who says Hopper is his favorite painter. In fact, right now I am having four prints of his paintings framed to hang in my office on campus (which could use some decorating). Anyway, the brief article has some cool info about Hopper including this quotation: "Hopper once said of his fascination with light, 'Maybe I am slightly inhuman… all I ever wanted to do was to paint sunlight on the side of a house.'"

Art from dirt...

This is pretty cool, although it's depressing to think about how dirty the world is.

Migraine Art

I've been meaning to link to this story for a couple of weeks now*: an article about artwork done by migraine sufferers. I've never had a migraine before, but these paintings actually help me understand a bit more what it must be like to be so unlucky.

*A theme of the evening, as I reward myself for finishing my 4Cs paper by posting a bunch of stuff I've been meaning to post.