Tag: Exhibits

Art View Day

I spent several hours at the New de Young on Friday. St.JCN spurred me to finally make the trek down there as she is visiting and that is one of the activities that she wanted to do. We are notoriously bad at doing anything remotely touristy when we visit each other, so this was a nice change.

In all, I enjoyed myself. For once, I brought my journal with me and wrote down the pieces of art that I liked. It was a good exercise in looking at things. I, long ago, gave myself permission not to look at all the art. But I looked at a lot of art at the de Young — more than I had really planned to.

The new building took some gettng acquainted with. The entrance was hard to find. Once in, it was a little unclear where to go for tickets. I loved the hominess of the old building, but the new building is definitely built for art and the art is shown at its best.

There is a textile room. They were showing gowns (Fortuny, Dior, Chanel, Balenciaga, etc.). Seeing some of htem was like seeing old friends as I had seen a few them before in a fashion exhibit. I remember making a sketch of a red dress with a big bow and gorgeous back treatment the last time I saw designer dresses.

Here are the pieces that I liked:

Wayne Thiebaud:
Three Machines
I like this one because of hte thickness of the paint and the simple imagery.
Diagonal Freeway
This one is quiltlike.
Park Place
the colors are very attractive.

Richard Diebenkorn:
Ocean Park 116
Quiltlike and pleasing colors.
Green
Red-Yellow-Blue

Bernd & Hilla Becher:
Passau, Germany (Grain Elevator) -photography
This is amazing, because of the shape of the building and the stillness of the pond in front of the building.

Franz Senkinc (Austrian):
Iron, 1931 -photography
I really liked the simplicity of the image and the direction from which it was photographed.

Susanne & the Elders (artist unknown and not available on the web)
Provoking. I am sure certain sectors of society would deem this image pornographic.

I was definitely drawn to geometric shapes. I was not taken with many of the modern art pieces as they looked like a mess to me. I suppose I am not an art sophisticate. As I said, I enjoyed myself and am thinking of getting a membership so I can stop in and bring W.

Signed, Sealed and Delivered!

Feelin’ Blue, Too and The Eye of God are both at the quilt show. I delivered them on Monday. This means that I finished them both! YAY. The quilt show starts tonight with the preview party, so I will get to see all the winning quilts. Aja did not finish hers. She was very upset when I talked to her, but I told her it was no big deal and that we will show all the bullseyes together at some point. I hope the show goes well.

San Mateo County Fair Yesterday

I love county fairs and wish that more people would enter their work. It is not a “highbrow” art organization, but everyone’s art and every entry is welcome. I also wish people would attend more county fairs.

It is great to see the wonderful and unusual items that people make and enter. It is great to see what people are doing in their homes: what they are collecting, the types of Lego and K’Nex constructions they build, the photos they take, the cakes they bake, the jams they cook and table settings they concoct, etc. I think county fairs are such a community event. You can really see stuff by your neighbors…. if more people would enter and attend.

That said, I have to admit that I didn’t enter something this year. I have done every year for the past several years and I just didn’t have (make??) the time this year. I will for sure next year. It is expensive to attend the fair ($32 for admission and parking), so getting the free tickets and parking passes from entering an exhibit is really worth it.

The boys were really interested in the Junior exhibits. They all reviewed all the Lego and K’Nex constructs very carefully and swore to build something for next year’s fair. We’ll see.

I, of course, went to the see the quilts. There were quite a number of them. I was, however, shocked at the California Living Building and the displays. There were no banners hanging outside. The building has been redone. It is not as light inside as it used to be. In previous years, quilts had been hung high up on the walls -near the ceiling, which made them hard to photograph, but made the building seem very cheerful. This year most of the quilts, even the prize winning quilts, were hung low and draped over something else or hung on racks very close together. At first I thought there weren’t very many quilts, but in the back of the hall I found quite a few, once I looked at the racks. There were some very nice quilts, especially a couple of star quilts that were amazingly intricate.