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We visited Dia Beacon for the first time, with B. Great place. This is Dan Flavin’s untitled (to the real Dan Hill) 1b from 1978. B’s favorite was Louise Bourgeois’s spider, I think, or maybe Arena by Rita McBride. It was fun stumbling across Occasional Papers’ Explorer in the book shop.
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We took a little day trip up to Storm King with some friends this past weekend on the most terrifyingly summery day of Autumn.
B seemed to love it. Of what we saw, I think that Calder’s The Arch and Noguchi’s Momo Taro were his favorites. I think he was just bowled over by the scale of The Arch, every time he saw it on the horizon he shouted “SCULP-TURR!!”. And he got a real kick out of sitting in and rambling over Momo Taro.
I was 90% sure that he and his little friend were allowed to crawl all over Noguchi’s piece based on Storm King’s guide and map. But I didn’t really know the extent of it until I looked up the piece on Storm King’s site just now.
The full realization of Momo Taro depends on the interaction of visitors, who are invited to not just touch, but to enter, to sit, and to unite their bodies with the work — to participate in its existence. Noguchi’s flat bench provides a welcome site for rest and contemplation. The “center” of the piece — the hollowed-out granite “peach pit” — serves as a peaceful retreat. Even on the hottest summer days this interior remains cool. Noguchi expressed his wish that visitors, especially children, would not only climb into the cavity but also sing inside it and enjoy its special aural resonance.
🥲 Wish granted! B’s buddy declared the “white one” to be her favorite sculpture when they left the park.
And B was such a trooper, he walked all over the Meadows and Museum Hill before we took a loop around the park in the tram. Then we headed back to the cafe for some lunch and picked up the stroller to walk all the way over to see Andy Goldsworthy’s Storm King Wall.
I was looking at the map on our way home and couldn’t believe how much we missed considering we spent about six hours there. We basically didn’t do the North Woods, Maple Rooms, or South Ponds at all. But it was never about completionism, it’s a good excuse to plan a trip back soon. Would love to go in the summer to check out Moodna Creek as well, though I don’t think it’s safe for swimming.
Not gonna show any photos of sculptures because too many of them have B in them, and there are better photos of them online anyways. But the landscape was gorgeous, so here’s some overexposed sky and grass.
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Life has felt kind of hard recently. Water running through my hands. So many things backed up in my “Blog stuff” folder in Notes, things I didn’t want to forget but wasn’t able to sit down and put in a post. Here’s a bunch so they don’t languish there forever. Oldest to newest.
I want to make a “Uses” page, but not just software/hardware. Skincare, furniture, kitchen tools, etc.
To read: Werner Herzog’s new book, The Twilight World. Or books? I don’t think the other one from lockdown is out yet. See this New Yorker interview. Via RS.
People talk about finding joy in the way your kid looks at the world. I really didn’t understand how moving that could be until recently. Hilarious, pure, and sometimes a little melancholic.
B was being funny about dinner because of a long day, so we just gave him a huge block of cheese to go ham. He couldn’t believe it. Imagine being handed a whole forearm-sized block of the best thing you’ve ever tasted in your short life.
He’d never seen anything like it, and I’ve never seen someone eyes go like that.
Generally more interested in the process than the outcome. In my work and others’. See CBToF (again), also the guy that’s piloting a tiny speedboat around Britain at his own pace. Boat guy via SB.
People in the US seem individualist to a fault.
A generalization, and obviously that individualism has certain upsides as well—don’t get me started on the way that UK schools force you to choose subjects so young—but I see the negative effects every day.
Was talking to DB, she mentioned how in the UK, there is a natural flow to walking. For example, getting between platforms on the tube. In NYC, it’s an absolute free for all.
Woman on the stairs at Broadway and Lafayette, walking up the left hand side of the stairs not holding on to the handrail when the person walking down, their right, clearly needs the handrail. “You see me fuckin comin, right?!” Wild.
[And do not tell me this is just a thing in US cities. I’ve seen it in suburban Tennessee, the middle of Ohio, all over the place. It just comes in different guises. An able-bodied person parking in a handicap spot in a packed Walmart parking lot, believing that Andrew Wakefield’s vaccine bullshit is more important than your children’s friends’ health, asserting that your right to any gun that could possibly exist is more important than reducing the likelihood of serious injury or death during a shooting in our schools and places of worship, etc.]
I think one of my least favorite phrases in the whole entire world has to be “you can’t teach an old dog new tricks”.
It’s a turning away from the world. Announcing that, no, I don’t want to learn anymore thank you very much. No thank you, life is perfect for me as it is, heaven forbid I grow or change. Much better for the world to bend to me.
Gross.
Great article on accessibility: “Writing even more CSS with Accessibility in Mind, Part 2: Respecting user preferences” by Manuel Matzo.
See also: “Accessibility for Vestibular Disorders: How My Temporary Disability Changed My Perspective” by Facundo Corradini.
Came across these while writing a manual accessibility testing guide, an auditing system, etc. for SuperHi.
If things have been calm for a while in life, little stress and so on, I feel like my body can build up stress of its own accord. Is this some sort of innate expectation that if things are going well for a while, surely they must go wrong soon? A sort of fight/flight overture? If so, it kind of makes sense that exercise could help. Literally getting your ya yas out. Don’t know.
Getting properly dressed in the morning, makeup and everything, is such an important part of my day working from home. Don’t know what it is, but I really don’t feel like myself otherwise. I fell out of the cycle once a while back and it actually led to some really low points. It helps if my skin is cooperating.
Related to current events: So one time I had to get a birth control prescription refilled while we were visiting family in the Tennessee. This was in high school (maybe early college?). It was a little more complicated at that point to get a prescription transferred between pharmacies, especially between states, so it had stressed me out but I was able to get it sorted. Anyways, I got the prescription filled and went on my way. It was a very forgettable experience.
Until I got a text from the pharmacist. He used the private contact information in my file to reach out and ask if I was available.
I should have done something about it, but I didn’t know what to do. Thank god I didn’t live there, imagine having to go back.
The shooting in Uvalde happened, and I reflexively went on Twitter. I don’t know what it was about that moment in time, but the instant I started scrolling I felt actual revulsion. It suddenly clicked, how horrible Twitter can make me feel. It didn’t used to be like that. I haven’t really used it since then. I met some great people on it in the past, but that hasn’t happened in a long time. I hope people realize they can always reach out to me here.
Read Notes on maintaining an internal React component library, an article by Gabe Scholz. Via CDM.
Watch How I Code and Use a Computer at 1,000 WPM!! by blind coder Sina Bahram. See also Coyote, “a project developed by cultural heritage professionals and people from the accessibility community to encourage the use of visual description in museum practice”. Very cool. Via RS.
Read about Meno’s Paradox on this University of Washington faculty page. I do not know how to summarize it, only that I have tried to articulate this and have failed every time. Now maybe I can just refer to Meno’s Paradox, or at least to this page. Via CDM.
Read this Guardian article on a neurologist’s tips for fighting memory loss and Alzheimers. “Samuel Johnson said that the art of memory is the art of attention.”
Claire McCardell was incredible. She popularized separates for women! Capsule wardrobes! In like, the 30s!! This is a great article about her contribution to fashion: Claire McCardell originated The American Look (part 1)
Explore philosopher.life. Via LS.
To read: Social Warming: How Social Media Polarises Us All by Charles Arthur. Or not. It sounds worthy, but depressing.
Dig further in to Roni Horn’s work. Specifically, “Still Water (The River Thames, for Example)”. Via BL.
There is no reason to be anything but nice to strangers. It makes you both feel good. Being a dick to someone makes you both feel bad.
Yep, exactly. Well said, and happy birthday, Chris Coyier!
Thanks to B for the photo ❤️
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Both Hokusai and Jack Butler Yeats hit their artistic strides in their 70s, their output just exploded at that point in their lives. How many other artists did the same? I can’t think of others, but surely many. Let me know.
Came across Yeats via this RHLSTP episode with Dara Ó Briain. Already knew about Hokusai but had no idea about the period of his life where he was most prolific, learned about that via this Great Art Explained episode.
Yes, almost immediately after posting this, Brian shared the book “On Late Style: Music and Literature Against the Grain” by Edward W. Said. Another one for the reading list!
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Tempted to imitate Yves Klein’s Anthropométries 🟦 with B. Cover the kitchen floor in big sheets of paper, put a bunch of nontoxic paint in a kiddie pool, get the diaper off, and have at it. Much more fun than finger painting strapped in his high chair, this kid wants to MOVE.
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I think the best creative advice I ever got was from my tutor at CSM.
Don’t dot every I and cross every T, don’t tie up every loose end. Leave some questions unanswered. A piece of art, a movie, a song, a performance, they all tend to be more compelling when they leave you wondering.
I tended to be very goal-oriented in my visual art practice, with an idea of exactly what I wanted the final product to be. This usually left me with frustration when I couldn’t quite get it there, and a piece that was overworked and somehow boring, despite my efforts. When I spent a little more time just focusing on the process and letting go of the result, it was both more fun and far more interesting to look at in the end.
I don’t have much of an art practice at the moment, though sometimes I look at this website as one big, long-haul creative endeavor.
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SFAI is closing indefinitely. Such sad news. It sounds like the CoViD-19 situation was the nail in the coffin.
I took a painting course there during the summer before my senior year of high school. I lived in the East Bay and took BART or drove over the Bay Bridge every day. It’s the sort of place I’d want to be if I had decided to keep studying art. A place where you could get lost and be left to your own devices, sort of like the old Foulis building at GSA but more labyrinthine.
The school has been around for almost 150 years. Diego Rivera painted a huge mural in the student-directed gallery in the 1930s. The photography department was founded by Ansel Adams. San Francisco’s wild parrots sometimes roost loudly in the loquat tree in the Spanish courtyard. I can’t think of anywhere in SF that offers better views of the city and the bay, for free from the Brutalist ampitheater or for the price of a bagel and a coffee at the cafe.
It’s one of my favourite places. Very sad to see it go.
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When I was at CSM for a postgrad in fine art, we were provided with pricing guidelines for the final show. There must be something to them because I sold a bit of work at the time. These are the guidelines, archiving here for posterity.
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Ceramic Cat
David Hockney 1955On loan from Jean and Paul Hockney.
This cat was given to David Hockney’s brother and sister-in-law as a wedding present in September 1955. It was one of approximately four cats made by the artist whilst a student at Bradford College of Art. After the model was produced the mould broke, making this sculpture unique as it was the only one with indentations. Subsequent versions were produced with a smooth finish and in different colours.
This life-size ceramic cat with stubby little legs is in one of the display cases in the ground floor of Salts Mill alongside many other pieces by David Hockney.
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🔮🦷👁🌙
Last night was Musarc’s winter concert The Orrery on the first day of LCMF 2019. Our performance included a new commission from Lina Lapelytė Time to Become One, the UK premiere of Jennifer Walshe’s The White Noisery, György Ligeti’s Poème symphonique, Un soir de neige by Francis Poulenc, and Fritz Hauser’s Schraffur (Hatchings).
Everything revolved around a floating, glowing orb.
The evening was conceived in collaboration between Sam Belinfante, the contributing composers / artists, members of Musarc, and our inimitable directors Cathy Heller Jones and Joseph Kohlmaier. It all came together with a ton of help from friends and metronome-sitters, and exceedingly delicious vegan food was offered by Return to Shashamane.
It was intense and meditative. I’ve spoken to a few friends in the audience who had nice things to say, but also I’m curious to know what others in the audience thought. I’ve seen at least one good blurb, which is lovely.
Big things for the choir next year I expect. In the shorter term, I’m looking forward to the rest of LCMF’s Witchy Methodologies. Particularly On Rites and Reenchantment and On Gossip & Eavesdropping.
Image via LCMF