Road trip to Roanoke

Last weekend, which was brutally cold, we took a drive to Roanoke, VA. Our purpose was to go see Wilco in concert on their current tour. I had tried to get tickets for their DC show, but was having no luck. I scanned the concert dates and saw that they were going to be in Roanoke on the Saturday of a three day weekend and thought, why not?  I easily scored good seats. And I have to say, it's more fun to see music outside of DC. Of course we did see them in DC also, I was able to get tickets eventually, after the pre-sale frenzy was over.

This is my sketchbook record of the trip, scenes from 81.

But anyway, this is not about tickets, this is about Roanoke. The drive is about 4 hours down unexciting route 81. We griped about how we could be in NYC in the same amount of time or some other more exciting place. Neither of us had ever been to Roanoke and we had pretty low expectations. The only thing I could pull from my memory was that a friend had told me that someone had reproduced a miniature version of Graceland in their front yard and you could visit it.

This lion was in the window of an antique shop.

Once we arrived we started to think about dinner, we'd have to eat early, but the realization that it was Valentines weekend had us worried. We scanned menus online and were surprised to find so many interesting restaurants. I had been sure we would have to eat at an Applebee's or something. So we set off for downtown and found....a real downtown. Shops, restaurants, a marketplace, a museum, lots of people: it's a happening place.

One thing I have learned is that if you are ever in a situation where every restaurant is booked, your best bet is the sushi restaurant. And once again I was right. They told us we could have a table if we left before 7:00. No problem.

We ate dinner and  we saw the show, which was great, and just a short frigid walk from our hotel. Apparently Wilco had never played Roanoke before so the crowd was really fired up. The concert hall had amazing acoustics; we weren't expecting that either. The next morning we rejected the free hotel breakfast so that we could go back downtown and explore more. We had chicken and waffles at Thelma's, wandered into some shops and stopped in at the Taubman art museum.

The museum is easy to find because it has a Frank Gehry-like design. It is also free and has a very nice collection for such a small museum. They had an Audubon show, an exhibit about George Washington which was very nicely sourced, as well as a contemporary installation about tobacco farmers in Virginia. They also have a large selection of Judith Leiber handbags, which was different and interesting to see.

The glowing red restroom @Taubman

So, thumbs up to Roanoke; I would go back again. After all, we still have to visit mini Graceland.

Snow Day activity

On one of my snow days off I tried my hand at painting with  watercolor, baking soda and vinegar. I saw this on Pinterest and was bored enough to give it a whirl. It's the kind of thing you do to entertain your young children, but why not? I was pretty much alone with nothing else to do except shovel snow.   First you put a couple spoons of baking soda in a cup and then you add about a quarter cup of water. Then you can add either liquid watercolor or food dye. I had a 20 year old box of Pentel tube watercolors so I used them.

Then I began painting, the paint is kind of thick and needs stirring.

I made three different pictures on watercolor paper, one with squiggly lines, one poured, one squares. I also drew a little in my sketchbook. Then I used a dropper to add the vinegar.

Hisssssss, it makes a cool sound.

It was fun, but eventually all the colors ran together. I guess if I did it again I might tape the paper to a board so that I could pick it up and swirl it around more. 

Here is a detail. Hours later I could drop more vinegar on it, it would fizz some more.  The sketchbook was the least exciting, probably because the paper is thinner. It is definitely about process instead of product. 

I highly recommend doing this if you are 4 or 5 years old.

Ode to Ellsworth Kelly

I reflected on Ellsworth Kelly on his recent passing at age 92.  I had never liked him, I found him incredibly boring.  "Why do museums devote so much space to someone so boring?" I'd gripe aloud.

 A giant bronze sculpture of his work in the National Gallery's sculpture garden particularly incensed me.  "I don't get why you would reproduce a shaped color painting in bronze.  What is the point? There is no color and the shape is not that interesting."

I'd gripe away, not that anyone cared or bothered to listen to me. But it was my opinion, and I was entitled to it.

Then one day I read an article about him in the New York Times. I don't know why I read it, I probably flipped past it first.  But it was interesting and made me appreciate him as a man and as an artist.


http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/22/arts/design/ellsworth-kelly-explorer-of-shape-line-and-color.html

For starters, he doesn't use assistants for his painting. He has a strong clear vision that he has persisted in following; keeping notes and sketches that he revisits for inspiration, but never repeating himself.  He has ridden popularity up and down, plugging away in his upstate New York studio. He has had a successful life doing what he loves.

I softened on him.  Oh Ellsworth Kelly, I have been so harsh and judgmental.  You can keep that wall space, far worse art crimes have been committed.

And then in December, on possibly the day that he died, I was walking through the High museum in Atlanta.  Short on time. I peered into a room that held four or five Kelly's.
"F***k that, I'm not going in there." I thought as I passed by.

Sorry Ellsworth.

Is it art or is it fashion?

On a visit to the High museum of Art in Atlanta we pondered several questions. Approaching the museum there were pieces of sod patching in circular shapes.

We puzzled, was it an art installation or just repairs to the grass?

We moved on to the first exhibit, the work of Iris Van Herpen. She is an avant garde designer who works with traditional and non-traditional materials.

We were amazed and impressed with her work. Is it art? Yes. She shows vision, persistence and massive creativity. Is it fashion? That's a harder question. While she makes objects to wear, they are limited to customers who don't need to sit or use there arms. Who, besides Bjork, would wear these items?

We moved on to another exhibit about the Habsburgs, fashion and style from earlier centuries.

It made me wonder why we questioned the outrageous style of Iris Van Herpen.

My New Friend Flounder

Walking along the beach in the Outer banks, the shell pickings are pretty slim.  The surf is just too rough, and a whole clam shell can seem like a prize.  While running on the beach, a mostly intact conch shell appeared before me, but before I could grab it, a wave took it away.  The next wave set it between my feet, so I considered it a gift from the ocean.  It was the best shell I saw on the beach all week.

On another walk, I came upon this guy:

 A flounder lying in the tide line.  When I leaned over I could see his he was alive, his mouth moved and his side rose and fell.  I slipped my hand under him to pick him up but he flipped away from me.  So I slipped both hands under him to propel him to the incoming wave.  Success!

Nope.  He was back on the sand in front of me.  This time when I picked him up he didn't offer resistance. I flung him into the wave, and back he came again.  Hmmm, maybe he just wants to die.

But, I thought, wouldn't he rather die in the water instead of gasping for breath on land?   "Sorry Buddy, you are just too cute not to take your picture."  I took his photo as he stared at me with his two green eyes, moving his fish lips.  Then I lifted him, waded into the water and flung him past the surf.  He didn't return.

Success! What a good deed, I congratulated myself as I walked back down the beach.  But then, feelings of self doubt came over me. Maybe he was an enchanted human that was turned into a fish and his last wish was to die on dry land. Maybe I had just screwed everything up.  Maybe I had just lost my chance to be granted three wishes.

"Maybe you were supposed to kiss him," my friend Jon said.

A Farewell to Scoby

 A co-worker pressed a starter batch of Kombucha on me after I expressed casual interest in making the fermented concoction.  Kombucha, a fermented tea, had appealed to my mad scientist side. I consider myself an adventurous cook, creative, and maybe a little reckless.  (Like, for instance, the time I cut up a pepper for a salad without tasting it and made the hottest salad of my life.)

There I was with a jar of some strange circular mold that I thought of as the "mother", but I would learn was the SCOBY.  My colleague had given me some instructions, and I had watched a bunch of videos about the methods of making Kombucha, all of them narrated by fanatics.  I quickly ascertained that making Kombucha might involve a little more precision than I was willing to commit.

I considered bailing altogether, but decided at the last minute that I should at least make an attempt on the recipe, perhaps I could just wing it.  I'll just cut to the chase and tell you that my batch was a total failure.  One sip made the acid in my stomach rise like the tide.

The menace.

When my work colleague asked how it turned out, I had to admit that it was a failure, I was going to have to throw it out.  "No don't get rid of it, it makes a great cleaning product."  Well, that wasn't really my intention, it was time for my brief Kombucha career to end.

I left the Scoby in a jar in my fridge, as well as a small jar of "juice".  As the jar sat there, the Scoby continued to grow. Even the juice jar grew a small "oyster" of Scoby.  The longer it stayed in the fridge, the bigger it became. I would know someone rummaging through the fridge had uncovered it when they would pause and then exclaim in horror, "What the hell is in this jar?"

I started to become a little afraid  of it. How was I going to get rid of it? I imagined it exploding out of the jar and gnawing on a forgotten cauliflower behind a carton of orange juice.  Or what if I added it to the compost pile and instead of assisting with the biological breakdown of the pile it instead fermented into some new form of intelligent life?

 I chose to ignore it for four or five months.

Shortly before burial.

Then, one trash day right before we were to leave town for a week, I decided it had to go.  I poured the liquid off the Scoby and slid it into a plastic bag which I slammed into the trash can.  Our county incinerates its trash, so hopefully the Scoby died by fire before it could consume any other organic material. As for the jar of juice, I decided to use it's cleaning properties to cleanse my garbage disposal.

 It has been working great ever since.

Future drain cleaner.

   

 

Baltimore Museum of Art, hon

Nick Cave Soundsuit

What makes the Baltimore Museum of Art

 different from other art museums? It's the chatty security guards.

"Do you think this statue is a man or a woman?"

"You have a lot of hair."

"You should smile."

"Didn't you already come this way?"

"I love your hair."

"You know it takes more muscles to frown that it does to smile."

Okay, I was frowning at this desiccated and reconstructed orange by Zoe Leonard. I mean, this has got to be a conservators nightmare.

 The museum houses have some great iconic artwork, like this Cezanne.




 They also have one of the largest collections of Matisse, thanks to the Cone sisters.


 And this one comes with my favorite overheard comment of the day.  " If I was to get sucked into a painting, I'd want it to be this one because I would have a companion."