Miniatures and Dollhouses

The National Building Museum is exhibiting Small Stories: At Home in a Dollhouse. I was so excited about this exhibit because I have always loved miniatures. But I found the exhibit a little less thrilling than I had expected. One problem being the confusing way the audio worked, but I figured that out eventually.

I did learn some new things though: dollhouse miniatures began as a fad in the 17th century similar to cabinets of curiosities that were meant recreate actual homes in a small scale. They were also used as a tool for young women to learn how to manage a household. They were the only kinds of properties most women could own. Gradually over time, they evolved into playhouses for children. Last year I enjoyed reading The Miniaturist by Essie Burton which tells a mysterious story of a woman and her cabinet that recreates her home in miniature.

The exhibit features many old Dollhouses, but what disappointed  me was the strange scale of the oldest houses, for instance a giant copper pot on a small table. Also the dolls all looked awkward and wrong in their spaces (when do they not?)

Downstairs in the manor house

My favorites were the ones from the early 20th century, which had managed to get the scale under control but were old enough to be charming.

My favorite part of the exhibit were the contemporary rooms made by mostly local artists.

This clever one by Bridgett Sue Lambert depicting a camera trained on a mini dollhouse and giant printer printing out stills of the dollhouse and framed prints stacked against the walls. It also had a basement. I would not mind going back and studying this one some more.

I also loved this one called the Exile of Prospero by L. Delaney.

The contemporary pieces really made the show for me.

Unicorn or Jesus

It's almost the end of the school year and students are restless and the pressure is on to keep them engaged.  My 6th grade students are writing and creating shadow puppet shows.

 They are allowed to work in small groups and my suggestion is that they retell a classic fairy tale, but I  open to alternate story ideas. Two girls were debating possible story lines for their show.

  "Well, we have to have Jesus in our puppet show" 

"Jesus? I want to do a play about a unicorn." 

"We could have Jesus, a unicorn and a rainbow." "

"What about a rainbow unicorn?"

And just like that, Jesus lost his starring role.

(Never mind that shadow puppets are supposed to be black.)

Unexpected consequences of teaching

I have been thinking about a former student lately.

I do a landscape painting unit where we spend some time drawing outside on the school grounds.  Our school property has a public jogging path that is heavily used.  Some of the students will sit in the middle of the jogging path and I go around and ask them not to block the path. In this particular year I had a difficult group and some of them would not budge.  Along comes a bicyclist all decked out in bike gear and wrap around glasses. He starts cursing at the students, which was not appropriate or expected. One student jumped to his feet and started yelling back at him. "At least I am not a loser and I don't wear spandex and live in my  parents basement!" Along with a few more choice words. "Jack!(not his real name)," I said, " you can't say things like that, you are going to get yourself in trouble someday."
 "But Ms S., I know it's immature, but he is a grown up and should know better, but I am just a kid."
Well, true, but the whole interaction it was out of line.

Early last week I learned that this same student, now a junior in high school, had murdered his father by stabbing him to death. I feel devastated. Even though he was a difficult and troubled boy, I kind of liked him.

That is something I hadn't expected when I started teaching: that some students will break your heart.

Once again I find myself lying on my back in NYC

For the second time in 24 hours, I found myself lying on my back in a public space in New York City.

The first time was in SOHO. We had gone to an art opening that we thought would be installations of light and sound, but was instead three sets of googles, remotes and headphones dangling from a ceiling of an art gallery. After standing around a very hot room and gradually getting closer to having a turn, they closed the gallery. So that was a failed experience.

My son Victor suggested we check out the Dream House. The internet told us it was closed, but we walked to the address and were buzzed in. We climbed up two flights of creaky carpeted stairs as an incense smell intensified. A young woman in a sun dress (this is March) greeted us and asked us to take off our shoes, remain quiet, take no pictures, and to please make a donation. 

She then opened a door to a small apartment glowing in blue, magenta and purple. In the main room about ten people were sprawled on the floor. A giant sound of buzzing, humming and beating filled the space. 

Most chose to lie on the floor, some wandered, some shifted around slowly because changing your position changed the sound. Did I mention that it was really hot and the incense smell was overwhelming? (At least that explained the gatekeepers outfit). I lay on the floor, I walked, I stretched, I put my head against the window. We probably were in there about 30 minutes, and there were always at least 10 people in the room. It was not as I imagined it, (I had thought it would have more rooms with different sounds in each room), but it was interesting and more rewarding than the gallery show we had come from.

The second experience was at the Whitney. Laura Poitras' show "Astro Noise" is about surveillance in the post 9/11 world. The show consists of projections, documents and video clips, some large, some small. One room had a carpeted platform in the middle and a large projection on the ceiling. The projection is of surveillance footage of the night skies over Yemen, Somalia and Pakistan. Once your eyes adjust to the dark, you realize that people are sprawled on their backs on the platform. So you wait till someone leaves and there you are lying on your back in a museum in New York.

It's kind of mesmerizing watching the stars shift across the sky in the company of strangers.  But the best part of the installation is when, several rooms later, you walk into the final room and see that an infrared camera has been broadcasting the unsuspecting viewers lying on the platform to the public.

Surveillance indeed.

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.