My husband and I were able to see this exhibit recently at the Akron Art Museum. I had been asking people who had seen it what they thought of it. Reactions ranged from “really good” to “it’s just a bunch of photos of rock stars; not what I consider ‘art’.” There are a lot of photos from different photographers and they are arranged by topic, like “portraits”, “fans”, “performing”, etc. The explanations of most of the photos offered some interesting and often unbelievable facts about how or who or when the photos were taken (i.e. a series of Jimi Hendrix photos and the Mick Jagger/leopard superimposed photo). I can’t put my finger on why the exhibition was good but not great. I think that the photographers were on the whole really really good; I think the problem lie in their arrangement. I think that the photos should have been arranged by performer or time periods. I know the curator wanted to focus attention on the photographs and not the performer but I think it would have been more effective to see how different photographers viewed the same artist like Tina Turner or The Beatles. And to arrange them chronologically you could see how different photographers captured, for example, the psychedelic ‘70s or the grunge rock scene of the early ‘90s. The exhibit also had an interactive feature where you could make your own album cover out of paper scraps, etc. I would have had fun with that if we would have had more time. If you’re interested, the show will be up until January 22.
Archive for December, 2010
‘Who Shot Rock ‘n’ Roll’: Good, but not great
Sunday, December 26th, 2010A very taco Christmas
Sunday, December 26th, 2010My husband’s mom lives to cook and bake. She makes these huge meals of chicken, ham, corn, biscuits, salad, noodles, mashed potatoes and about eight different desserts for not just every holiday and birthday celebration, but just for any random Sunday they are in town (they now live in Ohio 12 weeks of the year). The only exception to this huge mass of home-cooked food is Christmas. That’s when, although there are always tons of cookies, candies, pies and cakes, she orders pizza for the meal. This year, however, she changed it to tacos. My husband says it’s because she doesn’t want to deal with all the cooking and dishes from a big meal. I understand that because I never want to deal with cooking and dishes for meals of any size. I just find it odd that Christmas would be different than any of the other days. But I won’t complain, after all, there WERE cookies, and isn’ t that what matters? Oh, I mean, the important thing is that the family was together. With cookies in close range.
Well, it’s Christmas evening night …
Saturday, December 25th, 2010and my lovely moment is pretty much over. I’m trying to burn some CDs of my photos because my memory cards are full and while I’m doing that time-sucking activity I’m looking at the stacks and stacks of papers overflowing around me and feeling depressed that now that Christmas is over, I need to face some of that mess again, a mess which, already wildly out-of-control, only got worse since I put so much off while getting ready for Christmas and moving into my new studio. Fa la la la la.
“The best way to pay for a lovely moment …
Saturday, December 25th, 2010is to enjoy it” — a quote by Richard Bach that I am putting into practice right now. It’s Christmas morning, the sun is shining and there is a pretty covering of snow outside. The presents are opened and I have been listening to our three children all been playing together with their new plastic animal figurines — elaborate story-telling shared among them. No batteries, no computers — powered solely by imagination. I just ate some of my husband’s made-from-scratch Belgian Waffles with Belgian sugar crystals slathered with Nutella which could not be tastier. The Charlie Brown Christmas music is playing on the CD player. I have had enough sad and mad and lonely Christmases to know how incredibly special this is and to appreciate how lucky I am. Life is good.
Better than Christmas gifts?
Thursday, December 23rd, 2010We celebrated Christmas at my in-laws last weekend, and I couldn’t figure out why my youngest didn’t seem to care much about opening her gifts. Then she showed me that her first baby tooth was loose and apparently preferred wiggling it to anything else. Who knew a tooth would trump toys?
Another Christmas Story Story
Thursday, December 23rd, 2010
Today for the first time our family went to the “A Christmas Story” House and Museum on Cleveland’s West Side. I had seen on the Web site that 35-year-old Ian Petrella, who played Ralphie’s little brother Randy, was living in the house and conducting tours this holiday season. Quite honestly, I thought the idea of him actually living in the house was a bit creepy, but, whatever. The first tour was supposed to be at 10:15 a.m. and I jokingly said to my husband, “Let’s try to get there for the first tour but he’ll probably have a hangover.” So we get there at 10:10 and the line for the house is out the door. We go through the house, but no Randy. Maybe he was in the museum, I thought. No Randy there but one of the other “stars” of the movie was — the guy who delivered the “major award” to The Old Man. I don’t consider that a “starring” role, but again, whatever. So I ask the girl at the desk, “Isn’t the guy who played Randy supposed to be here?” She said, yes, he was staying at the house. She looked at her watch and said, “It’s after 11, he should be down by now.” Ohhhhkay. So we go back over to the house and now of course there’s this long line to meet “Randy”. As I had predicted, “Randy” definitely was hung over, slurping down coffee between signing autographs and posing for pictures. It was actually sad to see what had happened to poor “Randy”. I was picturing him hanging out in Cleveland bars using this pickup line, “Want me to show you how a piggie eats?” Anyhoo, if you’re a fan of the movie (and who isn’t??) you should check the place out. The gift shop too, for “all things Ralphie”. The only bad thing was that actual tours weren’t being run because of the big crowds, but that’s okay. It was still pretty cool to be at the Christmas Story house two days before Christmas.
Does it count as a good deed …
Thursday, December 23rd, 2010if someone makes you do it? At my daughter’s school holiday party, five prizes were awarded to winners of one of the games. My daughter won one of the prizes; it was a pack of 24 silly bands. I thought it would be a nice thing for her to pass the pack around and let all the other kids pick one out to keep. After all, there were more than enough for all the kids and my daughter doesn’t need 24 more silly bands. She, however, didn’t like my suggestion to share. But I wasn’t going to let it go, so I kind of sort of made her do it. Another mom saw what my daugther was doing and was like “Oh, that is so sweet.” It so happened her son had also won a pack of silly bands and so she told HIM he needed to share his as well. Like my daughter, he was not too keen on the idea but did it anyway. All the kids were appreciative and my daughter was glad she shared despite her initial reluctance. I feel bad for kind of sort of forcing her to do it, but sometimes if thoughtfulness and generosity don’t come naturally to a child, isn’t it okay to help “encourage” it?
I don’t know which warms my heart more …
Wednesday, December 22nd, 2010the sweet sound of a group of children singing Christmas carols in harmony, or hearing my husband walk around the house singing along to the holiday songs playing on our CD player. All I know is they both bring a smile to my face.
An amazing tribute to someone
Wednesday, December 22nd, 2010My next-door studio neighbor, Connie Bloom, makes art quilts. Art quilts are not your grandma’s quilts but actually unique works of art. One kind of quilt in which she is particularly gifted is her tribute or memorial quilts. She takes clothes of the person you want memorialized and goes from there. Yesterday she showed me the third in a series of four works she was doing for the family of a man who had died three years ago. His widow had commissioned Connie to make four quilts — one for each of her three daughters and one for herself. With the third now completed, the widow was going to present them to her daughters on Christmas. Looking at this quilt (it was actually like a book, which is hard to explain) gave me chills. I was relieved I wouldn’t be at the studio today when the woman came to pick it up because I figured she would lose it. I can’t even imagine what it will be like when these three daughters open up their quilts. I hope they have lots of tissue. I don’t know what she charges, but here’s the Web page about them: http://www.conniebloom.com/memorial.php
“Am I keeping you from something?”
Wednesday, December 22nd, 2010Today was my third visit to a periodontist — apparently stress is causing me to clench my teeth which is taking its toll on the joint in my left jaw. Anyhow, he was just going to check my jaw briefly today but ended up taking quite a bit of time explaining to me how a “bite guard” works. He was going on and on about it which was great but I worried I was keeping him from the three other patients currently waiting in exam rooms. But you know what he said to me? Something I never thought I’d hear from the mouth of a doctor? “Am I keeping you from something?” Me! I mean, yes he was, but it was information I needed to hear. The point was, when’s the last time a doctor worried about your time? Impressive! (To me at least. I’m sure the three people waiting weren’t so happy.)