by Sandy | Jul 18, 2011 | Blogroll, Books, Learning, Writers
This last week seemed, to me, to be full of a “series of unfortunate events”. By Friday, the last thing I needed was another news show or tabloid paper. I wanted to be taken away, out of the realm of current happenings. (I know, “reality shows” aren’t really, but even they weren’t fantastical enough.)
I found an old copy of one of the most fascinating fantasies ever – “100 Years of Solitude” by Colombian author Gabriel Garcia Marquez.
Written in 1967, the book recounts the history of a family that presides over a South American town called Macondo. It is the perfect “did it happen or didn’t it?” story.
Critics refer to García Márquez as a pioneer of “magical realism”. His work is often time shifting, mystical and surreal, it takes the reader to a different space, a different time. (Which can be such a relief when the “real” world starts to crowd in.)
“100 Years of Solitude” is a magical story – a definite adventure, a great book.
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by Sandy | Jul 15, 2011 | Blogroll, Culture, Education, Exhibits, Film, Museums
The weekend long festivities for the grand opening of The New African-American Civil War Memorial and Museum in Washington, DC begins on Saturday July 16, 2011. 
“Using photographs, documents and state of the art audio visual equipment, the museum helps visitors understand the African American’s heroic and largely unknown struggle for freedom. The museum is located two blocks west of the Memorial in the historic U street corridor. To assist visitors, researchers, and descendants of USCT, the Museum also offers important educational and research tools.”
Joining in the celebration will be local dignitaries, with speeches of course, panel discussions and an all day film festival on Sunday July 17. A few of the films showing are listed below:
The Freedom Riders
Glory
Eyes on the Prize
For Love of Liberty
The New African-American Civil War Memorial and Museum
1925 Vermont Avenue. NW Washington, DC
by Bob Martin | Jul 12, 2011 | music
Just about every version of “People Get Ready” falls short for me when compared to the original 1965 recording, so I was intrigued by Michael Kaeshammer’s rendition, and to my delight, he gives it great respect, possibly because he does not try to sing it. It’s a roaring instrumental. Kaeshammer will be in Phoenix on August 6th at the “Musical Instrument Museum“, it will be worth hearing him play “People get Ready” live.
by Sandy | Jul 6, 2011 | Art, Blogroll, Exhibits, Museums
“Picasso: Masterpieces from the Musée National Picasso, Paris” celebrates the artist’s genius with over 100 paintings from the Musee D’Orsay collection until October 9, 2011 at the de Young Museum in San Francisco, CA. 
“The works on view demonstrate the wide range of artistic styles and forms that the artist mastered, including: Celestina (1904), from the artist’s Blue Period; Two Brothers (1906), from the Rose Period; Expressionist studies for Les Demoiselles d’Avignon (1907); the Cubist Man with a Guitar (1911), the Neoclassical Portrait of Olga (1917), the artist’s wife; the proto-Surrealist Two Women Running on a Beach (1922); Portrait of Dora Maar (1937), the artist’s lover and famed French artist; six Surrealist bronze heads of the artist’s mistress, Marie-Thérèse Walter; the Head of a Bull (1942) fabricated from a bicycle seat and handlebars; the bronze Goat (1950); the six life-size bronze Bathers (1956); and the late self-portrait The Matador (1970).”
“Picasso: Masterpieces from the Musée National Picasso, Paris”
de Young Museum, Golden Gate Park, 50 Hagiwara Tea Garden Drive, San Francisco, CA
by Bob Martin | Jul 1, 2011 | Art, Directors, Movies, Writers
Carina Nebula
It is the first words spoken that makes this movie understandable and perfect for me. Malick treats the rest of the dialog like the utterance of the universe, important but not understandable. The idea that nature and grace exist for us to choose from is not a religious idea and that following one over another is neither right nor wrong, that in the larger scheme of things it may not matter. There are no understandable answers.
I kept thinking of the first verse of Joni Mitchell’s “The Sire of Sorrow”, and that we seek pain, not satisfaction. Life’s awareness will bring to your knees in pure awe, but that would be too easy.
“Let me speak, let me spit out my bitterness–
Born of grief and nights without sleep and festering flesh
Do you have eyes?
Can you see like mankind sees?
Why have you soured and curdled me?
Oh you tireless watcher! What have I done to you?
That you make everything I dread and everything I fear come true?...joni mitchell
I didn’t find this movie religious or trying to clarify the origins of stuff and can understand why some people would. For me the compelling message is that there is wonder all around us and we spend most of our time focused on ourselves and that what we pay attention is what we get.
If you decide to see this movie go with a group committed to viewing the full movie. Later have a conversation about what you saw or felt about the movie, it all in the experience of seeing “Tree of Life” vs. trying to understand it. All interpretations have value.
Also it will help to see it in a theater that has both exceptional visual and sound equipment. I’ve got to see it again at a different theater. Sorry Hawkins Scottsdale.
by Bob Martin | Jun 30, 2011 | Art, Exhibits, Galleries, Museums, Photograhy
Until August 21, 2011, “Faces, Places and Spaces”, a collection of photographic works of art that show the “creative energies and output of amazing artists rooted in African-American life and culture” will be highlighted.
“This exhibition, exclusive to the Harvey B. Gantt Center, offers viewers insight into the range of Moutoussamy-Ashe’s interests and observations as an artist. We see imagery from the African, Asian, and North American continents, from the 1980s, and as recently as March 2011. She muses about herself and the people she has encountered.”
The Harvey B. Gantt Center For African-American Arts & Culture, consistently, have exhibits that I want to see and I need to plot a way for myself to get to Charlotte, NC.
by Sandy | Jun 27, 2011 | Art, Blogroll, Exhibits, Museums
The Museum of Fine Arts Houston offers us a display of beautiful furniture, porcelain, etc. created at the turn of the 20th century. 
“This exhibition features European decorative and fine art from about 1890 to 1910. Works by artists such as Hector Guimard, František Kupka, Edvard Munch, and Vilmós Zsolnay illustrate the fascination of the period with dreams, nature, and the exotic—as well as the creeping unrest felt in Europe as the old century ended and a new, uncertain, one began. “
Circa 1900: Decorative Arts at the Turn of the Century
Museum of Fine Arts Houston/ MFAH – until 7/31/11
by Bob Martin | Jun 21, 2011 | Art, Film, Movies
Woody Allen is one of my film heroes. I’ve enjoyed just about every stage of his career including now. I believe that the talent of an artist is his/her ability to communicate their message as simply and truthfully as possible. I’ve always found Allen’s films truthful and I can always here what I believe to be his voice in the script. Not the way he sounds or way lead actors seem compelled to mimic his cadence, rather how his message and humor are consistent. Allen is a writer, so things to don’t get blown up or shot at, things get spoken.
Midnight in Paris is a funny movie that should not be compared to anything else Allen has done, except, I kept seeing little pieces and stories from some his earlier films.(Hannah and Her Sisters, Everyone Says I love You, Crimes and Misdemeanors,Vicky Cristina Barcelona, and Sweet and Lowdown)
The charm of this film is our mistaken belief that we were born to late , at the wrong time or era. The truth of the films is that we are always where were supposed to be.
by Sandy | Jun 17, 2011 | Art, Blogroll, Exhibits, Museums
Printmaking was an art form adopted by many early 20th century artists. Until July 11, a few are featured in MOMA’s presentation of German Expressionism: The Graphic Impulse. 
“The woodcut, with its coarse gouges and jagged lines, is known as the preeminent Expressionist medium, but the Expressionists also revolutionized the mediums of etching and lithography to alternately vibrant and stark effect. This exhibition, featuring approximately 250 works by some thirty artists, is drawn from MoMA’s outstanding holdings of German Expressionist prints, enhanced by selected drawings, paintings, and sculptures from the collection. “
“German Expressionism: The Graphic Impulse” – Until July 11,2011
Museum of Modern Art, NYC
by Bob Martin | Jun 14, 2011 | Art, Creativity, Exhibits, Galleries
June 18–October 23, 2011 Chris Martin: Painting Big at the Corcoran Gallery of Art
Chris Martin "White Bread"
Martin’s abstract paintings live in the real world with shapes that are easily identifiable, like “White Bread” or the more literal “Godfather of Soul” that offer comfort to the eyes and mind. His work is about him and not a challenge for the viewer to figure it out.
