Tuesday, March 5, 2013

The Museum of Culture .. brought to you by Serta!


I don't see any sheep there do you? Naaaaaah!


I as tend to do often, I owed Chelsea Baker a caption. She continues to just crank out fun captions for everyone, and I don't mind being in debt to her, even though it seems like every 4th caption or so I make for her! The photo is great, and the model is so attractive that I could have made it about anything and it'd still come out at least OK.

Living in New England, it seems that EVERY town has at least one museum or historical society, and they are all set up in a "DON'T TOUCH THAT!"manner. so when I saw the bed and furniture, I thought that would be a good way to make a change BUT it would happen from the display, NOT due to the rules of the museum curator. Those guys are usually too busy drinking chicory anyway!

As a big fan of Antique's Roadshow, I threw in some catchphrases that they would use, along with an appearance of "credenza" and "Jenkins" and apparently he got promoted to King! Good for him!

The sleepwalking part of the tour was something I actually feel like I did, as for my art class back in college we had to visit the Boston Museum of Fine Arts and answer questions from a worksheet. Its a HUGE place and the only time I could actually afford to go was on a Wednesday night after 4 PM when it was free to get in (which of course they don't do anymore!) It was my first time there, and somehow I got enough answers done, but I couldn't recall ANYTHING I had seen except for a triptych from Giotto (which I loved) and passing though the Egyptian wing knowing I wanted to go back again. I've been back quite a few times (I try to go at least once a year or two) and I still make sure I find a minute or two to go back and view the Giotto triptych and the MFA's great collection of textiles and furniture.

Why do I bring this up? Well, it ties in nicely with the caption I made a few weeks ago, but also because Helena gave me a "compliment" of sorts on Caitlyn's blog. Caitlyn had made a caption based on a discussion from my post, "Victoria's Taking Aim" between Helena and I about Satan. She said that Caitlyn was Rembrandt and I was Van Gogh. I don't take offense at being compared to an unbalanced, self-mutilating genius who wasn't appreciated in his own lifetime, but I see myself more as an Andy Warhol .. taking what others have already done within pop culture and hopefully elevating the commonplace to the status of revolutionary. Nah, fuck that! I'm just a weird goth-punk-metalhead pseudo-intellectual gadabout making pastiche works involving hot chicks and text describing how they became hot chicks .. and I have no problems admitting that! Thanks Helena for making me think about my work and thanks for brightening my day with replies to what I have to say on a consistent basis. Its much appreciated!


My mom would've been 62 today. Was a bit bummed this morning, until this song came on the radio. Fun. is a great "new" band and I can't recommend their CD, "Some Nights" enough. I heard about them when they were opening for Panic! at the Disco, and anytime an indie band achieves success, I am extremely happy, even more so when its on a small label like Fueled by Ramen. Anyway, this is just an AWESOME song! Here's another great one from them that really gets my blood flowing!


DISCUSSION QUESTION: Who is your favorite artist/painter? What piece by them is your favorite?

8 comments:

  1. Lovely, I too can sleep almost anywhere, and I don't even need to be tired.
    The obligatory museum visits at school, were for me more an out of body experience. I usually was very aware of what the tour guide said, yet at the same time it was like my mind was hovering at another place.
    Mmmm, me comparing you to van Gogh, actually I have more a Dee vibe with van Gogh, than a van Gogh vibe with you. So you could see van Gogh as a weird goth-punk-metalhead pseudo-intellectual gadabout making pastiche works;-)

    I'm glad I can brighten your day a little bit. it also reminded me of something Caitlin said on your post 'Really Dee? Really...'. I'll cut and paste the part here to get a lengthy comment:
    '[...] All I'll say is that the next step... of commenting, of joining in the community, of admitting publicly (while still doing so anonymously) that you enjoy this material can make you feel SO much better. Sure, it's nice for us to hear your comments, but that isn't a one way street. YOU'LL feel better about it too![...]'
    At that time I didn't see it, but only a few weeks later, I can only agree. I've made friends within the community, In Elle I even have a friend I can confide in to a level which is rare to me.
    Beside your captions, I enjoy our little discussions very much as well. So in my case, Caitlin was absolutely right.

    I don't follow new music as much as I used to but 'Fun' didn't even go unnoticed by me, and I very much understand your enthusiasm about them.

    My favourite painter is actually Luis Royo, I love his fantasy art. I have a copy of one of his works hanging in my living room. An Angel standing kneedeep in water, you look at her back, she's turned her head a bit. I can't remember how it is called.
    Helena

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    1. I'll have to look him um. I've not really looked at much modern art. I guess Georgia O'Keefe isn't really "modern" anymore! LOL

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    2. I don't know... art changes so slowly that I consider most 20th century artists to still be 'modern'. The artists that have taken the stage in the last 30 years or so would be considered 'new'.

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  2. Fun cap Dee... I did get a somewhat 'Antiques Roadshow' vibe from the cap. I like the show too, but it's often more for learning the ridiculously silly amounts of money these 'things' are worth. I tend to put personal values on the things like "I'd sell that and buy a new video card" or "I'd sell that and buy a new car". The people on the show that impress me the most are the ones that have a personal story to their items, and they are simply searching for an insurance values as they have absolutely NO intent of selling it.

    Sadly I live in a small town and don't have access to many museums. When I lived in Chicago I was very excited to go see all the art on display. And when I last visited the capital I made sure to visit the Smithsonian. I think the Andy Warhol title is a good fit for you. Whenever I imagine his art I picture 'pop culture' and raising elevating it to both art and a commentary on our time (well... his time!). Your caps are often that way... taking a solidly explored TG trope and elevating it. Making it a commentary that tells as much about the reader/viewer as it does about the subject matter.

    Didn't Fun win the grammy for best new artists? I generally don't listen to 'trends' in music and if someone wins best new artist, I'll tend to avoid it. But that 'Some Nights' song has been played enough that as I listen to it now I can't help but buy it. Of course I couldn't stand to just get one new song so I also picked up "Boom Boom" by John Lee Hooker (surprised I didn't already have that one), "Ball and Chain" by Social Distortion (I finally relented as iTunes has been trying to shove that down my ears for awhile now), and "U.R.A. Fever" by The Kills (I've been on a bit of The Kills kick lately and this is the third song of theirs that I've gotten lately along with "Cheap and Cheerful (Sebastien Remix)", and "Future Starts Slow")

    Hmm... I don't really have a favorite painter. For the most part I like the renaissance painters as a whole... da Vinci, Michelangelo, Botticelli, Bellini, and Caravaggio. There's just something amazing about their works that wasn't done in the past and hasn't been replicated since. Now if you want to talk about photography as art... I'd say my favorite photographer is/was Helmut Newton. There's just something so special in the way he can capture a moment in time that takes my breath away.

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    1. Good taste in recent music for you Caitlyn. I had picked up the Fun. "album" as a 99 cent digital download on Amazon back about a year ago, maybe less. It was when the "We Are Young" song was starting to hit big, right around the Gotye song came out. You can never go wrong with Social D .. were you a Replacements fan? Not sure if we had discussed that earlier.

      Helmut Newton's photography is often stunning, I would agree with that.I'm not sure why Annie Leibowitz or whatever her name is gets so much publicity. I find her work lacking. Scott Church is 10 times the photographer.

      I love the Renaissance stuff too, and especially the early works like Giotto and also Jan Van Eyck. The detail that Van Eyck would get is almost unparalleled even today.

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    2. I believe that the last full album I ever bought was Garbage's self titled 1995 album. But that was back when I was making mix tapes and no one had that CD to rip a song from. I ripped "Only Happy When It Rains" and "Stupid Girl" and then gave the CD away. Ever since I've been digitally getting songs one by one.

      Teh Replacements? No... I haven't heard any of their music that really keeps my attention. Is there some connection between them and Social Distortion?

      I actually really enjoyed Annie Leibowitz's earlier work for Rolling Stone. Her portraits are nice, but yeah... nothing overly special.

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  3. Dee, I think you out did yourself with this cap. I can't tell you how much I enjoyed the image with the story you wrote. To end up with high end client's is probably not what he had in mind. But Chelsea turned out very sexy indeed.

    Now onto your discussion question. I went to art school many moons ago. LOL! So as far as art history I feel like even if I didn't like a certain artists work, I would respect it because I understand that it was a building block towards what we have today. Da Vinci might be my favorite. He was more then an artist he was also a sculptor, architect, musician, mathematician, engineer, inventor, anatomist, geologist, cartographer, botanist, and writer to name a few. With his wonder and imagination he was drawing crude helicopters four hundred years before they existed. And what makes that so amazing is the most technological advance on the planet at that time was the wheel drawn by horses.

    But the nerd inside me says that my favorite artist of today is Jay Anacleto. He was a dentist who dabbled in comic books. His pencils were so amazing and life like that they wouldn't ink them because they were afraid it would ruin his artwork. If you have a chance check out his work. And remember he only did the comics as a hobby.

    Now I would like to also respond to Helena's comment. I wanted to say something towards the quote that Caitlin said. I totally agree with commenting, participating and how it makes you feel 100%. I think a big fear is even if someone leaves a anonymous comment they still think there is some way someone will track it back to them. But the truth is that will never happen. Unless you start commenting on specifics about yourself. Even the person who owns the site has no idea who you are. I guess my point is that I hope everyone begins to participate a little more. That's not for me or for Dee or anyone else who has a blog. It's for the person who comments. It truly does make you feel like part of the community. ;) Thanks Helena for the recap because it is so true.

    xoxoxo Katie





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    1. I'll have to check out Anacleto's work. For comic book illustrators, I really like Chris Bachalo's work, especially on Sandman and Death, the High Cost of Living. Oh how I wanted to look like Death!

      I had to do a report on Da Vinci in middle school, JUST as an inventor. Each person had to do a report on one section of his life. I became fascinated by how his mind worked and its amazing how much he was able to accomplish in so many different milieus.

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