Happy New Year

Alzirr7: Dude! It's 2010!

Alzirr4: Already?!?!?

Small (Really Small) Victories

My Blog Wrangler, Susan, is often a lone voice muttering "I'm mad as hell and I'm not going to take this any more" as she waits patiently on hold. If you were around in 1976 that quote may sound familiar. Check out YouTube clips (click here for one) of Albert Finney's Academy Award winning performance in the movie Network. Very eerie. His rant is just as relevant today as it was over 30 years ago.

Example 1

Our AT&T Bill, for service from Dec 5, 2009 thru Jan 4, 2010, showed a new higher rate - by $2. Susan read the fine print: "... new rates will become effective no earlier than Jan 7, 2010". After over 15 minutes on hold to get to a real human, she politely (yes, politely) questioned why the increase showed up a month early. The representative put her on hold for another 5 minutes to
"research the item in question on your current bill."

The end result was that yes, the $2 increase will go into effect next month but because of the "billing error" we will receive a $5 credit on our next bill. Sweet!

But the questions she didn't ask AT&T were:

We have a plain, ordinary account. How many other ordinary customers did you slap that $2 charge on and they didn't question it?

How much money billed in error are you making from customers who didn't notice it was incorrectly assessed?

Example 2
Time Warner Cable's bill for service from Dec 12, 2009 through Jan 15, 2010 showed the usual rate for Standard (not the new "turbo") internet service. But last month's bill included a very small print "Service Pricing" page with "Rates effective 12/01/09". That page indicated the Standard internet service would drop by $5 a month, probably due to the fact that AT&T U-verse, DSL and Clear are currently waging strong ad campaigns to snare us in as customers. So why didn't our our rate drop?

This phone call included only 3 minutes on hold, AFTER being disconnected 7 separate times when following the voice prompts for "Question about your bill?". Finally, Susan was polite as the Representative told her only "new matrix" customers were being given the lower rate, all other "old matrix" customers would retain their original rate.

Susan: But you changed my Standard Cable TV rate up. Why can't you change my Standard Internet rate down at the same time?

Representative: You are on the "old matrix" and we don't do it that way.

Susan: Yes you can. You sent me a Service Pricing announcement of rates effective 12/01/09 and it doesn't say anything about old and new matrix and if you changed my TV matrix you can also change me to the lower Internet rate as shown on that new Service Pricing announcement.

Representative: OK. And I'll give you a credit for this month also.

What's What

What will be for dinner on December 24th: Gumbo with extra shrimp and sausage, served over rice, Chocolate Lava Cakes, Champagne.

What I'll watch again, amazed by the stunning cinematography: Mongol.

What I'm reading: The King of Lies by John Hart.(I also thought his The Last Child and Down River were great).

What is a new bad habit: Ginger Chocolate bars.

What I'm drinking too often: Bacardi Limon.
In my defense, truth-in-labeling reveals this important nutritional information about each drink I sip:
Fat -- 0g
Cholesterol -- 0mg
The Protein data (0g) can be ignored, as I'll get all the protein I need from the smoked almonds I munch as I sip.



What I'm working on: A new Big Head


What I would like for all of us to have this holiday season: Peace on Earth. On second thought, that sounds sort of hokey, like what beauty contestants always say they want. So I'll just lower my expectations to: Bring home all the men and women serving in our armed forces. Alive.

Happy Holiday wishes to all of you, everywhere, connected to me as if by magic.

Frosty

We celebrated the holiday season early with Susan's sister, Linda, and her husband, C.A, and exchanged gifts. Frosty was one of my gifts to Linda. He stands just about 5" tall. A few months ago Linda saw a picture I had saved of a baby penguin and remarked that he would make a great ceramic piece. So I gave it a try, was pretty pleased with my effort and she was happy to take him home with her.

If you live on the east coast and are shivering under all that load of snow you received, just remember that Frosty is thinking of you.

Button Eyes

My "dudes" have different eyes that I like to make with objects I've found or made. Not long ago I was in Houston for the International Quilt Festival and I wandered through all the vendors' displays (more than 700!), looking for stuff that I could use. I found these buttons and plan to figure out how to make a mold of them so I can use them for eye marks or other types of texture marks.

Almost!

It's almost time for Tuba Christmas - Monday!!! Go here to find out if you've missed out on a great season treat. Susan is pretending she won't go but she will, if only to play with her camera. Unless it's bad weather. She's a fair-weather tuba fan only. Me, I'll be there, rain or shine. Gotta support those lonely tuba players.

Click here for last year's report. And below is a series of clips someone put together in a previous year. The fun part is all the kids from school bands that they bring in. The guys in the picture near the end aren't cowboys, they are Texas State Troopers, responsible for security at our State Capitol, where Tuba Christmas always is.

Countdown

This is the time of year when many people have Advent calendars as a countdown of days.

Susan had a different idea. It is hanging in a very prominent place. I am not amused.

Cool or Not Cool

At times I have doubts. So I read over what Sol LeWitt wrote in a letter to Eva Hesse:

"Don't worry about cool, make your own uncool . . .

He had a lot more to say to her about listening to your own inner critic. Do a Google search (here) to see the full text, uncensored, on many websites/blogs.

What I Did On My Vacation, Part 3 (The End)

Thursday (Thanksgiving Day)

1) Hirshhorn Museum

We were disappointed that they were rearranging a large section of their permanent collection so there wasn't much to see. But one of my favorites, Rene Magritte's Delusions of Grandeur, was displayed (above). A special exhibit of Anne Truitt's work (below) had me flummoxed. I just don't get it, even though we watched a long video of her talking about her work.

2) The National Gallery of Art, East Wing

Here I got to see again my favorite Philip Guston paintings (one shown below).

There was a special collection called Editions with Additions: Working Proofs by Jasper Johns, where you got to see proofs he worked on after printing them. I thought artists never added other media onto prints they made but If Johns can do it, so can I. If I ever made a print.

There was also a specially selected group of contemporary works grouped according to a theme, like Drip, Concentricity, Gesture, etc. The juxtaposition of styles and media was very creative and we saw a number of great pieces we'd never seen before.

Then we had fun riding the people-mover backwards and forwards several times to see (and be in) the light sculpture, Multiverse, by Leo Villareal. In the video below you are moving backwards from the East Wing to the Cascade Cafe in the West Wing for your Thanksgiving dinner. Commentary provided by several anonymous teenagers.

Who was eating their holiday dinner in the cafe at 3 in the afternoon? Families, grandparents,parents, teenagers, children, and babies in strollers. Dressed up fancy and dressed down casual. It wasn't very crowded at all and everyone seemed happy and relaxed. I thanked the server who plopped the turkey and all the fixings on my plate and she blushed.

We still wonder "Who are all these people in this museum?" and often watch the middle-age kids who don't seem to pay attention to anything as they fool around. Somehow, as if by magic, the art must imprint in their hyperactive little brains and then they grow up to be....? I'd like to say we spent an equal amount of time in the West Wing but instead we headed back to the hotel, thankful for a late nap. Being a tourist is hard work.

Friday

1) A walk past the White House again, just in time to see the public White House Christmas tree being delivered on a horse-drawn wagon. Naturally, security was strict, everyone was moved two blocks away from the White House and the sniffer dogs were out and moving around. We waited a bit but the occupants of the White House didn't seem to be answering their doorbell so the wagon and driver were just sitting there. The sun was finally shining, everyone was happy to be there and Mr. IronPumper knew exactly where the tree was going. If you look fast you'll see a glimpse of me walking past.

2) The Renwick Gallery.
A small museum devoted to American craft -- there is always something interesting here and they do a good job of rotating their permanent collection pieces. A new acquisition was on display: Karen LaMonte, Reclining Dress Impression with Drapery (shown below). This beautiful life-size dress figure is made of cast glass and is so large it has to cool for over 40 hours after being fired. It is an amazing piece and it is completely incomprehensible to me that someone could be so skillful in creating it. Out of glass.

3) The National Museum of Women in the Arts
On this trip we voted this museum's special exhibitions our trip favorites. We saw Lands of Enchantment: Australian Aboriginal Paintings. We saw Hard Copy: Books as Art. We saw Telling Secrets: Codes, Captions, and Conundrums in Contemporary Art.

Susan, who will talk to anyone, dead or alive, chatted to a docent, Ed Williams, who wound up giving us a special private tour of his favorite paintings, including one by Joan Mitchell that he and his family had helped fund restoration for. Joan Mitchell had an incredible eye for color and we were lucky enough to see a special show of her work a few years ago. The image below is not the painting at the museum but is similar in style.

Then Ed scrounged up some keys and unlocked the library just for Susan to see a display of Books as Art from their permanent collection. Thank you, Ed!!!

I'd like to give you some images but of course there is no photography allowed in most special exhibits, only in permanent collections. Usually my Blog Wrangler pulls and identifies images from a museum's website to give you some samples of their art but unfortunately this museum's website had only very poor images.

We spent so much time here we never made it to the National Building Museum.

And that, patient blog readers, is what we do on a vacation: museums, museums, museums. And more museums. Museums from 10 in the morning until 5 or 6 at night. Lunch in museum cafes. We always say "Next time... " when we don't manage to see everything in a museum so there is always something to look forward to on the next visit.

Why are so many of the museums in Washington DC part of the "Smithsonian"? Because the founder, James Smithson, donated a huge chunk of money in the 1800's to establish and institution for the "increase and diffusion of knowledge." The main website gives you links to these museums and most of them have lots of images and information. Go here and you'll find a lot of art-related information and the option MyCollection lets you create your own "scrapbook" of images. Mr. Smithson was British and he never even visited the United States. Thank you, Mr. Smithson. we'll be back next year, as nearly every Smithsonian and National museum in Washington DC is open on Thanksgiving Day.

P.S. Graffiti Man was spotted 3 times on this trip, each time within 3 blocks of the White House. American Airlines didn't lose our luggage because we didn't check luggage. Mike at the Hilton Garden Inn had a smile for us every day. The DC Metro is a true blessing. The weather was cloudy, gray, drizzly and windy except for a few hours of sun on Friday. Amazingly, the TV weatherpeople in DC get their forecasts as screwed-up as they do in Austin.

What I Did On My Vacation, Part 2

Wednesday

1) The Bureau of Printing and Engraving.
Zero. Nada. Again, no chance to see our stimulus
money being printed because we weren't in line early enough to get one of the tickets. This time we were within about 20 people of making it in but as they say, "You snooze, you lose."

2) The U.S. Botanical Gardens.
Special holiday decorating was being set up so there were few visitors and very quiet and calm. We almost passed by the four reindeer (above) that had already been positioned. Benches were strategically placed all around so you could relax and look at the plants as you listened to the croaking frog sound effects.
Susan thought the Cat's Whiskers (above) was an interesting plant and thought I was kidding -- I wasn't -- when I told her this plant (below) was called "Hairy Balls".


3) The National Museum of the American Indian.
Saw a great exhibit by Brian Jungen. He makes sculptures by deconstructing ordinary, mundane items. I loved his totem poles made from golf bags and the figure he made from baseball gloves.

The rest of the museum was not very impressive as it seemed to be designed by a committee of people trying to be everything to everyone at once, with the end result being so confusing you just gave up trying to look at it. Their cafe was interesting because they divide the areas up into regions of the Americas and you can get food derived from each region. We skipped the rabbit pot pie and the buffalo burgers from The Plains, I focused on seafood from the Northwest and Susan went with the South/Central American area as it meant she could have a chocolate dessert.

Eating food at the American Indian Museum on the day before Thanksgiving? How much more "American" can you get?

4) National Air and Space Museum.
It was late in the day so the crowds had thinned out but by then I was pretty tired and sort of sleepwalked through a section on World War I that Susan said was interesting. A replica of the U-2 spy plane the Russians shot down during the Cold War caught my attention - it was hanging from the ceiling and was surprisingly small.

This was the first time in several visits to DC that we actually got into this museum. Usually it is jammed with kids on field trips and we don't even bother. Same with the Natural History Museum ("Dinosaur Museum"), where we accidentally went on a rainy day back in April. There were about 7,000 yellow school buses parked in front but we said to each other "How bad could it be?" and went in. Have you ever seen 7 girls, all about age 10, all trying to chest-bump each other at the same time in one big mass? Screaming the whole time? Actually, every kid in the museum was screaming and yelling (while racing frantically back and forth between displays) and my hearing was shot by then, not to return until later that afternoon. Kids in that museum made rock concerts sound like whispers.

A holiday week still means work for a lot of people and this guy working on the streets at the National Mall was no exception. We caught him fooling around while they were setting up the cones and (with encouragement from his co-workers) got him to repeat his performance.

What I Did On My Vacation, Part 1

Monday
1) The National Museum of African Art.
This little museum, hidden underground, does a good job of displaying their African sculpture pieces from the Walt Disney-Tishman collection. We always go to this museum first. This time there was a special exhibit by Yinka Shonibare, MBE, (image above) with a beautiful film he made, "Un Ballo in Maschera" (image below) that was so mesmerizing we stopped by a second day to watch it again. A second film, Odile & Odette, had an ironic side note (click here).

2) The National Museum of American History.
Here Susan found the Julia Child kitchen exhibit and an unexpected exhibit called Picturing Words, the Power of Book Illustration (image below).We wandered into a section on transportation called America on the Move and had to hurry out at closing time before we finshed seeing all of it. That's the magic of museums that provide good explanations on their display signs -- you think you aren't interested in the subject but you stop to casually glance at the sign and an hour later you are still in the exhibit.

Tuesday
1) The Bureau of Printing and Engraving.
Zero. Zip. Nada. No chance to see our stimulus money being printed because we weren't in line early enough to get one of the tickets.

2) The Smithsonian Museum of American Art and the National Portrait Gallery.
We've seen a lot of their premanent collection already but made a special attempt this time to find the Civil War soldier graffiti that was scratched in the wood near a window - found it! Very hidden but we knew to ask about it (3 different people before we got the directions) because on the flight up Susan sat next to a woman who worked for the Smithsonian and told her about it. A special retrospective exhibit of William T. Wiley's work (image below) was featured but I wasn't very impressed with his art. Sorry, William.

3) Walked around the White House to see the special tent (huge, looked like a white greenhouse) set up for the State Dinner and Michelle's garden. Took family pictures for a Nigerian group ... who had just moved to Texas. Heard lots of different languages, saw lots of happy tourists and the public Christmas tree (undecorated).

4) Took the Metro to the National Geographic Museum and saw (again) Terra Cotta Warriors. The display of the pieces was not as good as in the show we saw in Houston but the signs and explanations were much better. And each ticket was $10 cheaper. Had a long walk (instead of Metro) back to the hotel because some idiot parked a van in the middle of a street and then threw a Molotov cocktail in the street and ran away. Naturally, the bomb squad had to shut down that street and the nearby Metro stop to do some tense searching of the van. Fortunately, it was nothing but an idiot, but since we were just 4 blocks from the White House it caused a lot of delay. DC'ers seemed to take it all in stride.

More to come. I've thrown a lot of links and information at you but it won't be included on the final exam.

Dark Man

Dark Man was sold at the Austin Community College Art Students' sale (where I did quite well, thank you). He didn't go for a while, probably because he sat there so quiently, not speaking to anyone. Then, on the second day, Linda spotted him and saw the magic in him and he became hers. At first I wasn't sure I liked him but he's the sort of piece that just grows on you and you realize after he's gone that he had a real presence. Linda emailed me that she's really happy about having him and that makes me feel better.

More about Washington DC to come, as soon as my Blog Wrangler downloads her pictures.

Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth

Book of Wings, Anselm Kiefer

(detail, Kiefer)

Cornwall Summer Circle (Cornish slate), Richard Long

(detail) Sean Scully

(detail) Sean Scully

Male Head IV, (detail) David Bates

The special exhibit featured Susan Rothenberg. Go here for more about her.

Finally, in the outdoor sculpture gardens I ponder Henry Moore's work.

Our trip to Washington DC included Fort Worth because we flew out of Dallas-Fort Worth airport. We'd like to think Austin is the center of the universe but in reality it is not smooth traveling to get out of Austin. Often it is easier for us to drive 3-4 hours to Dallas or Houston and fly out of those cities on a non-stop flight, rather than having to mess with unpredictable connections between Austin and where we really want to go. For this trip we were very happy to make a stop at one of our favorite Texas museums.

Taking a Thanksgiving Break

We just got back from Washington, DC. The weather was perfect for us: grey, gloomy, cold, and windy with drizzle and rain. We consider ourselves "professional tourists" and bad weather definitely keeps the amateurs at home and out of our way. More pictures will be coming soon.

I didn't miss my turkey dinner, as the picture below shows. The boring plate with no meat on it is Susan's. She tries to avoid eating anything that has lips. Or beaks. This meal was at the Cascade Cafe in the National Gallery of Art. On second thought, her dinner does look better than mine. But I cleaned my plate anyway.

Thankful

The main part of the Thanksgiving ritual is The Dinner. We've done many of them (paid our dues, so to speak) and we no longer spend two days preparing a massive, coronary-inducing, cholesterol-loaded meal. Instead, we support the local economy and get our dinner from Whole Foods and let them damage our health. As healthy as they pretend to be, they can do a good job of spoiling you -- just ask me about their chocolate parfaits. Anyway, now we spend only one day fiddling and fixing and fussing and yes, it is "we." I'm actually getting to be a pretty good cook.

This is a picture of what our silverware, accumulated from wedding gifts, looked like. It came out of its lined box only for special occasions when there we would have The Dinner. Of course it had to be polished and I never minded doing that. Susan has not-so-fond childhood memories of having to do the polishing for a lot of silver her mother had. Obviously, when you are a kid you'd rather be playing with your cousins instead of rubbing at silverwear with a cloth. Anyway, the silver never got used enough to justify having it so it has moved on to a new family and we are quite happy with our beat-up stainless steel.

We are thankful for all of the good in the world, for all the men and women in uniform and not at home who are trying to maintain the good in the world, and for all of the blog readers all over the world, who tie us all together into one common group, clicking away at our keyboards and touching the world.

Chartreuse Is New York City's New Black

The last time we were in New York City Susan decided to take pictures of anything yellow. Excluding taxis. This time she chose Rust. We weren't 5 minutes into our first walk to the subway before she starting whining that she had picked the wrong color, no one was wearing Rust. I told her that when we got to the next corner the Color of the Day would be what we saw when we looked to the left: Green.

Easy enough. The rest of our visit was great, including grabbing her from out of the street and keeping her from walking into walls as she waved her camera around. At least every 5 minutes she would fuss that someone walked right in front of her great Green shot, or "Why can't they stand still for just 10 seconds?!?" By the second day she had narrowed down her Green focus to an even more specific shade: Chartreuse.

Who would have thought that so many people in New York City would show chartreuse green? By the time we got home she had over 200 pictures of that shade of green, and about 100 of miscellaneous other shades of green. She had even hooked Seth into looking for Chartreuse, so that as we sat outside people-watching both Seth and I were continually telling her "Green coming up! On the left! On the right."

Another Love Story?

The red paper caught my eye on the sidewalk in New York City, it would make a bright addition to our ephemera collection. You know, the stuff you collect, planning to use in a collage or to glue down in a journal page, but then you put it in a box and forget about it. Susan picked it up and stuck it in her bag. And forgot about it until we got home.

When we got home we realized it was an envelope that had already been opened. Was it thrown away? No love story there. Was it accidentally dropped and was missed? A love story there. Was it from Grandma to a grandchild? Was it sharing between best friends? Or is this the recollection of an illicit tryst? (I think not)

I'll never know because I'm not even sure what language this is, not to mention who Kanako is. And if, in my ignorance, I've displayed a really obscene message... sorry. But it just looks like Birthday Love, of some sort.

Fellow Artists

After two days the sale is finally over. We were lucky enough to be invited to show with the instructors on the second day which was a good thing except that I'm really tired after two days of being "on" and talking to people about my art. I took some pictures of the artists sitting around me and promised I'd show their work. Above is a segment of a bright painting by Jaspa Hickman. No, the hands weren't stenciled, they were all individually painted.

Below is Mel (Mélide Canton-Josh), a fellow ceramics student. I asked her which was her favorite piece and took a separate picture of that.

Right next to my table was Genevieve Elise, a printmaker. She had cards for sale and a number of prints. Susan negotiated a trade of one of my ceramic books for one of her "Buddy Holly Glasses" prints. She made Genevieve give her the last print that wasn't as sharp as all the others because she plans to cut it in half and use it as a front and back cover for a book she'll make.

Andrea Whilhite was selling dragonflies at the table next to Mel.

Mary (you saw her work before) gets a really nice dark green glaze on her pieces.

And last but not least, Amy of The 100 Heads. She also had a number of beautiful ceramic birdhouses that were really unique but they were a tough sale. People couldn't quite figure them out, as in "How can you clean them out?" or "What kind of birds go in these?" Get a grip, People, they're A-R-T.