Chirp, Chirp

Or is it Peep, Peep?  Anyway, this birdie has the metal loop in his back because he's going to be suspended from a tree branch somewhere in our neighborhood.  His wing area is textured but I'm not sure I'm going to do that again.  But I like the way his beak turned out.

From the Smithsonian Craft Show, an interesting ceramic artist, Paula Shalan.  I'm always attracted to ceramic artists who focus on hand building their work.

Recently our Netflix choice was Alpha House. about 4 Republican senators who shared a house in Washington DC.

We laughed out loud at some of it and shook our heads at parts that accurately depict some of the political dysfunction we see today, even though it was filmed in 2013.  We'd like to have seen Season 2 but Amazon, in all its wisdom, won't let Netflix have it and won't let you stream it unless you sign up for Amazon Prime.  If I was an actor in that show I'd be a little ticked off about that.

Anyway, there is no Season 3 and I'm guessing it's because the show hits a little too close to home for those politicians who don't have a sense of humor and have no idea about the concept of satire. If you do watch it, look for bad-boy Anthony Weiner in a 3-second cameo appearance in the last episode. He wasn't listed in the credits but there he was.  Actually, there are a lot of cameo appearances in this show.

Bye Bye Birdie

Here's looking at you, kiddo.  I used dimensional accent glaze for the black and white dots.  Eventually he will either be left casually somewhere in the neighborhood or maybe go for sale at the Student Art Show at Christmas.  Right now he's just keeping an eye on me.

When we took our big road trip in April/May we made sure to schedule in time in Washington DC for the Smithsonian Craft Show.  We collect cards from the artists whose work catches our eye and then we come home and dump the cards in a pile and  they just sit there.  OK, Susan is gradually looking at them and telling me to take a look at their websites.   And she's promised to eventually share them with you.

This guy fascinated Susan:  Phil Feinberg of RockinOneKnives.   Here's a picture of one of his incredibly elegant knives.  One of her favorite movies is Lucy, starring Scarlett Johansson, and I'll have to admit it's a pretty good movie.

She tried to explain to him that Lucy/Scarlett whipped out knives in the movie and really did a number with them but I don't think he got it. If you watch the movie look for the knives in this scene (but they aren't as good as Phil's):

Thanks to Seth Apter

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Obviously I didn't become a better person, because it's been a long, long time since I've updated this blog.  Can I blame it on my blog Wrangler?  Well, only a little.  She's fighting battles with a cranky old computer that has a hard drive that freezes up on her, a Photoshop Elements program to edit pictures that refuses to save her edits, and a new computer with Windows 10 that she's having to transition to very gradually.  I try not to disturb her, she's reading a book about Windows 10 that has 981 pages. And then there were taxes.  We do our own.  Correction:  She does them for us.

Seth Apter is my long-lost brother, and thanks to him I've had a rude awakening that tells me people notice what I do.  We got together last fall at the Cooper Hewitt Museum where we decided to interview each other, after getting matching haircuts.

I have been working on a people series with movable arms. The bottom picture shows that I'm trying to fasten the arms with a button and wire.

James Tisdale is a great mentor for me.  We work together loading and unloading kilns at school, I feed him a breakfast and in exchange I get to watch him work.  Way cool. His people are sometimes 2-3 feet tall, mine are all under 12 inches tall.

When I'm not working on my own stuff, I'm contributing to my environment.  My neighbors, Dina and Frank, gave me a little Snoopy dog.  I decided it needed to be permanently glued to an appropriate object out in front of our building. So far (3 weeks) it's stayed there.

The Guys

Recognize us?  It's me and Seth Apter!  The famous Seth of The Altered Page.  We had coffee together last week and we were  happy to see each other because, after all, we are twins that were separated at birth.  Except that I think I have more hair than he does.  Not that there is much of that anyway.

We were in New York City last week, right after the big icy snowstorm and just before the crazy weather this week.  The timing was perfect because there wasn't even any snow on the ground while we were there.

The Guys above were at the Peter Fischli/David Weiss exhibit at the Guggenheim.  This is my opinion about the art in that exhibit:

Just because a cat has kittens 

in the oven 

 doesn't make them biscuits

We also went to the MOMA and saw this great mask by Joan Miro:

And the MOMA has an exhibit by Marcel Broodthaers.  This is my opinion about the art in that exhibit:

Just because a cat has kittens 

in the oven 

 doesn't make them biscuits

My Blog Wrangler just told me to get over it, there were plenty of other things we saw that were just fine.  And we got to have lunch with another New York friend who has great stuff here. She thinks it's very amusing that one of the highlights of our visit was a First -- seeing a rat in the subway!  He was more frightened of all of the passengers getting off the subway than we were of him.  Most people were checking him out to see if he had pizza. What are we talking about?  Go here to see.

Joyce Pensato

In January we went to Fort Worth to see the Gustave Caillebotte show at the Kimbell Museum.  It was a an interesting show with good notes/signage for each painting.  But it was very crowded and it's hard to see learn about the art when there are clusters of people, all holding up the museum's audio device to their ear, standing numbly in front of the art while they listen to the signage being read to them.

What do you do?  Slide in front of them so you can read the signage? Nope, we've figured out the trick.  Most museums will have a large-print brochure near the entrance of the special exhibit.  The brochure will duplicate the small print signage next to the art and will be set up in the order the art is arranged in the exhibit.  So, take the large print brochure, stand behind the numb-nuts listening to what the art is about, read the brochure and look at the art, without having to shuffle in and out of their frozen clusters. Sometimes the audio will have enhanced features but there is a point when you just have to look at the art and think about it for yourself.

The image above wasn't part of the Caillebotte show but was at the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth, which is right across the street from the Kimbell.  It's called Texas Batman, by Joyce Pensato.  We'd never hear of her before but she's become more interesting to us because she makes big funky black and white painting and she's 70 years old.  And she has a messy studio (her own image):

Sometimes you find art just a block away, across the street from where you live.

Sad Rabbit

This little rabbit is named "Fear No Beauty" by Kari Rives.  He's sad about the Rabbit Hash General Store that burned down this week.

Yes, we've been to Rabbit Hash, Kentucky, and we've seen the store (but we didn't go in).  How do you get there? You drive south from Cincinnati, Ohio, and pass through Sugartit, Kentucky.  Keep driving until you get to Beaverlick.  It's very famous for having all its signs stolen.  Turn to the west and make a rest stop at Big Bone Lick State Park.  Then back on Beaver Road toward Lower River Road where you'll eventually find Rabbit Hash.

No, I'm not making any of that up.

Going in a different direction (I'm sure you're thankful for that), here is another give-away.

I've used this glaze before and each time it is slightly different.

My Blog Wrangler is busy cursing just one more change in her life -- Picasa Web Albums are going to be closed out.  Every single picture in this blog is from Picasa Web Album on our desktop computer. Will Google find a way to preserve the pictures? Will Google find a way to make it simple for her to post pictures in the future?  We'll see.

Who's Your Daddy?

Picasso at the MOMA.  He did really little stuff that maybe nobody noticed in the display case. These great heads are only about as big as a quarter.

At our Independent Living Retirement Community (that's marketing-speak for Old Folks' Home) we party a lot.  The proof is right here where yours truly and three other volunteers on the Bartenders Guild helped juice up the residents for our Mardi Gras party. Yessir-ee, Open Bar at all our parties! After all, none of us have to drive home.

What's On Your Bulletin Board?

I'm back in school now, much to Susan's delight.  Where has the blog been hiding lately?  I don't even dare ask.  I can say that the computer has been cranky lately, IE has been giving her fits and we've added Chrome to the computer (and I have to have my hand held every time I try to use it).  To top it off we got new iPhones because our old ones were so old Apple wouldn't let us update the operating system. Uber was the tipping point - we couldn't get the app unless we had a more current operating system.  No, we haven't used Uber, we wanted to be prepared just in case.

The operating system trick is Apple's way of making you upgrade. Going from a 3 to a 6 means a LOT of changes and adjustments, even if you backed everything up and restored it to the new one.  And Susan is thoroughly pissed that the 6 doesn't fit easily in her pants pocket.  I once made the mistake of asking her why women don't wear cargo pants and got the mysterious response "Hips! We have hips!"

One of the best movies we've seen lately on Netflix:

The Secrets in Their Eyes

We still aren't sure if we know the exact ending, it really could have verged a different direction.  It also reminds us of another great movie: Closed Circuit.  Be sure to watch the one produced in 2009, by Juan Jose Campanella. The one in 2015, produced by an American is no, no, no, not anywhere close to acceptable.

High Line and Calder

You previously saw Frank Stella's Black Star (below the shadow area of this picture), here's the other star on one of the open roof areas of the Whitney. That's the High Line below it, and looking up toward the north is another view of it (below).  We had good weather when we were there (Thanksgiving time) and the trees were just beginning to drop their leaves.

Nothing like a huge Calder mobile to make me feel really small (East Wing, National Gallery, Washington DC):

Elsa and Anna and Me and Merry Christmas

You'll get this only if you know little girls.  If you don't, here's a clue:  Frozen. For the record, here in Austin, TX, we hit 80 degrees yesterday.

Blogging has been non-existent lately because my Blog Wrangler had to make a bunch of promised baby quilts for Christmas babies.  A lot of cursing and rattling and cursing and ripping and strange sewing machine noises came from her area.  For my part I cooked meals, did dishes and stayed way the hell out of the way.  Maybe some pictures later but some went out without being photographed.

Between the last few blog entries and this one we did manage to make a very short visit to New York City (high hotel rates made us think twice) with a longer visit to Washington DC (low hotel rates as our government got lazy).  Some pics later but in the meantime we really loved the new Whitney Museum.  Frank Stella's Black Star, viewed from the outside balcony,looking down:

A really, really nice and thoughtful gesture from the Whitney:  Military, active duty and retired and family members get in free.  Thank you, Whitney.  When less than 1% of the American population has served in the military in the last 20 years, this seems like a no-brainer.  Too bad other museums don't get it.

It's a special time of year and regardless of your political correctness and beliefs, let's just tell it like it is, take your choice:  Merry Christmas or Happy Holidays or Season's Greetings or Shop Till You Drop or Don't Blame Me 'Cause I Didn't Vote For Them.

I Draw, I Scuplt. Ergo, I Art

I went to ArtUnraveled in Phoenix in August and one of the classes I took was from Jane LaFazio.  She's what Susan calls "a gentle soul" and her classes are fun and relaxing and helpful.  This picture is the view from our hotel balcony.

I did this picture in the class I took from her.

This isn't what I learned in her class, it's just something I did earlier in the year.  Susan wanted to put it in the blog to remind me not to eat mint chocolate chip ice cream after 9 p.m. at night.  I'm admitting nothing, even though the empty container was sitting in the kitchen sink when she got up at 3:00 a.m.  I can neither confirm nor deny that my thrashing around in my sleep was caused by the fact that my brain was telling me my cow got loose somehow and it's not my fault that woke her up at 3:00 a.m.  You may not know this but people with chronic insomnia get really cranky by noon because, as they will loudly tell you, they've been up since 3:00 a.m.

Who? Me?

Sidebar: This business about deleted/undeleted/secret/not secret Clinton emails and all that deleted email of Tom Brady's deflatedness made me wonder:  Where is Edward Snowden when we need him?  Why don't we just ask him to reveal all that stuff because Inquiring Minds really need to know.  If he tells us that, maybe as a reward he could come back here for a brief visit, just to get some real BBQ or fried chicken or something.

Jamie Wyeth and Ivan Garth Johnson

Way cool.  These very tall paintings (for the scale of the paintings use the black benches at the bottom as a reference) are by Jamie Wyeth and were in the entry area of the San Antonio Museum of Art.  They had a terrific show by Jamie Wyeth there and it was well worth the horrendous drive down IH35 to see it.

He's a third-generation Wyeth showing his painting skills  The museum had excellent signage with the paintings which always gives you a different way of looking at things.  Some of the work in the show was from when he was just a young teenager and he really had the skill showing even then. 

An iconic area in Austin is an underpass heading into town just north of the river that bisects Austin. This was painted many years ago (do the math) and there was a huge uproar about a year ago when the city decided to paint over it, even though its presence had been authorized by a previous city council.

At this time I just put a small sweater child there, hoping someone would come to their senses.

Okay, the city workers do try to paint over a lot of graffiti and of course there is debate about what is graffiti and what is street art.  This small memorial just seemed to resonate with a lot of people, mainly because it was relatively attractive.  And maybe because, thanks to Austin's terrible traffic problems, most people got to see this as they sat and sat and sat in traffic at that particular point.  It's only 2 lanes each side and they can't widen it because a train track is over it.

Finally we got the Ivan memorial back.

The top picture shows the two pots I put there, on either side of the piece that says "25" (do the math).  The bottom picture shows how people have added to it.  Lots of the time when I put ceramic Give-Away art out it disappears in a week or so.  These pots have stayed there for about 6 months now.  We may try to "Keep Austin Weird" but we do have respect for Ivan Garth. No, I have no idea who painted it years ago or who repainted it recently but the message is right.

AdornMe

 

Catching up, I went to AdornMe in Houston.  Consequently I have been fiddling with jewelry stuff instead of working with clay. Or as we call it in Texas in my classes, "mud daubing".

I make lots of pieces that I envision as wall sculpture because Susan doesn't wear jewelry -- too many years of hearing her mother say "Be sure you don't lose that if you wear it!" Sad because I'd like to see some of my pieces on her but good because she doesn't spend money on jewelry. Or shoes. Or clothes. How did I get so lucky? But books....

 

The piece below needs some alcohol ink on the white wrapping to change its color. I have no idea why I used white (it was a class freebie) but I do know I specifically wanted that eye in the middle.

 

This last piece isn't mine - it's EJ Brown's, a fellow student. Way cool skull necklace (made from spoons).

Washington DC and Yes, We Are Dry

We fly JetBlue into New York City but take Amtrak to Washington DC, then fly home Southwest from there. That's us getting on the train in the picture above, 3rd car from the left. Seriously, when we get to Penn Station we ask for Red Cap service. That gives us a separate quiet waiting area but best of all, a Red Cap who gathers up our luggage for us and escorts us early down to the correct train track, waits with us until the train arrives and then directs us onto the Quiet Car, where we leisurely pick a seat and wait about 10 minutes before the horde comes racing down to the track to board. All for a tip of $20. Little do they know that we would pay double for the privilege of not having to queue up in a huge mass, wondering which was the Quiet Car and then fighting to get a seat on it. There are some pleasures in life that are worth every penny.

In DC we always go to the Smithsonian Craft Show on the first day. We talk to a lot of artists and just enjoy seeing incredible artwork. Yes, craft and art are the same thing. Here are just two examples.

Evan Chambers.

Irina Okula.

We saw a great exhibit at the National Portrait Gallery -- Elaine de Kooning: Portraits.  The interesting thing about this portrait of Kennedy was the information she provided that said his posture in this portrait (and another one also) was unusual because he was favoring his injured, aching low back.  Susan sometimes has low back pain and she immediately recognized the posture, the way the pain can sometimes be eased by leaning on one arm.

Of course we had to go to the Torpedo Factory to see Susan Finsen.  As you can see, I am carefully advising her on her painting technique. As if.

Susan does great work and is always a pleasure to talk to.

Thanks to all of you who have asked if we have stayed dry during the recent storms and flooding. Yes, we are fine and so are all the people we know that live near the flooded areas.  You might think Texas is dry, like you see in western movies. Not!  Here is what the low-water crossing alert map of our area looked like the day after the heaviest rain.

Red is road closed due to high water. Green is OK to cross. There are 1029 low-water crossings in our immediate area. 

This is what high water looks like in the San Marcos area. In the background is IH 35, the main interstate that goes north-south through Texas. In a nearby area it was closed for over 5 hours at one point because it was flooded. 

This is what high water flooding over a river bank does to a home.