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.

Austin Street Art

There's my bike, parked in front of one of our major streets into downtown Austin. Every weekend I find something new is added to the wall. Eventually it will be painted over with tan - a futile gesture, because within a day there will be fresh new street art added. One of my favorite ones was right after it was painted over with tan and someone did the color pours at the top.

Albert Einstein didn't have the mask at first and now he actually has a cap on. We like to keep Austin weird.  As the wall says, Sweet.

Yellow-Head, Weird Head

 

Yellow-Head is about 6 inches high and is now a Give-Away.

 

 

As for Weird Heads, this guy, who was refused entry into Dubai, takes the cake. He'd better hope he never needs an MRI. Susan just wonders if he can use Chapstick.

 

At least this Yellow-Head makes sense.

Watched the 1976 movie Network on TV last night. The "p" words sum it up perfectly: prescient, predictive, and prophetic. How much worse can it get? Be afraid, be very afraid.

Give-Away

 

Here's another Give-away near where I live. I'll leave it up to you to do your Google Earth deal - it's where the red car is, right at a bus stop. He was going to be another big Dude but wound up being an Anguished Man so it was time to set him free.

My favorite street-art/graffiti wall. It's been painted over so many times it could probably walk. The little tile piece is at the top left. If you aren't from the south just remember that "y'all" is the same as "you guys" but is gender neutral.

Latest Netflix movies: Lunchbox - 5 stars for creativity and because I had to have Susan explain that the ending really did resolve the Final Question of Did He? (If  you aren't sure, replay the first few minutes and then look at the ending again.) Her - 5 stars to Joaquin Phoenix and for eerie creativity. Bad Words - 5 stars for holding your attention, sappy ending but you kept wondering the next day what had been so horrible in the guy's childhood to make him such an evil yet strangely sympathetic character. The little kid was incredible.

Three Keepers and a Lot of Give-Aways

This little park is near where we live and I've put a lot of "learning experiences" out here. We'll see how long they stay.

 

These guys are keepers. They are made from a different clay than browner ones and I'm still trying to decide which I like best.

 

Speaking of keepers, we like to keep Austin weird.

 



 

 



Tweet, Tweet

 

Here's what a birdie should look like if I'm doing it right.

 

 

Nope, not my birdie. Just Austin street art.

 



Another successful birdie.

This particular wall gets a lot of street art and a lot of repainting by the property owner. Maybe they really like the changing art or maybe they think a blank wall could possibly just stay clear. Ha! Not in Austin.

Street Art and Yarn Bombing

This wall is near Whole foods and is topped off by railroad tracks. It has been a canvas for graffiti artists many times, giving it a nice varied background. These stay in place about a week or two before the city paints them over.

 

Susan told me (and I believe her because her authority comes from her grandmother who taught her how to knit, crochet, quilt, sew and play canasta) that these were crocheted into place. Way cool. The barrier (ha!) is supposed to keep people away from the graffiti wall.  As if. I missed seeing the previous display but from the amount of paint below the wall it must have had a lot of pink in it.

I'm A Bookie

Sort of. Actually I'm taking a class to learn how to make my own sketchbooks. That makes me a Bookmaker!  The white one is a strap book, the straps can come off and the cover lifts off and you can replace the block of white pages with fresh ones. The leather book is very manly. That's politely saying it looks like a Guy book.

We were in Houston recently and got some good shots of the building next to the Contemporary Craft Museum.

While we were there, Susan defied death once more by stopping in the middle of an intersection to take a picture of a Graffiti Man she spotted.  Her technique is to stop suddenly and yell at me "Tell me when the traffic starts up!" and then ignore me while she takes her picture. 

If you use Google Earth she said you can go here to see where she took the picture:
Latitude 29°43'32.55"N and  Longitude 95°23'22.84"W
I have no idea how to figure these out but I've been watching The Bridge on FX (pretty good but not as good as The Americans) and some brainy young kid knew exactly what numbers like that meant.

Giving It Away Again

Just a little "Potato Head" man.

It's been a week and maybe no one has noticed him or maybe they have. I thought he'd have disappeared by now.

This pole is right across the street from my apartment, there is a crosswalk just past it and a bus stop to the right of the pole as seen here.

Some cities have an "Art in Public Places" endeavor. I'd like to think I'm contributing... in a sort of Guerrilla Art way.

Giving It Away

Can you see it here? No, it's not in here because this is the Before picture. But I can promise you it is within walking distance of where I live now.  Check the last (After) picture below.

When we did our major downsizing and moved I sold a lot of my ceramic art. I also got brave enough to throw some away (they were really bad pieces).  But a lot got packed up and came with me and they were supplemented with everything I made during the summer and this past fall. 

Not a problem, Susan said, just make shelves to put the pieces on. I knew I was in trouble when she kept laughing when she said that.  There isn't any more wall space to put shelves on in our apartment! We have shelves everywhere with stuff on them, shelves over the doors (I now know how to drill into steel studs), shelves on the walls, shelves over the toilet....

A lot of the stuff is not really that fancy or maybe I've moved on to doing it differently or maybe it didn't work out the way I wanted. No, it can't go on my Etsy shop, it's too hard to ship it successfully and if it's a Dude that didn't suffer a catastrophe in the kiln it's at the gallery.

We have devised a new plan: Giving it away. Secretly. Anonymously.
The trick is that you have to find it.

Hint: It's one of my Penguin Pods, about 6" high.