Butterflies are Free

I have been told many, many times that "arty people" are weird. While I'm not sure I would go so far as to say this is a hard and fast rule, I will go so far as to agree that most of the artistic people I know are rather liberal in a great many areas of their lives, code of dress being one of those areas. This is in actuality how I dressed a great deal of the time when I was young. Although the butterfly wings are a bit of creative license on my part, that is not to say that given the opportunity, I wouldn't go grocery shopping wearing a pair of them today. I would. This outfit consisted of a striped tee, the bottom half of a former Halloween costume (a full-length paisley skirt as this was after all 1971, sewn with hundreds of beads and sequins by my mother), and an antique hand-crocheted apron that belonged to god-only-knows-which ancient female relative of mine. And while it appears that I was playing dress-up in this get up, I wasn't. It was the outfit I had chosen to wear that day, one in a long line of original (some would say "bizarre") outfits that I put together on a whim when deciding what to wear that day. And still do now. Give me funky over couture any day!

Cheaper Than Therapy

In between working on what I term "real art", I've been working on an art journal reflecting on my childhood. Or maybe I should clarify this: reflecting on my childhood as I see it. What I remember and how I remember it. Whether or not this actually qualifies as art, I'm not so sure. But I do know it's cathartic as hell. Not that my formative years were so awful I would need extensive analysis to be a whole and normal adult now. It wasn't like that at all. I didn't have an especially bad childhood, per se. I mean, I had fun and I was loved by those who love me still, so how bad could it have been? Still, it's funny how certain photos trigger specific memories and feelings, good, bad or otherwise. On one day working on one page, I find I'm happy as a clam, while other days and with other pages, I can be weepy and "off". How a photo from when I was two and simply sitting on the porch, even though I can't remember any other specific details from that day long ago, can trigger something so primal in me, I'm not sure, but it does.

Americans In Paris

This past summer I went to see the 'Americans in Paris' show at the MFA and I was just blown away. I've always had a soft spot for the impressionists, and Sargent is hands-down my all-time favorite artist, but this show was simply extraordinary (with the exception that it was rather heavy on the Cassatts, who I have never been particularly fond of. Had there been seven galleries of nothing but Sargents, I'd have crapped myself with glee!) and I came away from it with some very clear-cut ideas that I hadn't had before seeing such a large body of work from so many artists of the period in one space. For example, in seven galleries of paintings, there was but one tiny Prendergast oil which I had never seen before, and immediately upon viewing it realized that as brilliant as he was in watercolor, his magic simply doesn't translate to oil. It was disappointing. And Childe Hassam. He was magnificent when he first landed in France, but by the time he had returned to the States, his work was diluted, washed-out and stilted. In my opinion, he had lost his greatness while in Paris and came home a far worse artist for it.

I was in a lather when I first got wind of this show coming to Boston, and especially when I heard that Sargent's Madame X was to be one of the stars of the show. I adore this painting and all the controversy surrounding it in its day (Strapless: John Singer Sargent and the Fall of Madame X by Deborah Davis details both Sargent's and Gautreau's lives and the fall from grace they both endured through their own follies, this painting included- it's a great book) and I couldn't wait to pay it a visit in person. So imagine my surprise after boring my family to death with "Madame X is coming! Madame X is coming!" for months in advance of this show, only to get there, intentionally save it for last, passing it by without so much as a glance to come back to it after I had seen everything else, and then find that it wasn't the painting I kept gravitating back to over and over again (though spectacular a work it still is in my opinion).

No one was more surprised than I that after all my pre-show Sargent hysteria, my favorite turned out to be a small Metcalf oil of red poppies that I had never seen in person before, nor most likely ever will again as it's in a private collection. That and a very tiny Homer (who if you ask me would never rate even in my top 20, as as an artist he simply has never kindled a spark in me) that I also couldn't tear myself away from, and which was also from a private collection. As they were both in the same gallery, I thought if my husband could fake a seizure, I might have enough time to whip out a sharp blade, cut the two from their frames and pile-drive my way through the nosy crowd that would have gathered around my husband's limp form and make my way to freedom with my two little treasures before they were ever missed (the idea of only seeing these two pieces as pictures in a book again after being dumbstruck in their presence was more than I could bear). And as the only alarmed piece in the show was Whistler's Arrangement In Grey and Black, I might have had a shot at it, but my husband refused to be an accomplice, meanie that he is.

I was in the galleries for several hours, way longer than anyone accompanying me would have liked to have been there, with my nose pressed nearly up against most of the canvases going over brush strokes and light with maddening detail. I wanted to absorb every nuance of every canvas. And when my husband had finally persuaded me to leave, I suggested we pick up a few more tickets and go again, but alas no one else felt as strongly as I did about reliving this period in art so soon after our first visit, and going alone sucks. I don't particularly like to do anything alone, but in this case if I didn't take someone with me, who could I bore with my endless art prattle? Strangers aren't quite so tolerant as those we are close to. And being escorted from a museum for being a public nuisance isn't exactly at the top of my Things To Do Before I'm Dead list. So as such, I never did go back, but it was a hell of a rush while I was there.

Art as Life

I thought it might be nice, given the fact that I am an artist, to spend a little of the time I spend not working on my art, talking about my art. Hmm, that's not too self-absorbed, now, is it? But seriously, when one's life is consumed with either making art or thinking about art, or making plans to view someone else's art, it's only natural that one would enjoy talking about art, even when it isn't about me.