I've missed so many shows I wanted to see over the last few months. Being sick has a way of slowing you down and seriously messing with your ability to get up and at 'em. I really was looking forward to seeing the Edward Hopper Retrospective at the MFA. The man was a genius with light and mood, and there's something very intriguing about Depression Era paintings of such solemn subjects rendered in amazing color. The play of light and shadow and the sense of sadness are stunning. This was a show that encompassed a huge selection of his work, including his Cape Cod paintings and even sketches. I'm still sad I missed it and it ended in August. You'd think I'd have gotten over it by now, but I haven't. Such a big baby.
Likewise, I also am regretting not getting to the Peabody Essex Museum to catch the Joseph Cornell show that also ended in August. I simply adore a good shadow box and his are fabulous. Tiny Victorian women, little buildings, and birds, birds, birds. His assemblage work is thrilling and stirs the darker side of me. And the details within each box are not to be believed. The show also had disassembled his workshop and recreated it completely down to the last detail within this exhibit. I would have killed to see it, to see where he worked and how he worked (considering this was a man who spent a great deal of his career creating his amazing works at his kitchen table).
Seldom is there more than one show at a time that's huge on my radar screen and that I would be devastated to not have seen, and here were two that ran concurrently between May and August and both of which I missed. Damn, damn, damn.
