Sad Day

Today I am a little bit sad. Revelation!! It's ok to be sad on your blog once in a while I think.

I had to get up in the middle of the night and throw on socks, sweats, and another blanket onto my bed. I wasn't ready to let go of summer yet and I certainly don't appreciate winter hustling autumn out of its way into my house this cold, cold morning. And all day long I sat in my freezing art building because no one at the school had quite gotten round to turning on the heat. Long sleeve shirt, knit sweater, AND pagmina clutched tightly around my shoulders, and I STILL felt like an eskimo in lecture. I am so, so sad.

Some of the world's greatest, most touching art is sad. I'm trying to think of artworks I've actually cried in front of. I know there were several on my study abroad (random tangent, but sometimes I feel like my study abroad and my senior thesis and my grad school are my mission. They make me work so hard and they string out my emotions in ways no other experience has). Michelangelo's Pieta, which sits smack dab in a vaulted niche off to one side of the entrance of the HUGE Vatican, is the first artwork I can remember that brought waterworks during that trip.



Michelangelo Buonarroti, 1499.


That looks about how I remembered it, thanks Internet. I've often wondered where the tradition of the Lamentation of Christ or Descent from the Cross pictures came from in Christian art. Could you pick a more despondent subject? Though not based on any scriptural text, these scenes emerged as many artists began to imagine what might have happened AFTER the Savior died on the cross. After the earth had stopped shaking, the Pharisees were somewhere downtown cackling to themselves, and all that were left on Golgotha were grief-stricken friends, family, and followers, and maybe some Romans. In many Lamentation/Descent from the Cross scenes, the artist chooses to render Mary in almost as miserable and pathetic a condition as the body of Jesus. My art history friends (especially my fellow Martha Peacock-ites!) better have the name of this artist on the tip of your tonuge, ready, go:

Rogier van der Weyden! How'd we do? Descent from the Cross, 1435, just LOOK at that blue! and the folds of that drapery! Notice how Mary's body, even her arms, curve just like her son's. Look at their faces. So sad.

I remember seeing the following painting on my trip and NOT crying, because I was writing an essay for class about it, BUT I still feel like showing it, because man is it glorious, sad, and slightly morbid (plus, I don't think I've had any Spanish art on my blog). Well, here's making up for lost time:



Andrea Mantegna, The Lamentation over the Dead Christ, 1490. In Milan.

I don't really feel like delving into the heart and soul and history of these paintings, because their best feature is in fact the way they make you sad, make you ponder on the dead Christ, too, like the other people watching over him in these paintings. Although for this one I can't get away without saying, Yeesh will you look at that angle? Why do you think Mantegna wanted to direct our eyes up the body of the Christ starting at the feet? I can think of a few reasons...)

Of course, there are a lot of things out there to make us sad. Lots of them have been made into art. Vis a vis:

Anton van Dyke's golden angel weeping into his serpentine swath of silk.

Camille Claudel's bronze alterego has her lover ripped from her hands in The Age of Maturity (1900, Musee d'Orsay).

Ah, homelessnes. I remember that. :)

Untitled (Big Man), Ron Mueck, Hirshhorn, 2003. Big, naked, and not loving it.



Clifford Still, 1960. 1960. Also at the Hirshhorn. "The Pit of Dithpair!!!" What movie?



BUT AT LAST! As I thumb through my picture albums to come up with more depressing photos, I find...

Fat Baby Choking a Goose! (Roman, around 150 A.D., in the Louvre) BAHAHA I don't know why this made me laugh so hard but it did. And right after violent fat baby, I found:

Tiny Dancer! Georg Kolbe, Woman Dancing, 1911.

And even BIGGER Fat Baby! I can't-remember-the-name at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts.

And finally, Butterflies, from the hilarious and modern (?) Odilon Redon (1910, MOMA). I sure do love you, guy. So cute. And slightly fruity.

Life is good. Tomorrow will be better. Tonight I will sleep with my winter BFF: Electric Blankie. GOOD DAY to you!

Yellow and Blue

"Besides, I don't even like the colors green and red together. The summer colors, Yellow, Green, and Blue are SO much prettier to look at!"

- That was one line of an argument I submitted to someone this weekend about why I'm Grinchy. When you spend entire weeks and eventually entire years of your life looking at pigments and daubs and brushstrokes of colors, you start to get a feel of what is attractive to you optically. I've got my optical allurements down pat: Blacks and whites over browns, always. Jewel tones over pastels.  Contrasting colors will always catch my eye better than well-behaved, blended, harmonious colors. Grey is in fact my favorite color, because of the peculiar power it has to make every other color that it is laid down next to just POP. I love contrast all the way around, which is probably the reason I am so obsessed with the painter Gene Davis, see his picture above. Full of contrasts- each color is laid next to another that will make its edges shimmer.  In short, I like my colors to convey action, daring, boldness, and honesty. It can be argued that even my color tastes convey a sense of my summer-obsession (wow. That sentence reads like something straight out of one of my research papers. Meh. I'm leaving it in.). Winter you just sit around in the house looking at the murky mix of brown, green, and red. Bleeeeeeeeeeeeeeh.

Pretty as they might have been, you may have noticed when you first arrived on this blog today that I took down the post-colonial ballerinas from the top of my blog and replaced them with blue, which has then, as is customary, been overlaid by my favorite bright yellow title. I feel right at home with this arrangement.

Guess what? There's an art story to go with the above blue. A good story. This blue has a name: IKb, pronounced "ick-Bee" (which also happens to be the name of a beta fish residing on the GW Art History Dept's front desk). IKb, which stands for International Klein Blue, was invented last century.  Yes, that's right. The color was invented by the French artist Yves Klein (well, no, it was invented by chemists, under Klein's supervision. Then he humbly named it after himself.) Yves Klein is an interesting character in the history of modern art, and his IKblue stands as one of his most crowning achievements. In fact, if I had to put money on what art history books fifty years from now will still say about him, I would bet that he's going down for his use of IKb. This IKb color is made of a pigment suspended in a chemical so that there's pretty much NO reflection coming off a canvas covered in it. Looking at his monochrome blue paintings is like looking at velvet, or the sky, or something. You know how velvet just looks... deeper and shadowy-er than other materials? Yea. Very cool effect. Not reproducible on a computer, but the above was a fairly decent approximation.

One of the most vivid memories I took away from my modern art class at BYU, the first upper-level art history class I ever took, was my Professor Magleby showing us pictures of Yves Klein at work and then announcing, "And here we have Yves Klein, I can't stand him. Such a misogynist. Moving on..." and then we moved on to someone else.

Kind of shocking, you'd think, for a teacher to dismiss someone currently deemed very important to the arc of art history! (The Hirshhorn, in fact, has a giant retrospective of Yves Klein's career coming up I think next year). But when I tell you that the picture Magleby had put up was a picture of Yves Klein, dressed in a tux complete with white gloves, standing over a white-paper-covered floor and ordering around nude women covered in IKb (all done in front of an audience), you may understand. Bleeeeeeeeh.

Nevertheless, like I said, interesting character, which makes for a historically resilient artist. Klein had lots of crazy post-modern ideas about art. He started with these "anthropomorphisms": the paintings of naked people's imprints on canvases (sometimes he'd do these himself... so I guess he can't be labeled a complete jerk). Sometimes Klein would paint with certain chemicals on specially prepared surfaces and then set the whole thing on fire, just to see how the paints changed (see left image,
Untitled fire color painting, 1962, Charred dry pigment in synthetic resin with metallic paint on asbestos-coated paper on board, from the MOMA collection). Klein also did lots of photomontages where it looks like he's leaping off buildings or doing other crazy feats. He had interests in Judo, Oriental philosophy, and the hereafter. In addition, he was probably a total misogynist; the whole ordering women around was a conceptual stunt meant to show off that artists in the sixties, in the now, didn't even NEED to touch the canvas to be considered artists anymore. Whatever, dude. Happy that his time has passed. But he did leave an imprint (I joke!) and a color behind him, a pretty summery color, so he has earned this tiny mention on my blog. And now, it's finals week, and I am putting the finishing touches on my massive essay about Manet. After I have recovered a few of my currently-comatose brain cells, I'll tell you about The Railway. Next time. :) Have a great week everyone!

FEMINISM.

That's quite the loaded title, huh? I guess I've always known I would have to unpack my thoughts about that subject (slash methodology) sometime, and, for several reasons you are about to understand, today is that day. The writer's fire is burning me up, and it's burning pink. :)

I am not a feminist. Not really. It feels so wrong to write that down, but it's important to start off there. This morning, when I glanced at the mobile I have hanging in my room-- a little contraption of coat hangers, string, photos, and postcards I collected on my European study abroad-- a strange pattern jumped out at me. Of the ten pictures I've got spinning around in little orbits, seven of them feature women. 70%. I had seven women gazing out at me this morning. I hung them there two years ago upon my return from my glorious art history study abroad in Europe. Obviously, though I might not have been cognizant of it, the idea of womanhood meant something to me.

Johannes Vermeer, Girl with Pearl Earring

Matthias Grunewald, The Concert of Angels and The Nativity


Sandro Botticelli, Venus and Mars


Nicolas de Stael, Portrait d'Anne (Can you see her in there??)


Postcard of Marie Antionette from Versailles


Photo of the sculptor Camille Claudel, who has one of the most tragic and epic stories in all of art history- I fell in love with her story way back in my freshman Humanities class.

Alfred Stevens, Mary Magdalene

I'm refraining from completing the second half of my post about Manet's The Railway this week in order to talk about feminism. Tiny juicy piece of gossip, though: the model Manet uses in The Railway (the model of the older girl) was a famous mid-19th-century socialite and prostitute named Victorine Meurant. She also happened to be the mistress of Alfred Stevens, who painted the hauntingly beautiful picture of Mary Magdalene above. Fun connections!!!

If you caught me offguard and asked me my opinion about feminists, I'd no doubt respond in the same tongue-in-cheek way that the Marxist art historian T. J. Clark did: to me, they're "shrill" characters. And sometimes I think their energy is mis-focused and borders on greed,

Then... if you prod me further, and make me think about it, I'll remember and admit that my field, art history, actually owes a huge debt to feminists. Their work, their determination, changed the way we look at art. They pointed out to the unconscious public that it set WAAAAAY too much store in artwork made by "geniuses," who all turned out to be men. White, rich men that all knew each other. (Tangent: in my opinion, genius is not even a real trait. You've got skill, both inborn and developed, and then there's usually luck involved... and showmanship and business acumen and pure passion and tenacity. THOSE things are responsible for the world's great art. Not some mystically-instilled germ of genius that infects only a sliver of the population. Such a notion is purely the construct of a romanticized history.)

Feminists were the first people to point out that there are other things, other people with unique stories, that are worth studying. What about the daughter of an artist who was denied the ability to study like men but managed to slip her art into her father's fray anyways? (Her name was Artemisia Gentileschi). What about slaves who did not have access to training or museum collections at all, but focused their creative energy and skills on quilt-making, the only media they had at their disposal?

Feminists were the first group of intellectuals to call attention to the fact that our society carries a viral amount of institutional biases. They highlighted very interesting flaws in academia's working vocabulary and tools of analysis. The landmark feminist art text is titled Old Mistresses... which in and of itself points out an immediate, unfortunate difference in society's perception of the two genders. How far the gap is between "Old Master" and "Old Mistress"!! Do you see what they're driving at yet? :) If you get nothing else from feminism, let it be this lesson: there's so much more out there to see and do and understand and appreciate than society and history currently advocates!

But I've been talking about feminism in art history. Feminism in general is an overarching study of how being female impacts your life and the world, and I can't think of a time in history where there is a bigger need for such research. Everything vital to our gender is currently under intense scrutiny and even assault by the world at large: Family structure. Integrity. Chastity. Lady-like grace (see every image of Lindsay Lohan ever published for bad examples). Love. Safety. Independence. Motherhood.

The main reason for this post today was my discovery that my alma mater, Brigham Young University, is severely cutting back (and potentially disbanding) its Women's Research Institute. By doing so, as a colleague on facebook noted, my school is essentially confirming the institutional bias that Accounting and MFHD are the only true lifepaths worth pursuing. PSH. I'm really disappointed with BYU for this decision (although I'm sure there are at least a few legit reasons for it, including lack of budget, interest, and/or qualified professors.) But I can't help but think of the times I've succeeded at that school, how good I felt when I worked hard, and how many girls all over the world lack that same feeling of confidence and hope. I have always been so proud of my school for their international educational focus, for the seriousness with which the faculty and staff takes the mandate to bring light to the world. (There's a link to petition for you to sign if you agree with me at the bottom of this post, in the pink box).

I don't judge or hate men for doing what they're doing, and I firmly believe that gender, and gender differences, are God-given and should be celebrated. Most importantly, I feel that the best and purest achievements of humanity only come when all the disparate parts of our race-- the different sexes, education levels, ethnicities, languages, interests, temperaments, etc.-- work together, something even the field of feminism, colorful though it may be, is very, very right about advocating. (Ps Baby-making! The perfect example of us working togeter to achieve great things! hee hee hee :) People only find their deepest, most satisfying peace when honestly, diligently pursuing the path God has laid out for them. I am grateful for that knowledge, though it comes with great responsibility.

I want to close with a story, one I wish BYU understood better. This is the story of one of the most aha! moments of my entire internship at the Hirshhorn. It is within this story that I hope you will see the need for the research and ideas that organizations like the Women's Research Institute puts forward:

I participated in a 6-week training course to be an Interpretive Guide while at the Hirshhorn (remember how I used to stroll the galleries 12 hours a week and talk to strangers about the art? Yea. That.) Me, four other college students, four older (aka age 55-75) long-time docents (all women, and all hilarious!), and two full-time education staffers all congregated every Monday to discuss the Louise Bourgeois exhibition, and the different methodologies we could use to encourage people to think about her art. The most interesting conversation we as a group ever had, hands down, was when we looked at Louise Bourgeois' art through feminism. The conversation turned to feminism itself, and it was soon discovered that all five of the younger participants were reluctant to claim any adherence to feminism as a belief system. Like I said, it's shrill.

The older ladies were AGHAST. They truly could not believe we eschewed advocacy for womens' rights. "You don't understand," explained the eldest docent, "when I was a newly divorced mother I had to undergo birth control and pregnancy tests before they would even consider me for my house loan!!!" (Can you believe that?? Such an appalling invasion of privacy!!) It was such an interesting dynamic in that classroom; a really tense atmosphere for quite a while, as us the young and they the old poked and prodded each others' stands regarding activism, propriety, and womanhood. Eventually I could see the other ladies start to form this contemptuous assumption in their minds: "Oh. They aren't feminists yet because they haven't NEEDED to be."

I decided to be the brave young one to attempt a reconciliation, especially since the topic was veering towards a veneration of Roe v. Wade as the supreme moment of liberation and triumph for feminism, something I disagree with. "You know," I started, "I think there are various types of feminism today, and our younger generation works within those, without realizing it. I can totally recognize that we build upon the achievements of your generation and we are so thankful for that! I belong to the largest women's organization in the world, and it's called the Relief Society, it's part of my church. Its members meet together weekly all over the world to teach one another about family skills and avoiding domestic abuse. It's also where we make friends and celebrate God, who loves his daughters." Silence reigned for a few seconds. I couldn't believe I'd just said that. I usually let my religion lie low in my art circles, because Mormonism has way too many stereotypes that I don't like people judging me by (it's always a fun moment when art friends find out I'm Mormon LATER, after getting to know ME. I can see their eyes widen as they realize actual Mormons don't conform to stereotypes). Tangent.

The older ladies grudgingly assented to my olive branch of sorts. I swallowed my surprise that the first time I "came out" about my religion was related to feminism of all things. And that moment became the turning point in the day's discussion. Feminism, it was agreed, can analyze and celebrate many different aspects of womanhood. In my final opinion (phew! I've given you a lot today!), its greatest moment of success is when the little people, the regular participants of every-day life, open their minds a little bit and discover their innate ability to stand up for themselves and move forward and do something great, all thanks to that knowledge and confidence they gained from considering gender differences, qualities, and achievements.

This is hilarious, and a fitting final image:



Congrats if you made it through this. You are the few, the brave, the enlightened, and, for lack of a better word, the SEXY!!! Hahahahahaha. Also, it begs to be stated: feminism is not for the ladies alone. I am so appreciative of the many men in my life who take the time to respect women and all the unique things we are capable of. Like I said, we work better when we work together!!

Update: after reading over a lot of the official BYU press releases on this decision, I've come to the conclusion that this move is simply bad taste on the part of the administration, who sees the WRI as a derelict flagship. Time and again they assure the public that funds for research will be more widely available, and I sure hope that will really be the case! Good luck to them.

I finally understand sculptor Henry Moore!

(*UPDATE: I'm feeling a little bit sheepish now. Consider this post a vent session, which in no way reflects my actual ability to compose art historical writings. "My mom reads this, professor, I swear! It was a humorous sketch for HER alone!!! I'M SORRY I PROFANED THE NAME HENRY MOORE!")

Henry Moore was a prophet. He looked into the future, saw the convoluted mush of Lindsey C_______'s brain this midterm week, then returned to the 20th century with his new inspiration safely stowed away in his memory and chiseled it into marble and wood and stone! Quel genius!

Why no, I don't think it's narcissistic of me to discover in myself his inspiration. The man, this most famous of British Modernist sculptors, was an educator: a professor of art at the Royal College of Art in London (late 1920's-ish). Naturally, he will have had sympathy for and an affinity with students. Probably, he had to suffer through the same types of philosophical readings as I am in order for him to teach modern art correctly (hee hee hee... you all always suspected modern sculpture was just messing with your brain!! Truth be told, the philosophers messed with ours first, and that's how it all got started. Modern art can be seen as the history of intellectual dementia).

Sure, the other phD-toting art historians will tell you hum-drum stories called facts about Henry Moore. They'll tell you "he particularly admired the sculptures of ancient cultures, [and] believed in creating a visual language appropriate to the twentieth century." They'll assertively and persuasively inform you that he used his sculptures to explore and embody abstract concepts like "monumentality" and "surrealist biomorphism." Sure, those art historians might have primary, secondary, and visual sources to back up their claims. But I just feel instinctively that I am right about these jumbles of shapes mirroring the look and feel of my brain right now!!

Later in life, after WWII, Henry Moore switched to a more figurative (translation: more human looking) style. He even dwelt on the theme of family quite a bit (hooray!). This fact is quite in line with my thesis. Just as I will (hopefully) emerge from the devastation of this week's 11-hour-a-day hw sessions with a renewed desire to make myself more figurative and human-looking again, and just as I will redeem a beautiful priceline.com ticket and go home to Utah and Vegas this weekend and see my family, so Henry Moore sculpted/prophesied my next week in the second half of his career (see later work at right for an example).

I state again, Henry Moore is a prophet. He knew and still knows where my mind is evolving, and put it into physical form. Genius. (Can you tell I'm a bit little cracked right now??)

I'd like to thank and acknowledge Dr. Valerie Fletcher, senior curator at the Hirshhorn, for allowing me to quote her thoughtful investigation* of this important 20th-century sculptor. And I'd also to like to remind you that my opinion is better and cooler :P I'd also like to put up a few other images that I think also accurately illustrate my mental state right now:

These images are courtesy of thisiswhyyourefat.com, Drew Shumway Should Really Stop Complaining So Much (my favorite facebook group that I don't actually belong to), and Google image search. The book I'm reviewing right now is currently trying to convince me that art historical writing is like a spiderweb: "a confusion of umbra and penumbra, a picture whose naturalism is inseparable from its internal coherence."** Hey. Author. YOU'RE a spidery confusion of coherence... trailing off.... mutter.... Ok I have to go back to work. Anyone else want to tell me what visual symbols their minds or hearts or other various appendages of import look like right now? Spencer I know might give me the picture of a blender for his brain, poor guy. Keep up the good work!

*Valerie J. Fletcher. "in depth: Henry Moore." Adapted from The Human Figure Interpreted: Modern Sculpture from the Hirshhorn Museum (1995). http://hirshhorn.si.edu/visit/in_depth.asp?key=33&subkey=102 accessed 10/11/2009.

** James Elkins. Our Beautiful, Dry, and Distant Texts. Pennsylvania State University Press. University Park: PA. Pg. 225. This really is a good book, even if it's over my head. I emailed the author this week and asked him a question about it, which he responded to promptly and kindly! I felt like a kid who's just gotten a signature from Mickey Mouse at Disneyland.


One more note and then I absolutely HAVE to get back to work [sound of my heels dragging goes HERE]. In my art history class at BYU where we actually had to DO all the different art styles that we would soon be evaluating (awesome class!), the teacher used Henry Moore for our sculpture assignment. We were given rough blocks of alabaster and told to make something out of them that looked organic, or biological. HOURS later, my hands were rough, raw, cracked, and bleeding, and my "sculpture" looked decidedly more like a piece of rock with several edges beveled off. I have a testimony that Henry Moore was the MAN and that this was hard work! The end.

Trailers & The Origin of Happiness, Brought to You by the NY Times

Seeing as how 100% of my female friends' blogs have featured links to the movie trailers of either Where the Wild Things Are or Whip It in the last 2 months (PASS on both for me!), I'm taking it upon myself to infuse the Internet with my own cinematic enthusiasm for something else! Something different and classy. Here are just a few select words about this film, Coco Before Chanel, taken from this Friday's New York Times' review:

Audrey Tautou, biopic, orphanage, 20th-century social mores, "The blossoming of her ambition," brutal candor, and PG-13.

WIN WIN WIN! I don't care what you say. It's gonna be good.

Confession: although I'm pretty darn sure they don't really care, I always love to flaunt the fact that I read the New York Times to my dad and my cuz Michael Brown, my two favorite hardcore conservatives. (Once in a while they humor me with a mock round of consternation). I read "Satan's rag" in the name of being well-rounded, informed, a little closer to "edgy," and last but not least: because I genuinely regard this paper as unmatched in terms of intellectual depth, robust questioning, and journalistic talent. (Dad wants me to add: and liberal eco-communism)

Back in May, for example, NYTimesOnline published an article by philosopher Simon Critchley entitled Happy Like God (full text HERE) that may or may not have changed my life! I have wanted to discuss its ideas ever since I first read it; I probably think about this article and its contents weekly still, four months later.

Aristotle says that "Happiness is the solitary life of contemplation." How many of you balk at that statement? I certainly did. Happy=solitary??? No way man. Most of my happiest memories entail a lot of familiar smiling faces! (and sunshine, and fast engines, and face cards*), but wait just a second. Mr. Critchley puts up a good fight. He describes the sensation of "reverie," as experienced by the philosopher Rousseau. Floating on a little rowboat in the middle of a lake in his homeland of Switzerland, Rousseau found perfect inner contentment just studying and delighting in the moments as they passed, thinking of nothing else. This is a more lasting and fulfilling state of mind, apparently. As I've thought more and more about this peculiar idea of mini, mental, and super-charged happiness, I've realized that I have had a few of these "reveries." They're tiny flashes, single seconds sometimes, where I don't do anything else, just grin. Unusually crystal clear in my memory, often for the oddest reasons, they DO have the peculiar power to warm me up just as much if not more than all the combined memories of, say, the hours playing Flip Over Tens at the CCC Cabin (one of my favorite activities growing up. :)

Most recent example: this weekend. Saturday, after volunteering a long 5 hours at the Hirshhorn at a children's art workshop (on a busted ankle, no less), I finished cleaning up the ArtLab, then walked-slash-limped around the sculpture garden and out onto a bench on the National Mall, where they had some "Festival of the Book" going on.

And I thought to myself, "This is home." A grin slowly spread across my face. My home. Not collapse-on-a-mattress-kick-off-your-shoes home, but perfectly-content-state-of-mind home. In that moment, I could have stayed there forever; by myself, with other people, I didn't care. I was happy! Gordon Bunshaft's impressive cylinder of a museum is at once imposing, interesting, familiar, and enfolding to me. I have friends and colleagues at that museum that challenge and esteem me. It is where I cut my art history teeth, and it's where I confirmed the fact that contemporary and modern art is my arena, my power alley. Earlier that morning I had enjoyed walking back through those doors, being greeted by name by one of my favorite security guards, seeing the new Nick Cave sound suit (at right), and helping kids see colors and shapes and themselves through artists' eyes. All these elements combined and welled up into that moment of sheer bliss on the Mall! I'm thinking (and hoping) that that memory will be good enough to sustain me through the long months of kid-herding at the NBM yet to come.

For those that are interested, it is in fact an actual suit. Nick Cave creates these fantastic... well, you don't even call them costumes, they're artworks! Google for more of them, they're crazy! When the artist has a show, he and other performers walk gingerly around IN them. This piece (sans human occupant) is one of the Hirshhorn's newer purchases, and it is such a delightful pastiche of kitsch, found objects, postcolonial disdain for high art, and glittering fantasticalness!! I almost made like a two year old and dashed up on its pedestal to touch it when I first saw it.

My point is, there are all types of happy. This philosopher in the NY Times wanted to hierachicize them, using the absence of any other impinging thoughts as the marker of the highest happiness. I'm still not sure I can agree with him on that, but it's made for great food for thought these last couple of months. I'm more inclined to take note now when I feel at ease, or devoid of worry, or totally glowing, and to call myself happy therein.

And life is good today. That's pretty much the end of this speech. Have a great week!

*Other loves: lakes, mountains, shirtless boys, possibility of injury, thumping beats, skating, cheering, getting cool points for being one of the few girls that will go do the crazy stunts, the Danvillans.............. I know the following video totally defies the above thesis on alone-happy-times, but I don't care. It is everything I love and miss about Utah and Santa B and SUMMER and I have watched it more times than I want to admit this week. Wish I was there. Enjoy! (My buddy Dan, the one in the yellow shorts who does a gainer with his bike, is the video artist. Genius. I may or may not have started humming this beat under my breath in sacrament meeting today when the speaker mentioned things that make us happy):

Some Times

Sometimes...

You discover that it's not in anyone's best interest to find flaws with loved ones. Because then you must say you're sorry. And mean it!

Sometimes...

You discover you have a friend where you least expected one.

Sometimes...

You call it a victory if you can hold it all in until you walk through your door at the end of the day.

Sometimes...

You end your internship at a museum you've come to respect, with a boss you've come to love and admire.

Sometimes...

You send your resumes out into the wind like so many autumn leaves, completely unsure of where they will land and which ones will pay off.

Sometimes....

Life keeps going on. So you take afternoon walks on the Mall, or laugh with the bus driver, or bake cookies with your roomies and the last of your earthly food supplies.

And at all times...

You must remember who you are, and whose you are.

DC Lyndz, former intern, signing out.

ABC's de ME. Et apres moi, le deluge..d'ART.

(It means, ABC's of Me. And after me, the flood... of ART. I'm paraphrasing King Louis XIV of France, you'll see why presently...)

A: Attached or Single: Single

B: Best Friend: Breann Hewitt (since high school!), Jessica Brothers (collegiate)

C: Cake or Pie: PECAN PIE! unless it's really a good funfetti cake...

D: Day of Choice: Sunday, with Saturday as an honorable mention.

E: Essential items: Bowls of cereal, cell phone, BLANKIES!, oil-blotting sheets, metro card, and Money (boo...)

F: Favorite Color: Green and Grey

G: Gummy Bears or Worms: Sour worms!!!

H: Home Town: Las Vegas

I: Indulgences: Overpriced, exotic meals/outings with friends. That's where my money goes. You only live single once, that's my excuse.

J: January or July: July, easy.

K: Kids: Once I find them a choice daddy, yes.

L: Life is incomplete without: The Gospel, my family, sunshine, bodies of water, something to learn about, adventures.

M: Marriage Date: hahahaha- well, my freshman year of college I decided I'd like to be married on 7/7/07. My conciliatory prize was a study abroad to Europe that summer, so I'm not too upset about missing that boat :) I guess I'll shoot for 11/11/11 now.

N: Number of Siblings: 2 little brothers, 2 little sisters

O: Oranges or Apples: Yellow apples. Oranges are a hassle.

P: Phobias: Ledges (I'm not scared of heights, I just get scared being on the edges of things... is there a name for that?)

Q: Quote: I love them. Here's a few:

“Expect nothing. Live frugally/on surprise.” -Alice Walker poem, and

"You miss 100% of the shots you don't take." -Wayne Gretzky, and

"Just heard news. No more bobby sox! Girls dresses to grow decidedly longer! Dignity everywhere." -I found this line in a letter from Minerva Teichert to her little sister in 1946. I don't know why I find it so funny!

R: Reasons to smile: SUMMER APPROACHING, boys with broad shoulders and rakish hair, cute little people on the metro

S: Season: SUMMER! THERE IS NO OTHER.

T: Tag: No. I'm not that girl.

U: Unknown fact about me: I just quit Facebook!!!

V: Vegetarian or Meat Eater: Vegetarian, if only because meat is expensive. When I get back to getting a paycheck, I shall return to being an omnivore.

W: Worst Habit: According to two very irritated brothers, I talk in a shrill baby voice sometimes. I swear I don't know when I'm doing it.

X: X-rays: Multiple head ones from breaking my nose while longboarding and undergoing sinus surgery; also from going to the dentist regularly.

Y: Yummy favorite food: I love sugar so much. I fear diabetes worse than death. :) Movie theater popcorn, peppermint ice cream, and oatmeal cookie dough round out the top 3.

Z: Zodiac sign: Cancer. Go crabs.

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Yes, I picked up an all-about me list from another blog. I normally never complete these... but this one was cute, with its little ABC twist. So there you go.

Art? Ok.

This is a new acquisition by the Hirshhorn, now on display in the Strange Bodies exhibition, which chronicles the various ways modern and contemporary art has manipulated the age-old subject of the human body. The show illustrates how 20th and 21st century artists have changed the body to express their own inner emotions, to diagram some "truth" about the human experience, to portray a political or social wrong perpetrated by and inflicted on humans, or to capture the irreverence and hilarity of modern life, and the changing notions of things like beauty, heroism, and the individual.

Yinka Shonibare MBE (which stands for Member of the British Empire, a title he was recently rewarded). The Age of Enlightenment- Antoine Lavoisier. 2008. Before I tell you what this piece is made out of, just look at it for a second, and take note of what stands out to you. Any questions arise?

"Fiberglass mannequin, Dutch wax printed cotton, mixed media." That's the official media tag line, as copied from The Age of Enlightenment's label in the gallery, four floors below me. Yinka Shonibare, the artist, who was born in England and raised in Nigeria, likes to re-imagine famous scenes from Western art and history... but he includes certain media and sculptural characteristics that hint at something more than just a portrait, something that reveals his "post-colonial hybrid" outlook on life (his words, not mine). The above work is his 3-D adaption of a famous portrait of the French chemist, politician, and economist named Antoine Lavoisier. The original portrait was painted by the French artist-to-the-aristocratic-stars, Jacques-Louis David, seen here ->

The brightest standout for me, when I first started researching this work back in Januray, was the costume the mannequin is wearing. Turns out, Shonibare's signature style is his use of Dutch wax batik textiles, which you might have mistaken for traditional African garb. Historically, those bright, crazily printed fabrics were originally manufactured in Holland, and shipped for trade to Indonesia. After meeting with low consumer demand there, the fabrics were consequentially exported to (aka dumped on) the poor African colonies, from whence most people assume they originally came. Shonibare replaces the stately fabrics of his aristocratic subjects with the materials his ancestors would have been wearing at the same time, thanks to the domineering economics of European colonialism. Hmm...

Another feature you might notice is the wheelchair. Antoine Lavoisier the chemist was never crippled; Yinka Shonibare likes to give all his historical figures some type of disability, as a shout-out to today's level of awareness for disabilities, and as a call for further accessibility. One month into his first year at art school, you see, Shonibare contracted a rare viral disease that left him paralyzed, and only after three years of physical therapy did he regained use of his right side. He remains disabled to this day, and contracts out the actual sewing of his costumes to a costumier. Learning all of this, I immediately wonder how history might have been changed, and what other stories we might have grown up with, if people with disabilities back then could have had the opportunity to function as equals, like he does now. How would they have changed the world? (I love how this work unfolds as you learn the story.)

The mannequin is headless, another typical feature of Shonibare's tableaux. In the Hirshhorn's work, however, this has special consequence, as Antoine Lavoisier was guillotined in the French Revolution. It becomes to me a marker of violence, of politics, and of the anonymity of crime.

Now, you know me, and how I have strong opinions about modern art. I tell you when I don't like it. I tell my bosses, too. It has been a joy to study and consider this piece, for not only does it speak out in bold, playful, and unassailing terms about race, colonialism, and disabilities, it does so with flair! It's a beautiful, arresting work. I've been waiting all five months of my internship to finally see it (I researched it in January, they didn't display it until last week!). Here's two more examples of his works, I get such a kick out of them:

^The artist himself, with a miniature mock-up of his ship-in-a-bottle, with Dutch wax-print sails, that will occupy the presitgious fourth plinth at Trafalgar Square, outside the National Gallery in London. *Because mom asked for clarification: there are four plinths, or big statue bases, the lie by the big steps that come down from the National Gallery into the Trafalgar Plaza (Yes, the plaza with the lions we tourists love to climb). Every year, they select one British artist to design a work to go on the fourth, empty, plinth. In 2010, Shonibare's giant ship will take over that spot, the first time a black British artist has been given this honor.

MOMS!

Aren't they neat?

I can't write enough about my mom, EVER, and so I won't. I'll save the thoughts in my heart and tell them to her privately. Suffice it to say, I would not, could not be the person I am without her incredible love and sustained example. Thank you, Mom. I love you. And thank you to the other wonderful women in my life who have acted as caring mentors and taught me important life lessons about service, courage, love, and faith: my aunts, grandmothers, sisters, cousins, and friends. I consider myself richly blessed in the women department. (If only I could say the same about the other department... hehe. Ahem.) Thank you all. How amazing you are.

I sifted through the Hirshhorn's files for art works bearing the title "Mother." Not one of them fit the bill for the type of indescribable beauty and awe I feel for the position of Mother. The closest my modern art museum got to the warm cuddly aura I was seeking was this little fella, hee hee:

Daughter and Mother. 1959. Bronze. Thanks, Max Ernst. You tried. But that looks like a salt shaker set. I hereby dub the long, slender, beautiful one my mom! When I was little I totally felt like that little stubby one with the dog collar thing around her neck. Little Lindsey, following her mom around, hoping she gets to look like her one day.

No, that just won't do.

A painting that comes closer to what I'm seeking (which my art history friends should all recognize):

Mary Cassatt, The Bath, 1893. An American in post-Monet Paris, Mary Cassatt is widely known for her simple, evocative, delightfully patterned pictures of domestic life. Women art historians especially appreciate her for the way she spun the tale of womens' lives in a harmonious, pleasing style (there were other women artists working around that time, just like today, who felt the need to emphasize the stifling effects of child rearing. Tsk.) Incidentally, mom, remember when I taught you about Matisse's picture of his wife, The Green Stripe? And how I told you how she looked like an Asian warrior because all things Japanese were in vogue in Paris at the end of the nineteenth century? This painting by Mary Cassatt illustrates the type of fashionable composition style that artists picked up thanks to the newly opened trade agreements with Asia. From Japanese woodblock prints they learned how to flatten the picture plane and include more things in one scene. To see what I mean, look at how the floor slopes up to meet the wall behind the mom at a rather impossible angle, to the point where it all looks like one shallow space. It makes the sweet tenderness of the scene just go BAM! right in your face. Thanks, Japan!

But that picture still won't do. I need something that lights up my eyes, that I see and go, "YEA! MOMS! THEY'RE AWESOME!"

Behold:

Eric and Ann C_________ at their wedding reception, 198...3? :) One of my most favorite pictures of my parents ever. Dad looks like a Las Vegas magician- "Presto! I just pulled the world's most beautiful woman out of thin air!" and mom delivers what I like to call her "Queen of the Universe Smile." Anyone who's met her probably recognizes it. All at once it communicates to us her modesty, her joy, how she is delighted with her life, the way she always seeks to share her happiness with others, and certainly, her beauty. It's truly a great work of art.

Things That Keep Me Calm

"Have fun in DC. It's the most wild, energetic, intellectual city, and completely obsessed with itself, but for good reason."

My dad told me that shortly before I left. Another friend warned something about "the cold-hearted and over-ambitious" I'd be up against here. Those two phrases still pop up in my mind occasionally as I continue my adventure. Grr.

As a temporary respite for such a prickly day-to-day (ps thank you my friends who encouraged me at the end of last week's post. All women, if I remember correctly. I'm grateful for your support), here are images of Things That Keep Me Calm, because my life feels like anything but at the moment:


The Giver: My current read on the Metro ride to and from work. How have I never read this book?? I've heard of it all my life, but definately never read it! It's beautiful! I love that it's written with such clarity and depth that even a child can grasp its emotional implications. Thank heavens for liberty and agency. And colors.

My Cell Phone (aka my lifeline). Notice the absence of a camera on my baby. Or even an earphone jack. Or a touchscreen. So simple! I'm very prideful about that... although I must admit, I am smitten with envy everytime I dabble with my friends' awesome iPhones, if only for their GPS ability...


The now very familiar curving walls of the Hirshhorn Galleries, where I stroll for hours at a time, acting as a sounding board for visitors while they work through their experiences with modern and contemporary art. "Modern art is a riddle, and there is no one answer." -MM (yes, I've been blog-stalking.)

Any meal eaten with chopsticks. Why? 1. They're usually 10x as aesthetically pleasing as sloppy American take-out, or the blah-nothingness I throw together for myself tiredly at the end of the day 2. Sushi, Asian fusion, and other non-western menu items fill me up without subjecting me to the customary 2500 calorie serving size I'd ingest at Chili's. 3. I miss Sarah Oh. 4. There's something contemplative and peaceful required of you when you eat with chopsticks. No wonder ninjas are so wise.

Sunshine. Makes this desert girl a happy camper. (Haven't seen any for a while, it's been raining for what feels like a week straight... and I STILL don't own an umbrella!)

Self-explanatory. Or is it? My friends, this is the Mormon Temple in DC. We go there to do service, and every tiny aspect of it, be it the clothes we wear (simple white, a great equalizer), the ceremonies we participate in, or the feeling it brings you (clarity, peace) helps bring us closer to our loving God. Truly a little gateway to heaven.

My first love in DC: The metro system. Arched, soft-grid ceilings; a gently lit, hexagon-tiled floor; incredible daily people watching... and the roller-coaster-like rush and boom sounds of the constant influx of speeding trains. It's glorious. PS. the Foggy-Bottom/GWU stop is one I'll frequent a lot when and if I start my Master's in the fall. Hee hee.

Other calming influences without photos:

~ Counting my blessings.
~ Service.

~ Blogging. (D@#% it, I think I'm used to that word! My gosh I used to hate it!)
~ Watching the Caps hockey playoffs from the comfort of a friends' Lovesac.

~ Institute.

~ My big baggy BYU sweats (6 years old and I STILL offer a silent prayer of thanks to the universe everytime I pull them on.)

~ Formalist art. There's nothing to it but lines, colors, and shapes. Google Frank Stella and Morris Louis if you want a peek.

Elegant Stress

Lindsey is out of the frying pan and into the fire. I think there's a rock and a hard place in there, too. What a week and a half!

To recap: I went back to Provo last week to walk across the stage and receive my shining white diploma cover (I was mailed the diploma itself in January :) I'm on the last month of my internship at the Hirshhorn. I didn't get the job that I coveted here (though I gave it an incredible shot and it felt good to try. And one of the senior staff members sent me a kind email basically telling me, "Good game. Try again after you get a couple years' experience under your belt.") I got into my #1 pick for grad school, The George Washington University's Art History Master's program. I can start in the fall. But I am really getting disconcerted by the level of debt my studies will accrue, and the fact that there is absolutely no promise of employment, or hire-ability (especially not in this economic climate) once I graduate. The idea of taking a full-time job and hugging tight to its stable salary and health insurance coverage winks alluringly my way.

Be timid, employed, and resourceful. Follow your dreams and get wildly into debt. Oh what a tangled web we weave... when first our dreams we try to achieve!! Any advice, family?

Other thoughts and ideas bouncing around the fire with me: Virginia is beautiful in the spring. Greener that any place I've ever lived in. Truly, this is the first location I can ever remember where I can watch things grow, and grow wildly, without a human hand begging them forward. Daffodils, my favorite flowers, dot every long stretch of grass that runs intermittently alongside the 395 beltway. There are four trees outside my third floor window (they’re my morning breakfast companions). Two weeks ago they all flowered pink, and when I came home from Utah they had switched to a full-bodied, emerald green foliage. I recently read in one of my many art reviews (or was it a political essay? Aah I absorb so many of both out here!) how culture and science have replaced a connection with nature and religiosity in the modern life. SUCH A SHAME!

Elegant Stress. That's what I named this post. The present, er MY present, is one giant kaleidoscope of beauty, temptation, clarity, dreams, fragility, loneliness, AWESOME memories, glamour, frustration, and opportunity! Somewhere in there is a lot of love, but it's really hard to feel it out here in DC sometimes. Now I know, I know… stop whining!!! I'm incredibly thankful for my time in Provo, and all the playtime I got with family and my amazing friends there! And I am so grateful that I have exciting opportunities headed my way. I just need to decide, and enjoy the ride. In Provo I drank in the now-rare experience of being surrounded by people who share my ideals, who love life the way I do and are working hard and calling on God the same way I am. I ran around a dark cabin playing sardines with my friends for hours on end. I got to hug almost all of my BFFs, and I got to dance with all the Browns twice! Once at my graduation party (Thanks Aunt Betty and Uncle Gary! As always, you’re AMAZING!) and once at Jonathan’s wedding (congrats!). There’s something magical and timeless about being around people who will buy me a mug just because they think the cute saying on it resembles my handwriting. Or who will give me a card they bought three years ago because they noticed it made fun of art history degrees. Hee hee- I love you all!

And then I fly back to DC, and the warm fuzzy of Provo evaporates. Underdog, Lindsey! Underdog! You’ve got to fight! Immediately I am inundated with thoughts about how much there is to despise about modern life-- networking, the hideous strappy platforms currently in vogue, Obama, Obamamaniacs, Blackberrys, Bono’s ineffectual ONE campaign, Matthew Barney’s happenings in LA that ended up getting some of the crowd hurt, energy price hikes, Statist control of Congress, etc etc etc!! Boo!

Elegant, modern stress. I’m sorry. As a wise conservative once said, “Calamity is unhappily the usual season of reflection,” and I am no stranger to that tendency. ODviously. (What movie??) But as another conservative recently said (in bumper sticker form):

Annoy a Liberal: Work Hard and Be Happy!

Hee hee… no wonder the 19th century saw a resurgence of Utopian and escapist landscapes. Artists were sick of watching their countrysides turn into smoke-belching factories, as the Industrial Revolution altered Europe forever. And so they turned their paintbrushes into “Remember when…” sticks and waved them around until they were completely surrounded by cutesy pictures of peasants and ponds. Heaven forbid contemporary art do that. They’re certainly doing something these days. I don’t want to do a new artwork today. No more art. Nope, I won’t go there. I’m too tired. It’s too confusing out there…

Hee hee. Bah Humbug.

Lucas Samaras, Book No. 6 ("Treasures of the Metropolitan"), 1962. Straight pins, glue, and book in a plexiglass case on wood base.

That’s a lot of pins. And a painful read. Why do I get the feeling this artist shares my current distaste? (notice the title- why would he have chosen to cover a book from America’s most prestigious art museum with spikey pins?? Curious…)

Life is Good.

PS photos of my fabulous graduation to follow shortly. Once I upload them to my shiney new-ish work laptop. :) Have the best day ever.