Graffiti Detail

Here is a bit of graffiti detail from a local alley. This is tamed and domestic graffiti as it is placed here legally to the best of my knowledge. I think I like it better this way. I'm still not blogging much and am beginning to doubt I will ever again do much better but I'm on my holiday break so here I am! Happy Holidays.

Celebrating Spring

I'm not chatty these days but here's a collage I made.



And here's a little Song Sparrow singing his heart out in praise of Spring.

Mail Art

I'm trying to stay "relatively" off-line because I seem to have developed a repetitive motion injury--not quite carpal tunnel syndrome since it involves the ulnar nerve (the proverbial funny bone)--and I need to be careful.
Here is one of the many things I am playing with lately. Copy to be mailed off to a friend or two. Anyone else want one? Just send me an address if I don't have it already.

Me and My Pinhole

Having fun with pinhole photography. The images come out as negatives on paper and have been scanned and inverted on Photoshop. Next week I will be printing from the negatives in the dark room. I can't believe how much fun this process is!

Crafts and Arts

I've been playing with making my own little hand bound books. Nothing fancy or professional--I don't have the time, materials or skills--just little hand bound notebooks or journals, made largely out of recycled materials.
Here are a few:



These two are made from a recycled, felted sweater with liners of old sheets I salvaged from the cleaning rags. I added vintage buttons, crochet and other bits and pieces I found around the house as details.






These two are made from old coffee bags. The handles are from Starbucks brown paper bags and the clasps are buttons on one side and shell on the other. The interior paper is recycled from old calendars, graph paper, my kid's homework, paper bags and other bits and pieces from around the house.



Now all I need to figure out is what I want to do with them.

Passage of time

2010


2007

Fishy, or Enjoy Dessert

 

This post is inspired by a fellow Chicago blogger who has issued a mail art call for cards related to fish. This will be my second submission. The last one was in 2007. I'm impressed that her blog, A Fishy Requisite, is still up and running. Then again, I'm impressed that my blog is still up and running. Unfortunately the image is very low resolution. It is a collage based on part of a fish wrapper and an fortune that reads: "You deserve special treatment this month. Enjoy dessert." Thanks, I will.

I've added a few fishy photos of my own to follow the theme.





I'm home alone with my younger son who has been down with a mean version of the flu since Tuesday. I'm thinking/hoping he is beginning to improve but he still spiked a nasty fever last night. Since I'm not getting out much I'm overdosing in electronics. Too much computer and TV can't be that good for me but I've read all I can handle too. Whine, whine.

The Spanish People have a Path that Leads to a Star

This is the English translation of the name of a sculpture by artist Alberto Sanchez Perez made for the 1937 Spanish Pavilion at the World Exhibition in Paris. The Spanish pavilion was dwarfed by the grandiose Soviet and Nazi pavilions nearby which is likely a credit to Spain. Inside the pavilion was Picasso's Guernica which we saw in the Museo Reina Sofia. That is truly an amazing work of art though not one I'd like mounted in my living room over the mantel (not that it would fit).
The original of the sculpture shown here and located outside the museum was destroyed but the replica is still quite striking.



El pueblo español tiene un camino que conduce a una estrella

Drawing

Well, I haven't been blogging much. I guess I've just been busy and distracted by other things. I've read a lot of books, had a few outings, some work business and a fair bit of family-related chores. Tomorrow, youngest son goes off to camp and next week parents take advantage of the break by heading to Spain! Yup, two weeks in Madrid, Salamanca and points in between. The excuse besides having one fewer child to mind is a meeting my husband has in Salamanca. Generally, I've missed tagging along to these thing because someone has to be home to mind the kids, cats and turtles. This year older son is home and has a job he can't skip so away we go! While said spouse is at his meeting, I might climb in a car and head to Portugal. Why? Because it is there and I haven't been. Plus, I kind of miss the ocean. Of course you can expect lots of pictures.



In the meantime I picked up a book designed to help me learn to draw. Not that I have much hope. I've tried before with little success. I'm not sure which it is, lack of talent or lack of follow through. Or both.



The first assignment was to draw thirty cats. I had help on this one. My cat Dot joined me as model but she had a tendency to move too much and then turned her back on me which wasn't the best pose. I scanned the results for your viewing pleasure or at least for a good laugh at my expense.

Chagall Mosaic

Just a little bit of Chicago outdoor art.

Squares are Everywhere

A round man cannot be expected to fit in a square hole right away. He must have time to modify his shape.
Mark Twain

Here are a few more examples of squares I've found in my photographic rambles.


Tiles in a mosaic at a local high school.


Detail of an art installation at MIT--ceiling view. Games of Chance and Skill by Matthew Ritchie.

Simmons Hall, MIT

Back to the Museum

Do windows create art out of ordinary scenes?

Here are some more photos of the museum outing. Although I'm not a huge fan of modern art, the new modern gallery at the Art Institute does a lovely job of presenting the art.


Picasso and Millennium Park



I couldn't take pictures of the photography exhibit because photography (ironically) wasn't allowed but I also saw an exhibit of photos by William Eggleston. Although I didn't like all of his work, seeing original photos on display truly proved to me how much a person can miss viewing a reproduction in a book. Some of his photos, especially his portraits, had such amazing depth and texture. If you like photography, check him out.

How I Spent My Spring Break

I have lived in Chicago for 27 years now and have only visited the Art Institute a handful of times. What a waste. When I was younger I was too busy; later I had kids who had no interest in spending a few hours in a museum. Now, guess what, I still have a kid who has no interest in spending a few hours looking at art.


Ganesha, Remover of Obstacles (a useful god in my opinion)

He kindly allowed me to take him to the museum recently and then complained and spent an hour playing Game-Boy in the cafeteria. So I managed to race through the exhibits but it was still a pleasant way to spend a vacation afternoon.
I'm sharing a few pictures so you can see what my son missed.



I could see decorating a room in these O'Keefe colors. I wish I could have avoided the lens distortion in the picture. It looks as if these paintings weren't framed right!

Not blogging much and more

(Closed for Work)

I wish I could tell you why the impulse to blog just comes and goes. All I can say is that some days I just stare at my blog and nothing seems to be worth writing about.
I've been busier again. Younger son returned from a month long stay at summer camp with a cold and fever. We had a last summer trip to visit family planned and had to postpone it until we were sure the plague had run its course. My older son got a mild version of the illness but my husband and I have missed out on all the fun.
I admit to being disappointed about not going to see my family. I miss them and there is a new baby I haven't seen yet.


(Captifs, detail of sculpture by Martin van der Bogaert, in the Louvre)

--Deep breath--I wasn't sure if I could/should post this news since it isn't my story to tell but I will post an abbreviated version--a young family member was diagnosed with a rare pediatric cancer while we were in Europe. The poor baby has a tough road ahead of him--chemotherapy, radiation therapy, bone marrow transplantation, surgery and more--and even then his odds aren't the best. My heart is breaking for him and his parents. We were going to visit but we can't visit an immunosuppressed toddler while sick, obviously.
If I truly believed in the power of prayer, I'd be praying night and day for him. I don't mean I have no personal spirituality, since I do, but I don't think G-d dishes out miracles to those who pray the most. So I treat it in my usual way which is I think too much, and worry too much. Not likely to get a miracle that way either but at least I'm consistent.

Playin' @ Art

Altering--or adulterating?--an ad card. Just for fun. Because it's there. Or something.

Spring Fever

Literally, I've had a low grade fever since Friday and a cough, runny nose and assorted other cold symptoms since Monday night. I got it from my younger son who had all of the same (except for the fever) shortly before I did. He has since recovered without problem and only missed one day of school. Being older, it hit me slightly harder. I thought nothing of it other than increasing my whine factor and worked a normal week with the assistance of ibuprofen and decongestant.
Being a doctor who has always been prone to head colds, I'm pretty adept at self-medicating so I can get through a work day. Trust me, as a medical resident you work while sick. The penalties for "slacking" were just too severe. I never went to work with a significant fever but colds were just not severe enough to call in.
One of my worst was in my intern year when I had a cold and, it turned out, infections in both ears. I was half deaf and interviewing in the ER a gentleman who was paranoid psychotic. His agitation gradually increased as I regularly asked him to repeat himself. "Can you repeat that?" I'd ask. "How old did you say you are?" "Do you think I'm stupid?" He'd snap back at me, looking not stupid but seriously dangerous. "No, no," I'd assure him. "Not at all. I'm just having problems with my hearing."
In residency, we'd always circulate stories of the feverish surgical resident who would give himself IV fluids to get through a shift. I never personally witnessed this but it made for a good tale. I did get sent home for being sick once in medical school. I was rotating on obstetrics and had an eye infection. Since a couple of infectious diseases that can cause congenital defects in fetuses if the mothers catch them appear as eye infections I was not allowed to return to work until my eyes cleared up. I was quite happy to have the day off!



In spite of having spent half the past three days in bed recuperating, I am getting a few fun things done which is the double meaning of the term "spring fever." Today I sat in the back yard and enjoyed the sun. I was inspired to finish the next step of a mosaic I've been working on. I have wanted to make one for my out-door turtle enclosure which desperately needs decorating. I took a cement flagstone and arranged glass pieces on it to my liking. Today I attached them with tile adhesive and will grout when it is dry enough. Here is what it looks like so far.



The glass has an interesting story. Near my house, on the lakefront, Lake Michigan for those who live far off, the shore is largely constructed of land fill, mostly from the 1920's. Part of the fill is industrial waste and apparently some was of household garbage. There are a few bits of exposed soil apart from all the lawn and there I have found some interesting glass which has resulted in the mosaic design.

I'm always a bit hesitant to post about things I've made. It is a fundamental shyness, I guess. I fear that I will be judged as childish, untalented, foolish or vain. I've been playing around with mail art for a bit. It is fun to create my own postcards or envelopes and stick them in the mail to some semi-random stranger.
Since I cannot draw, I fool around mostly with collage, cutting and pasting interesting papers and colors until it feels done. My favorites are the ones where I add funky magazine words and phrases at random until I like the result. The one above, I did for a swap with the theme Spring. The colors are louder and, I think, more feminine, than I am prone to use but suited the topic. I am playing around with colors I don't normally like such as pink and orange in combinations that clash. I used bits of paint chip samples for most of the flowers here.
So I made myself post this as an exercise for me to get over this irrational fear of being judged. Besides it is how I'm spending some of my free time nowadays and I have to post something!
I have a cold today and am cranky. What this has to do with this post I don't know but I don't feel particularly spring-like right now. It is a gray and gloomy day as well. Sigh.

Having one of those days?

There is always someone worse off! This is a photo of a sculpture of King Lear by J. Seward Johnson.

December is the Cruelest Month

Actually T.S. Eliot said it was April, but I beg to differ. Tomorrow I leave Chicago for a much needed vacation. I'm not fleeing the snow as some might assume, I'm fleeing my job. December is the month of depression, spiritual and moral crises and physical decline. I need a break from morbidity and morbidness. I need to go where no one needs me for more than a load of wash done from time to time.
Mind you, I love my work. Honestly. But I feel drained and need my moment of replenishment. My husband feels I'm somehow addicted to vacation but he doesn't have my job.
Doing my "drive-by" photography I can turn my brain off except for scanning the scene for a good photo or an unsafe situation. Yesterday, I picked up, I humbly hope, a few good photos. I missed one of a new bird for my life list. I saw my first Kingfisher! He flew before I could cautiously park my car and gingerly climb through the piles of snow. I also saw a car go into a 360 degree spin on the highway. Fortunately no one, including myself was hurt! That was a moment to remember.
The days are going to be getting longer. Three cheers for the solstice. If I ever invent a new religion it will have to involve sun worship and long jaunts to tropical islands.

How to Paint a Mondrian

Start with one house.



Close crop the siding.



Rotate and color on Photoshop. Sample colors off reproduction of original Mondrian.



The original Mondrian:

 

Thanks to Seth, a Flickr contact, for noting the resemblance between Insulbrick (an old type of siding) and art.