Monday, December 13, 2010

You've Stollen My Heart


As i've mentioned already, winter is my least favorite time of year, and this week's freezing rain and frigid temperatures have done nothing to lift my spirits.  I also must confess to having a bit of a bah humbug attitude toward the holidays, for which i blame the American retailers who have been torturing me with Christmas carols since Halloween.  It's hard to actually get excited about the holidays when you've been bombarded with exhortations to empty your wallet on inflatable yard ornaments and other useless items in the name of Jesus for a quarter of the year.  This is probably why i always end up doing my holiday shopping at the last possible moment:  i become so inured to the season that i end up forgetting how close Christmas is until about December 20th, which has been really good for all the overnight delivery companies.

However, all is not gloomy here, as i am never more prolific in the kitchen than during these short days and freezing nights.  Since i cannot skip down the slippery sidewalks, i bask in the glow of a warm stove.  To counter American consumerism run amok, i tend to take on the most arduous and intricate culinary adventures, and send to friends and family boxes of handmade chocolates and Jackson Pollack-painted gingerbread men.  Truth be told, about now, the kitchen is usually covered in cocoa, there are smudges of chocolate on the refrigerator door, and there is powdered sugar and flour dusted over most surfaces as i race to finish the 8th kind of cookie so we can get them boxed up and out the door.  Every year i've been upping the ante on difficulty, and last year this meant delving into the Culinary Institute of America's textbook tome on chocolate making, the end result of which was that in addition to the 8 kinds of cookies, there were grand marnier truffles and raspberry ganache filled chocolates made in a polycarbonate mold and dusted with edible ruby pixie dust.  

Tuesday, December 7, 2010

She Bravely Turned Her Tail and Fled

Monty Python and the Holy Grail is one of my all-time favorite movies and certainly one of the most hilariously quotable (It's just a flesh wound!!...Look, that rabbit's got a vicious streak a mile wide! It's a killer!)  Generally speaking, I find a lot of Monty Python movie scenes to be applicable to life's funnier/stranger moments.  This little ditty gets hummed a lot when I just can't face the addition anymore (or at any other time I'm feeling less than heroic in the face of adversity/heights, which is not infrequent):


I have discovered that the best way to deal with construction woes is to bravely turn away and flee.  Preferably to a hotel with daily maid service.  Given that this strategy is out of the budget, I have found an even better place to escape:  I call it "Chez BFF."  Chez BFF is a Bi-College establishment run by two of the best hosts (and coolest people generally) on the planet.  Yes, a visit to Chez BFF does require flying to Dallas.  But once there, I get waited on hand and foot:  BFF makes me chai before I go to work - and puts it in a thermal mug to go!  They chauffeur me to and from the office!  There are always smoked almonds to nibble on and champagne to sip!  They plan social outings and take care of all details for me!  They give free guided tours and make dinner reservations!  They shuttle me to and from the airport!  She can handle all medical emergencies and prescribe drugs when necessary!  He knows all the best bike trails!  Best of all, they are really fun, funny, insanely smart people who just make life better when they're around.  A trip to Chez BFF is my new Addition Coping Strategem #2 (#1 - Denial).

Other than the sublime, world's best service one finds at Chez BFF, there is also the house.  If your dream house is in a shambles or otherwise beyond your reach, it's great when you have unfettered (and free!) access to another one, especially when you and Chez BFF's owners have pretty much the same taste in art and architecture.  Here are a few (low-quality) photos that still don't do it justice:



All the benefits of mid-century modern design without any of the technical limitations.  I love the openness of the floorplan and the endless windows, how it brings the outside in as Uncle Frank (as Wright is known in my mother's household) would have wanted. It's light, airy, minimalist:  perfect.  Well, almost - that last picture goes to show you that every house has its conundrums:  that chandelier hangs over a 3-story gap in the stairwell, so changing the bulb will require significant acrobatic feats.My last visit to Chez BFF also involved a trip to the Nasher Sculpture Center, which is now one of my favorite art galleries in the world.  Designed by Pritzker Prize-winning architect Renzo Piano, the building itself is a work of art.

As i am really bad at keeping track of artist sponsors and collectors generally (i can barely keep the artists themselves straight), i don't know  much about Raymond Nasher, the founder, other than that he was obviously obscenely wealthy and had impeccable taste in art.  There wasn't a piece in there that didn't capture my interest and imagination.  As an added bonus, all of the explanations of the pieces were quite informative without the usual imperious pedantry one often finds all too often at MOMA or the Met or even the Hirshhorn Gallery, the kind that induce much eye-rolling and occasionally a gag reflex.

I love sculpture, perhaps more than other traditional art forms, because of its tangible nature and three-dimensional presence.  Paintings can certainly move me and i can get lost in Van Gogh's Eglise d'Auvers-sur-Oise for a half-hour, easily (it happens every time i go).  But there is something about an object jutting out in space that compels me to move about, to see all the angles, to imagine the feel of the clay that became the mold, the tiny taps of the hammer on the chisel that carved the marble, or to mentally reconstruct the welding, sanding, and balancing that brought the piece together.

I've included a few of my favorites at the Nasher below, but you can get an amazing virtual visit to the Gallery at their website.  First, two gorgeous pieces from Mark di Suvero:  Eviva Amore and For W.B. Yeats.

As preface, I have a thing for Cor-ten steel.  Between an architect mother and a welder father, it's a material I've been playing on or around for as long as I can remember.  The color and texture of it gets me for reasons I cannot articulate, really, other than that I appreciate the intricate variation in the texture and coloration of it.  I would love to incorporate Cor-ten into our own project, but the cost of it has impeded its use as a bamboo container/retaining wall at the end of the lot.  So far, anyway.

But back to the art, here's the explanation from the Nasher on these pieces: Mark di Suvero's monumental steel sculptures expand to architectural scale the constructivist explorations begun by Pablo Picasso, Julio González, and David Smith in the first half of the 20th century. With beams thrusting outward from a central core, Eviva Amore (Long Live Love) is an exclamation of passion in raw, weathered steel. The 22,000 pound structure spans 47 feet. Welded and bolted together, its carefully balanced, cantilevered elements give the sculpture both an industrial quality and elegant grace. 

I agree - it does soar against the sky with incredible grace.  I find it reminiscent of my childhood Tinkertoys; i love how it looks so simple, but the balancing act is fairly complex.  There is a fantastic interview with di Suvero here.  For W.B. Yeats is a reference to the last line in Yeats' 1920 poem Among School Children, "How can we know the dancer from the dance?" The guide states: "di Suvero reflects upon the artistic challenge of conveying feeling through form.  Much like the fluid, expressive motion of dance, the sculpture balances two elements that rock and pivot on a central point.  Despite its size, this kinetic iron assemblage of curves and angles, solids and voids cultivates an intimacy with its viewers, its capacity to twirl or sway enticing one's movement around the object."  As it was still when we came upon it, I gave it a forceful yet surreptitious shove and watched it turn slowly, the shadows of the piece shifting in the afternoon light.  It did make me think of dancing and i wanted desperately to take it home with me.  Since i can't do that, if anyone wants to know what I'd like for Christmas, here it is: http://ce.corcoran.edu/course/SL2250/Introduction-to-Metal-Sculpture - Section A, please, and i'm happy to just audit.  If genetics have anything to do with it, this just might be my artistic calling.  Plus, i love blowtorches (doesn't everyone, really?)

Next favorite:  Richard Serra's My Curves Are Not Mad.  This thing is spectacular, and i had recently fallen in love with a piece (5 of them, actually) he did in Seattle's Olympic Sculpture Park called Wake.  Here, the viewer is invited to walk between the two curves, which compresses and tilts the space around you, providing interesting slants of light and shifts of perspective.  Actually, the experience of walking through My Curves Are Not Mad reminded me of the sensation I got walking through the Siq in Petra, Jordan.  It's also a favorite trick of Uncle Frank, who routinely has tiny entry vestibules and hallways in his houses that then open into a great room or even just a bigger bedroom with a higher ceiling - the whole intention of the design is to create a physical and subsequently subtle emotional drama of compression and then release.







Okay, moving on: Joan Miro's Moonbird, Magdalena Abakanowicz' Bronze Crowd (another piece where walking through the sculpture is key to understanding it), Henry Moore's Working Model for Three Piece No. 3, Vertabrae, and Aristide Maillol's La Nuit (see explanations here, here, here, and here)



Regarding La Nuit, my friend, the Structure of Cities major (who thus had lots of art history course requirements), was narrating from the brochure and paused after reading the description, cocked his head thoughtfully and said, "I thought she just looked really bummed."  This still cracks me up.

One of the most unique "pieces" was James Turrel's "skyscape" called Tending, (Blue), which can only be described as a sort of meditative experience.  The photos don't begin to capture it so I didn't put any up - but check it out here.

Well, you've all probably had enough of the art tour now, so I'll just give you a quick view of some of my other faves from the Gallery.  A prize (batch of homemade gelato, perhaps?) goes to the first person who correctly identifies the artist and title of all the following: 

The art tour was the end of my visit to Chez BFF, unfortunately, but the escape did much to restore my sanity and serenity, enabling me to face the dragons chez nous.