The Walk to Sunday Breakfast.

Huzzah for Autumnal Wellesley!

In Which Stinkbugs are Evicted, and I Continue to Live in the Art Library

My poetry class was in rare form today. We listened to "Paper Planes" by M.I.A so our 70-ish year old professor could analyze the lyrics, drew a large diagram of people spooning, chased a stinkbug out the window, I broke an electrical outlet, and we all pondered the age old question: "Do mosquitos ever die with honor?" ("Very few," my professor said.)

Yay Sexy Pirates! Boo Library Reserve.

The Universe scares me sometimes with how it likes to fit things together. I took out 20$ the other day so that I can pay a fellow student 15$ for my sexy pirate costume (hooray!) and the plan was to slip the money under her door so I needed a way to get change. Of course, it's midterm season and I've been practically living in the art library- along with about 10 other people, it's kind of fun, actually- so anyway, I've had no time to get to CVS or places where I would normally get change. I considered asking the people at the art library front desk if they could give change, but didn't want to be obnoxious.

Then, today I received an email that one of my books was on reserve and overdue- with a charge of 1.00 an hour. Blasphemy! I rushed right over and made a complaint that no one had told me it was on reserve, and of course it made no difference (bureaucracy!) but they did say it could be halved to 50 cents an hour if I paid right away. And so I gave them my twenty and got five dollars back, and now I can buy my sexy pirate costume. Oh, universe!

"My dear, I would almost rather see you dead." - Mary Cassatt's father upon her admission of wanting to become an artist. 

And Ingres said to Degas...

"Draw lines young man, many lines; from memory or from nature. It is in this way that you will become a great artist." 

VOYEUR SANDWICH by Renoir (1874)

At least, that's what I think would be a more appropriate title. 

voyeurism in the loge.

I am holed up in the library working on a paper about Mary Cassatt and her depictions of women in public, specifically, the Opera, since that's the only place a classy woman of 19th century Paris would have been allowed to go if she didn't want to be thought wildly immoral. 

I have been learning oh so many interesting things, FIRST that it appears she had an ambiguous platonic non-relationship with Degas, who could be charming and thoughtful and once bought her a puppy, but who would then get all grumpy and non-committal, sounds pretty TYPICAL to me! So they both ended up great friends yet died alone and left everything to their maids. I may have made up that last fact, but whatever. Degas was the one who invited Mary to join the Impressionists in 1877, after her work kept getting rejected by the Salon. 

I think it's interesting that even though Cassatt is now better known than Morisot, Morisot had been one of the founding members and already with the group for three years. Both were feisty personalities who held their own amongst all the witty, caustic, word-play loving boys. I can just see it all! 

OH, and fun fact, Cassatt became good friends with May Alcott, as in the model for Little Women's Amy. She was a painter whose work was once exhibited in the Parisian Salon, and she was gallavanting around Europe thanks to the success of Louisa's book... she married a dashing young musician, and it was all wonderful until she died shortly after childbirth. Boo. I always liked Amy. 

What else... women artists were usually rejected by the Salon unless the artist in question had some kind of flirty, flattering relationship with one of the judges. And if a judge did randomly show support for a woman's work, they were usually mocked and derided; "Why? Is she pretty?" 

So that's awesome and totally lends support to the argument of how there haven't been many "great" female artists because women just don't have as much talent. 

Speaking of creepy men, here are some scenes of Parisian opera. Aka voyeur central. Except good old Mary makes it a little more difficult for the viewer to be the voyeur, maybe, I don't know, that's what I'm going to be debating in my paper. 

Cassatt vs. Renoir

in which i do a self-portrait a day!

mary-kate and ashley.

i may or may not have purchased their coffee-table book. 

Yay Gustave Klimt!

The Favorite Artist I Never Knew I Had.

Yay Handfish! Boo Davis Museum.

Highlights of the day were watching a BBC Blue Planet video in Vertebrate Paleontology (it is a WILD WILD WORLD on the bottom of that ocean. Now I want to be a scuba diving archaeologist. Did you know there are fish with HANDS?) and going for a six mile run and a heavenly hot shower afterwards. 

Regard..... the handfish!

Lowlights were trying to deal with the Davis Museum, who I am starting to develop a deliciously belligerent grudge against. You'd think merely getting to walk into the second floor print room of a college museum would be a simple procedure, not one that involves multiple walkie-talkie calls (10-4, back to base, copy that, base to security), escorts, and an elaborate check-in procedure both at the front desk and the glass windowed area blocking the print room. 

I might be more understanding if my original escort hadn't gotten lost and led me all around the museum as I protested, "Ummm, I know the print room is on the second floor. I've been there before..." and then had to wait as she radioed the base to verify her orders. And if I hadn't finally arrived at the print room only to be shown the wrong print. And if the student assistant had actually checked to make sure she had given me the right one when I said, "Ummm, I'm pretty sure this isn't the Degas..." instead of saying, curtly, "Yep. It is."

Because it wasn't. So I had to make another appointment for today, and wait through another twenty minute series of walkie-talkie calls from base to all the other stations just to verify whether I could even go in, and had to be paired up with another escort, who barked at me for leaning against the wall as we waited, for a half hour, for the guardian of the print room to show up. 

The guardian of the print room proceeded to insinuate that I was late, that I should have known to check the back of the print for its information (as if I would DARE get within a ten foot radius of one of these Highly Protected objects), and stood jangling her keys as I attempted to observe the work. When I looked up in annoyance, she pounced on the opportunity. 

"All done?" She asked. 

"I guess SO," I said. 

And that was my second visit to the Davis print room. I'm not particularly excited about my presentation on Degas, that grumpy old voyeur, and I'm pretty disenchanted with all this hullaballoo. That's why I love studying art history, so I can hate it.

 

I am also getting increasingly disenchanted with BERTHE MORISOT because everything I read makes her sound like a huge bitch who went around making snide comments about everybody all the time. I feel like I know the type. Tall and battle-ramish. But I digress- I'm off to more studying. Toodle-oo!

tribute to the dino park!

My vertebrate paleontology class...

has returned from a thoroughly successful venture to Dino State Park in Connecticut. Snakes were sighted, bookmarks with dinosaur footprints were made, pennies were crushed into dino medallions, coloring was done, picnics were had, many a stuffed dinosaur was purchased, the alphabet game was played, and countless tyrannosaur impressions were enacted.

"Why can't life be like this everyday?" One of my classmates moaned.

"My life IS like this everyday," I said as I attacked her triceratops with my dilophosaurus.

"I believe it," said another classmate.

We made plaster casts of footprints to take home with us, and ended our day with a triumphant procession to the Wellesley Geoscience Department van, each holding our massive footprint and covered from head to toe with white dust.

"I'm plastered!" Said our professor.

So thanks to the field trip I am having my latest existential crisis, in wondering why I did not choose paleontology as a major.

Persephone!

my painted guitar.

My room....

Is turning into one big collage. I feel that in order to occupy this garrett I should own at least three cats, smoke menthol Benson and Hedges, wear shawls, drink gin, and be over 60 years old. Oh and reek of really heavy department store perfume. 

In Which Ji Hyang and I Identify My Aura

It was octarine, the color of magic. It was alive and glowing and vibrant and it was the undisputed pigment of the imagination, because wherever it appeared it was a sign that mere matter was a servant of the powers of the magical mind. 

It was enchantment itself. 

But Rincewind always thought it looked a sort of greenish-purple.

—Terry Pratchett, The Color of Magic

Here it is, the image that did me in. Manet's The Absinthe Drinker, 1858. Maybe for fun in an upcoming post I will tell you my absinthe stories, but for now what I will tell you is that 

Triskaidekaphobia

means fear of the number 13. And in eighth grade Jon Caruso, who was very special, used to scream every time he heard it in math class. "AHHHHHHH!!!!!! YOU SAID THE NUMBER! I SAID THE NUMBER!! WE ALL SAID THE NUMBER!!! HAPPPYYYY HOLLLLIIIDAYYYYYYY!!!"

Other great John Caruso catch-phrases: "AUGH! THAT STUPID GIRL TOUCHED ME!" "B FOR YOU! B FOR YOU!" "I'M GOING TO TURN YOU INTO HAMBURGER MEAT!" and "HOW CAN IT POSSIBLY BE FUN WHEN IT'S SOOOOOOOOOOOOO QUIET?!?!?!" Those were the days. 

I'm feeling the Frida Kahlo lately. I just got a little over-stimulated in the art library and took out her biography along with books on Alex Katz, Alice Neel, Berthe Morisot, Mary Cassat, ex-patriates, oh and FRANK STELLA, simply so that I can read it and glower and mutter indignant comments to myself. Maybe I will then post some of them on here. I secretly fear that reading the book will cause me to start to like Frank Stella, and then my world would truly be turned upside down, because in recent sessions of my art history class I have found myself tolerating, appreciating, and even kind of loving Manet. WHO AM I?! 

The Gang.

In which everyone important to my Omega experience of 2009 curls up to watch The Princess Bride. Felix found it "too sappy." But he did enjoy the part with the eels.