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April 28, 2008
My Artful Weekend
We started off our weekend by attending a talk by Found Magazine founder Davy Rothbart at South Shore Arts. He is a really sweet, funny, entertaining guy and we had fun talking to him after his presentation. We also bought his new book, The Lone Surfer of Montana, Kansas, which is stories from his travels around the country. I think it was great to talk to him because he's so genuinely interested in people, in that kind of Ira Glass, non-patronizing-yet-finding-the-weirdest-people sort of way. His talk accompanied a show of found photographs from one couple's collection at South Shore. I think they were mainly things like flea market finds, etc., but some really striking, weird, and poignant images.
Saturday was a yard work day, and Sunday we took the train to Chicago to see the Edward Hopper exhibit at the Art Institute. I really enjoyed it. I've always been interested in his work, largely from a technical point of view. There's just something so eerie about his work, and what's really interesting is that when you look at his etchings, illustration work, and early paintings, you see what a master draftsman he was, yet his best works handle certain details, especially figures, in such a clumsy way. You realize it is totally deliberate; that what he wants you to look at is the light and the architecture. His paintings of New York are not about people at all, but about the spaces. A nude in a bedroom is the backdrop, the star of the painting is the ornate facade of the building you can see out her window.
So I didn't get much painting done this weekend (plus I'm in need of a tube of Cerulean blue), but I did spend a lot of time looking at things, which is a necessary part of the process as well.