One last portrait

One last beautiful self portrait, I was so pleased he finished this today!

A few blossoms

I love love love that everyone interpreted the cherry blossom assignment differently!  These are from 8th grade.  Art elective blossoms should be out by next Wednesday.

Cherry Blossom Obsessed!

I am officially cherry blossom obsessed.  My 8th graders and my art elective students are all working on cherry blossom ink paintings.  Here are some works in progress.  I'm hoping for full blooms next week!

Not Quite Yet...

I walked down to the tidal basin to check on the blossoms today and they were not open just yet.  Still took some nice pictures.

And walking back, I encountered a pillow fight on the mall in honor of National Pillow Fight Day.  Next year I will be sure to have my calendar marked!

Vanitas!

Vanitas! by Jeanne Silverthorne is a fun, refreshing, and smart exhibit at the Phillips Collection.  Vanitas! is part of the Intersections series which features up and coming artists who's work intersects in some way with permanent collection of the Phillips.  With some intersection artists, the connection to the permanent collection has sometimes felt forced, diluting the quality of the art (in my opinion) whereas Silverthorne's work is independently meaningful but is enhanced when placed in conversation with masterworks in the collection.  I love her work because it is playful and darkly comedic- using brightly colored rubber as a medium automatically gives her work a childlike and comical quality and the inclusion of highly realistic bugs imbues the work with a sense of life and death (vanitas!).  In addition, it has deep art historical references so it is not only whimsical but also comments on the vanitas tradition, pop art, and our reverence of certain 'important' artists.  The first time I saw this exhibit I spent about 40 minutes looking, laughing and discussing with great enthusiasm her work with on of the museum attendants and even reorganized my the tour I was giving that day to include the exhibit.  I love it and I think you might too.

Here are a few pictures I took at the exhibit:

A rubber relief of blue rounded flowers replete with insects crawling on them in conversation with a more traditional still life.

 A fantastic flower and venus flytrap grouping setting innocently on a mantlepiece near the famous Georges Braque bird.

 The absolutely magnificent and confounding configuration of an electrical candelabra with ill balanced candles that are twisted into a double helix formation and are imprinted with the letters of our genetic code.  And it's, of course, surrounded by more traditional still life paintings (Chardin and Gris).

I love the twisted and melting appearance of the candles, reminiscent of Dali or Alice in Wonderland.

 The bundle of "electrical" cords at the base of the sculpture.  Why is the candelabra electric? Why are the cords so unnecessarily long?

Lovely rose relief with flies and a caterpillar.

One of my favorite pairings (pun intended!), a melting unplugged desk lamp hovering over sliced pears right below an absolutely gorgeous and luminous Marjorie Phillips painting of pears.

This one takes the cake for me.  An elegant, sophisticated, and revered Cezanne Still Life placed next to some ugly flowers (on mantle) and a gross rubber plant that is leaking a milky substance and covered in synthetic ants, flies and other insects.

I also really enjoyed that there were two dead bird paintings (featured in an earlier post) on the stairwell leading to the exhibit, practically hitting you over the head with the vanitas theme.  While I might have viewed the dead birds as depressing on their own, in conversation with the Silverthorne, the over the top macabre nature of the paintings made me smile.

This exhibit is a must see if you are in the DC area.

Contemporary Arts Center, Cincinnati

I love the Contemporary Arts Center in Cincinnati.  The building is incredible (although I may be biased) and the exhibits are a great mix of well known important figures/movements in contemporary art, up and coming artists, and easily accessible and engaging installations.  Although most outsiders might not strongly associate Cincinnati with the visual arts, Cincinnati has numerous museums, galleries and smaller arts organizations that are thriving.  One thing I really enjoy about the Cincinnati art scene is that the museums and galleries do not take their audience for granted; these institutions are always generating innovative ways to engage and expand their art audience.  Often times this results in really wonderful interactive and fun exhibits.

My mom and I saw just such an exhibit this past Wednesday.  The exhibit is called ON! Handcrafted Digital Playgrounds and it runs through mid September.  The exhibit is spread out over 2 floors and features about 15 different artists or artist collectives and the majority of the exhibition is hands-on and interactive.  Some of the works in the exhibit stretch the definition of art (is a paper airplane art? what about a giant game of 'simon'? ping pong?), others invite you to participate by creating your own part of a whole (2 murals and an area for filming short videos) and others were more passive and altered the space but did not encourage participation (a flock of birds flying in a hall, viewfinders with an assortment of pictures, cells coming to life).  While it might not be the most elevated 'arty' exhibit to visit the CAC, I think ON! fosters joy, creativity and sense of play.

Here are just a couple pictures we took while playing on the digital playground:

The other 2 exhibits on display currently are by two contemporary Indian artists- one named Hema Upadhyay and the other Atul Dodiya.  Upadhyay uses recycled materials to create expansive floorscapes representing the sprawl of the slums in Mumbai while Dodiya uses (interactive!) rolling metal storefront shutters to create layered works with themes of poverty, urbanism, fine art, and culture.  I enjoyed the contrast and layered approach to Dodiya (and also the skill and craftsmanship of the paintings themselves) and spent time contemplating the different levels of meaning while the Upadhyay work had a strong visual impact but the meaning was more straightforward.

 If you are in Ohio, it's definitely worth a visit!

If you are not in Ohio, you can check it out online- click here.

Final Self Portraits

It was really hard for me to let go of control and give my students creative freedom for their expressive self portraits.  While some of them turned out to be a bit underwhelming, many turned out better than expected.  I also love that each one is so different.