Giverny

Giverny is lovely. Home of Claude Monet, the impressionist painter, Giverny is a charming tiny village nestled into a lovely green countryside. I'm not going to lie--if I was independently wealthy (or somehow able to find a job in this teensy town), I would move there.

This is the cafe where Amy and I had lunch after touring Monet's property.

The food was great, but when I asked if they had apple juice, the waiter gave me a really confused look, which made more sense when I saw this:




Monet's property is gorgeous. It includes two huge gardens, one a little more structured and manicured--full of flowers. The other is a little more natural looking, though it is obviously very well maintained. This second garden area includes the famous pond of lily pads and the Japanese bridge. (And surprisingly, a little forest of bamboo.) And of course there is the main house, with it's peachy-pink stucco and green trim. I love it all.

Pink blossoms on a tree.

On the property they also keep chickens, apparently. I could not figure out for the life of me why they were BURROWING themselves into the ground. Anyone know anything about this? I thought maybe the hens would do this to lay eggs in and keep them all cozy, but since at least one of the chickens pictured is a rooster, I don't think I'm right.

Ames in the garden.

A tulip in the first garden.

Me on the Japanese bridge (with a nice old lady).

Amy on the Japanese bridge (with a super clueless man).

Trees make me happy.

Back by the pond with the famous lily pads and weeping willow, Ames and I camped out on a bench and decided to try our hands at creating impressionist works of art with oil pastels and blending sticks.

This is my attempt.

This is (almost exactly) the perspective we had from our bench.

Surprise! Along with the Japanese bridge you will find a small bamboo "forest" in the second garden.

Back in the first garden.

I'm working on getting more comfortable with manual settings on my camera, so some of the exposures are off, but I think you can get the general idea of the beauty of this place. If it wasn't covered with tourists, it would be an extremely peaceful place, so I can see why it appealed so much to Monet and inspired such beautiful work.

If you enjoy Monet's work and have the time and desire to make a short day trip out to Giverny, it's definitely worth it to stop by Monet's house and then grab lunch or ice cream before heading back to Paris. There isn't enough to keep you occurpied for more than a couple of hours, though, so I wouldn't expect to spend a whole day here.

Artistic Inspiration

“When you go out to paint, try to forget what objects you have before you, a tree, a house, a field or whatever. Merely think here is a little square of blue, here an oblong of pink, here a streak of yellow, and paint it just as it looks to you, the exact color and shape, until it gives your own naïve impression of the scene before you.”

-Claude Monet

Today I bought a basket full of acrylic paints and mediums. I think on Saturday I'm going to go paint somewhere. Maybe a park. I guess it depends on how windy it is Saturday, because it's supposed to be nice and sunny.

"Untitled" - a.k.a. I Love Luis Feito

Well, I love his paintings, at least.


His most recent ink on paper works are interesting, but not as textured and captivating as his older stuff.


These two are my favorites, though I pretty much like everything I've seen of his older works.


They are both "Untitled." Which, if I'm going to be honest, might make me like them better. Coming up with a title for every painting seems like it would be a pain (though the artists probably spend enough time with their medium and each work that they have the time to mull over it a while). I think leaving things without titles allows the audience to take a little more ownership of their reaction to the work itself.

(Plus, I think I would rather own a cool painting that is untitled than one that is called "Blue background with white hatch marks" or "Black and Grey blobs," etc.--wouldn't you?)

Aren't they incredible? The first is mixed media on paper, and the second is sand and oil on board. Breathtaking, and both in private collections. Wow, I want so much to be a rich art collector.

World Art Presents: Norman Lewis, Frank Stella, and Barnett Newman

I recently purchased "World Art: The Essential Illustrated Edition" from the Borders Bargain shelf for ~$10. And I love it. It's not as thorough as the book Amy gave me (1,000 Years of Painting), and I wish it were formatted a little better, but overall I really like it.



What's more, it opened my eyes to a lot of artists I've never heard of whose art I love. Mostly Abstract, Abstract Expressionist and Minimalist painters. (Big shock, I know.) (Ooh, and I just discovered this while I was looking for the previous links. Wow. Watch out!! This is a gold mine of discovery.)

I've discovered that color truly moves me. It speaks to me really deeply. I know that sounds all artsy and wierd, but I can't explain how profoundly I was impacted when I saw some of the works pictured below. They almost made my heart ache and left me breathless...but in that really good, "Wow, this is so beautiful it makes me want to cry" kind of way. (Don't be afraid. I'm not actually losing my mind.)

So, here are a few works of some of the painters this bargain book introduced to me.

Norman Lewis

Frank Stella

Barnett Newman

Aren't these incredible?

I recognize that my tastes may differ greatly from yours, but I hope you enjoyed this little snippet of the things I've been discovering of late.

I've still got a list of artists whose vignettes I enjoyed in the book that I am still learning about. More to come!

The Challenging Pleasures of Art

In the September/October newsletter from the Orem Public Library, they included an excerpt from Dana Gioia’s commencement address at Stanford in June. Gioia is the chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts. His address really resonated with me, so I thought I would share parts of it with you (with emphasis added in multiple places). You can find the entire text here.
Please note: This is not me preaching... I just found myself agreeing almost out loud with so much of what he said, I wanted to pass along the thoughts that he so aptly conveyed.

Marcus Aurelius believed that the course of wisdom consisted of learning to trade easy pleasures for more complex and challenging ones. I worry about a culture that bit by bit trades off the challenging pleasures of art for the easy comforts of entertainment. And that is exactly what is happening—not just in the media, but in our schools and civic life.

Entertainment promises us a predictable pleasure—humor, thrills, emotional titillation, or even the odd delight of being vicariously terrified. It exploits and manipulates who we are rather than challenges us with a vision of who we might become. A child who spends a month mastering Halo or NBA Live on Xbox has not been awakened and transformed the way that child would be spending the time rehearsing a play or learning to draw.

If you don't believe me, you should read the statistical studies that are now coming out about American civic participation. Our country is dividing into two distinct behavioral groups. One group spends most of its free time sitting at home as passive consumers of electronic entertainment. Even family communication is breaking down as members increasingly spend their time alone, staring at their individual screens.

The other group also uses and enjoys the new technology, but these individuals balance it with a broader range of activities. They go out—to exercise, play sports, volunteer and do charity work at about three times the level of the first group. By every measure they are vastly more active and socially engaged than the first group.

What is the defining difference between passive and active citizens? Curiously, it isn't income, geography, or even education. It depends on whether or not they read for pleasure and participate in the arts. These cultural activities seem to awaken a heightened sense of individual awareness and social responsibility.

Art is an irreplaceable way of understanding and expressing the world—equal to but distinct from scientific and conceptual methods. Art addresses us in the fullness of our being—simultaneously speaking to our intellect, emotions, intuition, imagination, memory, and physical senses. There are some truths about life that can be expressed only as stories, or songs, or images.

Art delights, instructs, consoles. It educates our emotions. And it remembers. As Robert Frost once said about poetry, "It is a way of remembering that which it would impoverish us to forget." Art awakens, enlarges, refines, and restores our humanity.

You don't outgrow art.

The Best Day of Your Life...

...is the one on which you decide your life is your own. No apologies or excuses. No one to lean on, rely on, or blame. The gift of life is yours; it is an amazing journey; and you alone are responsible for the quallity of it.
- Dan Zadra