Archive for Museums and Libraries

Sunflowers

August 8, 2015 at 2:00 pm · Filed under Art history, Creative process, Gardens, Museums and Libraries, Nature, Photography, Poetry explorations, Travel

Pope Farm Conservancy

Pope Farm Conservancy

Amsterdam

The sound of ringing hand bells and laughter.

Around a corner in the Rijksmuseum,

with as many twists as a licorice rope,

a tall woman stands in an apron and floppy hat.

Her hand points there.  A clutch of seated

children wearing gold paper crowns raise their bells.

Her foot points here and the ones in front ring away.

Next door, brother Theo’s collection of Vincent’s

late paintings are hung, each canvas striped with,

slashed with, swirled with paint, thick as ripe

and hairy sunflowers stalks in mid-August,

petals dripping sunshine, grotesque and grasping

pinwheels, scary to someone whose ears

still hum with chimes of innocence.

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Of Heaven and Earth

October 27, 2014 at 12:41 pm · Filed under Art, Art history, Creative process, Museums and Libraries, Photography ·Tagged ,

Rhino

 

Beauty.  A Rhinoceros or an Italian painting from the Late Middle Ages and Renaissance?

I attended an exhibit of 500 years of Italian painting from Glasgow Museums at the Milwaukee Art Museum (MAM) last week.  It was a great romp through art history – who was influenced by whom and who were the influencers.  The images selected for the MAM website are the best ones, I think.  http://mam.org/of-heaven-and-earth/

One of the centerpiece works in the exhibition is a painting of the Annunciation by Sandro Botticelli.  Mary’s expression is what interests me when I see paintings of The Annunciation.  How does she react when the Angel Gabriel appears to tell her she is about to be with child.  Therefore, I was especially fond of Botticelli’s version from Glasgow Museums, painted 1490-95.  Botticelli uses sparkling gold lines to symbolize the Holy Spirit piercing Mary, a symbol used by Medieval artists.  On the other hand, he is almost severe in the depiction of the interior arches and columns that separate Gabriel and Mary, exploring the early Renaissance of perspective drawing.

Botticelli painted other versions of the Annunciation.  One, from 1485, is in the Metropolitan Museum in New York City is similar to the Glasgow painting.  http://www.metmuseum.org/collection/the-collection-online/search/459016

There is another Botticelli Annunciation in the Uffizi Gallery in Florence from 1489-90 that places Gabriel directly in front of Mary. Here, Botticelli emphasizes the use of perspective as the eye follows out the window to the countryside beyond. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cestello_Annunciation_(Botticelli)#mediaviewer/File:Botticelli,_annunciazione_di_cestello_02.jpg

In all of the Botticelli versions, Mary looks serene and thoughtful, but in other artists’ hands she can look startled, shocked, disbelieving and even dismayed.  Or she can look most pleased and delighted.

Imagine a virgin rhino

Visited by an angel

Touched by the Holy Spirit

The pleasure spreading

Over the tough hide

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Space Haiku

June 27, 2013 at 12:16 pm · Filed under Creative process, Gardens, Haiku, Museums and Libraries, Poetry explorations, Science and poetry

Silk Road Photo

Central Asian Caravan Woman Rousing her Camel While Nursing

China, Tang Dynasty 618-906 C.E.

The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art

Kansas City, Missouri

Today at the local food coop, I watched a young woman nurse her baby while she texted away on her phone.  I enjoyed the irony of moms then and moms now:  always more than one thing to be done at the same time.

I wrote these haiku after reading an article about the earth’s risk of being hit by an asteroid.  I was also working to get the yard and garden in shape for summer.  The juxtaposition of what is going on in space and what I am doing here on earth appealed to me.

Asteroids whizz by

millions of miles away.

Brown toad in garden.

****************

Meteor of stone

veined with iron-red lacework.

Crochet a sampler.

****************

Pictures of an asteroid

arrive from Deep Space.

Petals fall like snow.

****************

The asteroid belt

lies just short of Jupiter.

Horses graze on grass.

*****************

A moon in orbit

follows asteroid to earth.

Light bulb drops, splinters.

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Gorilla Art & Poetry Foiled!

May 17, 2013 at 6:44 pm · Filed under Art, Creative process, Found Poetry, Gardens, Museums and Libraries, Nature, Photography

Flowering Crab

I like to alter postcards people send me from their vacation spot.  I collage over the picture, adding some paradox, and I paste something interesting over the address.  I either leave the message or alter it by crossing out words to create a poem or I type a poem – mine or another’s – and paste it over the message.  Then I stick the postcard in books I return to the library.  The card masquerades as a bookmark or is recognized as Gorilla Art & Poetry to those in the know.

Today I got a call from the library.  It was a library in a small town nearby.  We are part of a large system that encompasses perhaps a quarter of the state.  The fellow said they had found a postcard in a book I’d returned that belonged to his library and he wondered whether I wanted it back.  I was so taken by surprise I didn’t know what to say at first.  How did they get my name?  Oh, right, I’d checked out the book and I have a library card with identifying information.

I told him it was just a bookmark, I did not need it back.  Then he said, ok, we’ll toss it.  Toss it!  Oh, my poor altered card.  It won’t be seen by any unsuspecting recipient.  Which card was it?  The one from Eric and Kristen thanking us for being so helpful when they visited?  The one from my brother when he went to the WWII battlefields our father fought on?  I have kept these cards for years in some cases and I am ready to let them go, to let them live a new and altered life.

Why did I not tell the librarian about the Gorilla Art & Poetry?  Well, it just seemed like a lot to explain and, in retrospect, it seems leaving it in the book – it’s a bookmark, I told him – was not an option he entertained anyway.

Oh well.  I do this a lot and this is the first time I’ve been caught.  Won’t stop me from doing it again, either.

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St. Petersburg, Russia

September 12, 2012 at 1:41 pm · Filed under Art, Art history, History, Museums and Libraries, Photography, Travel ·Tagged ,

SPb:  St. Petersburg

 

The Russians and Germans at war, bombing

each other’s treasures:  palaces, churches,

town squares and bridges blown up and exposed

to the elements and looters.  Always,

 

this is the way of conflict.  And later,

people, the ones who survived, pick away

at the rubble for some small thing they might

recognize:  a photo or mother’s broach.

 

Our guide says the Germans destroyed Catherine’s

Palace.  But volunteers restored the rooms

and added the gold leaf, each stroke putting

distance against the memory of war.

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Vasamuseet

August 17, 2012 at 2:24 pm · Filed under History, Museums and Libraries, Scandinavia, Scandinavian Travel ·Tagged

At Vasa we learned that 17th c. Swedes sought ties to ancient Rome and included carvings of Roman rulers on their doomed warship…but the Roman figures were all blue eyed blonds!

Another downpour at 3:30 p.m. Is this going to be a regular thing?

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Sinclair Lewis

July 25, 2012 at 2:15 pm · Filed under History, Museums and Libraries ·Tagged , ,

About halfway between Minneapolis and Fargo, just off I-94, is the town of Sauk Centre, Minnesota, hometown of Sinclair Lewis and the setting for his novel, Mainstreet.  In 1930, Lewis became the first American novelist awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature.  Only ten Americans have won this prize and you’d think that Sauk Centre (yes, it’s spelled that way) would be happy to celebrate their hometown hero. 

His home is open in the summer and there is a small museum attached to the Visitor’s Center that is just off the freeway.  We talked to the woman who volunteers at the Visitor Center.  She is quite knowledgeable about Lewis’ life, work and loves.  She suggested that Sauk Centre city officials don’t know what an opportunity they have to attract visitors to come to Sauk Centre and learn about Sinclair Lewis…and stay in the historic Palmer House Hotel and eat downtown and hike the Lake Wobegon Trail. 

Well, the life and times of Sauk Centre perhaps have not changed much since Lewis used the town to explore the futility of trying to change stubborn, well, Scandanavians mostly.  The lady at the Visitor’s Center just wants the city to pay for a sign that can be seen from the freeway and would direct more traffic into town. 

She seemed the feisty type who will continue to bring the possibilities to the attention of the city fathers, but it’s sad that other than English majors, most Americans don’t care about their literary heritage.  Where, for instance, is the bus tour to take people from the Minneapolis/St. Paul International Airport to Sauk Centre?  It’s at the Mall of America, that’s where.

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MOW

April 25, 2012 at 6:18 pm · Filed under Art, Art history, Creative process, Museums and Libraries, Photography, Poetry explorations

I am starting a series of poems that use heteronyms in the title.  Heteronyms are words that are spelled the same but are pronounced differently when the meaning changes.  For instance, tear.  A tear fell from my eye when I heard the fabric of my dress tear. 

Some words are homophones, like knight and night.  They sound the same but mean something different.  Heteronyms are more interesting because their pronunciation changes as well as their meaning.  Of course, this can pose a challenge for readers if the word is used in an ambiguous way such as in the title of a poem:   Tear is not a Simple Word. 

Last Saturday I was at the Art Institute of Chicago.  From small town to big city in three hours.  Just point your car toward the Southeast and soon enough, there is O’Hare International Airport – ORD – one of the largest in the country in terms of moving huge numbers of passengers and waylaying luggage (mine, April 2011). 

And then there’s that cluster of skyscrapers in the distance – John Hancock is my favorite.  I love the two antennas that stick up off its roof like they are signaling to space aliens.  By now my heart is really humming.  Then suddenly we are off the freeway and into a funky neighborhood heading East on Ohio toward Michigan Avenue and there is Millennium Park and, ta dah, the Art Institute of Chicago. 

Inside, I snagged a docent tour of Ab X art – abstract expressionists – starting with Jackson Pollock.  Toward the end of the tour the docent showed us Andy Warhol’s gigantic silkscreen print of Mao Zedong.  It’s fabulous.  There is Mao in his grey jacket emerging from great swatches of paint and he’s made up in drag with pink cheeks and blue eye shadow.  And it is huge.  No small life size portrait like Warhol’s multiple Marilyns.  Mao’s dimensions are 176 ½ inches by 136 ½ inches.  That’s over 14 feet tall.  Powerful.

When I got home, I asked my husband how he would pronounce MOW.  He said, mmm – ow, which rhymes with cow.  It could be pronounced mmm-o, like the word low (long o sound), as in, “Please mow the lawn.”  But we call our cat MOW when he’s being noisy and making those loud, demanding MOW sounds.  His name is Rio (rhymes with chee-o), which is a heteronym for the town of Rio, Wisconsin (long i sound like ri-ot).   

So for us, Mao and Mow are homophones, words that sound the same but with different meanings.  Sadly, however, not everyone recognizes the Mow that rhymes with cow.  There is a website called Rhymer at www.rhymer.com.  When I entered Mow, all of the words that are listed rhyme with JELLO.

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Community Poems

February 15, 2012 at 2:43 pm · Filed under Art, Gardens, Museums and Libraries, Photography, Poetry explorations ·Tagged

The theme for submissions to the 2013 Wisconsin Poets Calendar was “community.”  I submitted three poems and one was accepted.  The following was not.  That makes it perfect for my blog.

Reception at the Chazen Museum of Art

On aurora-rose limestone stairs,

the Director points to the diamond ceiling

and tells a story about an artist who drove

from Milwaukee for the Iron Man Contest.

The genius ladies arrive, wearing earrings

 and bracelets from the Art Fair on the Square,

when a silver case, steaming with dry ice,

enters the door bearing four kinds of

Babcock ice cream from high up on Bascom Hill.

Smoked salmon snakes among chunks of cheese

and spears of chicken satay stand at attention,

naked without their peanut sauce.

A young couple in black cling, oblivious

to the charm of their matching nose rings.

Frozen strawberries, like lost party goers,

float past the ice-maiden in the punch bowl.

Above, Mrs. Pearce, in her yellow shawl,

mocks the crowd below, too busy talking

to abandon their glasses of white wine

and drift upstairs to look at the art.

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The Fourth Part of the World

June 15, 2011 at 8:59 am · Filed under History, Museums and Libraries, Travel

This is a scan of Martin Walderseemuller’s 1507 map of the New World.  It portrays the New World, that strip of land on the left, before Europeans knew that there was a separate continent on the other side, the fourth part of the world.  The map labels the continent as “America.”

I’d read about the map and its discovery in 1907 in a book by Toby Lester calld The Fourth Part of the World: The Race to the Ends of the Earth and the Epic Story of the Map that Gave America its Name.  After reading this fascinating book, I discovered that the Library of Congress purchased the only copy of the map in 2003 for $10 million.  So, when I was in Washington DC, I went to the LoC to find it.

I was pretty sure I’d have to ask to see it, but no, there it was in a dimly lit room at the end of an exhibition called “Exploring the Americas.”  I was the only one in the room, but while I was examining the map and reading the labels a very annoying lady from the museum marched in a guest and told him in an unnecessarily loud voice the whole story of the map: the mystery of including the unknown continent, the naming of America, the disappearance of the map for 400 years.  So he wouldn’t have to read the labels, I guess.  Well, the LoC did pay a lot of money for it, so I suppose the map is their’s to show off. 

(OMG, I just read in the LoC brochure that acquistion of the Waldseemuller map was made possible by the generosity of, among others, David H. Koch.  If you are from Wisconsin, you’ll recognize that name.)

Here is the reading list I gleaned from The Fourth Part of the World, a history of people who thought about the shape of the world and what might be out there:  Aristotle / Homer, the Illiad and the Odyssey / Pliny the Elder, Natural History / Ptolemy, Geographia / M. Polo, The Travels / Virgil, The Aeneid / Roger Bacon,  Opus Magnus / Francesco Petrarch, Letters in Familiar Matters and Lie of Solitude / stories about the Voyage of St. Brendan / Dante / Giovanni Boccacio, poet. 

The Amazon.com web page has an excellent review of The Fourth Part of the World, and close up photos of the map.  Much better than the LoC’s website, which is in stark contrast to the exhibits at the Thomas Jefferson Building.  The LoC website is extremely cumbersome and designed for someone who already knows the answer to the question she’s researching.  On the other hand their exhibits are beautifully designed and labeled and their brochures are lush with photos and comprehensible text.

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