Let the good times roll

Yesterday was the first day of the Lunar New Year (fire monkey, for those of you keeping score at home).
Today is Fat Tuesday. Between the Hunan Chicken and the red beans with rice and andouille sausage followed by paczki. I'm feeling a little too fat.
But we are supposed to be whooping it up with one last drunken revel before lent begins. So if you didn't get your pancakes or your paczkis, perhaps the Garden of Earthly Delights [note: link has audio] will suffice.

“I perhaps owe it to flowers, that I became a painter.” ~Monet

Between 1896 and his death in 1926, Claude Monet painted about 250 pieces in the Water Lilies series. Sixty of them, eight full murals, reside in purpose-built oval rooms in the Musée de l'Orangerie. The other 190 are scatter throughout the world, primarily in museums, as individual pieces (for the most part).
The Cleveland Museum of Art has one. It is part of a triptych whose other parts are in Kansas City, Missouri, and St. Louis, Missouri. They have been reunited for a brief visit (until the new year).

The Cleveland Museum of Art and the Royal Academy of Arts in London have organized an exhibition that examines the role of gardens in the paintings of Claude Monet and his contemporaries.
Painting the Modern Garden: Monet to Matisse

I loved seeing the immensity of the three water lily paintings together, but this exhibition is large and comprehensive. Some of my favorite pieces weren't even by Monet. There is a striking Sargent and an ethereal Berthe Morisot. Cleveland is very lucky.

not the John Singer Sargent on display in the exhibit

New house

I think I found the MOST ADORABLE WAY to upgrade the sadly deteriorating playhouse in the back yard that LSH fondly refers to as the "mother-in-law suite." I am very impressed with this guy's work! If only she didn't need a bathroom...

Just for fun

Here is a rainbow of sheep.

by Gray Malin

Look what I found!

I've been to the Cleveland Museum of Art countless times, but every time I go, I find something else to amaze me.

Vase Bertin, c. 1855

modeled by Jules-Constant Peyre (French, b. 1811), decorated by Léopold Jules Gély (French), Sèvres Factory (French)

Our neighbors have been living next door longer than we have been here (which is a long time), but I still found something new in their yard.

Fairy tunnel c. 2014

Maybe the adventure in life is small new discoveries. Tomorrow I will discover a new kitty on my calendar. I will take a picture of it also.

Roman Holiday

Rome might have changed a little bit in the 265 years since Giovanni Paolo Pannini painted his view of the city.

View of Rome from Mt Mario, Pannini, 1749

view of Rome from Monte-Mario, Wikipedia Commons, 2012

Fun at the museum

Cheater post, but fun, nonetheless.
Art that hides something.

I'm sure it was an accident

I love this. On so many levels, but mostly because the print itself, which is so beautifully suited to be a featured purchase at Walmart.

"Prints of a piece by graffiti artist Banksy called “Destroy Capitalism” are available on Walmart's website for $57.99... ."

A building of awesome

The City Museum in St. Louis, Missouri, is one of the coolest places I have ever been. Artist Bob Cassilly has created in an abandoned shoe factory "an eclectic mixture of children’s playground, funhouse, surrealistic pavilion, and architectural marvel made out of unique, found objects."
As tempting as that description is, it does not do the place justice. The entry on the first floor alone is worth the admission price. Mosaics on the floor and columns, a huge whale sculpture that you can walk into, tree houses and climbing tubes created from found materials ranging from sprockets to rebar, to cisterns. Even the walls to the bathroom are lined with chafing dishes to give them a quilted look.
None of this even touches on the amazing Rube Goldbergian playground outside. Incorporating two abandoned planes, a log cabin, a sandstone tower, and hundreds of yards of twisted tubes linking them all, it's a crazy jungle gym three stories above the ground.
Tying the whole thing together are enough secret tunnels and passageways to keep even the most energetic and adventurous kid entertained for hours.
Every turn brought out another gasp of awe.

Artistically fat

Why is a person who draws pictures of thin women with large breasts a pornographer but a person who draws fat women with large breasts an artist?

The Three Graces (aka "Baby got back") by Peter Paul Rubens

Happy trees.

On "art"
Who decides which insipid paintings of lilac gardens and rose arbored cottages get hung in hotel rooms?
Who MAKES these paintings? Is this where all the old ladies who watched Bob Ross sell their work?

For art's sake

Here in Cleveland, we are extremely fortunate to have a world-class museum of art. We are also fortunate that our museum has enough patrons to 1.) pay for a $350 million expansion and renovation to the building and 2.) provide FREE admission to the general galleries every day.
In addition, they have a spectacular website featuring most of the collection online.
Now, on top of all that, we are told that they generated $140 million is economic activity for Cleveland.
Next time you have a free day and it's a little bit dreary outside, take a trip to the museum. And they've certainly earned a donation or two.

Castle in the trees

Bonsai tree houses by Takanori Aiba

This has to be one of the coolest things I've ever seen done with a plant.

And meercats too!

Over two years in construction, the new "Elephant Crossing" has opened at our Cleveland Metroparks Zoo. I can't wait! The one thing I will miss about the old pachyderm house is the Viktor Schreckengost sculpture at the entrance.
But based on the peeks I've sneaked online (check out the video of elephant Shenga taking a swim!), it looks phenomenal. I like that they have a place that looks like home (even if they've never seen "home"). It assuages my guilt at enjoying their captivity.

You never knew plastic 2-liters could be so cool

photo credit: Matt Cardy/Getty Images

British artist Bruce Munro created art at Salisbury Cathedral using "16,000 two-liter water bottles to craft the installation, which also required running 69,000 meters of optic fiber through the bottles. Each of the 69 towers is constructed of 216 bottles and contains thirty tons of water. Together the massive towers form a huge maze, which changes colors in sync to a musical score."

How cool is that?!

Quack

Of course it's a crime! "A bronze duckling named Pack has been swiped from the beloved 'Make Way for Ducklings' sculpture in Boston's Public Garden." Everyone remembers Robert McCloskey's wonderful story of the string of ducklings who travelled cross-town while traffic stopped and people watched. The theft of one of the poor guys is not funny at all. "Mayor Thomas Menino wants to get all his ducks in a row. He denounces the fowl [sic] act as a crime, not a prank." Poor Mama Duck!

A whole new meaning to 'performance art'

"A Norwegian appeals court has ruled that striptease is an art form... . "

I wonder how vanGogh or Michaelangelo or Matisse feel about this.
And we'll be having pasty, beer-bellied misogynists claiming to be cultured. yuck

In the eye of the beholder

Okay, so I stumble across this story of an exhibition in an English art gallery. Apparently the "artist" has angered PeTA with her show which seems to involve her sitting naked for 4 hours cradling a dead pig. For the first time in my life, I find myself agreeing with PeTA: "As Miss O'Reilly seems to depend on the shock of using a murdered pig as a prop, perhaps lacking the talent to make it as a proper artist, may we suggest she take up a day job instead to pay the bills,"
On the other hand, PeTA is objecting to the show because they believe it is cruel to the pig. Hello?! The pig is dead. How is holding its pork chops in any way cruel? She doesn't actually kill the pig. She just holds it's dead body. Think of it as frying bacon naked, without the frying pan.

Art redefined

Britain's Royal Acadamy [of Art] selectors presented a plinth as a complete sculpture.
"Given their separate submission, the two parts [-the plinth and head-] were judged independently. The head was rejected. The base was thought to have merit and accepted. The head has been safely stored ready to be collected by the artist,"

The artist has now turned his career to plinths.