The World Examining Works

Art

 

People looking at art....

 There are all sorts of stances that suggest attention -- like the weight on one foot

seen here too.

And the head slightly back rapt attention....or puzzlement ....or leaving it neutral for now.

We went to the Outsider Art Fair on 22nd Street in the old DIA building and though there were some reliably quirky things (see above) much of the work seemed oddly faux naive and there were lots of swanky art galleries and price tags in the hundreds of thousands. Very different from when the show was in the Puck Building years ago.

However, it was very well attended and offered much to discuss.

I thought Jean Betancourt was a more authentic art work than most of the stuff on the walls. (Went up to her and asked if I might take her photo.....you can't look like that and not expect people to notice you.)

She makes funky jewellry and regrets that no gallery wants to represent her. THe business side of art never ceases to puzzle me. Will not discuss this here.

Anyway, off to the David Zwirner Gallery  where the work is reliably engaging (like the current Francis Alys Reel-Unreel)

and the crowd rather chic.

 

Natural and Unnatural

 

I'm a great fan of fruit and veggies to look at, take photos of, paint and even eat. How the pears glow in the chill November sun!

This is a most useful thing. A wreath made entirely of herbs which would be wonderful to have in a chill dank kitchen but would dry up in an instant in an overheated apartment.

Perfectly exquisite very very small cauliflowers. I buy a tiny one just for me since R. thinks they are boring and tasteless.

Windfall Farms micro mesclun. $16 for a quarter pound. The most expensive greenery on the planet. A treat just to look at it. I buy $7 worth which is enough for small salads for two.

The pears, when inspected at home, prove to be picturesque but a little wrinkly round the neck. (Avoid obvious comparisons here....) The brown leaf looks sere, which is an excellent word.

And now for something completely different....

a stupendously awful/wonderful window display (23rd St between 7th and 8th)

he looks as if he has a canteen hanging off his nose

while she probably has jaw-ache from that rictus of a smile.

 

Season's Greetings...etc.

Stripes

 

It is the time of year when in the early mornings and the late evenings the light comes slant-wise

and casts nice stripey shadows

through the somewhat rickety chairs

and the somewhat less rickety blinds.

On 8th Avenue stripes abound -- here very gay stripes

This picture isn't stripes exactly.....well, stars & stripes. The  local diner window decorated for the season.

I was making a collection of pictures of people wearing stripey clothing, but gave up as there were just too many of them --a positive epidemic of stripes

so here instead is a picture of the cakes the girls were looking at. I never saw anything as wonderful as the Religieuse.

Happy July 4th

New York Wedding

 

Fathers' Day. Sunday afternoon in Rockerfeller Center

The reception room so pure and white.

The outdoor space overlooking St. Patrick's Cathedral and one of the grooms.

A marvellous photo op.

And the clothes! Note the tarbush (often called Fez) from Morocco and the green shoes

I think the photographer has sprung from the 20's of the last century

Not to mention the clothes....

and the table after dinner

and the view from the window.....

 

Wishing Robert and David a long and happy life together.

June 17th 2012

 

Flowers and Things

 

Went up to the wholesale flower district (6th Avenue and 28th Steet) very early on Wednesday morning

to discover the Empire State Building lurking in a puddle

and gigantic almost whole bushes of hydrangeas

and packages of hosta leaves

pretty much everything in huge packages --for example $250 worth of peonies at one shot...

managed to buy white roses, peonies and lianthus at quite a modest price.

Later in the day walked to Union Square vie 7th Avenue where there was this rather spooky shop window.

At Union Square there were lupins....bliss.

In the evening I 'did' the flowers for a wedding shower and was rather pleased with my efforts.

 

 

Halloween

 

Late this afternoon.....

a most extraordinary collection of creatures

were rushing up the tall steps and begging on 22nd Street.

Even the tiniest children caught the spirit of the thing!

Such a flurry

and a hurry

as the season turns.

 

 

 

 November 1:  For a very touching post about the Day of the Dead go here

 

Another Monday

 

 

The first pumpkin of the season on a stoop on 15th Street. Very elegantly, colorlessly New York. I have been having a field day with fancy filters like Instagram, Camerabag, Hipstermatic and Old PhotoPRO -- all either free or very inexpensive -- and have concluded  that, though terrific fun, they are something to add to the gigantic pile of stuff marked 'timesucks'.

So, back to looking out of the window with my regular camera to greet the chill clouds of fall.

A science experiment --sort of. Put drop of olive oil in avacado. Add drop of balsemic. Balsemic sinks through oil. Eat science experiment.

Continue endless scarf in alpaca.

Contemplate miniature garden in tree pit by building. Remove Snapple bottle from the same. Have another stab at the 700 page biography of Patricia Highsmith I may be able to discuss on Thursday. Hmm....Walk dog.

Repeat from top.

 

 

Stuff We Keep and Stuff We Throw Away

 

 

A friend brought me this cotton boll from Alabama. I think it is very beautiful though I rather doubt I would have thought so if I had to pick cotton. I digresss.

On Saturday we were helping with a stall at a flea market and I was looking round our spare apartment for stuff to get rid of.

This character, Mr Samuel Worsley, who has lived in my desk for some years, had this  miniature done in 1821 . He seems to have lived in Orwell in Suffolk and looks a little like Wordsworth.

He was almost certainly married to poor Sarah ( above) who died aged 55 years. Where he looks bland beyond bland, she seems rather pinched and miserable. I cannot imagine how they came into my mother's possession unless they were relatives of some distant sort. However, I do not feel I can ditch them to the tender mercies of people who will feel even less connection to them than I do.

Item: two slightly sentimentally sweet French prints of children playing with animals. Kate Greenaway meets toile, much beloved by my grandmother.

I can't ditch those either.

 

 

Interior with Fruit

 

 

Forgive my obsession with

this very green jug which lives on the windowsill and is used to water plants. I think of Giorgio Morandi who painted the same things over and over again. I'm just too lazy to paint.

A cushion on a wooden chest that's now being used as an ottoman.....it used to hold paints. It was made in woodshop by my father in law in the 1930's so is probably almost an antique now.

Was at Union Square green market yesterday and bought plums, peaches, pears

and beets ( a very under-rated veg)

and a butternut squash --the first of the season -- so there will soon be a lot of soup.

Am also making a lot of elf hats see here.

Reflections on Nyack

 

A small town on the Hudson --here a table in the public library where we enquire about Edward Hopper the town's most famous son.

Here a higgeldy-piggeldy independent bookshop which I didn't enter for fear of buying all sorts of things.

Here a consignment shop where we could have dropped off things.

A very old fashioned office with clock and photo of the founder, and,

at last, the Hopper House, which, since it was Monday, was closed to the public, so 

I took a photo of the porch

and the trash can outside, then

went in search of Hopper architecture

and lunch.