slightly wonky

Useless groundhogs with their fraudulent shadows…

Dear Town of Arlington, MA,

The next time that you decide not to declare a snow day, would you please also plow the roads?

Thank you.

So, today is NOT a snow day…but my son is home with me because our road was impossible for me to drive on.  I got 25′ from the house, turned the car around (carefully), and headed back.  BAH!  So much for some sanity today.  The only reason I can even write this is because he’s watching Dinosaur Train right now.  Bad mommy!

I think that I just heard a plow go by.  Maybe it’s not to late to go to school?  Sigh.  Maybe it’s not too late to trade in my little Toyota Matrix for a dog sled team?  I’d even settle for a cat sled team today…ech…forget it.

[update: 3+ hours have gone by and the roads are still a mess…helllooooo???]

Luckily, yesterday was clear weather, so I managed to go down to the South End to check out what’s in the galleries now.  Lucky me!  I’m going to try to go more regularly…SO MUCH GOOD STUFF!

Sandra Allen

This GORGEOUS pencil drawing is by Sandra Allen at Carroll and Sons Gallery.  I have seen her work online, and I think that I even featured her once before in an earlier post.  Well…as is with most things, seeing the work in person was 1000 times better than seeing it on the internet.  I was pretty much awestruck by how absolutely beautiful her work is.  Look at that texture!  Look at the amazing range of values!  Once again, if you are in the Boston area….GO SEE THIS SHOW.  NOW. (how do I convey a stern look and wagging finger?)  The art gods have spoken.

Next:

Sandra Allen

These drawings are enormous, and they aren’t even her largest work, which is also flabbergasting.

Tree trunks!  What a beautiful and simple subject!  I really could have stared at them all day.

Here is the look of the gallery:

Sandra Allen

Carroll and Sons recently renovated their space.  This room is unchanged (I think), but beyond the wall on the right are two new spaces.   They used to have their office back there, so I’m not sure where the offices went!  Anyway, the renovation looks great too.  Don’t you love how the wood flooring is on the diagonal?  I love that.  That wasn’t part of the renovation, but I still love it.

Bromfield Gallery is showing the work of Kathleen Volp:

Kathleen Volp, White Madonna, 40″x35″

I wasn’t familiar with her work, even though I’d heard her name quite often.  I liked the overall palette.  All of the materials that she used had a strong character.

Kathleen Volp, I am My Father’s Daughter, 54″x54″

This one felt so “architectural”, and not just because of the Lincoln Logs…

Kathleen Volp, I am My Father’s Daughter (detail), 54″x54″

Yes, that’s a vintage box of painted pink Lincoln Logs!  I found this piece to be poignant as some kind of communication with her father.  I wonder if he’s seen it?  I almost feel that the box of pink Lincoln Logs is enough of a piece itself.  But the big 2D portion of the piece is pretty impressive as well.

Gallery Kayafas has photographs by Guillermo Srodek-Hart:

Guillermo Srodek-Hart

I LOVED these photos.  The series is titled, “Interiors.”  Each was a photo of an interior filled with objects…the inside of a little shop…the inside of a deli, etc. The colors and the images were mesmerizing.  I am actually not often as interested in photography (see how ignorant I am?).  THESE photographs, however, were amazing.  Look at the color palette!  This is another must see show.  I wish that I had time to look at each photo one for an hour.  Unfortunately, the meters in Boston are expensive and fiendishly monitored by the parking evildoers.  It’s 12 minutes for one quarter.  Sheesh!  Also, after two hours, you have to move your car.  By move your car, they don’t just mean move it to another spot right near the one you already have.  OH NO.  You have to move the car off of that ENTIRE BLOCK.  (Fat chance!)  But I digress…

Kingston Gallery is showing the work of Rose Olson:

Rose Olson

Her series, Light Moves, works with translucent layers of paint washed over cradled plywood, with intermittent opaque bands of color.  What I liked about these was that her work made you feel as if the pieces were being lit up by a colored light source or dichroic glass.

La Defense offices by UN Studio

Similar palette?  I found that optical effect to be pretty interesting.  I think that she also uses some interference paint.

Howard Yezerski Gallery has the work of Barbara Grad:

Barbara Grad

This series is titled, “Lost Horizons.”  While these paintings are abstract, the collage-like areas of stripes made me think of fields of grain, or bodies of water.  The piece above was one of my favorites.  This may not be the correct analysis of the work, but I feel that they have a “quilt-like” quality to them.  Sort of like Gee’s Bend on hallucinogens.

Gee’s Bend Quilt

No?  Or maybe I just need to get out of the house and get some fresh air?  Oh wait…I forgot that we’re still in the middle of a BLIZZARD.  Did that useless groundhog see its shadow???  Perhaps it was just the lights from the news cameras that created the fraudulent shadow.

Right now, my stir crazy child is upside-down on the couch screaming and laughing maniacally.  No, he’s not 30.  He’s 5. I think that this post will have to end early as I can barely keep my sanity, never mind form a complete sentence.  I was supposed to create a “marketing plan” for my class tomorrow.  Oh well!  I keep having to look up what a marketing plan IS.  At least I have identified my main challenge to getting any work done: being a parent of a crazy child who is acts as if he just ate the frosting section of the grocery store.

I can’t wait for Easter.

I may have to build myself an igloo today just to get some peace and quiet.  Or maybe I’ll just lie down outside for 10 minutes and get buried under a foot of snow?  Maybe if I wrap my puffy robe around my head, instead of my body, this will muffle the sound of preschool insanity emanating from my slightly unstable, yet loveable, child?

Maybe not…

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