Filed under: Drawing, travel | Tags: art, artist, Baking, Christmas, Gingerbread, Joseph Carroll, Salve Regina University
Why are the holidays always so exhausting? I feel as if I’m at mile 20 of a marathon. (Can I say that even if I don’t exercise / dislike sweating?) Hmm. Perhaps not. I guess that my main stress is that my endless holiday errands are preventing me from getting any work done (I mean drawings, not housework). Take, for example, yesterday…I had to mail a big package off to my nephews. I took the gifts to UPS to see how much they would charge to send them. $20 minimum to ship (as they weren’t packed yet) and an extra $14 if I wanted them to pack it. WHAT???? That’s SO expensive! So, I planned to pack it myself. I asked them how much a cardboard box was. They said $10. WHAT???? Are you on crack? For a piece of CARDBOARD???? Disgruntled, I walked out with my gifts. So, I decided to go to Staples to get my packing supplies…$4 for a box (more sane) and $7 for packing peanuts (eco-friendly-corn-based, mind you, I could have had them for breakfast with some milk…). THEN, I take my self-packed box over to the post office…and it turns out to be $25 to send it parcel post with signature required.
The moral of the story: I should have just paid UPS $35 to send it. I hardly saved any money, and I spent LOTS of time running around like an angry housewife (which I am).
I tried to get into the holiday spirit this week by making a gingerbread house FROM SCRATCH with my son. It started off okay:
Everything was fine…until the pastry bag.
I’ve decided that several things are tools of the devil:
1. pastry bags
2. tinsel
3. packing tape that splits every time you try to peel it off the roll
Notice how they are all holiday related…it’s those three things have made my holiday season MUCH more distressing than is needed. Anyhoo…the pasty bag. The first time that you fill it…it’s sort of ok. Yes, I managed to drop some icing, and YES, there was icing oozing out of the top of the bag as I was squeezing it…but those challenges pale in comparison to this: refilling the bag. HOW ON GOD’S GREEN EARTH IS ONE SUPPOSED TO DO THAT???? Peeling apart the squished sides of the bag in order to attempt to shove in goopy icing, which is simultaneously falling off of the spatula, was a joke. There was icing everywhere. It was: a. in my hair, b. on the dishwasher, c. on the floor, d. on the UPPER kitchen cabinets, and e. partially on the gingerbread. Mommy was trying not to have an aneurism. Luckily, the house turned out fine:
Not bad, right? Notice how the trees in front had no frosting. Forget it. I’d had it by then. Notice also the odd lump of gingerbread in front of the left tree. My son made that. Apparently, it’s a ball. It sort of looks like a present from a large rabbit, but I decided not to tell him that. From reading all of my parenting books, I think that would have been “detrimental to his self esteem”. Needless to say, I’m not eating that thing.
In a fit of desperation, I drove to Newport, Rhode Island on Wednesday. That’s almost a two-hour drive EACH WAY. Why, would I do such an inane thing when I’m so busy, you ask? Because I had to SOMEHOW shoehorn in some “ME” time. I drove there to see a drawing show. Yes, “LocatingPLACE”, curated by Joseph Carroll, was at Salve Regina University. This show is only open until Dec. 19, so HURRY.
I have some images from the show. Generally, I loved the work. Some of it I had seen before, but that didn’t bother me one bit. Here are some of the highlights:
2012, Graphite on paper, 30″ x 40″
Okay. THAT is just plain brilliant. This is an aerial view of the “Mall of America”…drawn in graphite. This is a spectacular drawing. I love how it looks like some kind of Beaux Arts rendering of an ancient Roman ruin…except that it’s a MALL. So soooo brilliant. I even love the title, which is the link to the view. PLEASE look at his website here. This was just a gorgeous drawing that I could have stared at ALL DAY. (I only allowed myself 45 minutes in the gallery, however…I’m on a short leash here).
Next:
Carly Glovinski, Area 8, 2011, ink, graphite, colored pencil on paper, 11″ x 14″
Just look at that for a minute…it looks like an abstract work, almost like a small weaving, right? Well, it’s not. It’s an interpretation of a PHONE BOOK. I love this. How beautiful is that??? She’s brilliant. She has a series of these, and they are sooo fascinating. Glovinski captures so much with this drawing: abstraction…modernity…obsolescence…memory…humanity…
I bask in her artistic brilliance.
Next:
Nancy Murphy Spicer, Biking in Berlin 12, Biking in Berlin 13, Biking in Berlin 15,
2010, Flashe, gouache, collage on guidebook page, 8.25″ x 5.75″
This is a beautiful series created from painted/collaged guidebook pages. Each one is so beautiful and delicate. What you can’t see here, is that some of the colored forms appear to be not just collaged ONTO the paper behind, but they are actually SPLICED in. So lovely. These feel so architectural to me. I think it’s because of the splicing. Look at this lovely way that the exhibition was hung as well:
Nancy Murphy Spicer, Biking in Berlin 28, Biking in Berlin 44, Biking in Berlin 66, Biking in Berlin 79,
2010, Flashe, gouache, collage on guidebook page, 8.25″ x 5.75″
Don’t you love that? I thought that was really brilliant and compelling.
Next:
Andrea Sherrill Evans, Marker #2, 2012, Silverpoint and acrylic on prepared paper, 29 1/2″ x 33″]
This was gorgeous. Not only have I seen her work before, but I actually met her once! Her studio is in the South End, and I was lucky enough to stumble upon it. I love the mix of delicate marks with the splotch of paint. Her work is really delicate and beautiful. I’m sure that she’s getting tired of hearing the word “ethereal”, but too bad. Her work is stunning and ethereal.
Next:
Raphael Griswold, Assignments (46 drawings from the series),
2008 and ongoing, Mixed media on paper, 9.75″ x 9.75″
There were several of these drawings laid out on a table. Each one was colorful and with an amazing mix of media. I love his sense of color and how he uses the disparate materials to create different textures or qualities. He sometimes washed ink or watercolor over a resistant crayon or oil pastel texture, creating really beautiful effects. I love that these are small and not fussy…with a great variety of color and marks. His subject matter seemed to be the built environment in nature. I wish that I could have seen more of them…beautiful!
Speaking of beautiful drawings (prepare yourself for a typical annoying segue…), check out the latest from my son:
LOOK HOW CUTE!!! Those are space aliens. I like how geometric they are. I also like that he’s starting to write by himself. Look at their legs especially…aren’t they great??? I wish that I could get him to stop drawing on the back of each drawing…this is another one:
Apparently, this is a mommy alien and her baby. No, I didn’t reverse the image…my son just wrote “mommy” completely backwards. Should I be concerned? Hmm. Is it dyslexia when someone turns an entire word backwards? Hmm. It may be several years before I give him my car keys.
I’m off to go dream about drawings and distress about dyslexia whilst I grouch my way over to Stop & Shop.
Stay sane…
(I’ll try and do the same.)
slightly wonky 