Thursday, July 31, 2008

Today was just awesome. The Thursday Life Story Writing group had some wonderful stories to share. What a great group of women with amazing lives and stories to tell and all are becoming better and better writers which is so fine. Border's coffee shop can be quite noisy when the blending or grinding machines are going but we manage pretty well. We will meet 2 times in August and then it is back to Alvin Community College for Gilbert's class.
This afternoon I picked up artist and sister/friend Betty to see the exhibit at the Menil Art Museum. If you ever get to Houston, put this beautiful building on your list. We are so fortunate here to have had the Menils as Houston residents with their passion for the arts and willingness to share it in such a beautiful manner. I loved the work of Sterne and Steinberg...delightful drawings. I loved his drawings with a lyrical calligraphic touch...very humorous and fun. You might recognize his work in the New Yorker magazine. And his wife was a wonderful painter to whom I can so relate...she never gained much recognition because critics claim she never had a particular style. She tried lots of things and I suppose in the art world that doesn't create what the critics would call "a body of work". I have the same problem.
We actually went to see the Menil's NeoHooDoo: Art for a Forgotten Faith exhibit. Very interesting work, lots of assemblage. A large sculpture of golf bags stacked up around a tall cardboard cylinder...sounds corny but it was interesting. Most impressive to me in the show was the work of Doris Salcedo. Her piece, Atrabiliarios, commemorates those who have disappeared amid political violence in her native Columbia. Actual shoes of the victims are inserted into niches in the wall which are covered with transparent animal skin and stitched all around with black thread...seen and not seen.
Then it was on to a great salad at Pronto's on Montrose before the opening of the WIVLA show at the Museum of Printing History. I have a collaged photograph in the show titled "Unabridged". It is a nice show and there was a great turnout at the opening reception.
What a great day...it approaching midnight and I'm about to turn into a pumpkin.
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2 comments:

Dana S. Whitney said...

Steinberg and Steig-- two of my favorite artists and illustrators. I'll have to check into Steinberg's wife's paintings. She may just have been overshadowed by him, too. I found out recently that Wolf Kahn's wife paints... more abstractly (and less well known than he) but terrific.

Kristin Allen said...

I'll put it on my list of things to do and places to see. i hadn't heard of it.