Water Lilies

ASOS Curve Dress

Another day, another interview. Since it was a bit warmer today I decided to go with a dress instead of my skirt suit. I took my mother's suggestion and wore the scarf that I bought her from the Metropolitan Museum of Art's Catalog. Monet is our favorite artist, and the color palate worked perfectly with the dress. I further incorporated the color inspiration from the scarf in these super comfortable ModCloth wedges.

Wedges: Mod Cloth, Scarf: The Met Store

Shopping in the City

Alloy Cuffed Jeans, F21+ Blouse, Chanel Sunglasses, Thrifted Loafers,
 Impressionist Tote  from Museum Gift Shop

Museum Musings: Ugly Baby Jesus

If you go to the Louvre, or any large traditional Western museum for that matter, you will notice that a large percentage of the art there is religious.  That's because it took about 1500 years after Christ's birth for artists to decide it was okay to paint other things besides Biblical Scenes. That doesn't make the art not interesting, or well executed, it just gets quite repetitive to look at. Upon one visit to the Louvre with my parents, I was quite tired and not really in an art appreciation mood. I noticed that several of the baby Jesus representations were quite funny looking. I proceed to spend the rest of my visit hunting out ugly or weird deceptions of the Baby Jesus with the Virgin Mary.  It seems that pre-Renaissance artists didn't know how to paint a baby. Perhaps they were all single men who had never seen one up close, or their wives were the only ones who spent quality time with the baby. Either way, enjoy my collection of ugly Jesuses. If you like my pictures, you'll love the tumblr Ugly Renaissance Babies.

That's an unfortunate hairline for a baby.

Museum Musings: SFMOMA

Yesterday Edwin and I went to the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, my first visit. I have a very closed mind in terms of Modern Art, so there were plenty of internal giggles and eye rolls at some of the edgier displays. I'm not saying a urinal on the wall at a museum isn't art, I just find it to be stupid art. That being said, there were plenty of pieces I found interesting and enjoyed.  I know my little digital photos don't to them justice, so you'll just have to go for yourself.

Andy Warhol, Self-Portrait, 1967

Roy Lichtenstein, Mirror #2, 1970.

A re-imagining of Monet's series of the Rouen Cathedral. Roy Lichtenstein, Rouen Cathedrals Set V, 1969

Musings: Crayons & A Self-Portrait

So this afternoon I went through and organized my art box. I've decided to purge my art supplies and give some of them to people who will actually use them. I reached my visual arts peak at about age 8, and don't anticipate a major revival anytime soon.  I don't need that much Bristol board under my bed collecting dust.

I found I had 4 boxes of Crayolas in the denominations of 8, 16, 24 and 64. This was just unacceptable. So I organized them all by color. Then I put the 64 best ones (below) for me to keep, and filled up the 16 and 24 boxes with good assortments of colors to give away. For those of you doing the math, at least 8 were broken and thrown away. Yes, I know that they could have been used, or melted into a mega crayon,  but who really wants a broken crayon?

I did learn something interesting while going through all those crayons. Were you aware that red violet and violet red are different? And are apparently both very popular colors? Can you see the difference? You can click the photo for higher resolution and to zoom.

My childhood enthusiasm for a variety of crayons is perhaps the origin of my fascination with color names (see my Denim geography posts: North American, international). It's interesting how different people (especially the professionals at Crayola) chose to describe something in words that is by definition visual.

My carefully assembled box of my 64 best crayons.

I remember at one point having a set with more than 100 colors, so I went online to see what amounts are out there.  I found something amazing: 

This 150-count telescoping crayon tower with storage case and sharpener is a beautiful thing. And it's only $20, $16.75 on Amazon! It's so important to be able to see everything at once (see my jewelry collection). This makes me want to get some new coloring books, that's for sure. 

In actual art, instead of art supply news, I found a self-portrait of mine while going through my pads of paper, entitled " 'Myself': Age 14". I'm glad I had the foresight to date it. I'm going to be 24 this month. Weird.