First Wednesday

Artwalk tonight (home early to do homework, boo). MOCA was crackalackin', as always. I was kind of overwhelmed by the Marilyn show, lots of work, strange displays... many photographs, stacked kind of high, too far up for them to be easily viewable. Dan Estabrook's show, Forever and Never, was quietly gripping. I appreciated his presentation of the negatives as well as the prints. It was peculiar to see the thing that is usually invisible yet so crucial, to the final outcome. Scale was something present in my mind when viewing all of his work.. (seeing a theme? Jeez, hah). His works are fairly small, thus very intimate. It pleases me to have an entire image, everything you need to comprehend right before your eyes, or small enough to cup in your hands even. Why is that? If we're going to go the gender route, woman's art (and the genre of craft) is historically on a much smaller scale than the epic nature of 'masuline' art; but that these works were created by a man throws the gendered lens out with the bathwater and only would explain my leanings, theoretically. My Medieval Woman Author's class is making me aware of gender, but at the same time, I'm not sure of the relevance of dissecting it. It seems strange to me to single out pieces of the whole, when it's the whole that functions, not bits torn apart and out of context... ? I don't know how to phrase this. Here's an asterik for this to be continued later - "*". Onwards..with regards to framing, some of the more ornate little frames worked very well, but some of the larger pieces ( I say larger, still probably only 11 by 14 or so) just needed a little bit more breathing room, and could have benefited from a more clean lined frame, I feel. The more I view the presentation of work with a critical eye, the more I can define what I like and dislike, what works aesthetically in my opinion and what does not (large shiny silver frames at South Light Gallery, no and no and why and no!!!!!!!). Anyhow.. finished up a new batch of drawings/watercolors, and applied to a show at the Kinsey Institute, funny, no? Pictures soon, I've been mondo slacking lately, my mind is just ten places at once, keeping myself intentionally busy so that I can't really think about too much. Happy Wednesday night, fabulous mid week marker!