Pictures close to home

I showed these photos at the digital photography class at LeMoyne Wednesday.

Grapes on our table

I set out to take pictures last Saturday and the first person I saw was out taking pictures on Saturday

Road kill on our street

Another kind of road kill,  thrown into the street and then run over

Not sure -- might be weeds

Looking out the front window before sunrise

Through the trees as the sun comes up

Dancing in the street

Watch out, neighborhood! I'm carrying my Canon everywhere... and losing my shyness.

Graceful moves
Work on electric line slowed traffic along Meridian Road this morning.

Leaves along the way

Icon or eyesore?
Making way for sidewalk on Bradford Road

I've got my own age lines, not as beautiful as these.

Grapes from above

Grapes from above

I've been carrying my good camera (got to remember what kind it is...  ) to capture inspiration.

This picture, from just a second later, not as big a file. 52 kilobytes. The above is 4.4 megabytes... I'm not positive which is bigger ... See?? I'm still confused. OK, m-w.com says kilo is 1000. Kilobyte means 1,024, because it's the power of 2 closest to 1,000. Term first used in ... take a guess... 1970. There were no kilobytes by name before 1970. Thank you. Megabytes means a million bytes. Now I've got it.

Girl with a Pearl Earring

Girl With a Pearl Earring by Tracy Chevalier
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

We just visited the High Museum in Atlanta to see the Vermeer's Girl with a Pearl Earring, so then I wanted to read this book. I didn't like it; none of the characters seem real. They are plotted out realistically -- father a tile-painter in the city of Delft, girl sent off to work for the painter because all the artisans and artists stuck together, sister plucked away by the plague. A believable plot without passion made me not want to see the movie.


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Greek Myths

D'Aulaire's Book of Greek Myths by Ingri d'Aulaire
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This is a classic introduction to myths. I got it to keep up with a student studying ancient Greece. I didn't like it as much as I did when it was published in 1962.  The art of some children's books is timeless, but this seems stiff now to me. Also, the gods are portrayed as "getting married" over and over -- the same gods. But I guess even today some may find the gods too sexy for a children's book.

My favorite is the nymph Daphne, who turned into a tree fleeing Apollo. And I am forever grateful to Prometheus for stealing fire from Olympus for us humans, not only for warmth and food, but to uplift us. And Orpheus, whose music turned sad. And Arachne, who thought she was a better weaver than Athena (I suspect she was). And Ariadne, who gave her love Theseus a magic ball of thread so he could follow it out of the labyrinth.  The stories are timeless.


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Many magnificent molas

Thursday I visited a friend from Panama. She invited me to her apartment, which turns out to be a small museum of Central American and Mexican folk art. 

The visit ended with her giving me who knows how many Kuna (She says it's properly K.) molas circa 1950s to sell to my friends for token $10 ea. She bought the collection years ago from a friend of her mother, and when she found there are people who love needlework in town she decided it's time to divest herself of them (the molas). She wants to pass them on to people who will love them. They are amazingly detailed and gorgeous.

The Painted Word

The Painted Word by Tom Wolfe
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Tom Wolfe, who taught us all how to write "The New Journalism" in the 1970s, has proven its worth with this book, written in that style nearly 40 years ago.  New Journalism was a factual story written with novelistic style. The Painted Word -- what a great title! -- is still readable -- a short, smooth (some might say facile, but not me) history of the first 75 years of 20th century art, with special skewering for Abstract Expressionism.

The cognoscenti already know most of this. But then, Wolfe points out, there aren't very many of Them, are there? Them being a few snobbish tastemakers who curate the art scene with their dollars. They are still doing it, with ever higher numbers.

Along the way I learned the succession of art tics of the last century. Yes, Op Art came before Pop Art. No, it's the other way around ... Wolfe made me think it doesn't matter too much. He led me to question originality and the very definition of art.

Wolfe is readable, and he counted me in. I like that.


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