glorious - palo verdes!

palo verde blossom festival time!

"We all crave a simple order."

I have the good fortune to be able to listen to audio books on a regular basis and the Phoenix Public Library has an easy system to use to reserve the books as well as a fairly good selection. Although I have found Louise Erdrich's book "The Painted Drum", darker than I prefer, one passage caught my attention for it spoke to my own recent experiences...
to set the scene...
"... soon there were no pauses, no relief. One song now led straight into the next and it was as though they were all caught - drummers, singers, dancers, drum itself - in a dark outpouring of energy."

"All we crave is a simple order. One day and then the next day and the next after that, if we are lucky, to be the same. Grief is chaos. Death or illness throw the world out of whack. The drum's order is the world's order. To proceed with and keep that order is a gesture of desperate hope. Protect us. Save us. Let our minds remain clear of sorrow so that we can praise the world.

When the songs go backward, when they don't stay in place, when the men strike the drum out of time, things should stop. We should ponder the event."
p. 183 pp. 3 - or disk 6

dark
stop
light

Masterpieces Replayed exhibit

To my delight I was able to experience (thanks, Louise) the enlightening presentation of significant pieces of European art in the context of their evolution. The Phoenix Art Museum is hosting an exhibit of pieces by Cezanne, Matisse, and Monet, among other artist, which are presented along side elements that were used in the refinement of the final works of art. Some of these elements are photographs that were taken of the pieces while the work was in progress - amazing to see the artist's mind at work creating their style.

Best of all, I was able to share my joy of this exploration with my mother and my sister who invited me along for the event!

This was a very inspiring exhibition for me in that it revealed how different artists developed ways to enhance the creative process and that great pieces of art did not just happen - they evolved with time, curiosity, experimentation and focus.

"Masterpiece Replayed
through May 4, 2008
This extraordinary exhibition explores how and why 19th century French painters repeated themselves in their paintings - often painting the same scene over and over - for deliberate and defined purposes. In fact, much of the history of European painting is of artists meaningfully repeating themselves, returning to a theme, or even duplicating their own designs.

This exhibition examines - in approximately 60 of the most famous paintings, watercolors, sculptures and etchings by such artists as David, Delacroix, Gérôme, Corot, Millet, Monet, Degas, Cézanne, Matisse and others - how French painters in the 19th and early 20th centuries used repetition and what repetition came to mean for them as individual artists. The 13 case-studies in the exhibition provide an unprecedented opportunity to compare different versions of masterpieces and to instigate a conversation about originality and mastery.

This exhibition will be on view at only two locations in the country, Phoenix Art Museum and Walters Art Museum in Baltimore, which organized the exhibition." http://www.phxart.org/exhibition/exhibitionmasterpiece.aspx

color & texture - discovery, exploration