Friday Art Adventures

One of the delightful parts of the online journaling class that I took last fall has been the continuation of the relationships.  I am now Facebook friends with most of the participants, and as with most of my Facebook friends, I'm always interested to see what they're up to.

Earlier this week, one of them posted some art that reminded me of the art that she'd created for the journaling class.  I went back to the closed Facebook page that was created for our class, and I spent some wonderful time scrolling back through our posts.  We did some amazing work.  It's no wonder that I've found myself missing the energy of that time.

Last night I went to a gallery opening.  It was interesting to go to the opening with the work of the journaling class on my brain.  Many of those journal entries could have held their own against the artwork that I saw last night.

I'm not saying that ours was better, and I'm not denigrating the art in the gallery show.  I'm not the person who exclaims loudly about children I know who could fingerpaint better than that piece of art.  But I am the person who is puzzled over some of it.

Most of what I saw last night I could see the skill/talent evidenced in the work.  Some of it, however, just baffled me.  For example, there was a white panel on the floor, a panel that was about the size of half a door.  In neat rows were castaway metal:  a variety of old springs primarily, along with other scraps.

I spent some time wondering what it meant, what the artist was trying to do/say.  The title didn't give me a clue.  The art didn't sing its purpose.  Some assemblages have an inherent interest:  the shapes of the objects, in terms of what goes together and what doesn't, the colors.  This piece didn't speak to me.

It was for sale.  I always question the price of art.  Some of it makes sense to me.  Spending money for the old springs didn't make sense to me.  I don't need talent or an MFA to be able to replicate that.

I did see a piece that interested me in terms of what I might try assembling.  It seemed to be a piece of woven scraps of paper, along with an upside down page or two of a book, with various paints over it all.  The top part of the piece was beige, with only a whisp of the words showing through.  The bottom of the piece had more color covered with paint.

The cost was $700.

The gallery opening was small and crowded, so we didn't stay long.  Still, I'm glad we went.  It was on our way back from dinner, and it was free, so I didn't feel bad that we weren't as inspired.

We did have a lovely dinner.  We ate at the Chimney House in Ft. Lauderdale, near the performing arts center.  We shared a half pitcher of sangria, and we both had the skirt steak.  It was all delicious.  And we ate on the outside deck.  The rest of the southeast is about to have suffocating heat, but down here, it's still comfortable with a great ocean breeze.

I came home and sketched a bit.  It is time to think about doors and thresholds, the theme of the online journaling class, again.