Out on a Wintry Day

Rainy Evening on Hennepin Avenue, by Robert Koehler ca. 1902--hanging at M.I.A.

So, I did say in the Andrew Bird post that Saturday December the twelfth was filled with beautiful everything, and here I have those day time things. (I'm working backwards!)

The Minneapolis Institute of Arts is a wonderful place, and I've enjoyed going there a lot in the past few years. The resident-art is free to look at, and (save for a few over-zealous guards eyeing you down) an afternoon spent there is quiet and wondrous. I recommend it.

Anyway, currently, they have an exhibit of borrowed pieces of art from the Louvre. (!) My grandparents invited us to go look at it with them, and it is really nothing less than amazing. Although only the tiniest fraction of their art could be borrowed and brought across the sea, the ones that made the voyage are exceptional. There were archaic pieces, Da Vinci sketches preserved on their paper, and also there was The Astronomer. Present, in real life! Wow! This was a very special meeting for me! Do go, if you have the chance.

After we finished poring over the pieces in there, I spent hours more wandering about the rest of the museum (one could easily spend a week there and not get bored). The building itself is beautiful. The place is immaculate.
I looked out the multi-storey wall of windows, and saw a lovely panorama of a wintry Minnapolis. In the foreground were kids and their trails left by their sleds on the gentle hill with trees scattered, up to their ankles in white snow. The middle had some city streets and the various apartment blocks and the back held the classic line of sky-scrapers. It was a very pretty sight.Later, after having left the musee', we went back to the grandparents' place, where I left to take a walk. The weather was good; the air crisp but not harsh, no terrible wind, the sun casting light along the trees and the structures. It was beautiful. I stopped for a moment to take a fellow's photo with his bike on the greenway, then walked uptown. It wasn't terribly slushy yet, so I went on to cheapo records, where the warmth fogged up my spectacles. The sky began to dim, so I strode briskly back, reading Benjamin Franklin's autobiography to keep me company. I was met back at the grandparents' with grilled cheese sandwiches and hot chocolate, paired (oddly enough) with a can of tropical fruit bits. At any rate, I think my day epitomized the romantic and jazz aura of the town. And it proves that it actually can still exist and happen in that way. It's very lovely.

'And Russia was a Candy - Store.'

Recently, I visited the Museum of Russian Art, a lovely church-turned museum in Minneapolis, to look at their Nesting-Doll Exhibit. Indeed those little lacquer dolls are interesting little things, and this exhibit (though not overwhelmingly big) was quite nice, ranging from tiny painted peasant women to world figures to even tinier painted aristocratic women. While there, I also saw some startlingly beautiful old-ish and new-ish portraits and landscapes by Russian artists, and on the middle and tallest level, respectively.

In loose relation, I want to also bring up another startling beauty I found in the the music of one Nesey Gallons. He popped up awhile ago now, over in Elephant Six-land, and I am really taken with his songs. He has out one LP officially--Eyes & Eyes & Eyes Ago (ignoring those home-released discs, although I hope to see them too, someday)-- and it is just wonderful. I recommend it to people. (Incidentally, I actually spotted Mr. Nesey at a show once, [he's cute, too] but I was too bashful to say anything.) Anyway, his circles are released by his record label called Hurrah for Karamazov ( Dostoyevsky is brilliant) and much of his work tangles back to Russian themes. You see, there IS a connection. At any rate, his music is just so chillingly nice, sung in a forlorn, soft-spoken wail, with his guitar and dear Julian's accompaniments of saw, chord organ, and countless things. All together, it makes a big stew of niceties to the ears. Indeed melancholy may seem the mood, but when I hear Nesey's music, I always feel happy and hopeful. He is sort of the new kid, but from what I have been fortunate enough to hear, he's as marvelous and seasoned as the rest of that wonderful old collective. That's quite a nice thing.

Stuff.

The school year ended yesterday for me, and in all the hubbub I managed to finish one last art project. The Music Tapes show of February had affected me so wonderfully, I thought I would make some Music Tapes-inspired bits. I suppose you could call them "jewelry," but I guess when I was making them I wasn't really thinking jewelry as much as little metal bits. Also, they make a chiming sound when you have them all together on strings (perfect).

Art Show at the High School

The High School Art Show is tonight, and from what I've seen, it probably will be pretty amusing. My Birkmose Park painting (no photo, sorry) is hanging up in the antechamber, and it's neato to see all the pictures students have created.
My cousin Kristine has a purple painting of a dancer that is absolutely amazing hanging in the hallway, and I stopped to look at it earlier today, and was a tad confused by the title.
Later, at lunch her friend Gunnar informed her that her painting was entitled Cholera. I corroborated with him, and Kristine wasn't all too happy to hear that. As it turns out, Kristine had asked her friend Jessie to print out a label for her, and Jessie thought it would be funny to rename the piece Cholera. I must say, it was pretty hilarious when I saw it.
And that, friends, is the story of Cholera, the painting.