Been awhile since I've updated. Mostly because not a lot to comment on really. Don't get me wrong, a lot has been going on in my small ego-centric world lately, as well as the real world that is tangential to it. (JK). A quick update....
hmm...work is going well. I'm now responsible for helping set up meeting room equipment for incoming non-profits using the space. Of course my first solo flight yielded a powerpoint that would not open on one of our older laptops downstairs, or a newer one upstairs...so the group waited 20 minutes while I tried to troubleshoot if it was a problem of a 2003 pt file not working on a 2007 version. Unfortunately the creator of said powerpoint was also not in attendance at the meeting, so we were all winging it. The group was good-natured enough about the delay to have commented "they probably don't pay you enough for this do they?" and the like, which was sweet. And when they found out it was my first solo time in charge of everything down there, they were even nicer about it. I'm also now in charge of our facebook page, and updating events pages for the city and on a cultural website. Go me getting more stuff to do.
The wedding scrapbook for Steve and Victoria is starting to come together I've filtered out the pics, put 'em up on shutterfly and starting cropping and editing. I have found the print album I'm going to use, and started scanning for layout design ideas. I'm excited to have it as my "downtime" project.
Not much else is new with me in particular, but I'm not about shameless plugs of things or people I find to be good. So, if any of you have been wanting to see Spamalot and have yet to go..well GO! it's a fantastic show even if you aren't a Holy Grail person, but even better if you are a fan of Flying circus or any other Monty Python show. Also, the national traveling tour features my cousin Matt as Lancelot, starting this Fall. An even better reason to see it! Because Erik and I saw it last year in Des Moines and loved it, but we're going to go see it there again for Matt (and cause we loved the show). It was supposed to come to Hancher, Iowa City's own performing arts venue for Broadway events...but because of the flooding, that is impossible. it also means that matt will spend Christmas in DM, Iowa, but luckily we've got family all across this state and baring any ice or really bad snow storms, he'll get to spend at least part of it with us!
Erik's roommates got kitties this week...well at least year old cats, that are short hairs and people lovers, which is great. The major drawback, since I haven't been around cats for prolonged periods of time in awhile, my allergies flared within half an hour of being there. To my credit, I didn't handle them the whole time, but not too my credit I did spend a good deal of that time playing and petting them. Hopefully as with my own Scotty, the allergies will fade quickly...
Tonight is the roommate's birthday celebration and we are going to the Brown Bottle for dinner (one of my IC favs) though it is also homecoming weekend, which means crazy busy traffic everywhere in this fair city. Go Hawks. I hope we win.
Alternatively I hope that our new president figures out what the bleep she's doing and gets a handle on things. She's just fired two major players in U of I dealings over a case that happened under her watch. of course she'd look to her team to help her with policies, etc...but really firings two days after the investigation into the "handling" of the case? I am glad the regents didn't give her a bonus this year...and since her posted salary this year was 450,000 anyway, i think it's time for her to give a bit more back to the community and accountability also. And my heart goes out to the female student, whomever you are for your willingness to continue with your case against the athletes involved and I hope that some manner of justice helps you put this awful mess into your past. You'll never forget it, but hopefully you'll be able to at least move on with your life and not let them continue to ruin it.
And now, that is all.
Saturday, September 27, 2008
Friday, August 15, 2008
Quick update and Pollock Fodder
Sorry guys, I've had a long hiatus from the blog on late...working 40-45 hours a week, and weekends filled with weddings and a beer festival and some soccer games have made this the case...plus my town flooded, which means I've moved out of an apartment, into my parent's basement, and then into a NEW apartment, (because the old building was condemned) all with in the last few months. There are thank you notes that have gone unwritten and many other scribblings to attend to before a proper update to this blog can be made. But, for the gist, I'm allright, and getting settled in the new place, and working, and squeezing in the fun where I can in between.
Also, I'm very intrigued by the discussion of the potential sale of our Jackson Pollock Mural to a "museum institution" and in fact, intrigued is only the beginning and I have just now read one of the more insulting varieties of the elitist art critics who shovel their drivel and insult University collections.
Felix Salmon - a critic says:
All the same, some paintings belong not to "the people of Iowa" so much as to the people of the world, and belong in a world-class collection. Which, frankly, the University of Iowa Museum of Art isn't.
One of the reasons that contemporary art goes for such huge sums at auction is that nearly all the major art of the past is now in museums and therefore can't be bought for any sum. But there's a corollary to that well-known fact, which is that some of the greatest paintings of all time have washed up in relative backwaters which don't and can't do them justice.
All of which is to say that if Mural had ended up in MoMA rather than UIMA, it would probably at this point be generally considered to be the greatest American painting of all time. As it is, it's described as being worth an "estimated $100 million" (which wouldn't even get you an opening bid on such a work in today's market) and as "one of the half-dozen greatest Pollocks". Nothing to be ashamed of there, but I do get the impression that being hidden away in Iowa has not done Mural any art-historical favors.
Indiana Jones, when he sees a priceless treasure, always says that it belongs in a museum. But not all museums are equal, and there's surely a case to be made that the greatest of the great masterworks belong in museums which are worthy of them, rather than in small university collections.
So, I'll break this down for my readers. I've been to many a museum in my day, both here and abroad, and from small art museum collections to places like MOMA and the Louvre, so I think this man has a lot of explaining to do by saying Iowa has done 1) nothing to promote the Pollock painting and 2) the belief that it would stand in some greater pantheon of modern art if it were in a place like the MOMA...part of the draw to a small art museum to see a "masterpiece" is just that, it is a standout in a collection, the collection doesn't overshadow a masterpiece. I'm sorry but when I walk through the Van Gogh museum in Amsterdam and see how many of the same style and scheme? Do I think any of them are less valuable than the others...no, but do I take a particular interest in them? not really. The point deer friends, is that the Pollock is an imposing piece at the UIMA because it is a large canvas and an important piece to the development of the artist's style. It is hung next to other works by modern artists...perhaps not "masterpieces" in the traditional sense, but still also, works by important artists...Miro, Gris, Feininger and Picasso...but you don't see us complaining that our museum collection was based on some art market issues. No...most of our collection of modern European and American masters came from one family, the Elliots, who traveled and collected. So yes, Peggy Guggenheim herself donated the Pollock to the U of I...and yes in the 1940's a museum didn't exist. But the art school did...and it was well-known and had a reputation for being the "Geenwich Village of the West" at that time.
I also take issue with him calling our collection small or "backwater" are you kidding me? Who is sophisticated society uses such language to describe UNIVERSITY collections? Seriously, has he not seen that most of the images of AFRICAN ART that exist in slide rooms and books and articles come from our very own Stanley collection? Outside of Indiana University (my other alma matter) we have one of the best African collections in the country...but should we discuss selling an Ibeji twin figure no one in the larger art community would bat an eyelash.
It is precisely the famousness of that Pollock piece and BECAUSE it is in a University museum that it gets this kind of attention in the first place. Hello, the MOMA decides to sell a Braque...big deal - would probably barely make it into the papers, they've got others. But a few months ago a similar case was in the news;'
From Wikipedia about Thomas Eakins' The Gross Clinic
After its purchase for $200 at the time of the Centennial Exhibition, the painting was housed in the College Building of Jefferson Medical College, Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia until it was moved in the mid-1980s to Jefferson Alumni Hall. On November 11, 2006, the Thomas Jefferson University Board voted to sell the painting for $68 million to the National Gallery of Art in Washington and the new Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, now under construction in Bentonville, Arkansas. The sale would represent a record price for an artwork made in the United States prior to World War II.[3]
The proposed sale was seen as a secretive act[4] that many from Philadelphia believed betrayed the city's cultural legacy.[5] In late November 2006, efforts began to keep the painting in Philadelphia, including a fund with a December 26 deadline to raise money to purchase it and a plan to invoke a clause regarding "historic objects" in the city's historic preservation code. In a matter of weeks the fund raised $30 million, and on December 21, 2006, Wachovia Bank agreed to loan the difference until the rest of the money has been raised, keeping the painting in town at the Philadelphia Museum of Art and the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts.
So here you have a painting kept in its native city - a masterwork by all accounts - in the cannon of art historical research - that was still in jeopardy until the people of the city rallied around it.
I do not think this Felix should be so quick to judge a painting like Pollock's Mural so simply, and nor the people of Iowa or our artistic merits either. And frankly, I'd love to write a more eloquent diatribe to post on the comments page of his article...but alas, perhaps I, in the "backwater" "small collection" vein in which I seem to live, would not do such an argument justice.
Also, I'm very intrigued by the discussion of the potential sale of our Jackson Pollock Mural to a "museum institution" and in fact, intrigued is only the beginning and I have just now read one of the more insulting varieties of the elitist art critics who shovel their drivel and insult University collections.
Felix Salmon - a critic says:
All the same, some paintings belong not to "the people of Iowa" so much as to the people of the world, and belong in a world-class collection. Which, frankly, the University of Iowa Museum of Art isn't.
One of the reasons that contemporary art goes for such huge sums at auction is that nearly all the major art of the past is now in museums and therefore can't be bought for any sum. But there's a corollary to that well-known fact, which is that some of the greatest paintings of all time have washed up in relative backwaters which don't and can't do them justice.
All of which is to say that if Mural had ended up in MoMA rather than UIMA, it would probably at this point be generally considered to be the greatest American painting of all time. As it is, it's described as being worth an "estimated $100 million" (which wouldn't even get you an opening bid on such a work in today's market) and as "one of the half-dozen greatest Pollocks". Nothing to be ashamed of there, but I do get the impression that being hidden away in Iowa has not done Mural any art-historical favors.
Indiana Jones, when he sees a priceless treasure, always says that it belongs in a museum. But not all museums are equal, and there's surely a case to be made that the greatest of the great masterworks belong in museums which are worthy of them, rather than in small university collections.
So, I'll break this down for my readers. I've been to many a museum in my day, both here and abroad, and from small art museum collections to places like MOMA and the Louvre, so I think this man has a lot of explaining to do by saying Iowa has done 1) nothing to promote the Pollock painting and 2) the belief that it would stand in some greater pantheon of modern art if it were in a place like the MOMA...part of the draw to a small art museum to see a "masterpiece" is just that, it is a standout in a collection, the collection doesn't overshadow a masterpiece. I'm sorry but when I walk through the Van Gogh museum in Amsterdam and see how many of the same style and scheme? Do I think any of them are less valuable than the others...no, but do I take a particular interest in them? not really. The point deer friends, is that the Pollock is an imposing piece at the UIMA because it is a large canvas and an important piece to the development of the artist's style. It is hung next to other works by modern artists...perhaps not "masterpieces" in the traditional sense, but still also, works by important artists...Miro, Gris, Feininger and Picasso...but you don't see us complaining that our museum collection was based on some art market issues. No...most of our collection of modern European and American masters came from one family, the Elliots, who traveled and collected. So yes, Peggy Guggenheim herself donated the Pollock to the U of I...and yes in the 1940's a museum didn't exist. But the art school did...and it was well-known and had a reputation for being the "Geenwich Village of the West" at that time.
I also take issue with him calling our collection small or "backwater" are you kidding me? Who is sophisticated society uses such language to describe UNIVERSITY collections? Seriously, has he not seen that most of the images of AFRICAN ART that exist in slide rooms and books and articles come from our very own Stanley collection? Outside of Indiana University (my other alma matter) we have one of the best African collections in the country...but should we discuss selling an Ibeji twin figure no one in the larger art community would bat an eyelash.
It is precisely the famousness of that Pollock piece and BECAUSE it is in a University museum that it gets this kind of attention in the first place. Hello, the MOMA decides to sell a Braque...big deal - would probably barely make it into the papers, they've got others. But a few months ago a similar case was in the news;'
From Wikipedia about Thomas Eakins' The Gross Clinic
After its purchase for $200 at the time of the Centennial Exhibition, the painting was housed in the College Building of Jefferson Medical College, Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia until it was moved in the mid-1980s to Jefferson Alumni Hall. On November 11, 2006, the Thomas Jefferson University Board voted to sell the painting for $68 million to the National Gallery of Art in Washington and the new Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, now under construction in Bentonville, Arkansas. The sale would represent a record price for an artwork made in the United States prior to World War II.[3]
The proposed sale was seen as a secretive act[4] that many from Philadelphia believed betrayed the city's cultural legacy.[5] In late November 2006, efforts began to keep the painting in Philadelphia, including a fund with a December 26 deadline to raise money to purchase it and a plan to invoke a clause regarding "historic objects" in the city's historic preservation code. In a matter of weeks the fund raised $30 million, and on December 21, 2006, Wachovia Bank agreed to loan the difference until the rest of the money has been raised, keeping the painting in town at the Philadelphia Museum of Art and the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts.
So here you have a painting kept in its native city - a masterwork by all accounts - in the cannon of art historical research - that was still in jeopardy until the people of the city rallied around it.
I do not think this Felix should be so quick to judge a painting like Pollock's Mural so simply, and nor the people of Iowa or our artistic merits either. And frankly, I'd love to write a more eloquent diatribe to post on the comments page of his article...but alas, perhaps I, in the "backwater" "small collection" vein in which I seem to live, would not do such an argument justice.
Wednesday, June 25, 2008
Wednesday, June 11, 2008
Flood of 2008
Someone in one of the papers said today "If the flood of 1993 was the flood of the century, it was LAST century" because 2008 with not only rival it, but surpass it...
I talked to one of the facilities guys that was trying to stave off the invasion of water into the theater lot monday morning, and in essence he told me this...
"If your place flooded in 1993, it will most likely flood again, and more so this time around."
That was enough for me...I called Cas and she came back to Iowa City and we spent Monday evening (after I worked for 6.5 hours at the CPL) moving all of our belongings into my parents spare bedroom, new basement addition, and one of the stalls of the garage...it's seriously an amazing site to see all of our crap shoved into the garage and basement...(Thanks mom and dad for putting up with your daughter returning for two months at the age of 27! and bringing a roommate and all of her belongings with her.)
We are doing this to be pro-active and as a precaution. The river has not yet spilled on to th earts campus, but they evacuated all of t ebuildings around our apartment...theater, and art building west, and two of the main routes we'd take to access our road (Dubuque Street/Park Road bridge, and Rocky Shore Drive are closed)
Thanks to everyone for the concern...cas and i are stressed, looking for a new apartment, but also, making th emost of it...I'm keeping good spirits, as I consider that now we can have sleepovers with a projection screen for movie watching I suppose.
I"ll post pictures eventually when my memory stick decides to actually work in the card reader I have...or i have another posting option...
but thanks to those who helped us move out...we do indeed still owe you a round of drinks!
I talked to one of the facilities guys that was trying to stave off the invasion of water into the theater lot monday morning, and in essence he told me this...
"If your place flooded in 1993, it will most likely flood again, and more so this time around."
That was enough for me...I called Cas and she came back to Iowa City and we spent Monday evening (after I worked for 6.5 hours at the CPL) moving all of our belongings into my parents spare bedroom, new basement addition, and one of the stalls of the garage...it's seriously an amazing site to see all of our crap shoved into the garage and basement...(Thanks mom and dad for putting up with your daughter returning for two months at the age of 27! and bringing a roommate and all of her belongings with her.)
We are doing this to be pro-active and as a precaution. The river has not yet spilled on to th earts campus, but they evacuated all of t ebuildings around our apartment...theater, and art building west, and two of the main routes we'd take to access our road (Dubuque Street/Park Road bridge, and Rocky Shore Drive are closed)
Thanks to everyone for the concern...cas and i are stressed, looking for a new apartment, but also, making th emost of it...I'm keeping good spirits, as I consider that now we can have sleepovers with a projection screen for movie watching I suppose.
I"ll post pictures eventually when my memory stick decides to actually work in the card reader I have...or i have another posting option...
but thanks to those who helped us move out...we do indeed still owe you a round of drinks!
Thursday, May 22, 2008
update
Finished the class in Nazi and Stalinist Art at the U of Iowa...the paper kept me busy for a bit there.
Went to Denver for the ARLIS/NA annual meeting, which was alot of fun and a chance to see some fellow IU alums and other new and continuing friends.
Spring Break in Seattle rocked. Pete was a very lovely host for our week there, and it was good times. And I met Rick Steves!
Saw Eddie Izzard last weekend at the Chicago theater. That man is hysterical. It was well worth the money and effort to go.
Spent my "Bush Money" (i.e. Congress tax refund) on new glasses, because I left my other glasses in the hotel in Denver at ARLIS...
Helping move the public library into our renewed space, and yesterday I pulled my hamstring playing softball with the CPL team...it's better today, though I'm still in bed, which is why I actually have time to update this blog, at least a little.
Went to Denver for the ARLIS/NA annual meeting, which was alot of fun and a chance to see some fellow IU alums and other new and continuing friends.
Spring Break in Seattle rocked. Pete was a very lovely host for our week there, and it was good times. And I met Rick Steves!
Saw Eddie Izzard last weekend at the Chicago theater. That man is hysterical. It was well worth the money and effort to go.
Spent my "Bush Money" (i.e. Congress tax refund) on new glasses, because I left my other glasses in the hotel in Denver at ARLIS...
Helping move the public library into our renewed space, and yesterday I pulled my hamstring playing softball with the CPL team...it's better today, though I'm still in bed, which is why I actually have time to update this blog, at least a little.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
