April 30, 2007

Life Like Art, Like Blog

I was recently reconnected with an old friend, a former neighbor from when I live in the City. That's San Francisco for all of you who do not live in my big city proximity area. Bay Area locals simply call it the City, never Frisco. My friend is an artist and a Purple WomenTM and we spent the day at SFMOMA together. I was her art buddy for the day.


Our Purple adventure began on a Monday night, with an overnight, as my friend lives some hour and a half more remote than we do, in a straw bale house with four wells and solar panels -- no Internet, something we couldn't do without. After turning down a sub job and breakfast, we bundled up and headed for the BART station. We had to chant the parking karma chant several times before we got lucky in the back 40, nearly a 10-minute walk back to the station.

A nine dollars and fifty cent roundtrip later, plus one dollar for parking, we were rewarded for our efforts by not having to find parking in the City, and a museum discount of $2.50 on the special exhibit when we showed our BART pass. I had no idea what we were in for, or even which museum we were headed for; just a willing participant in my friend's good hands. We saw the Picasso & American Art exhibit and got a feeling for what a stir he created and why in the art world with cubism. It was interesting to see the other artists of his time whose art was on display beside his. What caught my eye most was the fourth floor exhibit, the huge monotone "study in color" work of Bruce Marden. His work is the kind that most people think of when you say modern art and think, "I don't get it".

We may all start with a decision or circumstance which results in our common status as childfree adults, but where you go from there depends entirely on what interests you. Life, like art, like blog?

There were lots of seniors and students exercising their discount mid-week, and us, two forty-something childfree women. The seniors were congregating around Picasso and his cohorts. The students would stare for ever at the big work of Marden. Not being an artist myself, I was probably paying attention to all the wrong things. Then my friend would reel me back in with a comment about technique and art history, which made the experience a little more educational.

One piece in Marden's The Muses series stood out for me. It was a rather organic looking piece of
connecting green-hued lines, achieving a three dimensional look to it. One could almost imaging vines intertwined, passing, looping, connecting. I thought of journeys, a highway possibly, or more esoterically, the paths we chose in life. The piece was one of his largest works of art, at least eight feet tall and eighteen across. I sat there and stared at it a long time.


I concluded that this particular artwork was like this blog. It doesn't matter where you begin, what day you discover us, the journey will be uniquely yours, even though you may be visiting some of the same places. As you navigate, some topics may seem familiar, posts of a similar vein will be encountered. We may all start with a decision or circumstance which results in our common status as childfree adults, but where you go from there depends entirely on what interests you. Life, like art, like blog?

Alas, I could not post a picture of it here, no pictures are allowed in the museum. You'll just have to visit it for yourself and tell us what you think!

Flickr photo
by kwei


Technorati Tag: Childfree

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