I am fascinated with these color pictures of America in 1939-1943, published in The Denver Post. They are “by photographers of the Farm Security Administration/Office of War Information” and “are some of the only color photographs taken of the effects of the Depression on America’s rural and small town populations.”

We’ve seen tons of photos like this in black-and-white, but the color brings the past to life in a new way. To me, it creates an immediacy so that the photos seem full of modern people dressed in costumes rather than distant, historical figures. I guess things weren’t so different after all.

More here.

This is Evelyn Nesbit. She was beautiful, wasn’t she? Last night, while researching something else, I was reminded of her. Back between 1900-1906, she was a media sensation, the first It girl, the first time (that I know of) that America got obsessed with the face of a woman and pushed it to cult-like status. Perhaps we had done that before; perhaps we have always done that. But Evelyn Nesbit was kind of a precursor to Marilyn Monroe, a person who, because she embodied a certain look of a time and a certain specific sexual identity that met with the ideal of the time, was elevated to the emotional and cultural weight of a symbol.

In the above picture, Nesbit is 16 years old. I am not sure how old she is here, but this is one of my favorite pictures of her:

She would be considered beautiful today, but back in 1900 or so, she was the ideal. She had a perfectly oval face, a long straight nose, symmetrical features, and piles of wavy hair. You might think we like the same things today, but actually common protocols suggests that we like features more exaggerated –think Angelina Jolie’s giant lips–and feminine from all angles. From the profile, Nesbit had a rather masculine face:

And could look like Rumor Willis:

In 1902, Nesbit was a well-known model for photographers and artists alike. She was famously depicted in one of Charles Gibsons’ drawings, making her one of the most famous Gibson Girls, and cementing her status as a sex symbol for her day. Here is the drawing that made her name:

She was caught between two men, her lover Stanford White and her husband/abuser (?) Harry Kendall Thaw. She did not seem particularly passionate about either man, although they were passionate about her.

I wanted to tell you more about this, but the Internet is unreliable about details, and I am only now becoming acquainted with Evelyn Nesbit. Therefore, I will have to read a book and get back to you. But what happened in the end was, Thaw shot Stanford White dead over Nesbit. There was a long, elaborate media circus around the incident, during which Nesbit testified in Thaw’s defense (I think), but he went to jail anyway.

I like this part, from Wikipedia:

In his book The Murder of Stanford White, Gerald Langford quoted Thaw as saying “You ruined my life,” or “You ruined my wife,” and the New York Times account the following day stated “Another witness said the word was “wife” instead of “life”" in response to the arresting officer’s report otherwise.

After that, Nesbit became a morphine addict and an alcoholic and tried to kill herself several times. But she didn’t, and lived to age 82. Here she is as an old woman with Joan Collins on the right:

No one has called me a homemaker or anything. I just realized that with all the talk about sewing, and chickens, and cooking, and whatnot I put on the Internet, someone might get that impression about me. I am actually much more interested in art and books and history and philosophy and things like that than I am about home-related stuff. I guess I get more feedback on the home posts than the art/intellectual posts, so I keep going in that direction. But that is not an accurate depiction of myself, so I resolve to write more about weird artists or strange things I research on here, even if the result is the sound of crickets chirping in the comment box.

What do you do when your power goes off? Well you definitely can’t work. That’s out of the question. So naturally, you call Marcia–whose power is also off–and you go out to breakfast. Then you remember that it is free museum day in San Francisco and you hop in the car. Hurrah!

I had never been to Golden Gate Park on a free museum day, and I have to tell you, it feels right to walk right into a museum. Culture should be free.

First we went to the Conservatory of Flowers. We saw a lot of tropical plants, including a fair number of orchids and these things:

Here is a picture of two old hippies wandering around and communing with plants. She was carrying a drum, in case there was a drum circle to join, I assume.

After that, we went to the de Young Museum. I was fascinated with the exhibit of artifacts from New Guinea. All the masks and statues looked like they were from horror movies–images of fangs, crazy eyes, blood lust, and so on. Those New Guinea tribes were nothing to mess with, from the looks of it.

Marcia and I agreed that the coolest thing in the museum were these models of famous churches made entirely from weapons. They were really well constructed and provocative.

After that, we were hungry again, so stopped in San Rafael for Puerto Rican food. Flavorful! Then I came home and discovered the power had been on for a long time and felt guilty for skipping work. Oh well…

I didn’t get to go snowmobiling because the weather didn’t cooperate, but that didn’t stop us from visiting Troy and Krista in Sacramento this weekend. We walked around downtown, ate good food, and visited the Crocker Art Museum.

The Crocker is in an old mansion. Half the pleasure of being in it is walking around the building itself. I took many pictures of tile and woodwork like this one:

They had an exhibit of art from original Warner Bros cartoons. It was interesting to see the evolution of characters like Porky Pig and Bugs Bunny. I never really thought about how many man hours went into one of those cartoons before. It made me respect animation in a new way. My favorite part was the backgrounds of the cartoons, which were tiny, brightly colored paintings. Unfortunately, the security guard wouldn’t let me take pictures of the Warner Bros’ exhibit. Who knows why. However, the contemporary art section had a bunch of Peep-like bunnies in a canoe. Here is a picture of that:

The other thing I liked at the Crocker was this old cigarette machine that had been converted so that you could buy cigarette-carton-sized art with $5 tokens. You buy the tokens in the museum store, put them in the machine, and pull the knob:

Krista and Kyle got their art just fine. Krista got an olive key chain and Kyle got a little painting. But when we tried to buy my art, the knob got stuck and we had to get a museum guy to help us while all these snotty art people looked on. It turned out that the slot my art had been in was empty, but you couldn’t tell because they had put a multi-colored weight in the slot that looked just like the art. The guy got mad at me and told me to pick something, so I pointed to another slot. He gave me a block of wood with brown and green splotches on it. It looked like 1970s kitsch you would find in a thrift store.

I tried to not show how disappointed I was by the lame art and mean people, but Troy and Krista could tell so they gave me their other token. (!) This time, the knob worked and I got a cool painting of safety pins. They are good friends. [ETA: Troy and Krista, not the safety pins.]

Krista and Troy

Kyle in front of a giant piece of aluminum

Me in a house of mirrors

I can’t believe I lived near Sacramento all that time and never went to the Crocker Art Museum. Now I want to go back to Sacramento and see the California History Museum, which I also ignored while I lived there. Another time, I guess.

A week or so ago, I went to see the Frida Kahlo exhibit at SFMOMA. I like art I can understand, and I feel like I can understand Kahlo’s art. I look at it, and I just feel like I get it.

My interest in her work follows my interest in her husband Diego Rivera’s work. I had Vendedor de Flores on my wall all through high school but didn’t discover Kahlo’s work until college. I love her diary and have read several biographies and bad fictionalizations of her life. Her life is shaped by two tragedies. One, she was injured in a streetcar accident where a metal stake went through her back and made her an invalid. She suffered great physical pain throughout her life because of it. Two, she married Rivera, who repeatedly cheated on her (she cheated on him too, I guess), including with her sister. She suffered great mental pain throughout her life because of it.

Her paintings are an imagistic response to that pain. As such, it is their emotional content that makes them so relatable.

I had only seen one or two of her paintings in person before the exhibit. Now I have seen all the important ones. Here are some thoughts:

A. Kahlo was a brilliant portrait artist. I didn’t understand the sheer scope of her ability before this exhibit. The eyes, which I understand are a major way to judge portraits, are filled with subtle yet very specific emotions. Emotions you don’t expect. For example, look at the complicated ways the eyes are unfocused and pointed inward in this painting, giving me a sense of the sadness and disconnection from the viewer:

B. Seeing Kahlo’s art in person changes it. With all the mass marketing of her work, you think you know these paintings before you see them, but more than any artist I have ever seen, Kahlo’s paintings get lost in photographs. You don’t get the subtleties. I had seen copies of the below painting hundreds of times, but had never noticed that the face it androgynous until I saw it in person.

The photo makes it look like it is just a little off, but in person you see that it is a deliberate choice on her part. She made half of her face like a woman and half like a man. It is one of the best androgynous paintings I’ve ever seen.

C. A portrait of chronic pain:

D. Her last paintings are interesting after all. Before Kahlo died, she was mostly painting fruit. I don’t go in for fruit or flower paintings, so I never paid much attention to these paintings before. In person, they are truly gory and disturbing. The fruit looks like rotting body parts and things that wriggled out of birth canals and other creepy things. I liked them.

E. San Francisco needs a fourth major art gallery. Every time I go to one of these exhibits, they are stuffed full of people. It’s like the perpetual crowd in front of the Mona Lisa in the Louvre. There are many art lovers in that town, and that’s great. Some clever person should take advantage and build another gallery. S/he would make a killing. Demand and supply, man.

Now that Kyle and I have a mortgage, we have to be more frugal with how we spend our free time. So we are being more creative, picking activities that cost less but are oddly enriching in their variety. This weekend, for example, I made Spanakopita for the first time, went thrift store shopping in the rain, visited the San Jose Museum of Art, and had Indian buffet (among other things).

The art museum has long been one of my favorites in the Bay Area. It’s smaller, but more discriminating in what it displays. I find that the art they have there is often more relevant and interesting to me than art in other museums in the area.

This time, they had series of Picasso sketches and Goya etchings. The etchings were Goya at his creepiest. They are called Los Caprichos, a set of 80 etchings that are satires of the church, society, etc. Even though Goya made these etchings in 1799, they are still somewhat disturbing to look at what with the witches and goblins and decapitations and pedophilia and whatnot. This is, after all, the man who painted Saturn Devouring His Children. I thought they were fascinating. You could just stare and stare at each one. (However, I did have to raise an eyebrow at some of the parents who were showing these etchings to little children. Talk about the stuff of nightmares. Some art is for adults!)

Church in San Jose shot through an art museum window.

We also hit the thrift store jackpot this weekend. I got:

Three owl trivets

A fondue set

A $15 leather office chair

Also: A monkey bowl, a vintage casserole dish, a water timer for sprinklers, a scoop for the cat food, and a new (never worn) shirt. There’s something so satisfying in bargains.

Quick Facts:

• Distance traveled: 235 miles
• Hotel: Garrett’s Desert Inn, which has a hotel shaped like a chile pepper
• Number of Torrential Downpours: Two
• Dinner: Ore House, featuring Southwestern fare
• Souvenirs purchased: Two pretty bowls and a beaded barrette

Santa Fe was not at all how I imagined it would be. I don’t know what I was expecting–I think something like Sebastopol, only with more colors–but it looked different than I thought. Established in 1515 by Catholic Missionaries, it’s full of old churches and clay-colored adobes. It also has a charming downtown square with shops and art galleries.


Adobe


Santa Fe is an artist community and art is everywhere you look. For example, these trees had to come down, so someone carved statues in the trunks.

One of the reasons I wanted to come to Santa Fe was to see the Georgia O’Keeffe Museum. We had some trouble finding the place and ended up walking down the wrong street. Then, suddenly, it was pouring rain. I was shocked–I had no idea it was about to rain. We fled and stood under the awning in a construction site. The rain passed quickly, but my shirt had turned see-through from the water.

So there I was in downtown Santa Fe, walking along in my see-through blouse, holding a water bottle up in front of me so people couldn’t see my bra. Luckily, the sun had somehow re-appeared (??) so by the time we finally got to the Georgia O’Keeffe Museum, my shirt had mostly dried. However, the woman inside the museum told us they had shut down the exhibit to re-arrange things and we couldn’t go in. I almost started crying.


Photo of Georgia O’Keeffe painting in the desert

I comforted myself by buying some serving dishes in the gift shop and then going to the Museum of Fine Art, which had several O’Keefe paintings. Afterwards we walked around and looked at many other galleries.

For dinner, we were sitting on the balcony of the Ore House people watching, when suddenly, like a crowd of Hell’s Angels roaring into town, another thunderhead blew over the town and it began to pour again. We retreated inside for dinner.

Things I learned from Santa Fe:

• There are many pretty flowers in the desert
• Rain is completely unpredictable here
• Southwestern-style clothes/art/jewelry looks tacky and strange outside of the Southwest, but makes perfect sense within the context of Santa Fe
• I dislike most Southwestern things, except for the very expensive stuff
• TV studios change commercials based on the area you’re in. Examples:

Pregnancy test ad:
California: The most high-tech instrument you will ever pee on.

New Mexico: The most high-tech instrument you will ever … um… you know…


Government abstinence ad:
California: Tell your child to wait to have sex

New Mexico: Tell your child to wait until marriage to have sex.




Tomorrow: Roswell … and beyond!

Neat!

I loved Calvin and Hobbes as a child. I cut all the comics out of the paper and saved them in a tinbox, and somewhere I still have all the collections. I think Bill Waterson was brilliant and even today, I sometimes wonder what he is doing with himself.
Still, I cracked up when I saw Robot Chicken’s hilariously dark clip of this beloved childhood icon: