Fun Exhibits!!

I am so looking forward to this semester being over and once again having free time. I am going to be spending the majority of the break between semesters in my hometown of St. Petersburg, Florida and will get to see a couple of really neat shows.

1. The DaVinci Machines Exhibition
Hand built models of a whole bunch of DaVinci sketches of inventions. Should be really interesting.

2. Warhol: Art. Fame. Mortality.
An exhibit at my old stomping grounds, the Salvador Dali Museum in St. Petersburg. I'm especially looking forward to this one since I did some research for my old boss about the strange interactions between the two very eccentric artists.

I hope everyone else has some fun plans for the winter break to help push themselves through finals!

Reading Fairs

So, I came across this blog post about a reading fair that the blogger's children's school does every year and it makes me wonder why more schools don't do things like this. The same idea as a science fair, but it gets kids engaged in reading and art making (by making the displays). 

There are three posts about the reading fair, and I'd encourage looking at all three because each has different pictures of different posters that kids made and they are all FANTASTIC. 

Post 1, Post 2, Post 3

The blogger also included a post on tips about running a reading fair, which I thought was neat and would maybe use some of her tips in setting up a project in the future.  Hope you guys enjoyed these projects as much as I did!

Humor in Myth

So, not only am I art obsessed, I am also pretty obsessed with mythology. To a certain extent, this ties into my love of art since many of the paintings, statues, etc I enjoy are based in mythology. This includes one of my favorite paintings, Titian's Danae Receiving the Golden Rain

 

(I will admit one of my main reasons for loving this painting so much is that the little dog looks like my dog Trixie. Every time I go to a new museum I hunt out a painting with a small, Trixie-like dog.)   

This is Trixie -------------------------------------------------------------->


I digress. So, I found this humorous article about The 13 Biggest Assholes in Greek Mythology, which really struck my fancy. And also reminded me of this:

 

Perhaps I am easily amused, but I hope you guys get a chuckle from this like I did!

Women Cave Artists?

Saw an interesting article suggesting that the first cave painters may have been women. I don't know that I buy it, what do you think?

Etruscan Tomb Discovery!

The discovery of an intact tomb at Tarquinia! These don't come along every day in Etruria, at least not for archaeologists (as opposed to tombaroli!). Look at the tiny little vase still hanging on the back wall after all these years! How awesome would it be to be buried like this? 

I have a slight obsession with the Etruscans, especially Etruscan bronze mirrors, so this news got me jazzed. I hope y'all think it's as neat as I do!

Dali in the Modern World

I love this modern interpretation of Dali's Lobster Telephone in the form of an iPhone case.

The original Dali Lobster Telephones (yes, plural) were originally designed for Edward James, a British collector of Dali's work.

He (James) actually used them in his house, which I think is really neat and is something I loved sharing with visitors when I did tours at the Dali Museum.

This new concept of the Lobster Telephone is just as fun and whimsical, although not as utile as the original ones. Would anyone actually use this? I would consider it!

The New Van Gogh Painting

For those who are in both classes with me where we do blogs, it may have become clear that Van Gogh is one of my favorites. I was really excited this morning to wake up to hear there has been an unveiling of a newly authenticated Van Gogh painting from 1888!! It is called Sunset at Montmajour. Van Gogh mentions the work to his brother Theo in a letter, and because of this we know it was painted on July 4, 1888. 

Whenever I hear stories of people finding art works in their attic it makes me think that I'm living in the wrong places. I want to find a painting by a famous artist in my attic! How awesome would that be? I am also fascinated by the different investigation methods used to authenticate the work.

This particular painting is quite beautiful, and upon first glance reminded me of one of the paintings in the Art Institute, which when I just checked online, was painted in the same year. The Art Institute work is The Poet's Garden.

I was very excited to hear about this and I hope you guys think it's as awesome as I do!!