Called On Account of Rain

Song - All We Do - Oh Wonder - Cover by Sierra Eagleson


It's raining again here in California, so Mr. B and I decided to head to the art museum in San Francisco to see the Monet exhibit.  We timed it perfectly so we wouldn't get stuck in commuter traffic or the Giant's home opener traffic.  Off to the Legion of Honor! 

I showed the lady our online tickets, picked up our audio guides and went to walk in and saw.......

 ....this....

....and this.....oops.....that does not look like Monet!  It was a Rubens exhibit......did we miss it?
Nope.  I had the wrong museum!  So while we did take a quick peek at the Rubens show (not really our cup of tea) we quickly headed over to the deYoung to see Monet.

 Now that's better.......

 Just look at all the colors he used in this close-up........

The exhibit was titled - Monet: The Late Years and included about 50 pieces of art that he did from 1913-1926, where he spent most of his time at home in Giverny, his home near Paris France.

 He loved his garden and was passionate about his Lily Pond. He would often paint the same view at different times of the day to see how the colors changed.

 Once again, amazing color on top of color.

 In his later years he developed cataracts and eventually had surgery to correct his vision.  His palate changed from blues and greens to orange and yellows.

 But still powerful color....

 Also at the deYoung was a Gauguin exhibit that was interesting and is the first one at the Fine Arts Museum dedicated to the work of Paul Gauguin.

 He met and married his wife, a Danish women, Mette-Sophie Gad and they had five children.  After 11 years their marriage fell apart when Paul Gauguin decided to paint full time. 

This is a tiny portrait of his wife - about 3 x 4".

 Paul Gauguin - 1848-1904

 Similar to Monet, Gauguin had layer upon layer of color.

Amazing color in the water..... 

While Mr. B and I did get to see three amazing exhibits, we did miss our first home opener with the Giants in 19 years.  While returning home we saw the fireworks from the freeway and I had my camera ready for the fly-over (my favorite!) but alas we either missed it or they did not do it this year.

The only fly-over I saw was a big black crow flying over our car!

"I perhaps owe having become a painter to flowers." 

--Claude Monet

de Young and de Old

Om - Skyspace

Sunday a friend and I went to the Diebenkorn exhibit at the de Young Museum in San Francisco.  Richard Diebenkorn's painting style is not really my taste but I do appreciate his style. Most of his work was done in Berkeley in the 50's & 60's.

It has a lot of great energy, color and form.  Mostly I enjoy the idea that he painted exactly how he wanted to paint without caring what others thought.   

Seawall

Two of my favorite pieces were "Sleeping Woman" and "Untitled (Still Life with Iris)".

It must of appealed to some people though because Berkeley #5 was auctioned off by Christie's for over $6 million dollars!

Berkeley #5

After enjoying the show, we had lunch at the Museum Cafe and my friend, Melinda told me about this outdoor "bunker" that was really interesting and meditative.  Sounded claustrophobic to me but decided to give it a try.

We walked to the back of the garden, along a bamboo path and around the outside of a dome with high walls on both sides.  When you reached the back of the dome there was a open door and an open circular sky space with benches around the sides.  It sounds kinda weird but it was very Zen like.  So we sat with several other people on the benches and watched the sky float by.

It made me feel like a kid laying in the grass, having nothing to do but watch the clouds float by.  Remember when we had time to do such things?

Centered in the floor was this beautiful rough-hewn stone.

 

When I returned home, I Googled the space and found out that it was created by a California artist
James Turrell and is called a "Skyspace".

Just a few minutes of feeling like a kid has such a "lightening" affect on me.

Why don't we do kid-like things more often?


 "Abstract literally means to draw from or separate. In this sense every artist is abstract... a realistic or non-objective approach makes no difference. The result is what counts."-- Richard Diebenkorn