Vermeulen Hits the Road(show)!

February 27, 2019Leave a comment

The other day I was watching Antique Roadshow (please don’t be jealous of my fast-paced life) and a gentleman brought a painting to be appraised. And this is why I love Antique Roadshow. It was a painting passed down from his Grandma, who didn’t know anything about it (and neither did he). It turned out to be a painting by Dutch artist Andries Vermeulen!! I was so excited even though I had never heard of Vermeulen before. (I am easily excited, I admit.)

Vermeulen lived from 1762-1814 and primarily painted landscapes, but I feel a kinship to him because he almost always included ice skaters in his paintings and I have a penchant for ice skaters. I wish I would have screen shot the TV, but I think the painting was this (or similar to this):

This might be my favorite of the images Google pulled up for me:

Isn’t it wholesome and lovely? It gives me all kinds of happy feels and memories of pond skating with the neighborhood kids when I was little. Antique Roadshow appraised the painting at 10-15K, which is still out of my price range, but I’m holding out hope I will stumble on one at a rummage sale!

Perfect Days and Purple Paint

February 21, 2019Leave a comment

At the end of 2018, instead of making New Years Resolutions, Jim and I talked to the girls about what makes a perfect day for each of us. My perfect day includes being with my family, hanging with my friends, being active, being productive, writing, and spending time outside.

I just had the perfect long weekend.

It kicked off Friday when I went to lunch and the Eli Broad Art Museum with my dear friend. If everything else went wrong that day, it still would have been an awesome day because burritos and art? Come one. There’s no beating that.

My favorite part of the Eli Broad is the rotating exhibit in the basement. A MSU art student gets to pick a piece of work from the mysterious “Vault” collection and write a blurb about why they picked it. If you follow me on Instagram, you may remember a Salvador Dali painting I posted a while back- that was from The Vault (which I imagine is much like Gringotts, and they get to ride a roller coaster with a goblin to find the art). On this visit, the student picked a piece by Henri Matisse to be featured.

I don’t like it. I mean. My favorite thing about Matisse is his use of fun, bold colors, but take that away and it’s just… squiggly lines. In contrast, here is a Matisse that I love: Woman in a Purple Coat.

This is more “Henri!” Fun and funky Fauve.

The model for this painting was a close friend of Henri’s named Lydia. I don’t think Matisse was particularly religious, but it’s interesting that he painted her in purple as the Lydia from the New Testament was, “a dealer in purple cloth…” Isn’t this so much more fun than the drawing? I’m sure my unsophisticated art eye just doesn’t see the genius in it, but I never claimed to be an art connoisseur!

I hope you have a perfect day today, whether that means burritos or fine art or underwater basket-weaving! Enjoy!

More Than 15 Minutes of Fame

February 13, 2019Leave a comment

Is it just me, or is everyone else still obsessing about the Andy Warhol Superbowl commercial? I just can’t get over it, because confusing! It was not my favorite commercial by a long shot, but certainly the most effective, as it’s the only one I’m still thinking about let alone blogging about!

In the ad, Andy eats his Whopper from Burger King (who paid for the spot during the Superbowl), but there was much discussion at my house about whether the commercial was for Burger King or Heinz (which also gets featured, and good on them because they did not pay a penny). My kids were confused (“Who is that guy?” “What happened to the color?” “This is boring.”) As were Jim and I (“Is that Andy Warhol?” “Is this brilliant or a total waste of money?” “That reminds me, I think we’re out of ketchup.”)

I don’t think it will have the staying power of PuppyMonkeyBaby from a couple Superbowls ago, but it did get me thinking about Andy Warhol and his affinity for making art out of processed foods.

Warhol reportedly had soup every day for lunch.

This gives new meaning to the term “pop art!”

Though my favorite Warhol paintings are the ones he did of himself. Self-portraits are fascinating anyway, but take a wildly unique personality like Warhol, marry it to some funky hair, and give it a colorful pop art twist and you’ve got masterpiece after masterpiece. Here are a couple of my favorites.

This was Warhol’s first self-portrait. It sold for 38.4 million dollars. That would buy a lot of sunglasses.

I’m not saying they’re geniuses, but this is the kind of thing my kids do on my phone.

Both of these self-portraits were done in the 1960s. Warhol died in 1987 from complications after gallbladder surgery. Gallbladder surgery! He was only 58 years old., which means today he would be 91, and we would no doubt have hundreds (maybe thousands!) more Warhols to enjoy. Plus, he’d be able to elaborate on that Superbowl ad for us.

Bansky Pulls A Pranksky

February 6, 2019Leave a comment

Don’t you just love a good mystery? Not the scary kind, but the harmless, all-in-good fun kind? The art world is full of mysteries, mostly surrounding stolen art, but the one getting all the attention these days is Bansky’s self-destructing painting. We haven’t seen Bansky himself, but we’ve all seen his work that he’s covertly made famous on streets all over the world. His most famous painting was recently up for auction at Sotheby’s and sold for a cool 1.4 mil.

In the same way thousands of other artists sold their work before him.

Except not. Because nobody knows exactly who the buyer is. And because when the bidding closed, the painting began slipping down through the frame, shredding itself. Popular opinion? Genius move by a genius artist. Art critics are saying the painting increased in value on the spot to at least 2 million, maybe up to 4. Of course, there is the other school of thought that thinks a shredded piece of art is worthless and the buyer won’t be able to unload if he (was it Bansky, himself?!?!) or she (more likely) would ever want to sell. What do you think? Would you buy it? Fragmented art is quite popular right now! You’ve seen art like the horses below (which I love, incidentally, and wish I had something similar in my own house); couldn’t the same sort of thing be done with the Bansky?

Trot on over to my living room!

Here is a link to the video when the painting first shred. The painting was amazing before. Now, I just love it to pieces.

Painting Up A Storm. A Snowstorm, That Is

February 1, 2019Leave a comment

Like the rest of the Midwesterners this week, my family could only be found hunkered down and cozied up in our home, bottoms on the living room floor, playing Uno (Harry Potter edition). We broke only for sustenance and when my smart watch reminded me to stand (bossy!) It was a glorious, glorious week and I don’t know what’s going to happen when I have to put real clothes on again and take my hair out of its ponytail.

I’m exaggerating (a little), but it really was the best week. Smug social media posts from Southerners are completely lost on me because I love Michigan winters! More precisely, I love snow days! Warm-weather friends: you don’t have the absolute delight that is wearing your jammies backward, putting ice cubes in the toilet, setting white crayons by all the windows, and sleeping with an upside-down spoon under your pillow all to be rewarded with the announcement that there is no school!! Nothing thrills me more.

So what does all this have to do with art? Snow days make the best painting days! In fact, art historians figure there must have been a series of huge snowstorms during the age of Impressionism because SO many fantastic winter scenes were created when some of our favorite artists were presumably snowed in.

For instance: