I missed National Cat Day yesterday! Shame on me. We did celebrate though, as you do. By spending the evening training our kitten, Tank, to take her dead mice into the field next to our house, dig a hole 6 feet deep, and bury them respectfully without our ever knowing they existed. We are still in Phase 1 of the training process. I’ll let you know how it goes.

There are many lovely and legitimate cat paintings, worthy of serious accolades in the art world. Here are a few: Le Chat Noir (Theophile Steinlen), Cat Devouring A Bird [and probably not burying it] (Pablo Picasso), and Child With Cat (Renoir). The latter is especially sweet. But the cat art I like best is none of the above. The cat art I prefer is paradoxical and kitschy. Kitschy cats, if you will. For instance:

Kitty With A Purrrrl Earring

Arnolfeliney Portrait

And God made cats, and He was pleased. Until they left dead mice on his porch.

I hope you and yours had a great Cat Day yesterday. Maybe you even touched your cat! (I didn’t. Allergies.) Now that we are done celebrating cats, does anybody know when National Guinea Pig Day is?

Last Friday the girls and I had some time to kill (I know you hear me, moms. Don’t you feel like you’re constantly killing time between things? It’s the story of my life.) in East Lansing, so we went to the Eli and Edythe Broad Art Museum. It was as busy as I’ve ever seen it, and the girls zipped through the scavenger hunt I whipped up for them beforehand. Scavenger hunts make everything more fun, don’t they?

The museum is a piece of art itself. Zaha Hadid designed it- you may remember seeing her work in the 2012 London Olympics if you spotted the aquatic center. Er, centre, I suppose. Our East Lansing museum is angular on both the outside and inside and I love it. The Broad Museum was only her second project in the United States, and one of her last ever, as she passed away in 2016.

I’d like to say a word about Eli Broad too, since he funded the project. Broad is an MSU grad (Go Green! Go White!) and one of the richest men in the world. He has frequented all kinds of Forbes lists and to say he’s a prominent businessman is an understatement. What I love most about him is that he’s a businessman who so adamantly supports the arts. This museum isn’t his only artistic beneficiary. The Broad is a contemporary art museum in LA, where Mr. Broad lives and supports the arts in more ways than I have time to list! He is also an avid art collector and owns pieces from Picasso, Van Gogh, Warhol, Matisse, and Jasper Johns! Quite a “broad” collection!

A beautiful day in East Lansing!

The other day I was intrigued by a podcast that mentioned John Banvard. Banvard was an American artist, who rode up and down the Mississippi River drawing and drawing and drawing, until his picture was nearly as long as the river itself. (Or half a mile, actually.) As you might do with a painting that enormous, Banvard put it in motion. He rigged up a mechanism and put his moving panorama to music, so people could enjoy a view of the Mississippi River they were always hearing so much about.

Banvard even got to take his painting to England to visit the queen! While he was overseas, he painted more panoramas and became more famous. Back in the States, he opened a museum of oddities and was rolling in the dough for a while, but ultimately couldn’t compete with PT Barnum, who had dishonesty on his side. That doesn’t mean The Greatest Showman isn’t a fantastic movie though.

Sadly, Banvard’s famous Mississippi River panorama was cut up and nobody knows where any of the pieces are today. We are in a bit of luck, though! The actual Mississippi River is still around and available for public viewing! I bet your phone will even take a panoramic shot for you!

John Banvard, ca. 1855.

When I was little, my friend’s parents always bought her a present for Sweetest Day. Before she started getting toys randomly in the middle of October, I had never heard of Sweetest Day, and frankly I’ve barely heard of it since. Do people really celebrate it? Let me tell you this: if you want to start, Sweetest Day is this Saturday!! I know! My planner didn’t note it either. Jim and I will be celebrating by being in completely separate cities with only one of us having cell service. I can also assure you my kids will not be getting toys.

I am willing to celebrate by posting some art by Jim Dine (aka “King of Hearts”), however! Jim Dine is a Warhol-ish artist, who has painted tons of fun hearts, and these flowers, which I love because they’re bright and fun and of the variety that I couldn’t kill.

“Very Lite in Japan” I <3 these bold colors!

“The Confetti Heart” If you really want to express your love, throw confetti in your sweetie’s hair!

ArtPrize 2018 is officially over! I’m sad to see it go, but I’m already excited for it’s return… in 2020. After ten consecutive years, the city decided to make ArtPrize an every other year event. It saddens me, but I suppose it will give artists more time to create amazing works. Plus, there will be something new to look forward to; on the “off” years, Grand Rapids will host a city-wide project. Next year it will be called Project 1 by ArtPrize. It is my understanding that one artist or group of artists will be commissioned for it. I’ll miss the full experience next year, but just like I cope with the off-Olympic years, I will cope with this too!

In one of my very first posts, I mentioned that religious art is my favorite, so it is no surprise that when I reflected on my favorite pieces from ArtPrize many were Christ-centered. (The sculpture might be my favorite. I love art that is amazing and convicting.) 

This painting won a public vote award. Painted by Mher Khachatryan.

“She Touched Him” by Thomas Thiery

“Whatsoever You Do”  A sculpture in bronze by Timothy Schmalz

I’m sure 2020 will be here before we know it. In the meantime, we’ll just enjoy our art in a less concentrated fashion! 

We are in the middle of a kitchen remodel. It was a long time coming and we called “Wolf” (like the appliances!) a few times, but we finally pulled the trigger and demo day was Monday and my house is in complete disarray. Our refrigerator and microwave are operating in the garage, but you can only do so much cooking in a microwave, so we are eating lots of cereal (dry! Because the fridge is many steps away!) and peanut butter and fruit. Bananas, specifically.  Many bananas. Our potassium levels have never been higher, I’m certain!

Imagine my delight when I came across artist, Phil Hansen! I’ve scratched my girls names into bananas before for fun, but this guy puts my chicken scratch to shame! Check this out:

And God created bananas, and they were good.

So much detail, it’s bananas!

Mona Greasa is more like it!

Happy Fall! Fall is my favorite season here, but it’s a four-way tie so that’s not saying much.

Over the weekend I finished Girl With a Pearl Earring that I really enjoyed. Historical fiction can be a little tricky because I don’t always know what to believe and what not to believe, but it was a good story, nonetheless. It follows a girl who becomes a maid in the household of the painter Vermeer. I won’t say more about that in case you want to read the book, but naturally it piqued my interest about Johannes Vermeer, who specialized in painting people doing regular things around the house (the room, actually. Almost all his paintings are set in the same room that was in his home in Delft, outside Amsterdam) For instance, here is a lady pouring milk: