Context

A visitor looks at a self-portrait by Mexican painter Frida Kahlo during the first day of an exhibition of Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera from the Gelman Collection at Pera Museum in Istanbul, Turkey, 22 December 2010. The exhibition will be open until 20 March 2011. EPA/TOLGA BOZOGLU.

The above is from Artdaily.org, here, Frida Kahlo.

I like that a lot of the images Art Daily uses  show the actual exhibition, with some context.

The frame is very nice, as well. 

Civil War

 

Above, the monument to the Confederate soldiers who died at the Civil War prisoner of war camp at Chicago, Camp Douglas. It stands atop a slight "hill", known as the Confederate Mound, where between 4454, the official number, and possibly as many as 6000 Confederate Prisoners of War are buried in concentric circles. This was a first visit for me, and the rain, and deep slush of the mound, did not invite prolonged picture making, and I also wanted to see this:

 

Statue of Lincoln in the Gettysburg pose; a copy of a sculpture in Illinois. The stripes are from the rain, which at this point, was plentiful.  Both the statue and the Confederate Monument are in Oak Woods Cemetery, South side of Chicago. 

Later, better images, though the monument, as an overall, with the fog and rain, seems appropriate for a cemetery visit.

 

Rant

 

A small rant on looking, and context, all probably said before, but needing said again.

It's nice to see people in an actual museum, looking at art in frames, hanging on a wall, just like it was meant to be. Too many curators, art students, and even dealers, look at art on computer monitors, in books, or sometimes, still, transparencies, where the art is torn from it's frame and any context, and the object quality of it is completely lost. No texture; just flat and flat. This out of context viewing leads to artists who labor long periods on the painting, and then finish it by "framing" with some ill-fitting, shoddily finished, wood strips, haphazardly nailed to the stretcher bars. A very obvious comment on the importance the artist attaches to his or her work.

I think a disservice to art is done by art professionals who think naught of tearing the art asunder from its context, and base all sorts of curatorial decisions, on the sundered remains. Is the frame, and some context, necessary? Obviously, I believe so, though, being an artist who works in the medium of the picture frame, it would seem I'm biased. More later, and a "snarky" comment; if you don't want to frame your art, become a sculptor.

Ongoing Snow Monster

 

The above, taken at 10:00 AM, day four of the Snow Monster; and lo, is that a pale hint of blue sky, and some actual sunlight? The Snow Monster has a few hours to run; wind is still out of the NW from the lake. In the summer, those same winds out of the NW, bring absolutely delightful weather, so in theory, it balances. Day four, another 4-5 inches, though it has snowed every day in December.

It is December 7th. by the way, Pearl Harbor day, 69 years ago.

Bron

Drat!

 

More Snow Monster. 

Looking from the studio door, through our little forest to the front street.

Lake Effect Snow Monster

It's here, the dreaded "Lake Effect Snow Monster".

 

From the back window of my studio, and that is not fog, but snow. A few minutes before I took this, it was sunny.

 

Here, a screen grab showing the bands that are common with lake effect snow. Cold air out of the Northwest,  crosses the relatively warm lake waters, picks up moisture, and dumps it as snow. The snow squall bands can and often do, produce intense snow falls where visibility is just a few feet. This makes driving very dangerous, especially when it is cold enough for roads to ice over. Last winter, driving into Chicago on the Toll Road, that green line just above the red dot that is South Bend, after a Snow Monster event, I counted 42 vehicles either still in the ditches or indications that one had been pulled out. I could only see 2/3rds of the ditches. This was an approximately 40 mile stretch of road; skid offs were clumped into groups, probably due to the banding of snow squalls.

Slip sliding, and shoveling are Olympic events here in Northern Indiana. It is not uncommon to spend a sunny day in Chicago, then drive into a whiteout on the way home as I enter the line of NW wind off of the lake. The seven day forecast shows snow, unending snow, every day, snow ...

Off Topic

We had a very pleasant autumn, then the month turned to December, and it started snowing ... not a lot, but a general, consistent snow, that the weather reports say is going to turn into the dreaded "lake effect" snow later today, the 4th. of December. When it ends on Tuesday, the 7th., some spots will likely have 20 inches of the monstrous stuff. Pfui!

Here, the Bears ...

Poor Bears.