In the Desert

We saw two Gila Woodpeckers near our motel in Tucson.

Desert flowers on the same walk.

Mountains along Route 10 between Hatch and the NM-AZ border

Santa Fe: Museum of Indian Arts and Culture

In Santa Fe this afternoon we saw a fantastic exhibit of work by artist David Bradley at the Museum of Indian Arts and Culture. As the poster above suggests, Bradley's work is both playful and very serious. He concentrates on the experience of American Indians, culturally and in many other ways. 

Bradley's paintings in the exhibit constantly refer to the work of earlier artists -- as above, Mona Lisa appears in many of his paintings, including in one instance framed on a wall behind a portrait of his wife. In the exhibit were also works creatively appropriating or parodying specific paintings by Botero, Magritte, Rousseau, and others. He also depicts corporate logos such as the McDonald's arches or the Walmart sign.

Bradley amusingly places recognizable little portraits within larger paintings. For example, in a work depicting the Indian Market in Santa Fe you can find Mona Lisa eating a cookie as well as Picasso, Elvis, John Wayne, Georgia O'Keeffe, a Civil War general, and many more that I can't remember. Bill and Hillary Clinton were eating at a diner in one painting. Tonto and the Lone Ranger are frequently present, adding whimsy to quite serious works about America and its culture. The famous figures from American Gothic were present from time to time. The curator of the exhibition we were attending and the current head of the museum made an appearance at an Indian feast.

To quote the museum write up, which deals only with the artist's serious side:

"David Bradley (b. 1954), Minnesota Chippewa, creates narrative artworks which tell stories and histories not often heard by non-Native people nor understood from a Native American perspective. Saturated with a powerful Native voice and evocative visual descriptions of Indian experience, Bradley’s artworks depict historical, social, and political truths, personal narrative, and cultural critique. In Bradley’s narratives of Indian Country, Native people take center stage in world art and history. Through his artwork he challenges stereotypes about Native American people, places, and events we think we understand, revealing the indigenous experiences at the core of what it means to be American. As Bradley has said, 'I try to use my art to spotlight the Indian worldview and sociopolitical realities. To expose social injustice is to begin to overcome it.'

I'll be returning to Bradley's work in the future, when I have time to learn more about him. Meanwhile, I can't say too strongly how much I admire his choices of subject matter. The Santa Fe museum is one of my favorite places to learn about American Indian art.

This morning, before we went to the museum, we had a beautiful bird walk at the Randall Davey Audubon Center and Sanctuary in Santa Fe. I'll be writing about our outdoor adventures as we continue to search for new and interesting birds.

Around Albuquerque

Birding this morning near the Rio Grande River, we saw this Great Horned Owl sitting on her nest. Photo is from Len's Flickr set. We spent the day at several birdwatching sites. Unfortunately a very high wind was disturbing the birds and making birdwatching difficult.

Morning at the Rio Grande nature center.
This is one of the ponds maintained for waterfowl.

Turtles on the pond.

At Valle de Oro Wildlife Preserve.

View from Sandia Mountains. We drove up this afternoon. On the peak, the wind was really brutal.

"America the Beautiful"

Ray Charles was singing "America the Beautiful" as we drove across Oklahoma with its spacious skies this morning. Fields near the road were just beginning to show light green -- they'll be amber later. In the afternoon when we got to New Mexico, we saw distant mesas and small mountains in a purple light. A perfect song for traveling!

Purple mountains near our motel in Albuquerque. I didn't take any photos of the scenery as we drove and listened.

Old Route 66 was pretty much in the same place as our road, Interstate 44, and we observed a few of the tourist attractions that commemorate the route now. I'll be writing about that later.

Our afternoon music was a series of pieces by Bach, including concertos, the Goldberg Variations, and the French Suites. More perfect music as the scenery changed from very dull Texas panhandle dryness to the much more beautiful mountains as you come down into Albuquerque. The constant variation of the scenery is amazing.

West of the Mississippi

Today we drove from Indiana to Tulsa. Here's the St.Louis arch as we crossed the Mississippi River.

The State Line, just before we were really West of the Mississippi.
We've never driven through St.Louis without stopping before today. We hope to stop on the way back.

Lafayette

Shop window, downtown Lafayette.

"cRRossings" by Scott Frankenberger, 2009. At the site of the old downtown RR crossing.

Celery Bog, West Lafayette, IN.

Celery Bog: actually it's not a bog, it's a marsh.

Snow Day in Fairfax

Photography Lesson

African Art at the American Museum of Natural History

African masks at the Museum of Natural History

African Elephant in the hall of African animals

The Ball Dropped at 8:15 PM

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

New Year's Party down the block with kids:
the ball drops at 8:15 PM and then bedtime!

Also posted on my food blog.

Happy New Year and Good Birds in 2015!

Another beautiful high-key photo that Len took this week.

Happy Chanukah!

Smokers in Art: With Update

Sapeck (Eugène Bataille):
Mona Lisa with a Pipe, 1883

I hate smoking. But I'm quite fascinated by smokers as they appear in artworks. A few days ago, I did a post on smokers in art for my food blog -- since some people have viewed smoking as a kind of consumption, analog to eating. I'm aware of a lot more smokers in art than I included there, though, so I'm expanding the post to include more pictures along with those in my earlier post.

Of course the first artwork I want to add is one of the numerous parodies of Mona Lisa smoking (though recently, she seems to have given up tobacco for other substances).

I chose the very early Mona Lisa parody at left. It was made before the theft in 1911 inspired a rage of interpretations, and long before Marcel Duchamp's famous "L.H.O.O.Q." Its creator was "proto-performance artist Sapeck (Eugène Bataille), who was known to travel the streets with his head painted blue." Evidently there were surrealist types in Paris well before the Dada movement! (source)

But to return to the topic of smoking in more serious art: during the Dutch Golden Age many painters of homey scenes included smokers. Around 150 years after America -- source of tobacco -- began supplying novel products for the European market, smoking seems to have been very well-established:

Adriaen Brouwer: The Smoker, 1630-1638
Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam

Adriaen Brouwer: Smokers, ca. 1636
Metropolitan Museum of Art

Gerrit Dou: Self-Portrait, c. 1640.
Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam 

Gerrit Dou: Man Smoking a Pipe, c. 1650.
Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam

Adriaen Van Ostade: from Travelers at Rest
Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam

Adriaen Van Ostade: The Smoker, c. 1647.

Adriaen Van Ostade: Smoker at a Window,
c. 1667. Detroit Institute of Arts

Dirck Hals: Gentlemen Smoking and Playing Backgammon, c. 1687

Vincent van Gogh painted several smokers:

An early Picasso in the Barnes collection surprised me with the cigarette in her hand:

Picasso: Woman with Cigarette, 1903

Throughout his career, Picasso continued to include smokers in a large number of his works. Many photos of Picasso show him with a cigarette. Here's one from over 60 years later:

Picasso: The Smoker, 1964

Cezanne painted a few smokers as well. Two pipe smokers are included in his famous card players, and his 1897 portrait of Henry Gasquet includes a cigarette:

Finally, also at the Barnes, this wonderful picture -- I believe the man in the lower left is smoking as he waits for his child to finish his music lesson. I couldn't stop looking at this painting.

Henri Matisse: The Music Lesson

Lucien Freud: Boy Smoking, 1950-51
Tate Gallery, London

As I said on my food blog -- I dislike the smell, the activity, and the risks involved with smoking. I'm very happy that it's no longer allowed in most public interior spaces, and it's becoming less and less common in outdoor public spaces. It's been years since anyone even gave a single thought to smoking inside my house, or inside most homes. That said, smoking was once a common activity, shared and enjoyed by a large part of the population (though some paid dearly for having done so). And it's thus well-represented in art.

Update, December 6, 2014. From the book Sacred Gifts, Profane Pleasures by Marcy Norton -- an exceptional early Spanish painting of smokers:

ANÓNIMO MADRILEÑO
(atribuido a Antonio de Puga)
La taberna, ca. 1660-1670
Museo de Pontrevedra, Pontevedra, Spain
(source)

... and one of many paintings with smokers by David Tenniers the younger (1640):

"The Smoker" by Jean-Baptiste Carpeaux (1863)
Detroit Institute of Arts.

Good Books, 2014

Well, 2014 is almost over and people are making lists. Here goes: good books that I've read this year, including some that we read in my various book clubs. I've written blog posts here or at my food blog about quite a few of them, but it never hurts to make a list.

Fiction:

• Flight Behavior, Barbara Kingsolver
• A Tale for the Time Being, Ruth Ozeki
• A Replacement Life, Boris Fishman
• Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage, Haruki Murakami
• The Family Mashber, Der Nister

Non-Fiction

• Consider the Fork: A History of How We Cook and Eat, Bee Wilson
• The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History, Elizabeth Kolbert
• Cumin, Camels, and Caravans: A Spice Odyssey, Gary Paul Nabhan
• Planet Taco: A Global History of Mexican Food, Jeffrey M. Pilcher
• The Emperors of Chocolate: Inside the Secret world of Hershey and Mars, Joel Glenn Brenner
• My Promised Land: The Triumph and Tragedy of Israel, Ari Shavit
• One Summer: America, 1927, Bill Bryson
• The Language of Food: A Linguist Reads the Menu, Dan Jurafsky
• Alice Waters and Chez Panisse, Thomas McNamee
• Breaking Bread in Galilee: A Culinary Journey into the Promised Land, Abbie Rosner
• Paleofantasy: What Evolution Really Tells Us about Sex, Diet, and How We Live, Marlene Zuk