5. Sibley Park

This is a picture of a fountain at Sibley Park in Mankato Minnesota. I try to visit Mankato every year with my partner to see his grandmother. She is one of the sweetest women I have ever met, and I have been extremely sad that I haven't been able to give her a hug since the pandemic started.

7. Judith Slaying Holofernes by Artemisia Gentileschi

I had originally seen this painting on a long text post detailing Gentileschi and her life as a painter. The post talked about how her experiences as a woman influences how she interpreted certain stories through her paintings, and how her paintings showed more of the gritty emotions that come with being a woman in these stories. Judith Slaying Holofernes was compared to the painting Judith Beheading Holofernes by Caravaggio. Caravaggio had depicted Judith in his painting to be more dainty, effeminate, and disconnected with the act of beheading, the way women were supposed to be. But the way Gentileschi depicted her to be more involved in the act, making the whole scene more real and less fantastical. I will link the post from my main blog because they explain it better than I can.

Judith Slaying Holofernes and all of Gentileschi's paintings give me a sense of powerful femininity that I really enjoy. The way she paints, with muted tones and a darker values, gives me a sense of realism that I can relate to more than with other paintings of the time period. Gentileschi is one of my favorite painters for this reason.

1. Magnitude by Piper McDonald ( @pipebb ). Acrylic and Oil on canvas. 2020. 

Piper has been my best friend since 3rd grade. We grew up together, sharing our passions all throughout our childhood. I have always taken great inspiration from her artwork. This was a painting I had just recently bought from her last year. I hung it up above my desk where I work on my own artwork. I look at it often, and take great inspiration from it. The way the colors blend together, both vibrant and pastel give me a feeling of longing and accomplishment. The dried flowers, the grooves of the paint, and the confetti stars all give me a sensory experience every time I interact with it. 

I feel like this painting represents how I feel around her: comfortable, excited, and myself. Piper is the type of friend that you can talk to about anything and she would never judge you. Much like her, this painting would never judge you either.

Homage to Joseph Beuys, (Ongoing from 1969), Susan Hiller.

2. "I suppose psychoanalysis as more poetic than scientific, and in fact I don't even see a dichotomy between science and poetry. So I don't see any reason why I would have to establish my credentials as an ex-anthropologist or archaeologist in order to even talk about this. However, my notion of art practice is an encompassing one. And my remarks around all of this are to situate the collection I've made within a discourse in which we could allow narratives of an archaeological nature to occur." (pg. 4-5)

This was a really interesting statement to make about both science and poetry, and I believe the rest of the quotation is pertinent to provide a better context as to what Ms. Hiller is saying. To see psychoanalysis as poetic as opposed to scientific is something I have never really thought of before, but now with one line I am reminded that not everything is confined to a box - or at least doesn't have to be. When pairing what she has said in the quote above with the image, you can see where she likes to be outside the box with her art installations and using collections that are still ongoing. You can see a story being told through simple bottles and titles and dates, and I think that it's quite clever.

Maybe it doesn't have much to do with psychoanalysis, but it allows a narrative that I can clearly follow, especially when I am able to find close-ups of said art collection.

I do have a question though in regard to how she thinks about these things; she can see science being more poetic, but can you say that poetry is more scientific in some ways in return? I would love to try to look through that perspective as well.

3. I really enjoy Dr. Pepper - It's my biggest vice and I need help.

And Starbucks' Paradise Drink but I don't get that very often because of the expense - but it's a nice treat every month or so!

The color I decided to study, as suggested by the title, is olive green. Why olive green? It's one of my favorite colors! There are a few shades of olive green, but my favorite is the shade that's just a tad on the yellow side. A lot of people would describe it as a gross color, but I just really enjoy it.

It is difficult to give an exact date of when it was noticed or made, but the actual name "olive green" began appearing in Middle English texts, which gives us a general discovery date of 1150-1500 (however, another source said that it was between 1300-1500). It's a pretty wide gap, but it is at least something we can hold onto and notice.

Something worthy to note about olive green is that it is favored by the armed forces. "Olive drab" was the shade that was used before what we now know as today's camouflage with the green and brown speckles. The shade olive drab was used in World War II and the Vietnam War as standard uniforms before then, but today we can find that soldiers in Cuba, Israel, Venezuela and more are still using "olive drab" as their standard uniform color.

Something fun I saw is that "drab" is actually a color on its own, referring to a shade of brown - it was discovered in the 1500s, not too long after olive green was first widely recognized.

Olive green yarn!

Sources:

1: Interior with Dog, 1934.

2: "Colour, above all, and perhaps even more than drawing, is a means of liberation. Liberation is the freeing of conventions, old methods being pushed aside by the contributions of the new generation. As drawing and colour are means of expression, they are modified. Hence the strangeness of new means of expression, because they refer to other matters than those which interested preceding generations." (Matisse on Art, pg. 100) It's a longer quotation near the end of the short passage we read for class, but it's something that deeply moved me. How much Matisse enjoys color enough to say that it is liberation, a way of breaking the mold and pushing the boundaries of old rules laid out for art by people before him, and a realization that you can truly do whatever you want that expresses you, specifically.

What this makes me think of is something difficult to answer, because quite honestly the only thing I can muster is the fact that color is almost starting to be bled out of things now. Minimalism, while I like it, is a little infectious and is draining homes out of fun colors, furniture out of tacky patterns, and neighborhoods out of its lovely chance of individuality. Maybe when I was younger and in my anti-color phase in middle school, I would disagree with Matisse, but now I find myself knowing a kindred spirit through his writing. Color is freeing, an expression of ones self and their emotions, their desires, their personality. It's fun and beautiful to see when people color their hair or wear brash and impactful colors.

This relates to the theme of our classroom discussion very obviously, as it's the subject we're learning about right now. There's something that hits different about reading Matisse and his sincere passion about color though, and I'm tickled pink by it. Not that it wasn't interesting in class - I definitely am happy to learn more about color and color theory, and the way you can use it to create an impact or express something! This is just so genuinely nice to read.

I think that, despite color being bled out of the world sometimes, that it is also making a comeback because of the newer generation coming our way. I welcome that with open arms and I hope that it paves the way to the future because while I love neutrals and monochromatic schemes, I just love color.

3: Oregon City, Oregon