mixed media brain freeze
my step-grandma (i call her nana)
is in town. nana's an artist.
she's the one who taught me
how to walk through galleries,
how to look at and talk about art
as you see it. the new de young
was at the top of her to-do list.
i felt like a ten year old girl again,
all dressed up in her sunday best,
nervously trying to mimic the pacing
and gestures of the truly sophisticated.
that said, the charles sheeler exhibit
was so fun, i couldn't help but shed
a little of my self-consciousness.
as you move through the space,
as you turn from piece to piece,
the images repeat in different forms,
film, photograph, painting, drawing.
its like a three-dimensional grown-up
version of those spot-the-difference
puzzles. along with this oddly
satisfying kind of visual deja vu
you get a real sense of his process.
the images grow more and more rigorous
without quite crossing over into abstraction.
when we had finished with the museum,
nana and went to see a movie.
after sheerer's clean planes
the painted veil was too lush,
all tense closeups of eyelashes
in dappled sunlight or misty vistas
at twilight. my brain ached
like a tooth might if i'd followed
piping-hot black coffee
with a scoop of raspberry gelato.
posted by self_invasion | 1:00 PM
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