More fun from the International Exhibition at the San Diego Art Institute’s Museum of the Living Artist:

This is “Persistence of Need,” by Cheryl Griffiths. Here’s what I wrote about this piece in the museum.

Done in oilstick, blocky and chaotic, it feels like digital life, represented by little more than ashes on a stone wall. It is blocky and filled with words and letters and images stacked and wrapped in other image. Cellphones and power lines and cars–and one piece of negative space with a flower–the small space of life we create for ourselves and encourage ourselves to grow in: our inner world.

Yesterday I under took the two-mile roundtrip walk to Balboa Park, because it was *so beautiful* here yesterday. And yesterday certain museums at Balboa Park had free admission. But since I was feeling contrary yesterday, I went to my favorite museum instead, one that rarely comes up on the free tuesday rotation (every *fifth* tuesday in the month): The San Diego Art Institute’s Museum of the Living Artist.

And in there I found a piece that I feel in love with:

Here is what I wrote about it in the gallery:

I know this statue like I know my own heart–like I am learning to know it. It is a woman, in a simple dress. She has climbed up two stairs and sits on a third. The final step is half-again her height and she leans on it. Her forehead balance on the edge of the step, her hands next to her head. Her feet rest on the stair below–the second stair–and one foot is on tiptoe, pulled into herself. Her posture is like she is trying to curl in on herself, and you cannot see but you can tell that she is weeping, great dissonant sobs to shake her whole body and nothing else to do.

She is in the middle of the ascent, and of course there is nothing else for her to do. Until she gets this out, she cannot climb anymore. There is no one to succor her, because the steps are her own, and only she can climb them. Nothing matters to her right now but this emotion, living it, feeling it deeply, being engulfed by it to finally let it go.

I love to travel. It’s a compulsion. I’ve never been to Asia, however. And after my last Museum Tuesday, oh how I wish to go….

I ended up at the San Diego Natural History Museum again. This time I went upstairs to the Ordover Gallery to see Buddhist Earth: Sacred Places/Sacred Work, Tibet and Other Lands. I’ve never seen any of Kenneth Parker’s work before, but it is just amazing. Here is one of the prints that captivated me:

This picture just astounds me, both in its subject matter and in the obvious skill it took for this picture to even exist in the world. Where was Mr. Parker standing to take this? I can’t help but think he was perched on a cloud….

Here is what I wrote about the piece while I was in the gallery.

I wish to count the spires, but I would get lost every time, there are so many. They are tended, each one. Some buildings have one spire. Some have two or more. One some buildings, one spire reaches above the others. Each temple upon each, a sea of spires above the trees. No other buildings exist as far as the eyes can see save for these temples. Is each to a different god? Is the distant one to the right for the goddess of birthing? That one and no other? Or are they all for the same god, a repetition of devotion repeated across the miles? Do the gods war and bicker from atop the spires? Is every step between them a reverie? How do we in this day conceive of the mind that built these temples, how any centuries it took for all these to be made, constructed? Is there order to each site? Or are they spontaneous realizations of worship with only passion as the guide?

I want to go see I want to go see!

So, since I now have the power of the Intarwebs at my fingers, I can learn a little more about this amazing place. Looking up Myanmar’s temples has garnered me the meaning of the word zedi. A zedi is a “a pyramidal or polygonal base (panat-chi), with niches (hlaing-gu) for images of the Buddha.” Which answers my question in part; the temples are all for one god. However, in certain strains of Buddhism, the Buddha has numerous incarnations. So each temple *could* have a different “god” in it. Probably not bickering, it’s safe to say…

I also looked up Bagan, Myanmar. Sixteen square miles something like 2,000 temples/pagodas. How amazing is that?! I also found an earnest travel article about the realities of travel to Myanmar. I still want to go!

I find it much harder to find the story in photographs than I do in paintings, usually. I often think this is because photography is so often catching a moment and not necessarily a theme. It almost seems that because the medium is slightly easier to grasp, the artist has to work twice as hard to convey meaning.

In any case, one of my recent museum Tuesdays was in the San Diego MoPA. It’s one of my favorite museums in the city, but I was very challenged by coming up with stories to fit the pieces. Though perhaps that is my lack, not the medium’s.

In any case, the exhibit that I wandered into was Nancy Newhall: A Literacy of Images. From the MoPA website:

A Literacy of Images celebrates the 100th anniversary of [Nancy Newhall's] birth, exhibiting her photographs (many for the first time) and the work of her circle of friends.

To begin, I noted down an idea from the explanation of the exhibit. In explaining Newhall’s belief in and passion for photographs, she expressed the thought that text can change the meaning of an image, and that is why it is important to “read images,” to gain meaning out of them and to re-interpret them.

To recall an earlier post I made on symbols, the importance always seems to be on interpretation, doesn’t it? I suppose it must be; what would be the point of a symbol with no deeper meaning? The interpretation of images must be continually updated to have relevance to the viewer. Without relevance, the symbol/image is an object with very little use. Which would explain why the literary classics studied in schools are hated by 90% of students; they are stuffed full with symbols that are incomprehensible outside of their own era. If we are told the history behind the images, we can understand what they meant, but that does not re-envision them to be meaningful today.

Huh. I guess that in a nutshell explains why art is so vital, doesn’t it? New images, new symbols must constantly be created and/or re-envisioned, so that their meanings are relevant. And without symbols, there is no representational language that reflects the operations of the universe as a whole. There would be no signposts on the path to deeper self- and world-understanding for those of next generation that choose to brave that way of knowledge. Which is a comforting thought, for those of us who think our ideas are not very original or not worth sharing. Without the group effort contributing to the whole, no one gets anywhere at all…..

My, look at me woolgathering. Somewhere back there there was a photography exhibit, wasn’t there?

Clearing Winter Storm, Yosemite Natio… Buy From Art.com

My notes on this beautiful, beautiful shot:

When you look at Ansel Adam’s photographs, you understand how photography is art. The depth in the photos invites story, narrative, interpretation. Other photographs are to catch a moment in time, a perfect record of memory of one person’s point of view. And Ansel’s work is deeply universal. How is it different? How can that very essence seep through the photograph? It is not scope, because certain of them are not panoramic. The are each the beginning and end of something bigger. There is space in them for interpretation? What is the quality that sets them apart from the others? The clouds in this picture have descended to the valley but they do not obscure the valley–they dance with the mountains–the peaks must be their constant friends–or perhaps it is the coming of a god, the stepping down of divinity to earth, elemental powers grappling for some crushing supremacy, or merging for a few stolen moments. Perspective speaks of more, things hidden beyond the frame, behind it, waiting to be explored. Almost as if the perfectly-framed pictures tell the whole story, so there is nothing left for the observer to tell. Perhaps it is a conference of pine trees, and the mist is their secret way of communicating across the country. And where is the lake and the river the waterfall plummets to? Perhaps the mountains are strength and the clouds are fluttering diversions, and the valley is the wellspring of ideas.

Museum Tuesdays are my way to get myself out of the house, as I can be a frightful hermit if I am not careful. All the museums of Balboa Park have free admission one Tuesday a month on a rotating schedule.

I like to go to the galleries and really drink in an exhibit, or maybe even just a piece or two. I bring a journal and sit down in front of a piece that really strikes me, and I write about it.

Last month, the San Diego Natural History Museum hosted an exhibit called The Art of Robert Bateman. He is a wildlife artist, and his paintings look eerily like photographs. They are incredibly beautiful:

Tiger Portrait Robert Bateman

One of my favorites from the exhibit was called “Haida Spirit”. And this is what I wrote about it:

This is the one. It is almost Buddhist. It is an invitation and a dare and salvation. The canoe, made by ancestors in the same way since your people were born, crafted with that accumulated knowledge, it is for you to cross to what you truly are. The water breaks up and distorts the truth, showing it back to you in the way you need to see it. A guide awaits, and knows like the beat of its wings that you will be triumphant. How is the universe anything but made for you to live in it?

The Buddhist reference was me remembering the idea of Buddhism as a “vehicle,” as explained here.