I have always considered myself as an "out of the box" thinker. But after visiting the Renwick Museum yesterday in Washington D.C. I am convinced I need to work on that a bit. Holy smokes.
My son Matt and I spent an afternoon visiting the exhibits at the Renwick and they were amazing. Fifteen foot trees built out of index cards. Millions of them. Traditional wallpaper created with bugs. Real bugs. Even ugly and creepy bugs. And trees created out of 500,000 jenga pieces. Seriously. So here is what I am thinking. Now that I am painting abstract paintings I really need to step out of my comfort zone. In a really big way. I can no longer paint what's easy and comfortable. I need to really think more about my color palette, composition and inspiration. I want to push myself and really think outside of the box. But I promise I will still create paintings that I love. And it's not likely they will be made of bugs. Even real ones. No way.
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3/23/2016 04:39:45 am
Leslie, when an artist friend and I visited the Venice Biennale a couple of years ago, we entered one of the exhibits held in an empty building. It was dark. We walked through a curtain and discovered something hanging from the high ceiling, like a curtain. It was hung in a circular pattern, so that you felt you were walking into a maze. There was a distinct odor in the room. About halfway through the maze, our eyes adjusted to what our brains had ignored. The "curtain" was made of rat skins sewn into nets, bleached, I suspect, because they all looked whitish. EEEK! At the exit, we read that the exhibit was a nod to when Venice had gone through the Plague. That was a moving exhibit neither of us will forget. (The odd thing is that, in all my trips over there, I've not seen a rat. They're probably there but are obviously shy. (I'm very curious to see how your personal experience leads you to new things, Leslie!)
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Wasn't that an amazing exhibit - not sure which I liked best. The trees, the bugs and LED lights were amazing. Was the wind machine working on the work hung from the ceiling- not when we were there but it was still mesmerizing just to watch the color changes. Are you going to any other museums while there?
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Cindy Stierhoff
3/23/2016 07:35:32 am
Oh my you have found the temple of grand imagination! How cool is that place? Seems light bright colors is a theme running with many of these pieces....can't wait to see what you come up with Leslie.
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Leslie
Mom. Wife. Artist. Marketer. Teacher. Radio Show Host. Archives
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