Things that make me happy: part 1: art

Sometimes I get the impression that people think I'm gloomy. So maybe I am kinda quiet. And maybe I don't smile a whole heck of a lot. I smile when I have a reason to. And I laugh (sincerely laugh) even more rarely than I smile. But my humor is dry, and laughing ruins it!But when I'm around people I like, I laugh a lot. For instance, today I was out shopping with a friend and I was laughing so much, and so obnoxiously I think I got on a lot of people's nerves. But I was slightly hopped up on pain meds/lack of sleep. Plus, we were having such a good time. (except when we stopped to get drinks and that a-hole asked Jen if I was her mother. Admittedly, Jen does look kinda young, and I am older than her, but still! her MOTHER?!) So screw them. (I feel kinda guilty about using such a bad picture of Jen, so here's a sneak peek of a photo I'm hoping to use in a future entry.)

Anyway, I think I drifted on a little tangent there...

My point is, I'm a lot more optimistic than people realize. Uh, but I like to consider myself an optimist with pessimistic tendencies. Pessimism and sarcasm kinda go hand in hand, don't they? And personally, I can't live without sarcasm. But that's beside the point! I'm happy! So I thought, through a series of blogs I'd share a few of the things that make me happy. And here we go... with art.

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I don't know who took this photo, but this sad little beat - up 4x6 is one of my most prized possessions. I worked in a camera store after college where this photo was taped up on the wall in the lab... most likely it was taken by one of our customers (or a customer from 10 years prior to that) and one of the techs liked it enough to save it. Every time I walked into the lab this photo caught my eye. When I finally left, I took the photo with me. And I'm still deliriously happy I did.

Growing up we had a book of the painting collection at the Louvre. These days the spine is broken and the pages are falling out. Whether this was caused by me looking at it a billion times, or simply because the book is too freaking huge and heavy to be supported by that wimpy little spine, we may never know. I decided early on that this was my favorite piece (screw the Mona Lisa!) and remains my favorite to this day. It's based on a novella, Atala, by François-René de Chateaubriand, which, yes, I eventually read ... I even wrote a poem about it, the dork that I am. At least, I wrote a poem based on what I THINK it's about. I read a translation from French. It was rough reading. My poem was way prettier.

The Burial of Atala by Anne-Louis Girodet de Roussy-Trioson 1808

This poster of Grand Central Station has hung on the wall of my bedroom in three different locations, and I suspect it will in many future locations as well. I'm a sucker for photos (paintings, anything really) where you can SEE the light. I.. uh... even started to write a story about it. (In case you don't know me and can't figure it out, I was in a creative writing class... okay, several. I might talk about this later. It's kinda important.)

Emil Nolde was another subject of a poem I wrote back in the day. And the topic of a paper for an art history class. The guy’s pretty interesting and controversial. He was a Nazi supporter in the beginning, but his work was then condemned by Hitler as “degenerate art.” But Mr. Nolde didn’t give up; he kept painting in secret and was later awarded some pretty high honors by Germany. Anyhoo… This is my favorite piece by him. In fact, one of the main reasons I did my paper on his was so I’d have a reason to take the slide out of the art building and scan it for myself. I’m particularly fond of the little touches of light he put on the edges of the clouds. Told you I was a sucker for things with light.

I love Louis Comfort Tiffany. And the weird thing is, you can buy Tshirts on amazon.com that say those very words. (I love the guy, but don't shirts and hats seem a just little random?) I realized he did more than lamps on my first trip to the Met. (I love the Met, too. I sometimes wish I lived closer to NY just so I could go there on a regular basis.) His lamps don’t really tickle my fancy, but I love the panels. How can you not when they look like this?