I LOVE ART!
Today I went to College Church (the cathedral on campus) instead of of the Basilica near my apartment, just to check it out. Because I'm tired, I will now put my reactions, both positive and negative, in list form.
Negative:
- It was VERY crowded (but the people next to me were remarking about how it's never like that. It was crowded because the parish was welcoming a new priest).
- Old people were coughing a lot. EW. I may not go to church in the winter when everyone gets sick.
- I was not into the homily at all. But it was short because there was lots of time taken up by welcoming the new priest, plus I just don't really like that reading.
Positive:
- LOTS OF SINGING! LOTS AND LOTS OF SINGING, with a great church choir. I think we sang like 9 different songs, and I loved all of them.
- Did I mention the singing?
- Seriously. The singing.
- Also, the WHOLE atmosphere of the place was much more laidback. I felt more comfortable there. Less formal.
- The place also is gothic in style... much more medieval looking :-)
- I liked that at the beginning, instead of saying "let us begin by calling to mind all of our sins" he said "Let us begin by calling to mind all the places we most need God in our lives." While it may still accomplish the same thing, it is a MUCH more accepting, positive, and prayerful beginning.
- Casey drove me and picked me up. That was nice.
Then I was pissed off at the grocery store cause I hate Schnucks, but my mood was assuaged by Danielle and the ART MUSEUM! Oh man I can not say enough good things about the Saint Louis Art Museum!!!! First of all, WAY better than Denver's, which surprised me. I didn't know there was so much good art in St. Louis! And danielle was the perfect person to go with, because she has very intelligent things to say about art, yet isn't so serious about it that she can't have fun and be a bit silly too. Also, we each kind of spent the same amount of time looking at each painting, talking about what we liked about it, and then moved on. You know how sometimes when you go to the museum with people it often turns out that they linger too long at each thing while you want to move on (guilty - I am often the lingering person) or there's that person that just breezes through having glanced at everything? It was nice cause I didn't feel like that happened today (Though Danielle may have felt differently when I found the medieval stuff!).
But oh man we saw some great stuff. We did the whole first floor, minus the exhibit you have to pay for, so we saw lots of European and Asian art. Our favorite of course had to have been the Impressionist room with the huge Monet waterlilies mural. We came back to look at that two different times, the later being the last thing we saw. We were actually the last people to look at that painting today, cause after we left the room they roped it off cause the museum was closing. My favorite stuff was a tie between the medieval stuff and the modern japanese pottery. Oh man was that strikingly beautiful pottery. I want to work in porcelain someday. And I want to do clay colored inlays like those weird flowers! Danielle and I also got a kick out of this beautiful Persian plate that said on it in Kufic script (which is a very pretty writing system) "Planning before work protects you from regret." Very practical and for some reason humorous on such a pretty work of art.
We decided we will have to come back another day for the lower and upper levels of art! I love that museum! I love that it's right nearby in Forest Park, and I love that it's FREE!
Oh, and one of the best parts of the museum - Artemisia's Danae. Oh I was so shocked to see that beautiful painting by that talented woman staring me in the face. I wrote a paper on that painting for Chris McOmber's Baroque Art History class, and I have just fallen in love with depictions of Danae. I had no idea the painting was in St. Louis - the other Danae painting was Rembrandt's, and that one's in Russia, so it was very exciting to see the painting I had spent so much time studying just right there waiting for me in the European exhibit. That was a wonderful surprise St. Louis.
The rest of the night we ate left over pot roast, watched even more gymnastics with the movie Stick It (cameo Nastia Liukin!) and then more gymnastics on TV. I loved the vault saga and can't believe that 33 year old woman medaled on vault! And what a story - gymnastics saves dying children! We had a good gymnastic night. Makes me want to work out and do yoga tomorrow.
Negative:
- It was VERY crowded (but the people next to me were remarking about how it's never like that. It was crowded because the parish was welcoming a new priest).
- Old people were coughing a lot. EW. I may not go to church in the winter when everyone gets sick.
- I was not into the homily at all. But it was short because there was lots of time taken up by welcoming the new priest, plus I just don't really like that reading.
Positive:
- LOTS OF SINGING! LOTS AND LOTS OF SINGING, with a great church choir. I think we sang like 9 different songs, and I loved all of them.
- Did I mention the singing?
- Seriously. The singing.
- Also, the WHOLE atmosphere of the place was much more laidback. I felt more comfortable there. Less formal.
- The place also is gothic in style... much more medieval looking :-)
- I liked that at the beginning, instead of saying "let us begin by calling to mind all of our sins" he said "Let us begin by calling to mind all the places we most need God in our lives." While it may still accomplish the same thing, it is a MUCH more accepting, positive, and prayerful beginning.
- Casey drove me and picked me up. That was nice.
Then I was pissed off at the grocery store cause I hate Schnucks, but my mood was assuaged by Danielle and the ART MUSEUM! Oh man I can not say enough good things about the Saint Louis Art Museum!!!! First of all, WAY better than Denver's, which surprised me. I didn't know there was so much good art in St. Louis! And danielle was the perfect person to go with, because she has very intelligent things to say about art, yet isn't so serious about it that she can't have fun and be a bit silly too. Also, we each kind of spent the same amount of time looking at each painting, talking about what we liked about it, and then moved on. You know how sometimes when you go to the museum with people it often turns out that they linger too long at each thing while you want to move on (guilty - I am often the lingering person) or there's that person that just breezes through having glanced at everything? It was nice cause I didn't feel like that happened today (Though Danielle may have felt differently when I found the medieval stuff!).
But oh man we saw some great stuff. We did the whole first floor, minus the exhibit you have to pay for, so we saw lots of European and Asian art. Our favorite of course had to have been the Impressionist room with the huge Monet waterlilies mural. We came back to look at that two different times, the later being the last thing we saw. We were actually the last people to look at that painting today, cause after we left the room they roped it off cause the museum was closing. My favorite stuff was a tie between the medieval stuff and the modern japanese pottery. Oh man was that strikingly beautiful pottery. I want to work in porcelain someday. And I want to do clay colored inlays like those weird flowers! Danielle and I also got a kick out of this beautiful Persian plate that said on it in Kufic script (which is a very pretty writing system) "Planning before work protects you from regret." Very practical and for some reason humorous on such a pretty work of art.
We decided we will have to come back another day for the lower and upper levels of art! I love that museum! I love that it's right nearby in Forest Park, and I love that it's FREE!
Oh, and one of the best parts of the museum - Artemisia's Danae. Oh I was so shocked to see that beautiful painting by that talented woman staring me in the face. I wrote a paper on that painting for Chris McOmber's Baroque Art History class, and I have just fallen in love with depictions of Danae. I had no idea the painting was in St. Louis - the other Danae painting was Rembrandt's, and that one's in Russia, so it was very exciting to see the painting I had spent so much time studying just right there waiting for me in the European exhibit. That was a wonderful surprise St. Louis.
The rest of the night we ate left over pot roast, watched even more gymnastics with the movie Stick It (cameo Nastia Liukin!) and then more gymnastics on TV. I loved the vault saga and can't believe that 33 year old woman medaled on vault! And what a story - gymnastics saves dying children! We had a good gymnastic night. Makes me want to work out and do yoga tomorrow.