30 Day Meme: Artist + character meme
perpetual has this very cool 30 Day meme (which shall be known as "The Kairos 30 Day Meme"), which involves coming up with 1 to 30 favorite fannish things in 30 different categories -- X favorite actors, Y favorite books, Z favorite cartoons, etc. etc. Of course, I had to try my hand at it. perpetual is keeping the full list a surprise, so I will, too, and I did have to move things around, because the number of favorite comic books I could come up with, for instance, was much lower, and I ended up substituting some sections entirely, since I'm not a fan of video games at all, for example. I don't think I can post these one a day, but let's see how this goes. Maybe I'll just attach them to regular posts, or unlocked posts, or something...
Day One: Artist
So I wracked my brains a bit to see what category I had truly only a single favorite for, and ultimately the choice is pretty easy: visual artist, and that artist is:
Salvador Dali. I'm not a visual arts person at all; I like looking at marbles and stained glass and Chihuly's tentacly things, and if you force me to go to an art museum, I'll find interesting things to look at to pass the time. I'm quite fond of Chagall and Bosch. But there's only one artist whose art I'll go out of my way to look at, and that's Dali. Looking at his art makes me regret that I can't draw/paint myself, in a way no other artist does. I've leafed through the art book of his, that my parents brought from the Dali Museum in Florida many times, and want to visit it in person, and meanwhile I dragged my family to the new gallery that opened in Monterey ( photo post [locked]). I read Dali's autobiography to try and understand better where all that glorious weirdness in his art was coming from. And just recently I learned that Dali had a pet anteater, which made me like him even more.
I don't really have favorite paintings by Dali so much as favorite elements in his paintings. I'm always struck by the recurring motif of the ants (and the autobiography suggests he was as creeped out by swarming ants as I am, which is probably why). I like his pomegranates, too, and the eggs, and the eyes. My favorite single painting is the "Dream":
But, really, any painting of his, even the deceptively simple ones, have such a ton of stuff going on. And looking at them is almost like meditating on a Tarot card, since everything has a meaning (frequently obscure), and there a coherent but idisyncratic mythology at work.
I don't actually remember when I first became familiar with his art -- but I know I was still a little kid, because I remember being in Kiev and sketching what I thought passed for surrealism on one of those pieces of cardboard that are used to keep shirts folded. It was some kind of rainbow bubble thing, and I forget what deep significance it was meant to have, but it's definitely the only time I was moved by an artist to try and draw something of my own, rather than random doodling.
And my newest favorite piece, or maybe not 'favorite' but most striking/memorable piece of my recent acquaintance was this sketch that I saw in the Monterey gallery:
*
And a different kind of meme, stolen from Tumblr somewhere:
Give me a character and I'll answer (all or specific prompts of) the following:
Holiday headcanon
Cooking headcanon
Sleeping headcanon
Driving headcanon
Bathing/showering headcanon
Hugging headcanon
Kissing headcanon
Sex headcanon
General physical contact headcanon
Physical appearance headcanon
Wardrobe headcanon
Jewelry headcanon
Nickname headcanon
Dancing headcanon
Singing headcanon
Anger headcanon
Soft spot headcanon
Favorite possession headcanon
Favorite photograph headcanon
Relationship with/thoughts on _____ headcanon
Fandoms of note: ASOIAF, AtLA/Korra, Avengers/MCU, Babylon 5, Buffy (through s6), Discworld, Dragaera/Vlad Taltos, Dresden Files, Firefly, Harry Potter, Killjoys, Kushiel's Legacy, Raven Boys, Rivers of London, Temeraire, Vorkosigan Saga, and anything else you know I'm into.
This entry was originally posted at http://hamsterwoman.dreamwidth.org/1049405.html. Comment wherever you prefer (I prefer LJ).
Day One: Artist
So I wracked my brains a bit to see what category I had truly only a single favorite for, and ultimately the choice is pretty easy: visual artist, and that artist is:
Salvador Dali. I'm not a visual arts person at all; I like looking at marbles and stained glass and Chihuly's tentacly things, and if you force me to go to an art museum, I'll find interesting things to look at to pass the time. I'm quite fond of Chagall and Bosch. But there's only one artist whose art I'll go out of my way to look at, and that's Dali. Looking at his art makes me regret that I can't draw/paint myself, in a way no other artist does. I've leafed through the art book of his, that my parents brought from the Dali Museum in Florida many times, and want to visit it in person, and meanwhile I dragged my family to the new gallery that opened in Monterey ( photo post [locked]). I read Dali's autobiography to try and understand better where all that glorious weirdness in his art was coming from. And just recently I learned that Dali had a pet anteater, which made me like him even more.
I don't really have favorite paintings by Dali so much as favorite elements in his paintings. I'm always struck by the recurring motif of the ants (and the autobiography suggests he was as creeped out by swarming ants as I am, which is probably why). I like his pomegranates, too, and the eggs, and the eyes. My favorite single painting is the "Dream":
But, really, any painting of his, even the deceptively simple ones, have such a ton of stuff going on. And looking at them is almost like meditating on a Tarot card, since everything has a meaning (frequently obscure), and there a coherent but idisyncratic mythology at work.
I don't actually remember when I first became familiar with his art -- but I know I was still a little kid, because I remember being in Kiev and sketching what I thought passed for surrealism on one of those pieces of cardboard that are used to keep shirts folded. It was some kind of rainbow bubble thing, and I forget what deep significance it was meant to have, but it's definitely the only time I was moved by an artist to try and draw something of my own, rather than random doodling.
And my newest favorite piece, or maybe not 'favorite' but most striking/memorable piece of my recent acquaintance was this sketch that I saw in the Monterey gallery:
*
And a different kind of meme, stolen from Tumblr somewhere:
Give me a character and I'll answer (all or specific prompts of) the following:
Holiday headcanon
Cooking headcanon
Sleeping headcanon
Driving headcanon
Bathing/showering headcanon
Hugging headcanon
Kissing headcanon
Sex headcanon
General physical contact headcanon
Physical appearance headcanon
Wardrobe headcanon
Jewelry headcanon
Nickname headcanon
Dancing headcanon
Singing headcanon
Anger headcanon
Soft spot headcanon
Favorite possession headcanon
Favorite photograph headcanon
Relationship with/thoughts on _____ headcanon
Fandoms of note: ASOIAF, AtLA/Korra, Avengers/MCU, Babylon 5, Buffy (through s6), Discworld, Dragaera/Vlad Taltos, Dresden Files, Firefly, Harry Potter, Killjoys, Kushiel's Legacy, Raven Boys, Rivers of London, Temeraire, Vorkosigan Saga, and anything else you know I'm into.
This entry was originally posted at http://hamsterwoman.dreamwidth.org/1049405.html. Comment wherever you prefer (I prefer LJ).