Weekend
It was a nice weekend overall. I had my decorative fabrics class on Friday afternoon. Prof. Miss Love helped me select the colors for my pattern, but I am not very happy with them, further work will be required. I left class at 5 and went to the Met to meet Psy, who was running late, so I lounged in the gift shop and even overheard a guy trying to pick up a Japanese tourist with a pretty lame line.
Anyway.
I sat down on a bench in the middle of the entry hall, right by one of those beautiful large floral arrangements the Met is known for. I took out my sketchbook and a mechanical pencil to sketch it, but my pencil was all out of mines!
Psy eventually showed up and we went straight to an exhibit of German prints and drawings of the Weimar Republic. I expected a major show but it turned out to be a very small exhibit tucked away in the farthest cornern of the modern art wing, displying not more than 20 prints. There was a very nice woodcut but I could not appreciate it fully because some stupid teenager was sketching it, most likely as part of some art class assignment. There were a couple of those Manhattan ladies in their 70's who talk to themselves and dress as if still were 1972.
Disappointed by this, we continued on to the next exhibit, on Peruvian woven textiles of the colonial era. It was magnificent and overwhelming. I jotted down lots of design ideas which hopefully I will get to apply in my weaving class. There was a particular colorway of broad bands of navy blue, deep red, camel, and gray that looked very contemporary.
As we came out into the hall that shows French 19th century painting, I remembered the Met has several works by Ingres (my favorite draughtsman for a while now). We asked a guard and he directed us to the Lehman collection, which I did not even know existed. It is tucked away in a corner of the first floor, in two rooms which probably are meant to look like an Upper East Side townhouse. And there it was, a portrait of Princesse de Broglie:
The hue of her dress has nothing to do with this photograph; it was a perfect light cerulean blue. The painting was glowing from within. I stood there in awe for several minutes and got to enjoy it in total piece and quiet (the rest of the museum was like a zoo).
By this point we were suffering from visual overload, so we walked over to the Neue Galerie where we ate at Cafe Sabarsky.
It was near closing time (9 p.m.) so the restaurant was empty. We sitted right by the window looking onto Fifth & Ave. and Central Park. Psy ordered spaetzle with spring vegetables, and I had Weisswurst (a white sausage) with a potato salad and a mustard relish. I had sparkling elderflower juice and Psy ordered a Viennese coffee. For dessert we ate a delicious chocolate and rum torte.
We took the cross-town bus to my apartment, where we watched the debate.
The rest of the weekend was spent in Plainfield. I did nothing but work on homework, urgh. I had to put together a presentation book for about 20 weaving samples that we did in class, and it was such a pain, because she wanted us to cut little windows on black paper for each sample. I must have put 6 hours total into preparing the sample book.
I did get a chance to garden and I planted some roses into the ground. I still have seven potted roses left but no prepared beds for them, so I am thinking of letting them overwinter in the sunroom. I figure out that if roses survive in Southern California with no dormancy, they will be fine inside for one winter.
I also dug up a couple of dahlia tubers to start drying them for storage. Other dahlias continue to bloom their head off. Luckily we have not been hit by frost yet, which I am expecting any time now.
On Sunday I made egg noodles by hand and they were ok, a little too thick perhaps. I have to bring my manual pasta maker from the city.
We watched Jeepers Creepers 2 on DVD. Psy does not like to watch horror films, but he was hooked on this one because it had a certain homoerotic tinge to it (a school bus filled with hunky football players without their shirt on, for example).
This morning I had my screenprinting class, but I only stayed for one hour because I was practically done with the project. If only I had known there would be nothing else for me to do, I would have gone to Hudson, NY with Psy, who is there right now visiting friends. I swear that this morning when the alarm went off at 6:30 a.m. I could not get out of bed; I felt like a fifteen year old again. And it was not a nice feeling.
Anyway.
I sat down on a bench in the middle of the entry hall, right by one of those beautiful large floral arrangements the Met is known for. I took out my sketchbook and a mechanical pencil to sketch it, but my pencil was all out of mines!
Psy eventually showed up and we went straight to an exhibit of German prints and drawings of the Weimar Republic. I expected a major show but it turned out to be a very small exhibit tucked away in the farthest cornern of the modern art wing, displying not more than 20 prints. There was a very nice woodcut but I could not appreciate it fully because some stupid teenager was sketching it, most likely as part of some art class assignment. There were a couple of those Manhattan ladies in their 70's who talk to themselves and dress as if still were 1972.
Disappointed by this, we continued on to the next exhibit, on Peruvian woven textiles of the colonial era. It was magnificent and overwhelming. I jotted down lots of design ideas which hopefully I will get to apply in my weaving class. There was a particular colorway of broad bands of navy blue, deep red, camel, and gray that looked very contemporary.
As we came out into the hall that shows French 19th century painting, I remembered the Met has several works by Ingres (my favorite draughtsman for a while now). We asked a guard and he directed us to the Lehman collection, which I did not even know existed. It is tucked away in a corner of the first floor, in two rooms which probably are meant to look like an Upper East Side townhouse. And there it was, a portrait of Princesse de Broglie:
The hue of her dress has nothing to do with this photograph; it was a perfect light cerulean blue. The painting was glowing from within. I stood there in awe for several minutes and got to enjoy it in total piece and quiet (the rest of the museum was like a zoo).
By this point we were suffering from visual overload, so we walked over to the Neue Galerie where we ate at Cafe Sabarsky.
It was near closing time (9 p.m.) so the restaurant was empty. We sitted right by the window looking onto Fifth & Ave. and Central Park. Psy ordered spaetzle with spring vegetables, and I had Weisswurst (a white sausage) with a potato salad and a mustard relish. I had sparkling elderflower juice and Psy ordered a Viennese coffee. For dessert we ate a delicious chocolate and rum torte.
We took the cross-town bus to my apartment, where we watched the debate.
The rest of the weekend was spent in Plainfield. I did nothing but work on homework, urgh. I had to put together a presentation book for about 20 weaving samples that we did in class, and it was such a pain, because she wanted us to cut little windows on black paper for each sample. I must have put 6 hours total into preparing the sample book.
I did get a chance to garden and I planted some roses into the ground. I still have seven potted roses left but no prepared beds for them, so I am thinking of letting them overwinter in the sunroom. I figure out that if roses survive in Southern California with no dormancy, they will be fine inside for one winter.
I also dug up a couple of dahlia tubers to start drying them for storage. Other dahlias continue to bloom their head off. Luckily we have not been hit by frost yet, which I am expecting any time now.
On Sunday I made egg noodles by hand and they were ok, a little too thick perhaps. I have to bring my manual pasta maker from the city.
We watched Jeepers Creepers 2 on DVD. Psy does not like to watch horror films, but he was hooked on this one because it had a certain homoerotic tinge to it (a school bus filled with hunky football players without their shirt on, for example).
This morning I had my screenprinting class, but I only stayed for one hour because I was practically done with the project. If only I had known there would be nothing else for me to do, I would have gone to Hudson, NY with Psy, who is there right now visiting friends. I swear that this morning when the alarm went off at 6:30 a.m. I could not get out of bed; I felt like a fifteen year old again. And it was not a nice feeling.