[Dragonette4063]'s diary
Artist spaz!
I am one of those artists who is really an artist, in more ways than just doing a lot of drawing. I like to just look at things for what they are, lines and shapes and colors and textures, without expecting any sort of information or message. I especially like to look at other people's art, which is why I went to the Carngie Museum of Art today even though I am still suffering from a sinus infection.
Why I dragged myself (or rather, why my family dragged me, though I was still quite willing) out of my house is because today was the last day of the Carnegie International, a humongous art exhibit featuring the works of contemporary artists from all around the world. Much of it was installation art--that is, things that the artists actually had to come and assemble inside the museum. (Some works were arranged on the walls or floor in specific ways integral to the work. Some involved the construction of entirely new walls to support or enclose them. One guy built several small rooms, including a flimsy wooden loft area, and filled them with weird stuff, including an old leather sofa that had been sawn in half, an ancient rusty motorcycle (in between the halves of the sofa), some old bits of electronics, what I can only describe as a giant sock spider, and, in a little glass case near the entrance, what he claimed to be the fingernail clippings of Bertolt Brecht.) I should have gone to see it earlier, I know, but I and my family members took turns being busy, sick, or just plain lazy until this weekend.
Well, I saw good art and bad art and really weird art, but I didn't really fall in love with any of it until I got to the room containing stuff by Lee Bonticou. She makes these amazing, intricate, beautiful abstract hanging sculptures out of wire and mesh and ceramic, big hovering things that look like insects or futuristic space stations or scale models of galaxies, organic and mechanical features seamlessly blended together. And her drawings (graphite and colored pencil, mostly) are similar in nature, a bit like what you'd get if you crossed Juan Miro and H. R. Giger, abstract but spatial and textural and intricately detailed. I am now officially a huge fan of this artist. I wanted to spend hours in that room just staring and internalizing everything, but the rest of my family (my sis, my mom and my dad were all with me) wanted to keep moving, and my sinus infection wanted a big boxful of Kleenex. I tried to find something relevant to Lee Bonticou's art in the museum gift shop--a book, some postcards, anything to stare at that might evoke the same feeling of awe and wonder I had looking at the exhibit--but there was nothing there. Currently, anyway. Apparently they had a book on Lee Bonticou for sale there at one point, but the book went out of print. Then the lady behind the counter piqued my interest by mentioning that there would be a second printing of this book in about a month, and that the gift shop was already taking names of customers interested in obtaining a copy. And just when she had me sold, she added that this book would cost around 50 dollars (U.S., of course). This was enough to turn my mother and father off of the idea, but me? No. There is no stopping an artist once she's been inspired. I put my name on that list, gosh darn it. I will, however, look at the book carefully before I actually buy it. For 50 bucks, though, I'm betting it's exactly what I'm looking for--a full-color, hardcover, coffee-table type book, all high-quality pictures and very few words.
I will be drooling and quivering in anticipation until then, especially since it is next to impossible to find anything online about Lee Bonticou. Apparently, after she caught the art community's attention way back in the 70's, she decided to withdraw from the public art scene completely and has only recently reemerged into the limelight--she does not have an online gallery, and there are very few pictures of her work to be found on the interent. Arrgh! I need my Bonticou fix!!
I are photographer!
I entered two photos in the ET Photograph Competition! They are on page 4. That is all!
Update (March 27): Okay, they got moved to page 5. But they're still there! Ha!
Diagnosis: Too Much TV
So I went to the doctor today, and after waiting about half an hour to see her (the waiting room was PACKED--flu and allergy season, don'tcha know), I told her what was wrong (sinus infection and mysteriously swollen fingers). Then we got into a conversation that sounded a lot like an episode of House:
Doctor: "Hmm, have you been sick any other times in the past couple weeks?"
Me: "Actually, yeah, a week or so ago I thought I had the flu, but it went away in a few days."
Doctor: "Did you have any sort of a rash when you thought you had the flu?"
Me (confused by strange question): "...Uh...Oh, yeah, actually I did. There weren't any bumps or anything, just some red splotches on my chest and stomach that didn't itch or anything. They went away a few hours after I noticed them. What does that mean?"
Doctor: "I think you might be suffering from some complications caused by strep."
Yes, apparently the flu-thing I had last week was strep throat without the sore throat part. I did not know this was possible (my mom now theorizes that it was because I have no tonsils), so naturally I though I had some little 48-hour bug and didn't tell my doctor. Apparently, an untreated strep-throat infection can cause weird side effects, including my swollen fingers. So my doctor put me on antibiotics for the sinus infection, though they will help the strep thing too if that's what it really is. She also did one of those nasty gaggy throat-swab tests, which in a few days will tell if I actually have strep or not. And just in case she was wrong, she made me get a blood test to make sure the finger thing wasn't something more serious.
So now I have a head full of snot, my fingers are all fat and sore, AND my arm hurts. Oh well. At least I'm probably on the road to recovery.
On the "I have no tonsils" thing: I had them removed when I was six, after they stopped working right and caused me to become chronically infected with--guess what?--strep throat. (It's a nasty (but not fatal) bacterial disease whose most famous symptom is a really wicked sore throat. "Strep" is short for the type of bacteria that cause it, which I'm guessing is either streptococcus or streptobacillu
Diagnosis: Hypochondriasis
Okay, not really. I actually have something that could be serious. For one, I feel like crap because I have a cold that skipped the "cold" stage altogether and instantly became a sinus infection--whi
This sucks.
...Wait a minute, did I just say "lord knows" somewhere in there? Huh. Religious expressions are so ingrained into this culture that even I use them, and I don't believe in God/gods. (Well, I don't deny the possibility that he/she/they could exist, but until someone shows me convincing scientific proof, I'm inclined to believe otherwise.)
Woohoo! Finally finished that collage project thingamabobber
Ze flu thing is be gone! Apparently it wasn't actually the flu, because it only lasted about 2 days. Now I can play with my tablet, yay!
...Though this whole Elftown thing is so darn addicting...No
...Okay, here is a terrible photo of the thing:
It's a collage in complimentary colors. Basically, it's a bunch of tiny magazine bits stuck on a piece of 11x14" bristol board with a curious mixture of 1/3 water and 2/3 Elmer's glue. The design is based on a microscopic picture of the shell of a foraminifera (tiny little single-celled organism that makes a shell out of silica). I need to cover all the blank (white) space with more magazine shreds. This requires next to no thought but takes a very, very long time.
I joined Elftown yesterday, yay! This is officially my first diary entry thingy.
So. Thursday was the long-awaited arrival of my brand new Wacom tablet. Friday was the not-awaited arrival of influenza (at least, I think that's what it is). Life's funny like that.