Olio: from the Spanish meaning spicy stew or a hodgepodge.
Rejected the sun rays around the yellow orb which is perhaps they do not speak to today’s wintry cold continues and anyway, they look hokey, right?
I’ve posted some of this week’s Paris Collage experiments below — more on Instagram. The visual prompt was the Tower of Pisa.
Many accidental associations arise doing these double exposures, but while making this batch, I realized that the Tower of Pisa actually fits well with a story about race in America. Think about it: a flawed and crooked structure that manages to stay standing. And standing. And standing still longer.
One thing I noticed about the artist in the featured film was how thick her wrists were. All that time working clay on the wheel I suppose.
I did not feel the earthquake — was driving to an acupuncture appointment at the time — but I guess some in Boston did.
Here’s an old earthquake story. I lived in San Francisco right after graduating from college. For the entirety of my brief time there, I worried about earthquakes. Because of course one does. It takes time to develop that blasé California attitude and I wasn’t there long enough.
There were no earthquakes. But guess what? Shortly after I came back east and got an apartment in Pittsfield (on the Mass/NY line), I was WOKEN OUT OF SLEEP by an earthquake.
I’m not sure what the message there was. Maybe about the futility of worry, maybe about the power of nature to undo expectation
Regarding other unusual natural phenomena: I found the eclipse glasses from a few years back! Couldn’t initially locate them but they were exactly where I remembered stowing them. I didn’t see them the first two times I looked. And here we have basic Losing Things Lesson #1: always going back to the first place you looked and look again.
I know the difference between seeing the eclipse somewhat and seeing it in full is measured in orders of magnitude, but I will not be driving to Vermont or NH or upstate NY for a better view. Traffic will be nuts.
Lastly, this week we remember.
April 4 marked the 56th anniversary of Martin Luther King Jr.’s assassination.
Lots to take in, all that you’ve taken on!
Happy you were at MFA and took notable photos. Toshiko Takaezu’s work always moved me. But, I only learned about her around 2000 her because a teacher friend of mine had studied with her. Takaezu is another artist I wish I had known about decades before I did. Probably wouldn’t have changed my life, but would have been a very positive influence. Certainly she was for many!
You open worlds of positive influences here, for me, always. Thank you.
I too was driving when the earthquake hit. Hadn’t a clue. Then, I missed the after shock that nearby neighbors felt. Odd to be “at” the earthquake and have to find about it from my sister in GA.
It was so funny that you and Ellen. It’s knew her.
at first I thought Tony Abeyta’s “Voices of the Past” was an assemblage as it looks so dimensional … we always seek out his work when we view contemporary Native American art and were fortunate to view an exhibition that he curated at the St Louis Art Museum a couple of weeks ago https://www.slam.org/event/native-american-narratives/
there’s so much amazing art in the world
Sunday “olio”: Jose Andres of World Central Kitchen, interviewed today by Martha Raddatz, for the ABC Sunday program, This Week: Watching this emotional and so very moving interview from this Humanitarian speak of the loss of some of his team in Gaza, brought tears to my eyes.
: Here is a part from today’s interview:
RADDATZ: “… You said you wish you’d never founded World Central Kitchen.
ANDRES: I — you know, I will forever have to live with this, as well as the families and all the members of both World Central Kitchen. I founded it with one very simple idea. Can we provide food and water quicker than anybody else? Obviously something like this makes you think. We did what we did because there’s a lot of people that are always forgotten, people that are always voiceless. I know very often is many people that joined the organization because they saw me doing the work before, and this began being a organization of one that became an organization of millions. And these are seven internationals, six internationals plus Saif, the Palestinian who is buried, and I received the photo from his father, his family on where he’s already resting. And this has become news because these six internationals that they’ve been impacted by this war and where they’re dead now, many are mourning.
This comes with with a risk. We try to minimize the risk. Who is going to tell me that day we were kind of celebrating, that we had armored vehicles, finally, armored vehicles that were very well marked, that we were doing the right protocols, that we were engaging with the IDF in the way we all should be doing. Like every minute, everybody knew where everybody was. Who was going to tell me that these protocols will break in such a way?”
I grew up eating many an olio and know that they are usually cooked in cazuelas, (clay casserole pots), especially in Spain and in the home that I grew up in. This week, the cazuela containing the mix of the many volunteers , from all over the world, who form the backbone of World Central Kitchen, was broken BUt knowing Jose Andres, he will, in time, find an even bigger cazuela , to bring to the aid of the world…
Thanks for the long transcription. He is truly a hero and his outrage is something to behold.
Agree that the two spheres are a better balance- the rays took attention away from the house. Your towering images have me thinking about how the shape can represent beauty and strength, or be ominous and looming. The Charleston quilt- so grateful to have been a part of it.