Georgia O'Keeffe exhibition

My friend took me to the Whitney Museum of Art and we saw an exhibition of Georgia O'Keeffe's work. There was some beautiful work there.
There was some of her early work in charcoal, moving to oil paintings and watercolours. It made us reflect about what it is that someone sees in an artist's work that makes it obvious that the artist is talented and should be encouraged. Perhaps there are many artists out there who just do not receive the boost at quite the right time and whose development is not encouraged as hers was. Or perhaps those with the drive and talent will shine no matter what.
One thing that stood out for me was the series that moved from fairly realistic images to much more abstract ones, of the same subject matter.
It was very crowded! But we were able to move around easily and see the works clearly. I especially liked her work of flowers.
It is interesting to read about her innovation of cropping an image, inspired by photographic work. These days images of this sort are often seen and it is enlightening to see something that was so innovative in its time.
We decided not to look at any of the other exhibitions at the Whitney as we just wanted to contemplate the works of Georgia O'Keeffe, not be distracted by other artists' work.

White Christmas

We went to see the stage show White Christmas. It was wonderful: not the deepest story I have ever seen but the music, singing and dancing were great.

There is snow forecast for next weekend, maybe even New Year's eve, not good for the people who will be standing out in Times Square for the ball to fall.

I will try to put up a couple of pictures of Central Park with snow. It was a few days after the snowfall but it has been cold, so it had not melted. It is gone now as it rained ALL DAY yesterday (I was very jealous on behalf of Melbourne).

Whitish Christmas

Well, I arrived safely in New York last Sunday, just after the snow storm. We had a wait on the tarmac before we could disembark from the plane but at least we could fly in.
New York was covered in snow, looking lovely. It wasn't so good to walk around on the icy footpaths but mostly the snow had been cleared away and only some intersections were tricky.
I have taken photos of people (they all seemed to be men) clearing the snow away from footpaths, intersections and making spaces for people to get to the road from buildings. All very ho hum for people used to the snow but fun for me to look at.
When the snow is built up alongside the road, it is very hard for cars to find parking spaces. I would not like to try to find parking in any part of New York. Actually, I have no desire to try to drive here at all. It is fairly easy to get around by public transport. We have been using the buses mostly because we have not been in a hurry and you can see lots from the bus.
I went for a walk in Central Park and the snow was beautiful. I have taken some pictures but haven't tried putting any pictures on my friend's computer yet. Will maybe try later, or not.
We are going to see the stage play White Christmas - very appropriate.
Best wishes to my thousands of readers, Happy Christmas!!

White Christmas - perhaps

I'm sitting here, all packed to go to New York for Christmas. I am lucky enough to have a good friend living there and she has invited me over for a few weeks. I have just checked the weather forecast and it looks COLD. Perhaps there will be a payoff of a white Christmas, something that we do not get here in Melbourne.

We had a hot day here on Wednesday, about 39 degrees celsius (or should I call it centigrade?), with the last few days in the low 20s. But the HIGH forecast for Sunday (in New York) is -1 degree!! I hope the snow doesn't mean that the plane can't go to New York. One of the joys of travel, I suppose, the uncertainty.

I am hoping to go to the new medieval display at The Cloisters to see, among other things, the tapestry. I have heard that there has been a 5 year renovation going on, so it should be good to see.

I went to K Spoering's blog and she tells me that there are more tapestries to see at the MET, not that I am only going to look at tapestries, but it does give me a focus for my 'touristing'.

Pink quilts!

I don't usually wear pink and I rarely have it in my quilts. I used to go to patchwork and applique classes and the teacher there hated pink! So I was interested to see the 12x12 group's pink quilt exhibition. There are some lovely ideas there, some pinker than others.

I am also using this blog to see if I can get it to post at a date later than I am writing it - it is currently December 15th so I'll see if I can delay it till the 16th, I don't want to have to wait too long to see if it works!

I have realised - someone told me - that I have to click the Publish Post button to have it scheduled. I think I only save the draft last time. Time will tell if I have done it right.

RMIT tapestry

While browsing the web and thinking about what I am going to do next year, I came across alink to some tapestry work designed by one of the teachers at RMIT.
Tapestry is beautiful but is often huge and takes such a long time to complete. I wonder how tapestry weavers ever make a living from such work, I can't imagine many people being able to afford to pay for the amazing amount of work involved. No wonder they are often commissioned by big companies.

There is currently a communal work in progress at RMIT that students will be able to work on next year. I think that it may even comprise part of the course for students who are doing Tapestry as a major subject, that you are expected to participate in a community work. Other people, who are not doing the tapestry major, are also contributing time.

It has four parts to it, four separate tapestries. Two are currently in production, although I think they are not being worked on at present, just for the summer holiday break. When I find out more about it, I will post about again.

Trying to get my head around blogging

I thought I had very cleverly arranged my posts to appear on consecutive days but have been disappointed to discover that they kept their original posting dates and that when I publish them they go into the order of my original writing of the post, not the order I wanted them to appear in. I'll have to read that help item again, more closely.

I also tried playing around with images for my header. I kept getting huge pictures and eventually thought I had made a good size but it has turned out to be much smaller than I had expected. AND I thought I had deleted it anyway, but I notice it is there.

Maybe I should do my blogging at sensible times of the day, not late at night when I am tired.