Loafers and Looking at Art

Today in Austin we're having the most perfect day: 60s, clear and sunny, and barely breezy.  I just returned home from my day of radiation, lunch, then yarn and sock shopping with Laura, and a trip to Tomlinson's for cat food.  I need to go buy wild bird seed for Chubby's seed hut, but I feel I've done enough shopping for today.  When I got home I found my fancy $10.00 olive green suede Cole Haan Ebay loafers in the mail box.  They're to replace my almost worn out green suede Target loafers.  They're so stretched out now that they flop right off my feet sometimes.  I've always been a fan of loafers. I wore them in high school in the 60s and  in the 80s, I had a pair of black ones I found at a thrift store.  They were really nice, hand stitched with leather soles.  I wore them everywhere.  After a show at Liberty Lunch (in whatever year that was),  I was merrily, and probably drunkenly, skipping across the rain-wet street to our car when my lovely leather soles slipped on the concrete, and I hit the ground with my left cheekbone and hip. My cheekbone immediately swelled to size of a golf ball.  I was sore and had big bruises for weeks, but I never held it against the shoes.  

Lauren and I went to Houston this past weekend to see a Kurt Schwitter's (http://www.moma.org/collection/artist.php?artist_id=5293) show (http://www.menil.org/exhibitions/KurtSchwittersColorandCollage.php) at the Menil Museum.  It was great!  I loved looking at his collages up close, focusing on the individual elements--brush strokes, thickness of paint, the print in newspaper cut-outs, the grain in wood, and so on--then backing up quite a way just seeing just color and shape, the cubist effect being more apparent.  Does that make sense?  Anyway it was a wonderful show and you should go before the end of the month and see it.  The Menil is free, but they're happy to take a donation.  

Lauren in front of MFAH

We decided to Spend Saturday at the Fine Arts Museum and I was so glad we did because one work of art took my breath away:  Cai Guo-Qiang's Odyssey.   I don't want to say much about it because I want you to go see it.  Here's a link if you need more convincing:   http://www.culturemap.com/series/cais-odyssey/


I have a lot of ideas brewing right now.  Several things about Schwitter's work really spoke to me, some things I needed to hear.  I've been really uptight.  I am really uptight.  I'm not sure when that started, but I'd like to loosen my grip on some dumb ideas I'm holding on to.  His work seemed really raw and immediate--a few crooked frames and all (of course the gallery frames that often framed his work, were perfect). 


The light is beautiful right now at 4:46 and it's time to feed the cats.