posted by maggie on Jul 15
Seattle is not necessarily the beginning and the end of grunge, but it does have traces that mark its passage. Those traces are still going on, being written in the misty air that seems to embrace the city on most days. There’s something terribly romantic about the rain here, and for the visitors in five star hotels, Seattle ‘s sunny days when everyone can see the mountain are some of the most amazing days on the planet. Even the rain is a welcome presence, and it dots the city like punctuation marks. That’s perfectly suited to the moments when words simply won’t do.
Carissa’s Wierd used their lyrics as if they were punctuation, rather than symbols to communicate a concept. The music from the slow guitars and the whispering voices all work together toward a common theme. It’s not grunge, and there’s nothing electric about it, but it suits the spirit of the place. It also works as a remarkable tribute to its musical history. That the band broke up in 2003, after their first sold-out gig, is even more fitting. They were living poetry in a very poetic city, and it’s a remarkable year for them. New releases and a last go-round on stage marks an end that already happened, and one that the city can’t stop repeating, like the rain.
posted by maggie on Mar 29
Spending time in a new place or revisiting a favorite vacation spot can be a great time to catch up on art and information. The local museums found in cities one travels can be a great experience. While at home, life often is so busy that it is hard to find the time away from the house chores to see what is new at the local museums. When one has time to relax in to a town with out the daily maintenance needs of home, the mind and spirit start to look for something different to do. After some much needed rest in one of the boca raton florida hotels , adventurers could have a great time visiting places like the Boca Raton Museum of Art . There they will find all sorts of amazing art from the current rising stars to the modern classics like Picasso or Matisse. There are all sorts of prints, drawings, paint and photography pieces on display. There is also a walk through the sculpture gardens and many kinds of cultural displays from west African tribal art to Asian art. Then there is the art of building a city and its community. This could be found in a place like the Boca Raton Historical Society and Museum who’s purpose is to share the historical art that is found all around the city along with the stories of the people who took part in making it. This community was built by some very interesting people and can be learned here. Some of the early developers of this area include Henry Morrison Flagler, a railroad magnate and builder, Thomas Moore Rickards, a pioneer and Addison Mizner, an architect with amazing vision. They all had a hand in making the foundation to the city that sits here today and their contribution can be found in a museum and all over the city, if you know what to look for.
posted by maggie on Mar 3
When I was in college I read stories written by two different authors who made me want to visit the state of Maine. Due to the way they described the landscape and the small towns along the water I became curious and wanderlust. I don’t remember the name of the author who wrote the first one I read. It was a short story that described the rocky shores of the Atlantic ocean. Steep, old, rock staircases leading up to the businesses and the hotels of Maine that overlooked the shoreline. She made it sound like the landscapes, the seascapes and the buildings were shades of gray. Not gray in a bad or depressing way that winters in some places can become, but the shades of gray that make up the life of an old town and illustrate its history.
The second writer to make me wonder about the state, was May Sarton. She wrote a book of a year she spent alone, in order to gather herself together and to work on her craft of writing, to work in the garden, to shovel the snow. This book was titled “A Year of Solitude”. This is what I wanted. A year away from everything that threatened my painting. Day jobs, ex-boyfriends, family and friends. I wasn’t leaving them forever…I just needed to spend time away to discover what the different shades of gray meant. And I needed to find out whether I could capture that in the paintings–the shades of subtle color necessary in order to create the images I wanted to capture on the canvas. I didn’t spend a whole year in Maine, just one winter.
It was cold. Makes sense. It was Maine in the winter and it was cold. I had rented a small cottage which was old and not well insulated. But a fire each night, and to be honest a fire throughout the day cast a warmer kind of glow on the grays that were just outside my windows. Occasionally a small deer would walk across the yard, and her smooth brown coat seemed cadmium red in comparison to this black and white winter world. I learned a lot about color during the months I spent in Maine. I found that it is the subtleties of life, the grays of life that made the browns so vibrant. My paintings changed a lot that winter. I changed a lot that winter, that winter in spent in a state of grays–in the state of Maine.