dayton is not in ohio

Anna was playing by herself for a bit this morning, and as I was on my way to the shower I discovered this on the floor. She’s ignored the puzzle, but made a really nice line. It’s the kind of thing that I’d do, and further confirms that she may have a bit of artist in her. Recently she was playing with blocks on the floor, and I asked her to come look at something for a second. She replied, “No papa, I’m busy working on a project. A sculpture project.”

Today was papa’s fun day with Anna. It started out at my studio for a little drawing before the museum opened.

Anna’s work has really developed a lot since coming to grad school.

Next we went to the museum to look at art, do puzzles, play with blocks, and read books. The real highlight, though, was lunch after the museum. Anna’s hands-down favorite: Chinese food. She craves it… it’s all she could talk about all morning. So we hit up Panda Express.

Next, Anna napped for a couple of hours in the pack-n-play under the chopstick bridge. Our plan was then to go to the Univ. of Chicago to play with the golf holes. Mom decided to join us for this leg of the adventure, so even better!

Well, the golf holes, we discovered, were closed down for the day (they’re only supervised from 11 - 2), and they were all covered with black tarps. I took the tarp off of my hole to take some pictures. Anna just ran around in big circles and enjoyed the blustery, chilled fall day. Pardon me… the blustery, chilled spring day.

We then headed home and Karen made this incredible Thai chicken pizza. When I saw this thing of beauty I made her wait for me to grab my camera before she cut it up. This thing was restaurant quality…

To top the day off Karen and I watched LOST. It was a great episode! The survivors almost got off of the island in the 9th, and bought themselves a little time by tying it up, but then floundered in mediocrity and a lack of drive before going into a coma in the 13th. I even wished for a moment that Bobby Abreu had not died in the middle of last season, and could help them out. But no such luck, and our confused, bumbling survivors are still lost.

Wait. No. Sorry. That was the Phillies game. The folks on LOST actually accomplished something.

Here’s a shot of the putt-putt hole at the University of Chicago. The holes are being exhibited as part of Earth Week because most of them are made out of recycled and reclaimed materials. They didn’t inquire about my hole directly, so I didn’t volunteer that mine is made from 95% store-bought materials.

The holes are out on the area between what in my mind are the most iconic buildings at UC. They’re old, stone, ivy covered buildings. I went into the mathematics building just across from the golf hole and it smelled just like the Chinese Presbyterian Church in New Orleans where my grandfather was pastor. I think UC is supposed to have a pretty awesome math program. I’m hoping that the math genius in the building is so powerful that just being present there will result in my having a greater ability to do arithmetic in my head. Like radiation poisoning, but good.

Leda and the Swan, by Brancusi is his take on a mythological story that just about every artist from the Renaissance on gave a treatment. You can read about the story here. When Anna saw it for the first time she ran over and just about leaped up on the pedestal and gave it a hug.

The above quote, by my wonderful wife Karen, is in response to the fact that we woke up this morning to blustery, driving snow, with an inch on the ground. You might want to brace yourself for the end of the world on Saturday.

Thought I’d try to start taking a picture of a work of art when I walk through the museum… I’m not committing to one every day, because blog promises are broken promises.

Thought I’d start at the beginning of humanity: Adam and Eve by Lucas Cranach the Elder ca. 1530

1. First of all, congratulations to my friend Eoin (pronounced Owen) for his acceptance into the Yale MFA program. Eoin interviewed at the Art Institute a few weeks ago and stayed with us while here, then went on to interview at Yale. I have an even deeper respect for him now that I know he was able to endure the Yale inquisition… er, interview. Looks like the dogs really do get the scraps off of our table! (I’m just messing around… Congrats!!!) Just Googled him to try to find an image and discovered he got a mention and an image on the Philly ArtBlog last Thursday. If you don’t know the ArtBlog, you should. I wish Chicago had a Roberta Fallon and Libby Rosof.

2. Re-Enchantment is the title of a panel discussion of scholars being held at the Art Institute next week discussing the place (or not) of religion in contemporary art. I’m participating in a reading group leading up to the event discussing texts by the panelists. James Elkins is heading the whole thing up, whose book On The Strange Place of Religion In Contemporary Art I very much enjoyed. What qualms I did have with this book revolved around his identification of several different ways that art students have dealt with/incorporated religious ideas into their work. Not so much that these were wrong, they were based on real students, after all, but that I felt (and some friends agreed - out loud, over beer at Standard Tap if I remember correctly) that there were other possibilities - like just about every artist I know in Philly, and many in CIVA. Anyway, he’s a great, patient teacher, and he did mention today that I’d caused him to rethink at least that one thing about the book. He’s also going to use a couple slides of Tilting at Giants for a lecture he’s giving the evening before the panel discussion. How cool is that?! Also, if I have any friends out there in Boston, Elkins will be giving this same talk (with the same slides!) at the Deus (e)X Historia conference (”a conference exploring divinity and reason in the production of knowledge”) at MIT which runs April 26 - 28.

3. World renowned violinist Joshua Bell gave a little incognito free concert last week… in a D.C. Metro train station… with his $3 million Stradivarius violin… playing some of the most complex music ever written for the violin: and was largely ignored by commuters. (He did make $35 in tips…) Story

This picture of Tim Hawkinson’s Uberorgan installed at the Getty Museum in L.A. courtesy of my wonderful California in-laws and their camera phone. Nice shot!

This is my birth month. April 14th, the day, is approaching. Now before y’all go run out and get me gift cards to Home Depot, you must know that what I like about April is that it is SPRING. The budding flowers, the chirping birds, the grass, the rain… spring. Growing up in New Orleans this meant that I actually had a birthday party flood out. This was St. Bernard parish, the parish wiped off the map by She-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named… Y’know… her. The important part here is that the friends that lived on the block were able to wade or canoe over for the celebration of my special day. The important part is that I never had a birthday snowed out. That’s why I was born in April.

Oh, God knew that I could endure hardship… 4-14 is also known as Ruination Day, and canonized by Gillian Welch in her songs titled “April the 14th (Part 1)” and “Ruination Day (Part 2).” I’m sharing them with you here. Don’t listen to them if you are already depressed, unless you’re looking to be pushed over the edge. The songs deal with what sounds like a depressing gig, and recount Black Sunday, the worst day of the Oklahoma Dust Bowl which basically kicked off the Great Depression, the sinking of the Titanic, and the assassination of Abraham Lincoln, all of which happened on, well, I think you can guess. I also remember CNN celebrating one of my birthdays with day-long reports about how we were bombing Muammar Gaddafi’s Libya back to the stone age. Ah! Shock and awe in its terrible twos!

But, given all the mayhem, strife and suffering associated with my birth date, God did not make April cold. April is the joyous youth of the earth’s warmth. I know, I know… It’s a big world, and for half of it, this is autumn, but in his sovereignty God ordained that I should be born into the middle latitudes of the northern hemisphere. Perhaps I have wandered too far, like a sheep gone astray, into the arctic north.