Peg Kerr's Journal

People get up to all sorts of things on the Internet. Heard about this from rivka:

A guy in Norway is collecting giraffes. He's trying to get people to send him a million giraffe images by Jan 1, 2011. Which sounds ridiculous, right, except that he's been at it for about a year and has already collected 850,000. He might actually make it.

It's really neat to see the diversity of images people have sent in. A stunning and subtle watercolor painting is a few clicks away from a crude giraffe sculpture constructed from office supplies. I am particularly struck by this one, which may be the most artistic thing ever constructed from an old banana peel. I love this adorable knitted one too. But there are quilted giraffes and giraffes made from guitars and giraffes made from sports equipment and mosaic giraffes and scultped giraffes and edible giraffes and drawing after drawing, from people all over the world. I love the internet.

The statistics page is also kind of fun to look at. Why so many giraffes from Lithuania? What on earth happened the day he got 30,000 giraffes?

He's also on Twitter: @1000000giraffes.

I found this poem in a stack of old papers as I'm trying to extricate the contents of my old office and put it in storage so that it can become Fiona's bedroom. I wrote it, apparently, ten years ago. My efforts to dabble with poetry have been very few, sporadic, and certainly not very good.

How may I begin writing poetry at forty?

At forty you expect competence
rough edges smoothed
not clumsiness or false starts
You know how to make a risotto
spot clean the carpet
change the oil
but poetry--

The maiden, ah now the budding maiden
may catch the jagged words
and learn to fit them together
so that they mesh, flex and move in sinuous pattern
and if their crystalline shapes cut her fingers
her skin is young enough to heal

The crone's withered hands move
sure, confident with long practice
slipping thought into intricate rhymes that surge,
storm with echoing ancient power

But the mother who has never written poetry hesitates
poised over the page
until the awakening baby's cry
shatters the iridescent wisp of airy nothingness
uncaught
and now ever unsung

The artist's name is Kseniya Simonova. Thanks to elisem and papersky for the link. As Elise says, I love finding art that I didn't know about, and I love even more finding out that there is a kind of art-making that I had never imagined.




( What I did today to make the world a better place )

If you missed the article in yesterday's Star Tribune, the Minneapolis Institute of Arts is collecting art from ANYBODY who is a Minnesota resident this weekend for their upcoming wildly popular exhibition "Foot in the Door 4," which is held once every ten years. If you bring a piece of art this weekend that fits inside a box 1' x 1' x 1,'(dubbed "the Curator") they'll put it in the exhibition. That's the only requirement. They are also for the first time taking video offerings this year, with the requirement that it be no longer than 80 seconds. The exhibition opens February 18. They are collecting art this weekend, today and tomorrow, 10:30 - 4:30, but be warned: there's about a two and a half hour wait to check your artwork in [Edited to add: At least that's what they told me on the phone, but I just got back from checking in Delia's artwork, and the wait was an hour]. You do get your artwork back when the exhibition is over, near the end of June. They will all also be displaying submitted works on their website, as long as you give your permission.

I went to see the exhibition last decade, and it was utterly cool, one of the best things I've ever seen at the museum. People offered an amazing variety of objects, paintings, drawings, etc., from a kid's folder covered with doodles to the most beautifully intricate sculptures. I'm taking Delia this afternoon to check a piece of her artwork in:







Don't miss this opportunity, both to offer your artwork (and see it displayed! in a real museum!) and to visit the exhibition. Here's the information on the exhibits premiere event:

Third Thursday: Foot in the Door 4 Premiere
Thursday, February 18, 2010
6 – 9 p.m.

museum-wide

Celebrate opening night of "Foot in the Door 4," the wildly popular exhibition held every 10 years. Rub elbows with hundreds of Minnesota artists and view thousands of submissions in this stupendous art stampede. Sport your most fab footwear for our "Best Shoes in the Door" Flickr gallery. Sock it to our Saint Stephen's sock drive, ideal for warming the hearts and tootsies of kids and adults alike; new socks accepted at the entry. Live music by Lucy Michelle and the Velvet Lapelles.

Free; refreshments for sale.

I decided in the end to go back myself and offered one of my soul collage cards for the exhibition, Choosing the Heart of Flesh over the Heart of Stone.

( What I did today to make the world a better place )

My law firm obtained free tickets to see the new exhibit at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts, "The Louvre and the Masterpiece." It's definitely a show worth seeing. Beyond the opportunity to see works of art from one of the world's finest art museums (like Vermeer's "The Astronomer" [Hitler's favorite painting, oddly enough; there was a fascinating article about the painting's remarkable history during WWII in the Minneapolis Tribune today here] and John Martin's "Pandemonium," [click that link and use the zoom feature to check out not only the painting but the frame, which the artist designed himself]), the exhibit examines the question, what is a masterpiece? How does the concept of a masterpiece change over time, or with different audiences?

I took the girls, and they enjoyed the show, too. It's so nice that they are old enough to see something like this without grumbling. We did run into one hitch: as part of her requirements for the International Baccalaureate degree, Fiona has to log 150 hours as part of what is called her CAS report: She has to do 45 hours of creative/artistic activity, 45 hours of athletic activity (this'll be easy, with her karate), and 60 hours of service activity (this, too, will be easy, when she goes to Mexico next year). These hours have to be signed off by someone other than a parent (a sensible rule, I think, to head off potential cheating). She's just getting started on doing this. She had already let several opportunities to log hours slip without getting her log signed. So I reminded her to bring the CAS log sheet to the museum, and when we'd gone through the exhibit, I suggested she go over to the person behind the desk at the exhibit entrance to get her CAS form signed.

She would not do it. She would not, she would not, she would not. "Why on earth not?" I asked her, exasperated.

She fumbled to explain why, but of course she didn't have a real reason. "It's supposed to be someone who can attest that I did the activity," she mumbled finally.

"So, who else would you expect to sign it, other than someone here at the museum?"

She looked at me mutely, helplessly, and tears actually welled up in her eyes.

"Is this not an art museum?"

She nodded.

"And do you not want to get the IB diploma?"

Tears started dripping down her face as she nodded.

"You're going have to learn how do this. You have to get people to sign off on 150 hours for this type of thing, and here you are refusing to get the signature for the first hour!"

She looked over at the entirely nice and normal looking man behind the desk, not threatening at all, and gave me a pleading look. I sighed. "All right," I said. "Give me the form. Your mother will go over there and ask, and you don't even have to look at me do it."

Relieved, she surrendered the form, and I marched bravely over to the desk and explained the situation to the museum employee. "Oh, that's all right," he said casually. "Just take it to the information desk by the entrance. They sign forms like that for kids all the time."

So we took it to the entrance, and this time Fiona managed to profer the paper herself and get the signature. One hour down. One hundred and forty-nine hours to go.

It's strange how people have certain I-can't-do-this things that seem so simple to others. For Rob, it's using the telephone, and like most males, he refuses to ask for directions, no matter how lost we are. Delia dreads even more than Fiona asking any stranger for any kind of help.