This weekend has been a weekend filled with art and other good things. I don't remember if I mentioned this earlier but I've been wanting to get out and actually see things that I've thought would be cool to go and see or do, some of these things have been on the to do list for ages and I did some this weekend. On Friday I went to see a gallery/museum that I'd recently heard about and which seemed to have quite a nice collection of art. I hadn't expected to need to pay to get in but I went on in anyway and was happily surprised when the lady at the desk let me in for the student price even though I'm not a student and informed her of such. Other than the employees I had the place to myself and enjoyed a ramble through the building, which is pretty cool in it's own right, looking at art from the 17th and 18th centuries, maybe the 19th, I didn't really pay attention to that. I happily looked on prints by Rembrandt and Albrecht Durer and paintings by several other artists who are not really known to me. I was especially drawn to the gallery by their claim of having works by Carl Bloch, I did see wonderful prints and drawings by Bloch but was a bit disappointed to learn that their Bloch paintings were actually reproductions, as were a lot of their other pieces (I decided that they must make reproductions). Despite so many reproductions I felt that I'd seen enough to be worth my price of entry.
Friday evening I went to a few galleries participating in the local gallery stroll; as part of my goals for art I've been wanting to go to gallery stroll more and to see more of the local galleries. I went to two galleries and decided that the one was not one I would be interested in working with and the other I would be. It was good to get out and to see them though.
Saturday was the biggest art day this weekend. Two of my friends and I went to see the big Carl Bloch exhibit at the MOA, us and at least a hundred other people. I was really excited to see this exhibit, I'd heard it was wonderful and I admire Bloch, especially as I've been learning more about him and his work. Having so many other people there really made me appreciate how nice it is to be at a museum or gallery with a lot less people, it's quieter and you can view works better without fighting to see them. Anyway I really enjoyed the exhibit, they had several alter pieces that Block painted as well as many other paintings he did. It was interesting to talk to one of my friends after, she had had a very spiritual experience (as well she should because most of the works in the exhibit were religious, focusing on Christ) but for me, while I enjoyed the spiritual nature of the works I was viewing them more as an artist, in the presence of works that were so beautiful, I was analyzing how and why they were so beautiful, composition etc.
I hope that I can have more weekends like this.

The Trouble With Harry

The Trouble With Harry, it's a movie by Hitchcock, apparently one of the "lost" movies that he bought the rights back to. I can't quite but my finger on why I enjoy it so much but I just love this movie. It's a black comedy but it doesn't feel like one, not like Dr. Strangelove or something like that, it's bright and sunny and very funny, but not in a laugh track funny though. I recommend it, it's a bit satirical and a bit of a crazy slice of life.

snow and cultural divides

I have always lived where it snows in the winter and I've loved the snow. I went sledding in the winter, build snowmen and had snowball fights. I learned how to ski when I was eight and dreamed of learning how to snowboard before my enthusiasm for skiing waned. As a kid one of the few winter sports I didn't try was ice skating, I didn't do that until I was 12 or 13, but I took to skating pretty well because I'd learned to roller blade in younger days.
I didn't give to much thought to these things for much of my life, the people I knew lived the same place I did and had a lot of the same experiences. In my freshman year at college I had some experiences that made me think more about my winter experiences; one day my roommate came in and excitedly told me that snowflakes really did have those patterns on them. I looked at her like she was stupid, did she think that people had made that up? She was from California and had never seen much snow. How curious it is when other mind frames or points of view collide with our own.
This week I was once again made to think about the differences in my experiences and the experiences of others. My ward went ice skating for an activity and it was a first time for two of the people in our group. The two first timers had unique differences, one was a guy who'd grown up in the states, and the other was my friend who grew up in Ghana and then lived in Arkansas when she moved to the states. The guy was a shaky skater but he was skating pretty well on his own by the time he left, he'd roller skated or bladed at some point in his past. My friend had a very hard time, she'd never roller skated, etc. and had a hard time getting used to the feeling of being on skates. She was a good sport, she made it once around the rink going slowly and holding the rails and later in the evening she let us take her around being pulled by one friend skating backwards and someone to spot her from behind. It was interesting to think about, and hard to try and think how we could help her get the hang of skating, I couldn't remember how I really learned how to skate because I'd done it so long ago.
I was talking to my friend and she thought maybe skiing or snowboarding would be easier since there wasn't a blade to balance on, remembering my own experiences skiing I wasn't so sure but I suggested that she might like sledding, no balance required. She agreed to try sledding and we went yesterday, she loved it! It was fun to see it through her eyes and remember sledding when I was little, how thrilling it was and still is. It's interesting the experiences that we take for granted, for me skating and sledding were a part of life; my friend baffled me when she told about things that she'd taken for granted in her life, walking to the store/market every day and cooking from scratch.
I think its good for us, good for me when I can see differing realities from my own.

PS A friend took that picture in Alaska

I really appreciated this talk.

Piano Puzzler

There's a classical music radio show called Performance Today, it's an enjoyable show but my favorite part of the show happens on Wednesdays; the piano puzzler. The host of PT and Bruce Adolphe (a great pianist) get together with a listener (via the phone) and the listener's job is to guess the song and who's style it's played in that Bruce Adolphe plays; an example: a Beatles song in the style of Mozart or a tune from West Side Story in the style of Chopin. I like to play along at home, I can quite often get the song but I'm usually lost on the composer who's style it's in. I've improved as I've gone on listening. Listen, see if you can solve the puzzlers.

Do you ever feel like good things are just falling into your lap? I'm feeling that way now.

Working on goals

I'm not really into New Year's resolutions because I think that sort of limits one's fresh starts but I do have some goals that I'm working on. Some are goals that I've started many times before however as a song Michael Buble and others have sung says, "It's a new dawn, it's a new day," each new day is a chance to start over again. I'm feeling pretty good about these goals so far, I've been working on them for a while and I think I've found a good source of motivation. Wish me luck and good luck with goals you may be working on.