Tag Archives: Art

My Corner of the World – Making the World Smaller

Sometimes I think I do too much social media type stuff. One of the things I do is PostCrossing. It’s a site where people from all over the world exchange post cards. If you send a card to somebody, then somebody else sends you card. I have exchanged 321 cards over the years with people from 49 countries. Most exchangers are perfunctory but I always check and see what their interests are and if they are on social media. So far I’ve added a few people that way on instagram and found a few geocachers.

You can request what kind of cards you want and I say I like art so I get quite a few cards showing photographs of art works from all over the world. I got a card from somebody from the Ukraine with the above image on it. The back of the card said “I want to introduce you to the Belarusian artist Leonid Afremov… He lived in in Mexico and the USA for many years.” My interest was piqued because here is a guy from Belarus painting a bull fighting scene. I googled Leonid Afremov and sure enough he was an artist who lived in the USA for several years and then moved to Play Carmen, Mexico and then died there.

His family still runs his studio and offers his art up for sale on the internet. I love his style to extravagant and colorful and the prices are reasonable. Go check it out.

The bad part of social media is the creeps you end up running into. The good part is how you can learn things about people from one to one interactions. I have online friends all over the world and I value them tremendously. I hardly ever get the opportunity to meet one in real life.

I’m linking up with My Corner of the World.

Shadow Shot Sunday – Winter Shadows

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A view of our north fence with shadows from the bench and trees. By this time next week we should have a new fence to replace this well worn installation. I love the old patina but it is time to go.

Son and I are still practice driving. He’s actually doing pretty good.

Tulsa’s Lafortune Park now has a small buffalo herd. They seem to be managing the cold weather very well.

I am linking with Lisa’s Shadow Shot Sunday. Go check it out.

Skywatch Friday – Cadillac Ranch

Continuing my road trip from Springerville/Eagar Arizona for my first 50th High School Reunion. You may remember that I went by the El Malpais National Monument to see a natural arch and some spectacular sandstone cliffs. So after that I drove on into Albuquerque, spent the night and headed home to Tulsa the next morning.

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Something that I have been meaning to see for decades was Cadillac Ranch west of Amarillo. It was installed in 1974 by three architects from San Francisco who called themselves the Ant Farm, on land owned by a millionaire in nearby Amarillo. It was moved in 1997 to further away from the city. You can read all about it in this Wikipedia article.

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I remember driving by it in 1977 when I left home after graduating with my engineering degree. I was on my way to Houston to start my new job with Mobil Oil Corporation. I saw the installation from I-40 and wanted to check it out but you know, I had a long ways to go and I was in a hurry. So here I am retired 46 years later and I took the time, finally.

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It’s kind of a place. No admission fee but you can buy spray paint and people were making the most of it.

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I just took it all in. In some places the paint is inches thick. According to the Wikipedia article it gets repainted now and again for television commercials, social protests, and once to mark the passing of the one of the founders of the ant farm.

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I have had several people tell me that they came out originally to it in the 50’s and 60’s (it was installed in 1974). I just nod my head and say that’s cool!! That’s kind of common for Route 66 attractions. People talk about visiting places as kids when the thing wasn’t even built then,

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I love that people are using really bright colors to paint with.

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And what got me was the kids were really getting into it. Ordering their parents to go buy more paint, or bring them this or that. How does that work? I don’t really remember ever ordering my parents around. I would have remembered if I tried to do so!

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Droplets of spray paint were wafting everywhere in the Texas breeze.

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And I was glad that there was decent sky that day.

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My advice is to not wait 46 years to go do something that you would like to do.

Have you ever checked out Cadillac Ranch? How about the Bug Ranch? It is a similar installation with Volkswagens on the other side of Amarillo. I posted about it about a month ago.

I’m linking with Skywatch Friday and My Corner of the World

The Art of Diego Rivera at Crystal Bridges Museum

My wife and I made a little trip earlier this month to nearby Bentonville, Arkansas for a little getaway and also to check out Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art. They have a special exhibition of the art of Mexican artist, Diego Rivera.

Diego Rivera

Rivera was a controversial figure. He was dedicated to his fellow Mexicans and their struggles and was attracted to communism. He was a great artist by any measure. I knew him by his murals but he also painted a great deal.

The Flower Carrier

My favorite work. The staggered man under the weight of the flowers, the colors. Everything about this seems perfect.

I love how he uses colors. The figures are very solemn and wooden. I think he did a great job portraying the culture of rural Mexico.

Portrait of Francie Ford Seymour and Frances De Villers Brokaw

This painting struck me. It is a portrait of Francis Ford Seymour and Frances De Villers Brokaw. Seymour was a wife of Henry Fonda and the mother of Jane and Peter Fonda. Brokaw is a daughter from another marriage. Rivera spent much time living and working in California.

They had some interesting HD video of some of Rivera’s murals. They were startling because these works of art are at street level and every once in a while somebody will walk by.

There are 120 works of Riveras on display and at the end Heather and I were worn out. We tried to look at the rest of Crystal Bridges but we gave up and came back the next day.

I am linking up with My Corner of the World. Go check it out!!

AI Generated Images – The New Frontier?

AI Pumpkins
Ghostly Pumpkins – AI Generated
AI warship
Warships headed to sea AI Generated

I was reading a short article in Wired magazine about Artificial Intelligence generated images. There are programs out there that have learned gazillions of photographs and their captions and will take text prompts to generate images. This has caused lots of anger among digital artists. So of course I had to try it.

It looks like almost all of these image generators are very robust and won’t run on a laptop. So being cheap I found a website “FreeImageGenerator.Com” that will do the job for you. You enter a prompt and it generates an image that you can use however you like. It will even polish your text prompt for you to make it better. It generates png images and you are limited to 15 per hour or something like that.

So I tried various things and got various results. The two images above were the ones I liked the best. I have to say that I find the technology absolutely fascinating. I have no idea about it’s affect on the art world. But you know you cannot put toothpaste back in the tube. I suspect that artists will be fine. They will end up using such tools that leave the rest of us way behind.

Have you ever heard of AI generated Art? Have you tried it out? What do you think.

Our World – Philbrook Flowers and Reflections

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The tempietto at Philbrook has to be the most photographed thing in town. I’ve taken a bunch myself. Back when the Waite Phillips family lived here way back when, the pond was a swimming pool and supposedly there was a changing room underneath the tempietto.

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The pond makes for some nice reflections.

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I love all the flowers at Philbrook.

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On another water body, Crow Creek, which winds through the property, there are lots of turtles.

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And another flowers.

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An invitation to look for a stone flower.

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There it is!!

Stumbled upon the secret garden. The restaurant at Philbrook uses it for growing herbs and such.

It was too early to catch the change of color in the trees. Almost as good is this installation. “Oklahoma Autumn” by Eric Baker. It’s my favorite sculpture in the garden. There are two other pieces of this off to the right.

They got a lot of stuff in the 25 acres of gardens. Over 1200 trees and fifteen sculptures. I wonder if somebody is in charge of the tree count?

I’m linking with Our World Tuesday. Give it a try!

Shadowy Philbrook Gardens

Friday, I visited the Philbrook Art Museum in Tulsa. My MIL buys us a membership every year and I love that she does that. I don’t need any more stuff, a museum membership is a gift that keeps on giving. This trip I spent it all outside. I walked two miles in the gardens. Pretty good workout. And of course I took lots of photographs in my wanderings.

I came upon this sculpture. I like the shadow pattern on it.

I love these blue chairs. They are at the top of the hill and have a grand view of the grounds.

They even have swings now.

I actually swang a little (or maybe I swinged). Do you like the tan I got on my legs from ten days sitting on the beach recently? It had been raining just before I got there and I didn’t notice that the seat was yet so my rear end was soaked after this. Oh well, things dry right?

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One of my favorite sculptures in the gardens is “Oklahoma Autumn” by Eric Baker. It was too early to catch leaves turning at Philbrook but I will be back.

I had the GPS on my watch turned on during my walking and here is my map. One hour to do two miles? Yep I was in major wibble wobbling mode. Do you know that they used to have a geocache on the grounds. Yes they did and I found it eleven years ago. Read about it.

I am linking with ShadowShot Sunday II – go check it out!!

Skywatch Friday – Electric Lights!

Arkansas River Reflections

Our skies have gone from looking like this every day.

To about as blue as you can get. I’ve taken a couple of bike rides and they have been grueling in the heat.

Flag Day

Even on Flag Day. Not too many people celebrate Flag Day any longer.

While going to the library the other day I checked out this installation nearby.

I love fun stuff like this.

I don’t know who made or who paid for it but I’ll take it.

And a shot from the past,

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From the past!! This is (was) the the River West Amphitheater on the west bank of the Arkansas River in Tulsa. Back in the day there were all sorts of concerts, local and touring bands and orchestras, rock, country, anything. It is now all gone. I never saw an event there but the performers were on this stage out floating in the water and everybody else was on the bank. I took lots of photos of it on my after work runs.

Skywatch Friday

Weekend Reflections – The End of the Trail

End of the Trail

The End of the Trail is a monumental sculpture by James Earle Fraser and is the entry hall centerpiece at the fabulous National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum in Oklahoma City.

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The sculpture over the years as come to mean all sorts of things by all sorts of people. The museum has a short video that has one take on it.

I’m linking with Weekend Reflections