Street Art

This street art is located just outside the Spitalfields Market area, kind of to the back in a parking lot. When I first saw this, I had to debate whether I actually thought it "enhanced the space" or not. I was kind of leaning toward "not," just because it's so chaotic and rather strange, but then I really thought about where I was. The Spitalfields Market is a fun, "young" area, with lots of art and antiques and vintage fashion and other crazy objects for sale, perused by young, artistic and fashion-forward type people. It's gone a long way from being the city's vegetable market. When I consider the context, the winged wrecking ball smushing a white car on top of a Dumpster with a cactus nearby seems to just kind of fit. And I'm pretty sure that's one of "Space Invader"'s installations in black and white above it.

For my second space-enhancing bit of street art, I had to look a lot harder. I just wasn't finding anything that I actually liked. There were a few things I thought of writing about just because they seemed to be more intricate than the usual sort of vandalism, but my heart really wasn't in it. Then yesterday, as I was coming home on the Tube after a lovely day at Kew Gardens, I saw it. There was a brick wall near the Tube tracks, covered with graffiti and tags and all sorts of meaningless vandalism. The spray paint was all different colors, especially red, black, and yellow, but on top of the squiggly tags was a true work of art. Some enterprising individual had painted a perfect pink Foxglove plant over the chaos. The plant was executed with perfect precision, with every detail being true to life. Whoever had done that had either had extensive botanical knowledge or a very accurate picture to follow. I didn't see any other words painted, but I wonder if the artist knew about the plant's hidden attributes. If he had gone to the trouble of painting a perfectly realistic Digitalis, I would assume he did. Foxglove (Digitalis purpurea), has been used for ages as a poison. In small doses, it will speed up the heart's beats, making it a valuable medicine, but in a larger dose, it speeds up the heart till it gives out. It is an extremely deadly poison, capable of killing with just a little leaf. I really enjoyed seeing this beautiful piece of street art, especially coming home from the Royal Botanical Gardens at Kew. Whoever the artist was, they obviously put thought and care into this piece. Because I was on the Tube, not expecting to need my camera, I unfortunately did not get a picture of this beautiful artwork. The posted picture is of one of my own Foxglove plants at home, the same type and color of the one painted on the wall.

Walking with Professor Mackey through the East End, I happened upon this sticker on a stop sign. I decided I really don't actually like Shepard Fairy's Andre the Giant image. It just seems sort of silly that this one artist took another man's iconic image and stuck this cartoonish face up everywhere. It feels more like a branding scheme than a true art movement. Because the image is never significantly altered, its purpose seems to be more about promoting Shepard Fairy than promoting some artistic idea. Obviously Fairy has artistic talent (his Obama-Hope portrait proves this) but this particualr campaign seems to me to be more about the artist than the art.

Sticker somewhere around the Brick Lane area

I saw the image again on the way to and from our trip to Bath

I saw this piece on the side of a wall in Brick Lane. Obviously, the artist put some serious work into it, and I would definitely say that it is a step above graffiti or vandalism, but I just don't think it does anything productive. To me, it just seems too busy and too chaotic. Something about it just makes me not like it. I also don't get it. "After Lives"? What do those words have to do with the little green sketchy men with bad teeth and checkerboards? The artist apparently was proud of this work, though, since he signed it. Sorry, Nathan Bowen, but I just don't get "Movement."

Creative Writing Inspired by the British Museum

As an English major, I read a LOT. I read Shakespeare, Tennyson, Austen, Milton, all of the immortal authors, but in my spare time I have made a resolution: I will only read children's books. Not little picture books or anything, but young adult fiction, where there is no sex, no perversion, no truly heinous violence and the story always ends happily one way or another. In these books, I find worlds that don't have that sharp, poisonous edge found within the pages of the "great writers" or really any book meant for adults. Young adult books create worlds that are accessible, worlds that can take me away from reality for an hour or two, worlds I want to visit. The most recent book I've read is called "The Red Pyramid" by wildly popular young adult fantasy author Rick Riordan (of "Percy Jackson and the Olympians" fame). Riordan is a master at creating worlds I want to get lost in, and this latest of his books has a particularly interesting early setting: the British Museum.

In the first action-packed scene of the story, the young heroes find themselves in the room where the famed Rosetta Stone is kept, a room I have now visited three times. The dark forces of ancient evil are rising and the stone explodes, releasing five of the old Egyptian gods, including Set, who will be the ultimate villain in this tale. The two teenaged protagonists must now learn to master the ancient power they have just discovered exists right below the surface of the everyday world. This introduction into this book (the first in a series) is incredibly compelling. Riordan manages to link his story to two things that I find incredibly important: 1) a familiar place, and 2) a well-known and secretly magical artifact. There is something amazing about imagining that such a famous object as the Rosetta Stone, a feature in countless grade-school history books, as a magical catalyst. Young imagination instantly turns the stone into an object of wonder and mystery, and yet it is something that anyone visiting London can walk in front of and take pictures with for free. It suddenly can become so much more than just a rock with writing.

There seems to be something universally fascinating about fictional properties of objects in museums. When I was a child, one of my favorite movies was one where the dinosaurs in New York's Museum of Natural History come to life. The wonderful "Librarian" movies with Noah Wyle have many scenes that take place in museums. Later in "The Red Pyramid," the characters use the reassembled Egyptian temple in the Metropolitan Museum of Art as a magical object. In Riordan's "Percy Jackson" series, the first pivotal action scene takes place in the Greek artifact area of the Met. The films "A Night in the Museum" revolve completely around the concept of museum objects being rather livelier than would be expected of them.

I guess my point is, the things behind the glass don't just fascinate us for their historical or artistic value, but also for their imaginative value.

The National Portrait Gallery

I do not like this logo. I think it's boring and kind of strange. For some reason it reminds me of the title page of an 80s paperback, something rendered in turquoise and neon orange. As such, it seems outdated in a strange way. Though the gallery contains portraits from throughout the ages, I think the logo has to be somehow timeless. I have no idea as to how to go about that, but I think something simple and less "fad" like would be better. Maybe the logo could somehow be "framed" either literally or just figuratively, like the pieces in the collection The script that makes up the logo now seems out of style and just strange.

This is me as Catherine Parr, after "Master John's" 1545 portrait:

I've always liked Catherine Parr the best out of all old King Henry VIII's wives, probably because she's the one who lived. She seems like a smart, intelligent woman who used her intellect to literally keep her head. I admire her for the story of how Henry was all set to capture and probably execute her, but she was able to talk him out of it by reminding him of her subservient status. The fact that she was smart enough to play on his chauvanism I think tells a lot about her ability to think quickly and survive in a very nasty world. I've always felt bad about her end after Henry, though. She fell in love with a less than reliable man and died in childbirth. I take this as a well-delivered warning. In another time and place, that could be me. Thank goodness I wasn't born in 16th century England.

This is Jamie as Elizabeth of Bohemia by an unknown artist around the time of her marriage in 1613:

I just really liked the look in the eyes of the sitter of this portrait. It seemed like she was conveying intelligence, kindness, a fun-loving spirit, and just a hint of boredom, which is just the way Jamie would look if I told her she had to sit still for who knows how long to do a painting of her. The two of us were admiring the lack collar in the painting. Jamie says she'd love to have one like that, and I must say, it would look lovely on her. The collar had lions and unicorns and coats of arms worked into it. Just Jamie's style!

Leigh as Princess Charlotte of Wales by George Dawe, 1817:

This portrait was perfect for Leigh. Just a few days before, we had all been laughing that all the women around the Burberry Fashion Week tent were wearing their hair in a tight bun on the very tops of their heads and looked rather silly. Leigh had promptly given herself the same hairstyle and worn it for the rest of the day. When I saw this painting, I immediately noticed the hairstyle and thought of my stylish friend. Unfortunately, the hairstyle is where the similarities between Leigh and Princess Charlotte end. Actually, it's really not so unfortunate. Princess Charlotte was 21 years old in this picture, newly married and in love and exceedingly happy, but just a few months later she died delivering a stillborn child. I had to adjust the angle of the sitter's face because my poor sketching skills just could not capture the correct pose.

Lauryn as

The pose of this woman could not be more different than Lauryn's usual posture, but I couldn't help noticing the almost frightening similarity of their faces. The expressions are entirely different, with ____'s being sultry and seductive, and Lauryn's generally being kind and honest, but the features and coloring were spot-on. At first I wasn't going to include this juxtaposition and was going to try to find another portrait to draw, but I thought the contrast between physical resemblance and personality to be rather comedic.

Professor Steven Driscoll Hixson as Henry VIII in a sketch by Hans Holbein the Younger, 1537:



I was having trouble choosing a final comparison so I decided I'd like to portray Professor Hixson as a very unlikely Henry VIII. This is not a comparison of likeness but of absolute dissimilarity. I don't like Henry VIII. He just was not a nice guy. By all accounts he was just about the most self-centered, generally nasty person who ever lived. When we visited Windsor, I made sure to walk on his tombstone. In contrast, Professor Hixson is friendly and helpful. The physical differences are also pretty huge (pun sort of accidentally intended). Old Henry was clearly rather rotund, while our professor is certainly a whole lot leaner. The one similarity I can possibly draw is the importance of clothing to the two men. Both seem to value clothing, though for what I assume are rather different reasons. Where Henry used rich cloth to show off his power and wealth, Professor Hixson has revealed that he chooses his own clothing to reflect mood through pattern and color. In some ways, this selection of clothing is done for similar reasons: both men use their clothes to convey a message, but that message is very different. Where Henry's rich embroideries and jewellry and massive (and unlikely) codpiece seem to declare the wearer to be immensely wealthy, powerful and self-confident (and very aware of his own standing), Professor Hixson's happy patterns and colors clothe a cheerful and kind-hearted teacher .