Art! And Walking! And Art!
Nov. 6th, 2010 06:14 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
seldneiTook the boy to the monthly Art Walk.
Dinner beforehand was annoying on a number of levels, since the restaurant was ungodly slow and we wound up with about an hour to actually go look at stuff.
BUT.
Well, wait. An aside. Scott and I actually like to go to those city art shows that primarily consist (down here, anyway) of paintings of herons, beach sunsets, and hibiscus blossoms in extreme close-up a la Georgia O'Keefe. We like this because, tucked in here and there, you find people who do funky sculpture, or bizarre photo montage, or steampunky paintings of circus performers made from gears (except that was a few years before anyone heard of steampunk), or people who make beautiful wooden toys with signs that say "DO NOT BUY THE TOYS IF YOU DO NOT PLAN TO PLAY WITH THEM."
We like art. Scott responds to the visual quite a lot for someone who works so much with the auditory.
So it's important to us that the Zweeble be exposed to art. All kinds of art, really, but we've got music and books down, I think, so when a friend's SO was having his first exhibition, I said we'd all three be there.
(I sort of figured we'd take turns going inside while the other parent kept the kid entertained, really. That's what we did through our long-ass dinner.)
Okay, back to:
BUT.
The Zweeble, when told about the Art Walk, was intrigued. "I wonder what the artists will color?" he said.
At the exhibit, he looked and discussed and described. The name of the show was Leviathan Rising, and it was a lot of metalwork sculpture--tentacles, squid-esque stuff, some sketches. It looked really cool (and heavy. Holy cats, one of the pieces on the wall weighed 300 lbs. My house would collapse if I hung it). Z. said we were looking at "hair monsters." He dug it. He also found the monster toys they had round the back of the gallery, and we got him one that he named "El Button-o," much to the gallery owners' delight.*
We then hit the Howl Gallery/Tattoo, which I knew as soon as I saw it would be the place to take my husband. Pop culture! Comics! Funky art, not all comics-related! Huge wooden statues of a man and a dog! Life-sized statue of Yoda looking bad-ass! Tiny little Asian figures that Z. fell in love with and had to have one of! (Ant-Zilla is now El Button-o's buddy. I am a pushover.)
And, again, Z. looked at the art and checked it out, and talked about it. Yoda made the biggest impression; the dog and then man came next.
He talked about the art on the way home. Mostly it seemed to be something he needed to create stories about, maybe to explain it, or maybe not. But he really liked it, and he wants to go again. And it makes me really happy.
I want him to have the concept of the working artist. I want him to know that you can create things no matter who you are or what else you may do--that art is not exclusively for Picasso or Rembrandt; I don't want it to be, for him, something that other people do, or that you can only do in a large city, or that you can only do if you're rich. Or dead. :)
Basically, I want him to know that there are levels of success in art, and that it is available to him if he wants it. And if he doesn't want to make art, I want him to enjoy seeing it.
So I think that last night was a good start. Ant-Zilla agrees. :)
*I was a little worried that a three year old at the Art Walk, and in the gallieries, would result in a lot of hipster scorn. But it was cold and he was wearing his Spider-Man knit hat, which--combined with his Darth Vader Lives skate punk shirt and glow in the dark shoes--got him a lot of comments from the other patrons. It restored my faith in hipster-dom. :) of course, he was very well-behaved (long nap), so that helped, too.
Dinner beforehand was annoying on a number of levels, since the restaurant was ungodly slow and we wound up with about an hour to actually go look at stuff.
BUT.
Well, wait. An aside. Scott and I actually like to go to those city art shows that primarily consist (down here, anyway) of paintings of herons, beach sunsets, and hibiscus blossoms in extreme close-up a la Georgia O'Keefe. We like this because, tucked in here and there, you find people who do funky sculpture, or bizarre photo montage, or steampunky paintings of circus performers made from gears (except that was a few years before anyone heard of steampunk), or people who make beautiful wooden toys with signs that say "DO NOT BUY THE TOYS IF YOU DO NOT PLAN TO PLAY WITH THEM."
We like art. Scott responds to the visual quite a lot for someone who works so much with the auditory.
So it's important to us that the Zweeble be exposed to art. All kinds of art, really, but we've got music and books down, I think, so when a friend's SO was having his first exhibition, I said we'd all three be there.
(I sort of figured we'd take turns going inside while the other parent kept the kid entertained, really. That's what we did through our long-ass dinner.)
Okay, back to:
BUT.
The Zweeble, when told about the Art Walk, was intrigued. "I wonder what the artists will color?" he said.
At the exhibit, he looked and discussed and described. The name of the show was Leviathan Rising, and it was a lot of metalwork sculpture--tentacles, squid-esque stuff, some sketches. It looked really cool (and heavy. Holy cats, one of the pieces on the wall weighed 300 lbs. My house would collapse if I hung it). Z. said we were looking at "hair monsters." He dug it. He also found the monster toys they had round the back of the gallery, and we got him one that he named "El Button-o," much to the gallery owners' delight.*
We then hit the Howl Gallery/Tattoo, which I knew as soon as I saw it would be the place to take my husband. Pop culture! Comics! Funky art, not all comics-related! Huge wooden statues of a man and a dog! Life-sized statue of Yoda looking bad-ass! Tiny little Asian figures that Z. fell in love with and had to have one of! (Ant-Zilla is now El Button-o's buddy. I am a pushover.)
And, again, Z. looked at the art and checked it out, and talked about it. Yoda made the biggest impression; the dog and then man came next.
He talked about the art on the way home. Mostly it seemed to be something he needed to create stories about, maybe to explain it, or maybe not. But he really liked it, and he wants to go again. And it makes me really happy.
I want him to have the concept of the working artist. I want him to know that you can create things no matter who you are or what else you may do--that art is not exclusively for Picasso or Rembrandt; I don't want it to be, for him, something that other people do, or that you can only do in a large city, or that you can only do if you're rich. Or dead. :)
Basically, I want him to know that there are levels of success in art, and that it is available to him if he wants it. And if he doesn't want to make art, I want him to enjoy seeing it.
So I think that last night was a good start. Ant-Zilla agrees. :)
*I was a little worried that a three year old at the Art Walk, and in the gallieries, would result in a lot of hipster scorn. But it was cold and he was wearing his Spider-Man knit hat, which--combined with his Darth Vader Lives skate punk shirt and glow in the dark shoes--got him a lot of comments from the other patrons. It restored my faith in hipster-dom. :) of course, he was very well-behaved (long nap), so that helped, too.
