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PROGRAMMING NOTE from the Author and Archivist


So obviously I just stopped blogging on this platform. I'll get back to it eventually. Or not. I'm taking a break from all social media. It seemed necessary for my mental health.

The last few years have been busy and … challenging:

- 2015 Happened.
- 2016 Let's call it The Lost Year. (Obviously words failed me.)
- 2017 about broke me. Literally. Mentally.
- 2018 was ridiculous, proving 2017 was just a warm up. (Good thing I was already broken so it couldn't hurt as much.#2018TrashCanFire I thought things were going okay, but maybe not?)

- 2019 was such a blur. I know there were highlights, but then stuff happened and carried into the next year...

- And then in March#2020 really took a turn. Who can even categorize 2020? Do we dare?


I kinda want a do-over of some of the last few years. But life doesn’t work that way.


So for now, I'm hunkering down. Regrouping. Trying to stay safe and sort some stuff out.


Stay safe everyone. Stay well.

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Monday, November 5, 2012

Retroblogging: Chicago Trip 2012, Art Institute

Once of the things I liked most about the Art Institute was that the size of the museum was manageable. While Kari and I didn't get through everything, we got through a lot. The crowds were also not overwhelming, for the most part*, and we were able to linger and study and to see how the museum had acquired and displayed works that tied together. Like this study, for a much larger, more famous work.
 Georges Seurat
French, 1859-1891
Oil Sketch for "La Grande Jatte", 1884
Oil on panel
6 1/8 x 9 9/16 in. (15.5 x 24.3 cm)
Gift of Mary and Leigh Block, 1981.15
de Hauke 93


Georges Seurat
French, 1859-1891
A Sunday on La Grande Jatte -- 1884, 1884–86
Oil on canvas
81 3/4 x 121 1/4 in. (207.5 x 308.1 cm)
Inscribed at lower right: Seurat
Helen Birch Bartlett Memorial Collection, 1926.224
de Hauke 162

It's amazing to finally see of these works in person and to be able to zoom in on details. Like these frisky friends. Did you know there was a monkey in this painting? Bottom right corner at the bustled lady's feet in the shade? See.
Also, there's a border painted onto the painting - a layering of the colors, which you can finally notice when you are about a foot from the actual work.

Of course you have to be able to get close enough to the piece to study it, and it helps if it's a wall-sized canvas.

*I never did get close enough to American Gothic to really experience that work. Somebody had parked themselves right in front of it! And then there were crowds around him. I bought a postcard.

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