Rufus Wainwright - Oh What A World

My husband and I rented The Aviator last weekend (theWainwright family figured prominently is the musical score), so I've been having quite the Wainwright week. I couldn't resist watching the extras about the music that was scored for the 1920's, 1930's and 1940's, all starring one member or another of the Wainwright family, which really made the film authentic to the times. They all have this wonderful stage presence, don't they?

Beauty

I remember, as a first year art student, taking a break from my oil painting class to have a cup of coffee with my advisor. Drinking bad coffee from styrofoam cups in a warehouse that smelled of turpentine and linseed oil, he asked me, "Do you want to make 'beautiful' paintings all your life?" I blinked, and being young and naive, answered, "Well, yes ..." I could see nothing wrong with wanting to bring beauty into people's lives, even if my idea of beauty needed stretching a bit. I knew that the painting I'd seen that morning with a Special K logo and a hanger wasn't beautiful, and I knew that I wasn't destined to make art from household goods and breakfast cereals to emphasize the banality of contemporary life. Rather, if I were to make art from household goods and breakfast cereals, I wouldn't use them to point out how pathetic people's lives were, a category of art that was already being well populated at the time.

My ideas of beauty are quite changed now; some of the most ordinary things strike me with the memories they conjure, their colors and textures and lines. As Beethoven once said, "Yes, I know it's ugly, but is it beautiful?" I can't define beauty, but I know that it changes the lives of people that it touches.

How would you define beauty?

Pairing Pictures V

There are some images that are quintessentially summer; the reflection of trees in water, reflections in anything really, and the vinyl car seats which, if you are wearing shorts, your legs stick to on a hot day. Why is it that reflections seem so much more pronounced? But then, colors, textures, smells and tastes seem more pronounced in the summer too.

Long Weekend

Hi friends, I'm at the end of a long, glorious weekend full of great food, several movies (I highly recommend The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo if you like an edgy murder mystery/thriller with a little non-gratuitous violence and vengeance), and a delightful visit from my sister and brother-in-law. We stayed up into the wee hours, talking, grilling and eating on the patio. This is the stuff summer is made of.

I'm still working on some good HDR photos to share, but I've knocked a few things off my list for summer, specifically #1 (Graeter's black raspberry chocolate chunk), but am still working on #6 and #8. Oh, and I found an old Polaroid camera to play with and now just have to get my hands on some reasonably priced film! How neat is that?

What's on your list of things to do this summer?