November 29 -- part two

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There is a bridge between the two parts of the Denver Art Museum.  It's at second-floor level, and goes over a road.  It has lots of windows........

Looking east.  I believe the building at the left edge is the library.

The Denver art museum has a LOT of work by first-nations people.  I love the way this glass piece is displayed.....

There is a gift shop focused on kid stuff.  They have a huge amount of this fun foam-rubber stuff (with flexible wire down the middle of the cylinders), as an attention-getter over the entry to the shop.  Wouldn't it have been fun to work on this big assemblage?

This large area had a lot of keeping-people-in-line stuff, and a lot of red garbage cans (which were not all identical).

I have no idea if the arrangement of this stuff was intentional, or happenstance.  Or some combination thereof.  I decided to treat it like an installation..................  And so (in my humble) it became an installation, even if no one before me intended it should be.  !!!

Back on the bridge between the two parts of the museum.  That same blue thing we saw earlier.

The Denver Art Museum has a LOT of hands-on stuff!  More than I've ever seen in an art museum before.  More than I've ever seen in all the art museums I've ever visited, put together, I bet (and that's a lot of art museums!).

Including this big room where you can walk in, put on a smock, sit down, and start drawing.  Painting.  Print-making.  There were many stations in here, with all sorts of things to do.  How cool!

I had a lovely conversation with this calligrapher who was talking about, and demonstrating, her work.

I admired her big marks (seen above), and told her that I'd made marks that big exactly once, and that I'd thought it was exhilarating.  I told her I'd used kraft paper, and she told me that one could buy brown paper that was intended for some purpose in construction, which was heavy, big, and inexpensive.  I mentioned the big pieces of cardboard Jamie Wyeth had painted on, which were on display upstairs.  She hadn't seen the show, and I urged her to have a look.  She said she liked corrugation.  (The paper her big marks are on, above, has a linear sort of texture.)

Her marks were made with sumi-e ink, which, she said, is very liquidy.  Her paper was flat on the floor and she leaned over it to make those marks.

I told her that I knew of someone who had painted on a big canvas every day for a month, over and over, as a way of getting used to working on a big surface.  I've got a 4x8' sheet of quarter-inch plywood.  I may cut that in half, next summer (when it's warm enough to work in the garage!), and paint each half, over and over, until I like the results.........

It was nice to make that connection with someone in the museum.  I think both of us were energized by it.

Here's some more of what I believe to be her work.  So beautifully curvy and fluid!

I wanted to sit down and eat something.  The gift store has pre-packaged salads and a few other things.  I ate a salad, and perused the offerings that were for sale.  Aren't these glasses cool?  Especially all in an organized group?

The Nelson art museum, in Kansas City, has one of these enormous things.  They are made out pf wire and the thin metal that wraps around the tops of liquor bottles (and becomes the lids?).  It's interesting how the metal looks so much like fabric.

Another look at the big room with the keep-people-in-line and red-garbage-can installation, from a different perspective.

Some of the elevator doors are decorated to encourage people to visit the Wyeth exhibit.

We are now in the "Farquod's castle" portion of the art museum.  The sort of monolithic, gray, not-so-many-windows part.

There aren't a lot of windows, and lots of the windows there are aren't very big, but they are very well used!  If you go look, you are likely to find a good view.......

The Denver Art Museum does have some "traditional art-museum fare," but has a lot more stuff that is modern (and from the American west) than most other museums I've visited.  I still love the way these old frames make shadows.........

And I note that if Canaletto, who painted the image of San Marco's square in Venice, above, about 300 years ago, were to visit it now, he'd know it at once.  Not much is different.



There is a big exhibit of tapestry (and other textiles).  I believe this red piece is some sort of ceremonial garment.

Made of (or covered in?) tassels.

A modern tapestry.

I like the shadows of my hand and camera, captured along with the info about the piece above.

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