Beauty in Daily Life

Emerson quote about beauty

2008-03-13T17:23:00.001-07:00

Never lose an opportunity of seeing anything that is beautiful; for beauty is God's handwriting -- a wayside sacrament. Welcome it in every fair face, in every fair sky, in every fair flower, and thank God for it as a cup of blessing.

~ Ralph Waldo Emerson ~

Spring has Arrived

2008-03-12T22:56:00.001-07:00

Spring has arrived. Hallelujah! Praise Be! I know spring has arrived because daffodils bloom in the spring and this photo was taken in my front flower bed. Yesterday it was a bud, today it's in bloom. Two of them are in bloom, actually. And, others are budding. Spring has arrived. Hallelujah! Praise Be! Did I already say that? Sorry... I'm a bit overly excited. So overly excited that I wore sandals today. My toes have been a little chilly all day, but I don't care. I need to do my part to encourage spring and somehow I think my painted toenails peeking out of sandals does that. I don't know... baseball players have lucky socks... what can I say?

It was warm enough yesterday and today that I went out and cleaned a bit on the flower bed in front and the veggie garden in back. I can't say they're really cleaned perfectly, but they're better. I also trimmed the rose bush in the front. Is this the right time of year to do that? I have no idea. I tried to find out online and I read that every time of year was the correct time to trim them. So, I decided I'd just do it, see how things go, and learn from my own experience.

I had lunch with Julie today at Applebees and I have now been asked the oddest question that I've ever seen on a survey. I've been asked some weird questions over the years, which would be an interesting blog post on its own, but this one takes the cake for a preprinted survey at a restaurant.

"Are you a pharmaceutical representative?"

Now, in my line of work, this is a question I can see popping up. But, it was an unexpected last question on a restaurant survey where the most probing question up to this point was what my favorite entree was. (Oriental Chicken Salad, for those of you keeping track.) I swear. I'm not making it up. There was no other question about employment - only this one. And it was certainly not an open ended one as they say in the survey biz. Wouldn't it make more sense to just ask what I do for a living? Do they want more pharmaceutical reps? Or do they not want to serve them. If you answer yes does the Soup Nazi come in and take your food saying, "No Oriental Chicken Salad for you," or do they bring you extra dessert. Maybe I should have lied to find out. But, I'm not a pharmaceutical rep. I know one. Does that count?

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Check www.patsyterrell.com for the blog, art, and more.

Beauty of Monet

2008-03-06T00:05:00.001-08:00

This is called impasto. It's an Italian word that refers to part of a painting that has a build up of paint. I don't recall where I first learned the term, but no doubt from some of the art books I've read. I developed a real interest in art when I was in college - really even earlier than that but I just didn't know what to do with it until later. I eventually learned that when one is interested in something the easiest thing to do is start reading about it and learning. I often start with a children's book to "get my feet wet" when I know nothing about a topic.

It wasn't until I had done some reading that I even knew what kind of art I was interested in, much less who any of the artists were.

When I was in college at the University of Kentucky the Armand Hammer collection traveled there. It was a major art exhibition and I went. It was the first time I was exposed to Impressionists on a large scale. My exposure to art had been very, very limited. Art was not an interest of anyone I knew growing up. It wasn't something that was available to me. It was not something that anyone thought about. Literally, it just wasn't on the radar screen. That's not a slam against my family or the place where I grew up. It just wasn't part of my world.

All of life is a trade off and I had some amazing experiences growing up that people who spent their weekends in museums missed out on. So, there you go. But, being who I am, I want to have it all.

For many years now, I have sought art in every venue possible. I'm certainly no expert, but I can hold my own in a basic art discussion, particularly about the impressionists. I've traveled to some of the places they painted, including Monet's home in Giverny, and I've read and studied their personalities, thought processes and techniques. I don't study their techniques to try and duplicate them - I don't have that talent or interest. I study them because I want to understand the work.

However, all of that does nothing to prepare me for the experience of getting lost in a painting. It's as if every molecule of my body becomes devoted to only experiencing what is in front of me. Nothing holds this power over me like a Monet painting, particularly his later works. The Orangerie in Paris, where his final eight panels reside, is an all day visit for me, as is the Musee Marmottan, which has some of his unfinished works on display. Most friends don't want to go to a museum with me. Not only will they be bored and ready to leave hours before I will, but I will be completely non-communicative. I'm there to "commune with the art," not visit. I have given "the Patsy tour" of various museums to friends - and that's fun - but that's a different kind of experience.

I know many art experts look down on those of us who love impressionists. That's fine. I still love them. In particular I love Monet. I know he wasn't the most pleasant personality, at least from what I read, but when I'm looking at his brush strokes, and examining up close every square inch of the canvas his brush has touched, and the amazing beauty it has wrought, I don't care. I don't care if the art snobs think I'm a neophyte. I don't care if people who don't like art think I'm a snob. I don't care about anything except losing myself, my ego, my entire being while I immerse myself into that beauty. It's as if I'm melting into it, experiencing it on multiple levels at the same time. It's truly an other-worldly experience for me.

This would be related to why I absolutely despise bus tour groups that disgorge a huge number of tourists who have no real interest in being there, but are just there because it's stop number four of the day, and rush in, talking loudly, and generally ruining the experience for the rest of us.

And you don't even want to get me started on school groups. I want children to experience art, but could we have at least one day or morning or afternoon or sometime when we could experience museums without dozens of loud children? Or could we just have children who come to museums without screaming? That would be another option. It's amazing the difference between a school group in an art museum in France and one in the US. Kindergarten aged kids in France sit on the floor in a semi circle in front of a painting and listen patiently to their instructor explain it. There's no running, no screaming, no jostling.

This painting, Flowering Arches, is the one Monet in the Phoenix Art Museum. Generally I head straight for the Impressionists in any museum - depending on what the collection is like I may want to spend all available time there. This was painted in Giverny in 1903, so it's one of his later works. It has all the hallmarks of the things I love about Monet.

The Phoenix Museum allows photographs of some paintings, and I was thrilled this was one of them. Of course flash wasn't allowed, but Greg took these for me and I just cropped in on bits and pieces of the close ups he did. This is generally how I most love Monet paintings - in these closeup bits that show the layers, the colors, the impasto, the brush strokes, the passion of the artist. It truly feeds my soul and is a beauty unlike any other I know.

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Check www.patsyterrell.com for the blog, art, and more.

Beauty

2008-03-05T23:03:00.001-08:00

I am so eager for spring. I'm ready for the beauty of flowers blooming, and being able to bring a little bit of that indoors. I remembered this photo I took last June - I love this picture - and decided to post it again on this 27 degree night.

This photo is certainly not technically perfect and I could have turned the doily around so the little spot where the lace has a hole in it wasn't visible, but I just love the softness of the whole thing. It was taken on my desk in the downstairs sunporch, where I regularly sit to journal.

I haven't noticed any of my little plants popping up yet, but surely some of them are. Maybe tomorrow if the wind isn't blowing like it was today I'll be able to look. There's something encouraging about seeing the flowers start to grow - knowing that winter must be coming to an end.

It won't be too long before it will be time to plant the little garden out back. I've been thinking about what to plant. In addition to the herbs and tomatoes I always plant, I want to put in eggplant again. I loved having those last year. And I want to grow some squash this year. I want to be eating squash blossoms. I'm not sure what else I'll put in - it will probably boil down to what I can find in the stores.

I certainly like having things picked fresh from the garden. I start to get hungry for "real food" as winter wears on. Of course, we can buy things from the grocery, but that's not really "fresh." I start to really want something that was picked five minutes earlier. I'm guessing before we lived in this global village where we get strawberries in January that those fresh foods were all the more anticipated.

Can you imagine what it would be like to have no fresh foods for all the months of winter? Of course, people canned things and had some foods in storage, but I'm guessing those first radishes were really welcome.

I think like many people, I'm ready for spring... more importantly, I'm tired of winter.
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Check www.patsyterrell.com for the blog, art, and more.

Beauty

2008-03-05T23:00:00.000-08:00

I'm feeling a need to find more beauty in daily life. So, I'm going to gather blog posts about beauty from http://www.patsyterrell.com here in one place.