Sunday, August 26, 2007

mental health day

my defence prep has been, well, unproductive and not fun over the last couple of days, so i gave myself a mental health day off today and went to the vancouver art gallery. they have a special exhibit up at the moment of works on loan from the cleveland museum of art. i've been wanting to see it for ages, and i also need to make the most of my student card while i still have it!

the exhibition was pretty good. honestly, impressionism just doesn't do it for me, so even the nice monets and renoirs weren't fascinating. but the rodin! oh, rodin. he really knew what he was doing. my favourites were these two studies for the burghers of calais. one very small:

and one very large:
(photos stolen from the internet) i remember seeing an exhibition of rodin's work in canberra in 2001 and it just blew my mind. remember, itchy?

last night i went to a very cool party of musos and choristers. they had a mike and amps set up and all jammed on blues tunes and gospel songs. there were guitars (acoustic and electric), banjos, a keyboard, a clarinet, a trumpet and a range of shakers. it was amazing. oh, and there were these australians! they had such kath and kim accents. we had long chats about how pretty gum trees are. it was hilarious. i doubt we would have spoken in any other circumstances, but on the other side of the world we bonded instantly. i miss the accent so much, but when i hear it it sounds so strongly in my ear - it's not at all normal anymore.

it's a year, tomorrow.

3 comments:

itchy fingers said...

oh! when you are in paris you MUST go to the Rodin museum. it's in his old house and is so magnificent i can't even begin. . .

gumtreefid farmer said...

ooooo! yes!

Anonymous said...

Yes, yes, we will!

I admired the Rodin studies for the Burghers of Calais in Canberra at Nat Gall in June, and marvelled once again. And of course the whole Sculpture Garden is marvellous there. I was there as the light was fading and it was quite ethereal.

BBB