Tuesday, July 21, 2009

Art and Music New York trip

We went to New York this past weekend. New York City in July - not the place to flock to, usually. But just the right place to be.
Carl had a recording session with Charley Gerard and his saxophone quartet. Yep, a saxophone quartet! Charley wrote a piece for piano (Carl) and the quartet that they played here in DC last year, and then recorded yesterday. By the way, the sound of Charley playing jazz saxophone is unspeakably moving and delicious.
We traveled by luxurious Vamoose Bus.
While in NY Carl and I and our son Gabe spent some time at MOMA, and I saw some terrific never before known about James Ensor drawings. And Ensor paintings. He did more than those creepy skulls and masks - beautiful little gem-like satiric paintings that are intriguing and incisive and funny.
Also moving was a huge installation by Song Dong who filled the biggest museum space on the first floor with things his mother collected over 50 years in one house - piles of socks (neatly stacked and bundled), stacks of clay planters, blouses, bowls, a teeny ironing board ... FULL of feeling.
Then on Monday I met my friend Lucy Blake-Elahi from L.A. and we went to the Neue Museum on Fifth Avenue - saw magnificent trippy Klimts and a particularly gorgeous painting of a garden by Gabriele Munter. It made me want to rush home and paint, which is just what I did today. Trying to get the feeling of that explosion of yellow lilies without just painting the same old same old....

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