Sojournering

Too much going on!

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I've got a 'tar baby' project at work that's edging out my regular client work. It's a presentation of our technology offerings that will be given by our CEO on Friday... I'm just putting someone else's design work into a new format. My coworker, Dancer, developed a great system, but she's off to our London office for the next two months. It's not that big a deal. Mostly it means I have no time to check Facebook or blogs. Woe is me, right? I actually have to WORK at work. Sheesh. Who can survive the suffering?

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I LOVED the Frida exhibit, even though it was one of the worst viewing experiences ever. Too many people (why bother with timed tickets if you're going to issue self-guided tours that take twice as long for people to get through?!). Everyone wanted to stop at her 'train wreck' paintings: the miscarriage, the murder/affair, the self-portraits with nails, thorns, animals and blood. I've seen most of those in reproduction. It was great to see them in person, but most of them are small, intimate paintings. It's hard to take them in while nudged along in a mob. Frankly, viewing them in reproduction is fine compared to the gallery experience I had.

However, they also had a bunch of her paintings that I'd never seen before. There was a gorgeous portrait of her husband, Diego Rivera. I was fascinated to discover it was painted two years AFTER she found out he'd had an affair with her sister. I've rarely seen so much love in a portrait. Much of her work has a folk-art aspect. Seeing it in person made me realize her extraordinary technique.

Mostly, I came away thinking that she's the artist for a blogging generation. She was doing self-revelation when NO ONE did. Now, it almost seems ordinary. Honestly, seeing her work in person made me realize what an obsessive, compulsive person she must have been. I've never seen such tiny brush strokes! Such a repetition of shapes to make every thorn on a cactus. The only other time I've seen that degree of obsessive technique was in some of the art in Baltimore's Visionary Art Museum. I love her paintings, but she would have been a very intense roommate. Of course, she was married to a philandering jerk so they had an absolutely insane relationship.

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I did check my bike seat. The woman took it with a smile and not even a blink.

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I'm off to check out a small group from my church. It's run by a couple my age: Caucasian woman married to a Korean man. LOVE it! She's also a bike commuter, hiker, climber and do-gooder. She works in the poorest neighborhood on the Peninnsula and even lived there (before marriage to a guy who owns a condo). I've wanted a chance to know her better for a while and this may or may not be a way to do that. The group may be too large or too young. Que sera, sera, right?