Getting Out, Making Music

Cousin Florence is visiting my folks from Ohio and I was invited to go along on a museum trip to L.A., for which I gladly took a day off work.  But first, we lunched at an upscale Pasadena restaurant called the Parkway Grill.  It's a warm and inviting restaurant with original art on the walls and delicious gourmet food.

Florence learned the towering arrangement in this enormous vase is made of fresh flowers which are changed frequently. There are eight one gallon vessels in the vase to hold the flowers.  After stuffing ourselves thoroughly over a leisurely hour and a half lunch, we headed to the nearby Norton Simon museum.  Anyone who has watched the Tournament of Roses Parade on New Year's Day has seen this modern building as it is on Colorado Blvd.

A vast collection of my favorite Impressionist art occupies many rooms in one wing.  These are sculptures by Edgar Degas.  One of my favorites is The Little Dancer, the larger piece in the rear of this photo.

Her cream silk ribbon looks new but her linen skirt was probably not this color originally.  Degas is best known for his oil paintings but also made hundreds of bronze sculptures in his later years.

I came around the corner a minute after my mother and liked this composition.

Matisse often used printed fabric as backgrounds throughout his career, and on his models, in this case black lace. This is a larger painting of about four feet wide.

 

Diego Rivera painted these exuberant modern portraits and is known for his murals and as the husband of artist Frida Kahlo.  This painting was donated to the museum by actor Cary Grant.

The thing I love most about going to art museums is the opportunity to get up close and study how much paint and what kind of decisions the artist made during his composition.  Here you see he started with an orange sort of crab leg shape but painted over part of it later with the brown. 

Picasso was very fond of color but what I really like in this painting is the use of browns, grays, and neutrals.  It also looks like a blue bordered linen towel was part of this still life.

This modern art painting drew me, for some reason :)

I encourage everyone to visit galleries and museums locally or in nearby cities. Often the entrance fee is low--or free, with a suggested donation only. There's nothing like seeing art in person.

A Steinway Baby Grand piano was set up in this gallery and speakers were being placed by AV staff.  Wonder who played this after we left?

I created some music of my own Friday night by completing the corner blocks for Pink Lemonade.  This modified mock up is pretty cute too, without the yellow alternate blocks.  Though I searched my local fabric store again, neither of the two yellows I found worked. I'm hoping to find a good one at the Road to California show tomorrow, where a meet up with Libby and Julie is planned.  Very excited!