The Sea Shanty II

Posted on March 31, 2014 by RegenAxe

The Sea Shanty II

Over the last seven years we’ve heard all about underwater mortgages. They are an enduring legacy of the Great Recession. Imagine yourself having lost your house in one of those subprime mortgages. You had lost it all after struggling to keep your home afloat. Your downward spiral continues further and first leads to unemployment and then homelessness. You end up living “down by the river” in a shantytown. Now imagine that your shanty was built upon a sinking boat, a World War II U-boat in this case. That’s what I think about when I saw this photo of Dan’s latest work, what I’m calling his “Sea Shanty II”.

Dan is in a show this week, in Torrance, California. Here he has revisited a work that he created in Saint Louis, the “Sea Shanty”. Like the original work, this one also features an eclectic collection of shacks and tents, a shantytown, all precariously perched upon the back of a plastic German U-boat model. In his previous work, he used a US Gato class model. Both pieces have different shantytowns, but there are similarities. Both works feature exquisitely modeled structures and both have an outhouse on the fantail. Now wait for it, like in when the sh!t hits the fan.

New Night-Light?

Posted on March 31, 2014 by RegenAxe

Lemon Grass Wall Sconce

We propose getting one of these lamps as our new cabin outhouse night-light. Better yet, let’s get two and mount them on opposite walls. That way you can’t watch both of them at the same time and they can breed.

Cake-Walk

Posted on March 30, 2014 by RegenAxe

The Jewel Box

The Muny

Forest Park Visitors Center

Missouri Botanical Gardens

1904 – Worlds Fair Pavilion

Missouri History Museum

Piper Palm House – Tower Grove Park

Saint Louis Art Museum

The Great Forest Park Balloon Race – Steinberg Rink

Saint Louis Science Center

Washington University in Saint Louis

Fair Saint Louis – Grand Basin

It was really more of a cake-ride, instead of a cake-walk. Sunday was an absolutely gorgeous day here in Saint Louis. So, Anne and I threw are respective legs over our bikes and headed out at the crack of noon. Our bicycle ride soon morphed in to a scavenger hunt for cakes. Let me explain a bit. Saint Louis is celebrating its 250th anniversary this year. As part of this year-long celebration 250 of these brightly painted birthday cakes are planned. I think that over 200 of them have already been placed. This whole project is cutely titled, “Cake-way to the West”, a play on the city’s claim of being the gateway to the west. With these first dozen cakes, we have only scratched the surface. The park was so full people that at times it was difficult to get around in it. In one crowded section I nearly didn’t get unclipped in time and almost went down with the ship. Consequently, we didn’t see the zoo’s cake or a couple of other ones near the park. With this first really spring like day, it is clear that winter is receding fast and warmer weather lies ahead. In the warmer days to come, there will be plenty of time to hunt for the remaining cakes.

Fruits and Vegetables

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Pike Place Market’s Fruits and Vegetables

Impressionist France

Posted on March 29, 2014 by RegenAxe

Little Dancer of Fourteen Years, Edgar Degas, 1880

The Saint Louis Art Museum (SLAM) has carved upon the lintel of its main entrance, “Dedicated to Art and Free to All”. The SLAM-mer lives up to this motto, the regular collection is always free to view and photograph and on Fridays visiting shows are also free. Last week the show, “Impressionist France: Visions of Nation from Le Gray to Monet” opened. This visiting show is the creation of Kansas City’s Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art. Anne and I went to go see it on Friday night, for free.

“Impressionist France” is an exhibit that marries 19th-century French impressionist paintings with contemporary photography. There are works of Monet and Pissarro aplenty among the show’s 125 paintings and photos, but this show is less about art for art’s sake than it is about the world that created these works. The artworks are organized by place, the streets of Paris, rural France, the mountains or the sea, to name a few. The art is also used to evoke a sense of time. Centering on the last third of the 19th-century, France is first reeling from defeat in the disastrous Franco-Prussian war, but France recovers and most of the exhibit is set in the period of expansionist growth that follows. Medieval Paris is rebuilt. Railroads open the countryside, seashore and the mountains as tourist destinations. All of this growth is captured on both canvas and film.

“Impressionist France” runs through the 4th of July. Photography wasn’t allowed in this visiting exhibit, so the next best thing is the above photo of Degas’ “Little Dancer” from the regular collection. “Little Dancer” is one of the most beloved pieces in the museum’s collection, so much so that SLAM has adopter her as part of their ad campaign. Here is the museums write-up on her:

Edgar Degas has meticulously sculpted the form of the teenage ballet dancer Marie van Goethem with chin raised and eyes half closed. The naturalism is enhanced by the artist’s use of real materials including horsehair, a muslin dress and a satin bow. Degas’ sculptures generally remained private and this work, displayed at the sixth Impressionist exhibition in 1881, was the only sculpture that he showed during his lifetime. Degas’ realistic treatment caused the girl’s features to be caricatured at the time as “monkey-like”.