Wednesday, June 10, 2015

Sunday Afternoon Outing

Sunday June 7, 2015
Today my husband and I decided to take advantage of the first Sunday free admission policy at the Wexner Center on the OSU campus. I wanted to check out Catherine Opie's photos and the paintings by Jack Whitten.

Most of Catherine Opie's photos were portraits done in low light so the models were only minimally lit with just a black background. My favorite was the one of John Waters, who is definitely one of my favorite directors/producers. Also included in the show were purposely blurred photos of famous natural landmarks. Other than the one of Niagara Falls, I defy anyone to identify the other locations.
I really, really enjoyed looking at the paintings and collages/mosaics by the artist Jack Whitten. I found them interesting and inspiring. Looking at the jumble of painted over objects in one of his pieces reminded me a little of Dublin's 'Dancing Hares' sculpture by Sophie Ryder, for its many hidden objects if you look closely at the undercarriage of each hare. I thought the topographic map mosaics were quite clever. I was just disappointed that the bookstore didn't have a copy of his catalog (but I see that it will be for sale in October 2015).

After we were done browsing in the gift shop we went next door to the Billy Ireland Cartoon Library and Museum to view World of Shojo Manga! Mirrors of Girls' Desires and
Graphic Details: Confessional Comics by Jewish Women. Andrew is a big fan of anime, which is why he wanted to see the Manga exhibit. He liked it, but said he wishes they would have displayed a bit more from each series instead of a single cell. The comics by Jewish Women had entire panels, so it took a lot longer to go around that room if you wanted to read each one (I didn't). I was pleasantly surprised to see a comic by Robert Crumb done in collaboration with is wife Aline Kominsky-Crumb. Crumb's style reminded me a lot of his late friend, Harvey Pekar, for whom Crumb did many drawings over the years. An example of a couple of Crumb's panels:

On the way home I noticed one of our neighbors up the road from us was having a clear out of several pieces of perhaps midcentury furniture. Among the collection was an old Victrola table (minus the Victrola) and a console radio that had definitely seen better days. I barely had time to look over the various pieces before a minivan pulled up and a couple got out and scooped up the black and white credenza. I told them I had dibs on the small wooden table and figured I had better get home and bring back my car before the rest of the pieces were gone. By the time I had rescued my table and was riding my bike around the neighborhood, a van had pulled up and a couple men were deep in discussion about the various pieces. By trash day on Wednesday all that was left was the wobbly wooden swivel chair. Proof that word spreads fast among neighbors when people leave treasure out by the curb!


I plan to put my old record player and amp on the top and stash a crate of records underneath. Someday I might actually get around to sanding and staining it to match the rest of the furniture in the room, but for now it's good enough in all its vintage glory.

Monday June 8, 2015
Even though the Memorial Tournament was over, Leatherlips' curse continued as it was a rainy, dreary, Monday. I had a busy day at work and was feeling a bit overwhelmed by the amount of projects to do around the house, so I decided to do what usually cheers me up - bake some cookies! I can't remember the last time I made cookies since it's usually a failure because they end up spreading out too much and taste a bit too crispy for my liking. I followed my recipe and used parchment paper on a couple of the cookies sheets. I also put the rest of the dough in a tartlet pan we have, just out of curiosity about what would happen.

I am pleased to report that it was a complete success on all fronts as I kept an eye on the cookies and not a single one got burnt or spread out. My husband thinks the parchment paper might have made a difference. Also, I liked how the cookies in the tartlet pan turned out - with more of a muffin consistency than cookies, but quite delicious! Even though I used pumpkin and white chocolate chips (trying to get rid of old ingredients in my stock pile), I convinced my husband to try one and he thought it was quite good. I even gave a couple to the young guy who works at the front desk of my gym. All total my yield was something like 50 cookies, so I'll probably freeze some and enjoy them throughout the rest of this year!

Have a good week everyone!

 

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