{"id":2104,"date":"2016-07-07T16:12:57","date_gmt":"2016-07-07T16:12:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.elizabethfram.com\/Blog\/?p=2104"},"modified":"2016-07-07T16:12:57","modified_gmt":"2016-07-07T16:12:57","slug":"a-feast-for-the-eyes-food-for-thought","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.elizabethfram.com\/Blog\/a-feast-for-the-eyes-food-for-thought\/","title":{"rendered":"A Feast for the Eyes & Food for Thought"},"content":{"rendered":"

This past weekend we left the fireworks behind and ventured north for the\u00a0Montreal Jazz Festival<\/a>. I also had the ulterior motive of checking out\u00a0“Pompeii”<\/a> and “Toulouse-Lautrec Illustrates the Belle \u00c9poque”<\/a>\u00a0at the\u00a0Mus\u00e9e des beaux-arts de Montr\u00e9al.<\/p>\n

\"Border-Queue\"

Customs<\/strong> \u00a92016 Elizabeth Fram \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 Heading into Canada, the line at the border was as long as I’ve ever seen it.<\/p><\/div>\n

They are both wonderful exhibits. The artifacts from\u00a0Pompeii were extremely moving, not just for their incredible\u00a0preservation and accessibility to a daily life we can all relate to, but also for\u00a0the sheer beauty and, in many respects,\u00a0almost contemporary feel in much of their\u00a0design. Across the hall, I was in total awe\u00a0over\u00a0Toulouse-Lautrec’s facility\u00a0with line and mesmerizing compositional skills. And because various states of many of his prints are on view, there is an enhanced opportunity for\u00a0\u00a0learning. \u00a0To tell the truth, after being surrounded by so many posters of Parisian life, I left his\u00a0exhibit\u00a0feeling\u00a0a touch\u00a0of Paris-envy. (And how better to scratch that itch from far-away Vermont than with Paris Breakfasts<\/a><\/em><\/strong>?<\/em>\u00a0Carol Gillott’s world of patisseries, watercolors, and ‘la joie de la vie\u00a0\u00e0 paris’ is a visual confection.)<\/p>\n

Now that I’m back at work, there has been a lot to think about, especially after a weekend exposed to such artistic mastery – both visual and musical.\u00a0I keep a folder on my laptop of various quotes and passages — thoughts that resonate and, depending on the circumstance, often provide the perfect reinforcement in the studio when needed. As I’ve been stitching this week, humbly plugging away, the\u00a0following\u00a0two ideas keep running through my mind:<\/p>\n

“Don’t play what’s there, play what’s not there.”<\/em><\/strong> \u00a0 \u00a0– Miles Davis<\/p>\n

And this from M.C. Richards’ Centering in Pottery, Poetry, and the Person<\/em><\/a>:<\/p>\n

“There are many marvelous stories of potters in ancient China. In one of them a noble is riding through a town and he passes a potter at work. He admires the pots the man is making: their grace and a kind of rude strength in them. He dismounts from his horse and speaks with the potter. ‘How are you able to form these vessels so that they possess such convincing beauty?’ ‘Oh,’ <\/em>answers the potter, ‘you are looking at the mere outward shape. What I am forming lies within. I am interested only in what remains after the pot has been broken.’<\/em> \u00a0 \u00a0 It is not the pots we are forming, but ourselves.”<\/strong><\/p>\n

Wise\u00a0words for\u00a0keeping me on track. Can you relate?<\/p>\n

\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This past weekend we left the fireworks behind and ventured north for the\u00a0Montreal Jazz Festival. I also had the ulterior motive of checking out\u00a0“Pompeii” and “Toulouse-Lautrec Illustrates the Belle \u00c9poque”\u00a0at the\u00a0Mus\u00e9e des beaux-arts de Montr\u00e9al. They are both wonderful exhibits. The artifacts from\u00a0Pompeii were extremely moving, not just for their incredible\u00a0preservation and accessibility to a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[83,147],"tags":[290,289,288,291],"class_list":["post-2104","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-exhibitions","category-reference","tag-henri-de-toulouse-lautrec","tag-m-c-richards","tag-miles-davis","tag-musee-des-beaux-arts-de-montreal"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5kO5z-xW","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.elizabethfram.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2104","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.elizabethfram.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.elizabethfram.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.elizabethfram.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.elizabethfram.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2104"}],"version-history":[{"count":21,"href":"https:\/\/www.elizabethfram.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2104\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2126,"href":"https:\/\/www.elizabethfram.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2104\/revisions\/2126"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.elizabethfram.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2104"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.elizabethfram.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2104"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.elizabethfram.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2104"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}