Cleveland Museum of Art

I went to the art museum here in Cleveland and I have to say I was impressed. The museum has been under construction for several years now and the new East Wing has just opened, which contains many new collections, as well as the old standbys. Also, they had several bands playing, and food and booze as a way to bring in some money and generate a crowd. Good job, museum, I am proud of you.

I didn't make it all the way through yesterday, but out of what I saw, my favorite was this one...


by french artist Jean Lecomte du Nouy, titled A Eunuch's Dream.
First of all, the painting is just breathtakingly beautiful-- the hyper-realism is dead on and convincing, and secondly, the story is so sad and familiar (not the castration part, but the unattainable dream part, haha) it makes me want to jump in there and curl up next to him, smoke a little opium, and see what visions my own mind would conjure up. Sounds like a great Saturday night...

My other fav was Still Life with Rayfish, by Chiam Soutine, a Russian painter.


This gruesome spectacle caught my eye (of course) and I instantly fell in love with it. I loved it even more after reading that Soutine created this piece as his own interpretation of Gustave Caillebotte's Still life with Crayfish. Soutine took a calm and sophisticated scene from an upper class meal and DESTROYED it, hahahaha, a-mazing. I guess I like this sort of thing because it is usually what I do with my artwork; I mean, as an artist I inherently want to recreate and depict my own version of life, beauty, perfection, and emotion, so when I see something nature did right (as She usually does) I don't want to simply copy it, but rather depict it as the right now (or the wrong now for that matter). My love for surrealism and abstration stems from this way of thinking, I imagine.

Also, some guy in Germany contacted me about doing work for an Italian pop band that he promotes, which I was excited about for days, until he told me he couldn't pay me... thanks a lot, jerk.

AND I am currently working with some artists in LA who are trying to put together a new Illustration magazine called Super Cool Magazine (inventive name, I know) so we shall see if that follows through, which I hope it does and I will keep you posted!