Norton Simon Museum

I arrived around 3:00pm to the Norton Simon Museum. I had not been there since I was in middle school and I thought that it would be the perfect place to go and see fine art. The current exhibitions there were "The Familiar Face: Prints by Rembrandt", and "Gaze: Portraiture after Ingres." So I had a plan when I entered the museum, it was to see how much art I could push into my head and see how different things are from European style to American.

First I stumbled upon the Rembrandt prints and discovered that some were the size of napkins. They were really tiny and you could tell were sketched with such fine precision because the detail was absolutely amazing. I then found myself looking at European art and looking at very Gothic pieces along the way and many of those pieces had the "Wave" that we discussed in class it was very interesting.

Then I came upon ancient art downstairs. Many Indian and Asian pieces of Gods and folklore. Yes, there were many dancing Shivas but it was all very beautiful and very amazing because of the age to these pieces. Then I saw interesting pieces of the god of death Mahakala which were awesome depictions.

Looking through the museum I found that most of the art was so timeless and pieces of history. That they were of their time and that's made them classic. Few caught my eye but the ones that did were Horace Vernet's, "Soldier on the Field of Battle", and an abstract piece of art by Vasily Kandinsky called "Heavy Circles Unequal".

The museum was an awesome place and I hope to go there soon because I only got an hour of touring it because I had very little time this past week. All in all the Norton Simon is a beautiful place and hopefully the outside garden where all those sculptures are will be open.

The Ferguson Fine Art Gallery Follow-Up

The first piece is by Curtis Broadway. The owner of the gallery didn't specify the title but this was the art that caught my eye at the return to the Ferguson gallery. I spoke to the owner about the oddness of the piece and that pig or boar looked very troubled. We kind of came to the conclusion that the pig was a typical man just depicted differently and I brought up "Animal Farm" by George Orwell. The piece reminded me of Old Major, a rebel to the very core. The piece looked like a beatnik just as a pig. It was very funny and he said to me that my observation was very interesting and not too outlandish.

This post also includes other art from Ocean and his celebrities. There is Barack Obama, Bob Marley, Jimi Hendrix, and Bob Dylan depicted.

The January 30th ArtWalk@The Arts Colony.

It was a very brisk Saturday evening in Pomona. This was the day of the ArtWalk and discovering what was hot in the area. Having never been on an ArtWalk I was very intrigued by the gathering of people and the well spread out topics of discussion.

The first gallery I stepped into was the "Pomona Frame House". This gallery depicted very abstract art but all had a message. The one piece of art that really caught my eye was a photograph by Thomas Matvenia titled, "Visitor". This intrigued me because of the Sun barely coming into the focus of the opening. It was like the Sun was coming to visit the opening and then go over the opening as the day progressed. It was very fascinating.

The next gallery I went to was quite "hot". This was the dA Center For the Arts. In here there were tons of people gathered around and looking at what amazing art pieces were on display. The one piece that caught my eye in here was titled "Daddy What's A Bird" by Chris Toovey.In this piece the title and the prominence of the helicopter reminds me of a song by Pink Floyd titled, "Goodbye Blue Sky", in which the song begins with a boy speaking to his mother about a bird up in the sky and then the song begins a dark and gloomy mood into describing war. This painting was very appealing to me because of that. My buddy John also saw a type of technology crisis in the painting. Seeing satellites and saucers made the painting, to him, seem as if man had put so much into technology that he forgot about nature itself. Very interesting piece and very subjective.

The Glass House Record Store always has been a favorite place of mine for many reasons. Its where I buy tickets for upcoming acts I like to see and there are amazing pictures by Mike McDougal decorating the place. One picture of a group called Tegan & Sara struck my eye.

Tegan and Sara Quin are two Canadian twin sisters who perform rock/pop with their own blend of sound. Having seen them a couple of times I have to say they are amazing performers. I added my own piece of art to the picture, myself, because I was in between them as if I was in the crowd. The picture above shows the intensity of their performance that even John was intrigued by them. Mike McDougal is a very talented photographer and this was my favorite among his many awesome pictures around the store.

The final stop on the ArtWalk for myself was the Ferguson Gallery of Fine Art. This has always been a walk in place for me because it is right across the street from the Glass House and it always has awesome pop art. One artist caught my eye right away and that was Ocean Clark who depicts celebrity photos and paints away in his own style. My favorite was the Quentin Tarantino portrait.

Ocean has a very keen eye for really classic celebrity photos. I have this picture in my room of Quentin and I think that is why I took a liking to this piece of art right away. I spoke to one of the galleries' owners and he told me that Ocean does very well because of the fact he paints celebs. I also discovered that this place gets a lot of international art and the owner believed thats why they sell very well. This is why I chose to go back to this place for my follow-up.

The ArtWalk was very fun and interesting. I got to see a ton of new art and meet people that had the same tastes that I had. It worked well for my buddy, John, and I because we could discuss the art and figure out what some of it was and what it meant to us. It was a really great and enlightening time.