Better than Cream Cheese

Just sitting eating tofutti on toast with tomatoes and Frank's hot sauce. It's really the best breakfast and snack ever - tofu based cream cheese is the bomb. 

And I've been listening to Ghostkeeper after hearing them on the latest 'Eat Your Arts and Vegetables' show with Jenny Western. Sooo good - check them out. 

Gallery Ingenue has also just secured Timothy Dyck to be in the upcoming January show with Ashley Gillanders! I'm very excited - in contrast to Ashley's work consisting of interiors, Tim's work focuses on exteriors and the human hand interrupting natures natural processes and the strength of nature to continue on living through this destruction. 

There are some great artists lined up for Gallery Ingenue in the next couple months - check them out under 'Upcoming shows' on the new blog!

I also went and checked out the Fernando Botero exhibit with my mom at the Winnipeg Art Gallery today. My mom loves his huge bronze sculptures and I was particularly interested in these two paintings. 

Picador was interesting to me because Botero was trying to depict the shame of the position of the picador (the person in the bull fight who weakens the bull so the matador can finish the job). I went to Spain with my family when I was in highschool and while we were there my dad was particularly interested in bull fights so we would watch the 'highlights' of the local bullfights on tv when we were there. I guess I was numb to it at the time but now I think back on the fact that I was watching them so unaffected and it disturbs me. In the fall I found an image on google of a dead bull after a bull fight lying in someone's driveway with kids running around and one stepping on the bull as if it was his great conquest. I had been struggling with the series of small paintings this painting was in but during my crit my thesis advisors said that the bull painting was finished. The painting is really nothing like my other paintings - it's very literal and I don't know how I feel about it but I will take a photo when I'm at the studio tomorrow and post it here. 

Melancholy also caught my eye. A man dressing up as a woman by himself, something socially unacceptable at the time, melancholic because the world won't accept him. I was attracted both to the subject matter and the way Botero paints men. Women are often depicted as these voluptuous creatures but I haven't seen very many portraits of men treated the same way. The way Botero paints a man's body and facial hair is hilarious to me - as if the man hasn't grown into it yet - I found it very endearing. 

I made a point of writing down a Botero quote I thought would be helpful in the art classes I'll be teaching starting January. It may be obvious but I think it would help to hear in order for students to begin developing their own voices through their art.

"When an orange is painted by a master, it is no longer a round simple form; it is clearly an orange painted by Goya, Cezanne, Picasso." 

Hope everyone has a nice weekend!