Heavy Stones

This is a sculpture by Auguste Rodin called Fallen Caryatid Carrying a Stone. I saw it for the first time at the Musee Rodin in Paris when I was twenty-one. It is one of my favorite pieces of art. I really don't know much about visual art, having studied mostly literature in college. I've always liked paintings and sculptures, but before I visited this museum I had never seen a piece of visual art that moved me as much as a poem, for instance. I was just blown away by Rodin's sculptures, however--how much emotion and meaning they conveyed in physical form.

This particular sculpture is an enlargement the sculptor made of a small element from his monumental work The Gates of Hell. It is a play on certain architectural conventions. In Greek and Egyptian architecture, caryatids were female figures that served as columns in buildings, supporting a roof for instance. In this case, however, the caryatid has fallen under the weight of the stone she was supposed to hold up. It was too heavy for her. But even though she has crumpled to a sitting position, she hasn't dropped the stone. She's resting her own head on her shoulders, but she's still supporting her burden. You can see the muscle tension in her arms. The expression on her face is very thoughtful and dignified. She is sad about her fall, but she is not ashamed. She is going to carry on the best she can.

To me, the sculpture is about how, despite all sayings to the contrary, life's burdens really are too heavy to bear sometimes (often, probably), but people manage somehow and go on. It expresses the incredible courage and dignity that simple survival, day to day life, seems to require of us. I find it a very comforting image, especially in the face of regret or remorse about past failures.

4/2/08 Blog Topic for P1 Reading and Writing
We're going to visit the art museum on Wednesday (finally!), so I thought I'd get us started thinking and writing about art. For your post, write about a favorite work of art that means something to you. It can be a piece of visual art (a painting, sculpture, drawing etc.), but it doesn't have to be. You could also write about a favorite song or piece of music, or a book or poem or even a movie. Describe it to us and tell us what it means to you.

Musical Night Out!

I had a bit of an adventure this weekend--unusual for a mom of a three-year-old and very revitalizing! I went on a roadtrip with my friend, Bree Clime-White, who I mentioned in my last post, to the nearby town of Dubuque, Iowa. Bree was playing at Isabella's, a popular music venue there. The area around Dubuque is one of the least-flat, most beautiful areas of Iowa, with tall rocky bluffs overhanging the Mississippi River, where bald eagles fish in the unfrozen spots. The drive up was lovely, though Bree and I were chatting so continuously we probably missed a lot.

Isabella's is located in the basement one of the many ramshackle, turn-of-the-century mansions that fill the streets of Dubuque. It was a softly-lit cellar-like space, with big comfortable chairs, local artists' paintings on the walls, and, oddly, a big dictionary on a stand by the door. A very cosy place to sit back with friends and listen to music. Bree plays acoustic guitar and sings her own songs, mostly in a contemporary folk music style. It's hard for me to write an objective review since I've known her for so long. She really is good though! She's always had a beautiful voice--pure and clear--since we were children, but she only learned to play guitar about five years ago. She is very adept, however. And, while her voice is still lovely, it's stronger now. She alternates easily between soft and sweet, and an angry power. There is a real emotional intimacy to her song lyrics, as well as her stage presence and her style of singing. She opened with "Anymore," a song about a failed relationship which somehow manages to be both bitter and sadly tender at the same time. Another favorite of mine which she sang during the evening, "1000 Brown," tells the story of an Iowa City icon, the Black Angel monument at the Oakland Cemetary. She makes this local historical legend into a universal anthem of loss and undying love.

Bree was only the warm-up act for this show; after she sang for about an hour, the main act, The Awful Purdys, came on. They are a five-member band who also come from Iowa City: all women and an amazing array of instruments including a guitar, fiddle, cello, classical harp, xylophone, tin whistle, and probably a few others I have forgotten. Needless to say, their sound check took a very long time! And their music was just as eclectic as their instruments: it ranged from foot-stomping bluegrass, to soulful ballads, to a great cover of the Violent Femmes alternative rock classic "Blister in the Sun." They had the audience with them right away; there was lots of clapping and singing along. It was a very energizing, engaging show on many levels. At several points, I had to stop myself from getting up and dancing. At other times, particularly during the achingly lovely songs "All the Homesick Birds," and "Love" (not sure I have these titles right) written by band member Katie Roche, I found myself near tears.

It was a wonderful evening all and all, and lots of fun for this non-muscian to be "with the band." I won't say how late I was out, but it was much later than I have been in the past few years!

3/11/08 Blog Topic for P1 Reading and Writing:
Write a review of the event you attended in the past week. Describe the movie/show/concert/play/etc., tell us about your experience, whether you liked it or not and why.

Portrait of the Teacher as a 10-year-old Girl

Here's my sister and I on a family trip to New Mexico when I was ten years old and she was seven. I was a kind of strange little girl at that age, I suppose. I was sensitive and could be a bit intense. I loved to spend time outside, "exploring," as I called it. My parents' house now is in the middle of suburban sprawl, but back then it was on the edge of town, with cornfields and woods and a creek and a lake nearby. I used to spend a lot of time wandering about, splashing in the creek, catching frogs, and making up elaborate stories in my head. In the summer, I would come home completely covered in mud and my mother would hose me off in the driveway before she'd let me go into the house. I never got in trouble for getting dirty, though.

It seems remarkable how much freedom we had. I think nowadays parents are afraid to let their children roam as freely as they used to. Instead, they fill their schedules with organized activities: violin on Tuesday, soccer on Wednesday, gymnastics on Thursday, etc. Not that I think there's anything wrong with being busy and having interests as a kid. But there was something very valuable in having all that unrestricted time and space to fill with your own imagination.

I already liked to write at that age--mostly fantasy stories with unicorns and dragons and brave princesses and that kind of thing. I wrote a very long story about a mermaid and her dolphin friends that I worked on every day for about half a year. My dad read me The Lord of the Rings trilogy around that age, and I was heavily influenced by it.

As you might expect, I was teased a bit at school;) With the neighborhood kids, I was confident and possibly even bossy, but at school I was shy and "nerdy." I was smart and did well in my classes in general, although I was disorganized and messy and often got in trouble for losing assignments and that kind of thing. I did have a few close friends. My best friend, Bree, was also a kind of odd girl with a very well-developed imagination. We would ignore everyone else and concoct our own school-yard fairy tales. These days Bree has a daughter of her own and is a popular singer-songwriter in the local music scene. We are still very close; she is almost more of a family member than a friend.

I took things very much to heart at that age, and remember being completely overwrought by small cruelties and injustices. Nonetheless, when I look back on that time, I think that I was mostly happy. It seemed as though the world was big and wonderful, and just waiting for me to discover it, confident in the knowledge that my family was looking out for me should anything go awry.

3/4/08 Blog Topic for P1 Reading and Writing:
Write a portrait of yourself at age ten. Describe what you were like, what you did with your time, what you enjoyed, what you didn't, what school was like for you, etc.