This Thanksgiving was not ideal, to put it mildly, so I am not going to talk about it. I am just hoping that next year, it will be better.
However, despite that fact, the long weekend was pretty productive. Boris came on Wednesday afternoon, and I told him right away that I would need lots of help around the house in general and to help me get ready for a very busy December in particular. He was indeed exceptionally helpful, and I felt supported in all possible ways.
Friday was our day in the Loop. We went to the Art Institute because there were three exhibits I wanted to see, and having how my schedule looks for the next month, I won’t have that many options. In fact, the Remedios Varo exhibit closes tomorrow, and I kept “not having time” for it. The Picasso drawings exhibit just opened, the same as Canova’s “Sketches in Clay.”
Overall, we didn’t like either of the exhibits that much:). Picasso’s exhibit is hype, but I was never very fond of him anyway, and this particular exhibit is all about his “dark side” and the Minotaurus, and I looked at all these drawings in horror.
Canova’s exhibit was “moderately interesting,” but what you would expect from the artist who was insanely popular in his lifetime?
I liked the comparison of the clay models to the final marble versions:
And it was very interesting to learn about the copying technique from plaster to marble:
With Vero, at first, I got drawn to her paintings, but after looking at them for a while, I agreed with Boris that she was “too literal” and her works, although undoubtfully elegant, lack the depth of “good old” surrealists (and everybody is welcome to disagree with us)
We had lunch there, and then I took advantage of all the Black Friday discounts they had in the gift shop. The Art Institute gift shop ended up being the most interesting – I found almost nothing of what I was hoping for! On the other hand, the Fannie May store delivered to the expectations (not posting anything for obvious reasons ^))
On Saturday, we went for a bike ride in the freezing temperatures, so now I know it is possible, if you have BarMitts, and then we went to see “The Daughter of the Regiment” – the second time for me, but I liked it so much that I wanted to make sure Boris saw it as well.
And on Sunday, we had snow all day, so there was no more biking, and the day was all about getting the house ready for Christmas – although I will be away for two weeks, I still want to return to the Christmas-looking house!
Hettie's Reflections 