artist at work

 

a week or so ago i posted about nepalese artist sneha shrestha, imagine, and her installation at the rubin museum of art. here is a video in which she discusses creating her piece for the reimagine: himalayan art now exhibition.

last day at the rubin museum

the rubin museum held it's closing flag ceremony this evening. (beforehand i attended a yoga class on 23rd street that i've been meaning to get to for awhile now. it was nice to finally get there.)

last friday at the rubin

greg and i visited the rubin museum this evening as they were having a special "good-bye" party. there was a good sized crowd for it.

uber rat, 2023, by shushank shrestha, ceramic and in-glaze lustre.

we walked up to the top floor as i wanted to see the piece chanda and i had participated in one last time.

field of wishes by sonam dolma brauen, with copper stupa in the center . . 

"i truly hope my art can create change. i know my art might only have a small impact, but i feel a strong responsibility for the mark i leave behind. with the limited time i have in this world, i promise to give my best effort."

video from the workshops showing how the artist painted and shaped the tsatsa . . 

and how participants wrote out wishes, inserted them into the clay, and shaped and tapped the clay out from the copper mold. (workshops chanda and i participated in can be seen here and here; and this post has the opening night of the exhibit with the tsatsa ceremony.)

this is a short video from the opening of the exhibit in which chanda and i can be seen pounding the clay into our tsatsa molds (you see only our backs).

i stopped at a table to write down a memory of picking oranges with my uncle (they had journals in which people shared stories of encountering important aromas in their lives) and then observed a group of women creating a story together . . 

calling the earth to witness, 2023, imagine/sneha shrestha, acrylic on masonite, steel.

everyone has fun banging on the gongs, each one designed by a different artist.

and on our way out we passed one of my favorite pieces in the museum, wrathful activity/fierce energy, 2018, shesad dawood, neon on black painted board.

(on the sidewalk outside of the museum was a group of demonstrators requesting that the shrine room artifacts be returned to tibetan and himalayan communities. i think the museum has returned a few items it held, but the shrine room pieces are being transferred to the brooklyn museum for six years. maybe within the coming years they will be able to have them returned.)

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we walked along 17th street . . 

to los mariscos in chelsea market . . 

for tacos (and brought two home for chanda who was in the lab working with her tardigrades).

morning shenanigans, baking and postcards

zuzu's morning routine . . 

making a plum cake with plums bought on monday (after korrina had texted me to let me know they were available at the green market) . .  

so i walked over and purchased eighteen of them . . and made a proper cake (i had tried it with round plums and it just wasn't as good.)

a favorite breakfast . . 

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i stopped at the rubin museum in the late afternoon as it's their last week. they're closing their nyc space and will now have specific exhibitions in different cities all over the world. i think their current exhibition will be moving to san francisco once it closes on sunday. i colored a flag for their sunday evening good-bye flag ceremony.

dinner was steamed sweet potatoes and bok choy with brown rice . . 

and thankfully i found the roll of postcard stamps that the cats had been playing with (it had rolled under my desk). i wrote out fifty postcards to georgia voters from the organization students for voting justice.

august 9th - knitting and an artist's talk

lots of time when i finally sit down to work on this baby cardigan, cricket likes to join me.

even with his help, i have managed to finish it. well, i do still need to sew the buttons on, but it's currently blocking in the bedroom. it may take a long time to dry, as it's very humid and hot again . . 

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greg, chanda and i attended an artist's talk at the rubin museum this evening. it's the last one in a series for their exhibit of current himalayan art (which we participated in for artist sonam dolma brauen in march).

kunsang gyatso spoke about his piece titled goddess of tangerine which began for him six to eight years ago when his parents left him a shrine to care for (they returned to nepal). when he himself returned to nepal in past years, he noticed that the mountaintops were no longer always white with snow. they had become more brown and rugged with the warming climate. for this piece he has imagined what if the tangerine were to go extinct? would we venerate it as a goddess? would we elevate it? i was also struck with the difference of living in the beauty of the himalayas with its small outdoor shrines hidden in nooks and crannies along mountain paths, and the indoor display of the museum's shrine room in a corporate glass and steel building, and then the artist's shrine to the tangerine, displayed with paint, glass filaments, plexiglass, concrete, foam and wood; so different from soil and rocks, air and water, insects and small animals. also, there must be a difference with the warm at home shrine that his parents left him and the shrine of his artwork. our museums display our cultures and the beauty we find in our cultures, but it is not the warmth of the culture itself: the physical and spiritual actuality. we have to imagine all of that. i've been thinking about this in relation to raja shehadeh's palestinian walks . . the beauty of his home, changed irrevocably by strangers claiming it to be their's -- uprooting olive trees and building walls.

i really appreciated hearing him speak . . 

chanda and i took a quick peek in the gift shop where i picked out two tea towels; one for morgan and harley and one for ryan . . all of whom have new apartments! greg was being a bear as he was very hungry. he didn't get to have a snack before leaving for the talk right after finishing work.

he was ready for some ramen from misoya, the restaurant near us (where we ended up doing take out as they were very busy and had a twenty minute wait for a table).

and it's my dad's birthday today . . he would have been 98.