Another hot day, and I took this opportunity to get cool at the Frye Museum, its free, its cool, and its inspirational, Perfect place for a sketch.
At the Frye Museum their main show currently is of the artist Buster Simpson. I didn’t know anything about Buster Simpson before this show and even though the show was interesting in its setup I felt that the message of the work was too cryptic. With work so full of “art speak” I need some aesthetic interest before I am influenced into seeking out the meaning of the work. What I find ultimately strange is that all of Buster Simpsons work is done in public areas, I would think that work made for the public, people that could care less about an artists intentions, should have a least some appealing visual quality. Really there were only a couple pieces that I didn’t walk up to and immediately think “What the hell, this is strange?”.
In contrast to Buster I would like to use Richard Serra as an example. Now here is an artist with work that has ultimate aesthetic appeal, so much so that I could buy a huge book about his work and read it cover to cover.
But, I have looked at his website of the work that he has done around Seattle and a lot of it is great. Most of it is aesthetically pleasing and well done. Strange that none of it transferred over into the show at the Frye, so I spend most of my time with the Horizon show doing this drawing.
All the Hudson river school paintings were lined up by their horizon lines very close to each other and the lighting was very nice.
Kiddy says its hot….