Musician at the Mosque

This post is not – I repeat, NOT – an attempt to address or make a statement about the “Ground Zero Mosque” controversy taking place here in New York. In fact, I can’t stand the issue anymore and wish the whole thing would just go away. It’s truly bringing out the worst in people on both sides. All I want to do is post this painting for “Music Monday” since I find it very impressive in its detail, colors, and authenticity.

The artist is Polish-born Stanislaus von Chlebowski (1835 – 1884). Chlebowski studied in St. Petersburg, Munich, and Paris where he was a pupil of Jean-Léon Gérôme. In 1864, Sultan Abdulaziz, reigning leader of the Ottoman Empire, invited Chlebowski to serve as court painter. So the artist left Europe for Constantinople where he lived and worked for eleven years. The paintings he produced are just some examples of the “Orientalism” trend in art during the 19th century.

I’m not able to identify the instrument and would appreciate it if someone could help me out. It’s definitely not an oud, and it appears to be played plucked rather than with a bow. In any case, it’s beautifully adorned with the hanging feathers and beadwork. I also like Chlebowski’s composition in that we can see some architectural details of the mosque behind the musician. Wait a minute, is that a mosque or a “community center”? Sorry. Just kidding

This is A Musician Playing Before a Mosque in Constantinople:

Just Call Me a Neo-Pagan, Theravada Buddhist, Liberal Quaker

There’s a quiz on the website BeliefNet called “What Religion Am I?“. I like taking quizzes, I admit it. So I took the religion quiz and my results were very interesting! The number one result is the closest match to your beliefs and then the list goes down to include 26 other faiths, the ones at the bottom being the least compatible with your answers.

I took the quiz twice because I had some difficulty with the first few questions and wanted to mull over those tough ones and try again. The later questions I found very easy, so I was able to answer them quickly and confidently, the exact same answers both times. My results from the two tests varied just slightly. The first test put me as a Neo-Pagan in the number one spot which actually surprised me. Then a Theravada Buddhist, then a Liberal Quaker. Now most of you probably don’t know this but I attend silent worship at a Quaker meeting house on Sundays. Not every week, mind you, but I show up often enough to feel like a regular participant. I am “Friend” Claudia

On the second test, Theravada Buddhist knocked Neo-Pagan out of the number one spot. Woo hoo! Then Unitarian Universalism came out of nowhere to occupy number two. Then Neo-Pagan again. And then Liberal Quaker at number four. The only results that didn’t change were the bottom three – the faiths least compatible with my spiritual beliefs. They were Islam, Roman Catholicism, and Jehovah’s Witness. Can’t say I’m shocked by any of those.

The middle section was pretty bizarre. Jainism ranked higher than Secular Humanism. Taosim beat out Hinduism. Judaism, both Reformed and Orthodox, didn’t fare too well generally. But here’s the kicker, something that literally caused me to burst into laughter. On a list of 27 total, Scientology came in at number 18!!!! WTF?????? That’s ahead of Baha’i, Christian Science, Seventh Day Adventist, Eastern Orthodox, Mormons, and Conservative Protestants. Look, I have no problem accepting my lack of spiritual compatibility with Mormons, or any of those others, but how am I closer to Scientologists?? Granted, the percentage difference was small, but still!

Whatever, it’s just a silly online quiz and it’s fun. Right now I’m enjoying the strong presence of Neo-Paganism on my test results. I knew a girl once who was a Wiccan and I could barely have a conversation with her. Strange chick. But I guess I shouldn’t let one individual warp my perception. Besides, she wasn’t a high priestess like me

The Magic Circle by John William Waterhouse:

Sketching the Summer Away

And away it’s going! Can you believe it’s August 25th already? Wow. The summer just flew by. Adiós dear summer . . . it’s been real :waves:

I got a terrific jumpstart on vigorous art modeling last night when I posed at Spring Studio. What a great session! It was a packed house, with latecomers squeezing themselves into any available space they could find. And I was pleased with myself for being on my game posing-wise. It felt really good to be back on the platform

My friend Jordan Mejias monitored the session. His work has appeared on this blog several times and beautified Museworthy with their fluidity and elegant darks and lights. You can see his fabulous wash drawings in previous posts here , here, and here.

Yesterday at Spring, Jordan spent much of the time doing pencil drawings, because even watercolorists have to practice drawing. Here are some of his sketches of me from last night:

This is some foreshortening to the max! Jordan is partial to that angle, preferring to sit at the extreme sides of the modeling platform:

Here’s that same reclined pose from a different position and from a different artist. Charles Johnson is a Spring Studio regular and creates these unique freestyle sketches done in dark pen. He draws with pure joy and uninhibited spirit:

Charles frequently does these portrait “montages” of the models. He once did one of me that had maybe 15 or 16 heads in variation. This is the one he did last night:

All That Jazz

On Cape Cod last week,  my family and I were sitting at a big round table enjoying a wonderful dinner. The champagne flowed as freely as the conversation. As is typical among our gang, the discussion was dominated by the arts, and on this particular night, film, theater, and music were the main topics.

My brother Chris is a composer and his standards for what make a quality musical are very high- higher than most peoples’. Chris is a guy who was happy to see Rent finally close! Anyway, he stated that he felt Kander and Ebb’s Cabaret was one of the best, if not the best, musicals ever produced. That led to a discussion of the film version starring Liza Minnelli, who won a well-deserved Best Actress Oscar for her performance. Another Oscar winner for that film was the director Bob Fosse. I happen to be a huge fan of Bob Fosse. From his films to his choreography, his overall creative vision, Fosse made memorable contributions to the performing and visual arts.

Besides his talent and impressive body of work, the late Bob Fosse signifies something else that is personal to my family. In his 1979 autobiographical film All That Jazz, my father made a small appearance! It was really exciting at the time. In the nightclub scene, my Dad was a musician on the bandstand in the background, and he was directed personally by Bob Fosse. Cool! I believe he instructed my Dad to act bored, a musician on a break reading the newspaper, and then pick up his horn to play when the act came onstage. The funny thing is that I wasn’t even allowed to see the R rated film at the time. I was only eleven years old and my father forbid it. But I have of course seen it since then

All That Jazz has one of the best opening scenes of a movie ever. Terrifically shot, it captures the grueling pressure of a Broadway audition and is set to the hit song “On Broadway” by George Benson. As a kid I remember loving that song, and playing the record over and and over again in my room, dancing as if I had big Broadway dreams. It’s a great, groovy track. I’m posting this video for “Music Monday” but it could easily be a “Dancing Monday”. That’s the excellent Roy Scheider (an actor I love) dressed in black, depicting the film character “Joe Gideon” based on Bob Fosse himself.

Shifting Gears

Hi everyone!! Well, I’m home, and home for good this time. Now I can unpack completely and permanently, and get myself re-grounded into the New York turf.  Major gear shift on the way. It’s only a couple of more weeks until I’m back in the swing of a full time, hectic, overscheduled art modeling existence. It carries such a different pace and tone from the summer life which, for me, has meant lying under the sun, watching cormorants fly over Cape Cod, gazing at sailboats, teaching my niece how to play bocce ball, and taking pictures of children building sandcastles.

But September is approaching, and that means art schools open, classes begin, and models go back to steady work. I see it . . . there it is . . . peering out behind Labor Day weekend . . . ready to pounce and steal the summer away from me. I’d better brace myself for the onslaught.

Travel photos are on the way, as well as cool things planned for the blog. I’m also doing my bookings for the fall. I already have a lot of dates written down in my calendar and three phone calls I still have to return. Must get back on the ball, which means I have to switch gears, a process I haven’t even begun yet!

Hope you are all doing well.

Toulouse-Lautrec’s Reclining Nude from 1897:

Off to the Cape!

My darlings, I’m leaving you again! But only for a few days. Summer getaway number two has arrived, and I am literally going out the door of my house any minute now. This time it’s a family vacation to Cape Cod. I’m especially looking forward to spending time with my niece Olivia. This will be her first time on the Cape. And my new camera – which totally rocks, by the way – is going to see some heavy photographic action.

I’ll be back by the weekend, and that means back to normal life and back to blogging! So I’ll see you all soon. Until then, be well my friends. Peace . . .

Ring Around the Rosy by Edward Henry Potthast:

Woman in the Water?

As someone who was just recently splashing around in the ocean on Miami’s South Beach – the water was luxuriously lukewarm, by the way – I can’t help but feel amused by this painting by William Bouguereau. Unquestionably a gifted draughtsman and painter, hero to academic art devotees, Bouguereau doesn’t even attempt to convey realism here in terms of the overall scene. Now I don’t really like to deconstruct art in a disparaging way (unless it’s by an artist I don’t like!) And persnickety fault-finding just isn’t nice. But some details of this painting are so flagrantly inauthentic that, in this case, they really bother me. They bother me not because they are unforgivable or offensive in any way but simply because they strip the scene of it’s true essence.

Artists “cut and paste” all the time. The practice of drawing a nude in the studio and then transferring it onto a canvas and placing it into a different setting is very common. No big secret there. As a model it’s been done to me many times, and Bouguereau very obviously did it here. But look at those hands. The model’s fingers are turning over an edge, probably from her original posing platform, and Bouguereau didn’t adjust them to even appear as if they’re resting on flat sandy surface. Instead, it looks like there is some convenient ridge under her. The weight of her body doesn’t sink into the sand nor does it seem that any water is even touching her body. The woman is bone dry while sitting amid the surf. Come on William! Who are are fooling!

But in true Bouguereau style, the figure is beautifully done, and the model’s face and direct gaze is adorable, although art historians speculate that the body and face are from two different models. More cutting and pasting. Also, Bouguereau did an amazing job with the figure’s reflection in the sand. I like the painting. I just can’t get past the look of disconnect between the subject and the environment. I was doing the very same thing a few days ago but was a soaked, salty, sunburned frolicking mermaid

William Bouguereau’s La Vague, or “The Wave”, from 1896:

Home Sweet Home, and Away Again . . .

My friends! Hello! I’m back! I really, really missed you – is that weird to say? Well I’m saying it anyway. After days of heat and humidity in Florida I return to more heat and humidity in New York. I came back with a pretty nice tan, and a sunburned ass. Yes, really. I got sunburned on my ass

I’m home only for a week because I’m going away again on Sunday for a family vacation on Cape Cod. A lot of vacationing, right? I didn’t go away at all last summer so I guess I’m compensating for it this summer.

Apparently WordPress introduced some new blog features while I was gone. I logged on here and thought, “Hey, what’s all this?”. I’ll have to check them out. And I have a couple of art modeling jobs this week which is nice.

I will try to do some regular blogging this week if I can. By “regular” I mean posts that are actually about something. You know, posts that contain all the brilliance and wit and stunning beauty that my readers are accustomed to. Kidding! I kid.

As I unpack from my Florida trip and do a huge load of wash, I will soon re-pack for the Cape. In that process I must make sure to place a note somewhere in my bags which will read the following: Dear Claudia, Remember, DO NOT lie on your stomach under the hot sun, like an oblivious dumb ditz, while writing lengthy emails on your Blackberry and losing track of time. You will burn your ass. Also, use sunblock with a higher number than 15. If not, you will burn your ass. Also, RE-APPLY after going in the water. If not, you will burn your ass. Sincerely, Claudia

While I’ll be resuming steady work in September with a fairly deep summer tan (hope the artists don’t mind), I doubt I could ever achieve the gorgeous color of Gauguin’s Tahitian women. This is And The Gold of Their Bodies, from 1901:

Miami!!!

Hi everybody! Well I’m off to Florida tomorrow. Going to visit my oldest and dearest friend Stephanie, her husband and three children, in Miami. I’m so excited!! I’ll be back on Sunday, so there won’t be any Museworthy posts for several days.

I will miss you all so much. But let’s go out with a “Music Monday”, shall we? In honor of the Cuban community in Miami and Stephanie, who is Cuban, I present some phenomenal Latin rhythms and brass from the great Dizzy Gillespie. The song, “Manteca”, was co-written by Dizzy and the legendary Cuban percussionist Chano Pozo. This track is from the album Dizzy’s Diamonds. My advice to everyone: play that thing loud or don’t play it at all

And here I am doing a little mambo and shoulder shimmy and booty shake. No, not really, but let’s pretend! I think I was just turning around.

Photo taken by Fred Hatt. Tinted, edited, reworked, messed with and essentially destroyed by Claudia Hajian in iPhoto

Be well, friends. Love, hugs, and kisses . . . and I’ll see you in a week!

Claudia
xo