Spirit Animals

The Cathedral of St John the Divine is a true beacon in the city of New York. Not only is it the ‘mother church’ of the Episcopal Diocese and seat of our Bishop, but it is also a breathtaking monument of Gothic Revival architecture, a vibrant cultural center, a tireless provider of social services, and an inclusive religious community famous for its interfaith advocacy and welcoming spirit. Located at 112th Street and Amsterdam Avenue in Morningside Heights, it counts Columbia University and Mt. Sinai St. Luke’s Hospital among its nearby neighbors. A cavernous, awe-inspiring space, the Cathedral’s nave spans the length of two football fields. On September 11th, 2001, hundreds of people converged at St John the Divine in a spontaneous gathering to pray, cry, and comfort their fellow New Yorkers in the hours immediately following the terrorist attacks. The Cathedral was host to funeral services for Duke Ellington, Nikola Tesla, writer James Baldwin, and actor James Gandolfini. On the lighter side, the gardens of St John the Divine are home to three resident peacocks – Jim, Harry, and Phil – who roam freely and strut their stuff on the Cathedral grounds to the delight of visitors and tourists.

I went up to St John the Divine the other day to see their “A Blessing of Animals” sculpture exhibition, a juried show organized by the National Sculpture Society. The Cathedral is the perfect venue for such a show as it celebrates animals in so many ways. Their annual Feast of St Francis Blessing of the Animals service is an event to behold, with a festive animal procession that includes not just dogs and cats but creatures of all types; goats, sheep, horses, ducks, bunnies, snakes, geese, guinea pigs, owls, alpacas, you name it.

I have a few pictures to share – just a sampling of the show – but you can certainly visit the National Sculpture Society’s exhibition page for excellent photos of all the pieces. I apologize for the grainy quality. I’m still in the process of deciding on a new camera purchase – one that I can afford within my budget. But I think the outstanding work of these talented artists is evident in my pics here.

River Mates, by Tim Cherry:

Scottish Stag, by Wesley Wofford:

Wild Instinct, by Joshua Tobey:

Stella, by André Harvey:

Flying Heron, by Darrell Davis:

Bobcat, by Rosetta:

Circle of Friends, by Gary Lee Price:

The Peace Fountain, which greets visitors to the Cathedral, on the garden grounds along Amsterdam Ave. It was sculpted by St John the Divine Artist-in-Residence Greg Wyatt:

After its run at St John the Divine, the Blessing of Animals exhibition will travel down to Naples, Florida where it will be on display at the Botanical Gardens through January 2018. So Museworthy Floridians, check it out! It’s an absolute delight.

Like all of you, I am heartbroken over the devastation in Houston and southeast Texas from Hurricane Harvey. The scenes being broadcast from there of people stranded in the floodwaters, having lost their homes, clinging to their children, their pets, their loved ones, are hard to watch. One can’t help but worry about those who are especially vulnerable; the elderly, the disabled, babies and children. But the stories of folks being rescued by valiant, selfless fellow citizens who hooked up their boats, jet skis, and rafts and made their way over to those flooded neighborhoods give us all hope. Remember, saints are among us, living and serving, in everyday life, and are not just figures carved into church altarpieces or painted on canvases. Still, the trauma from such a severe natural disaster will linger for a long time, and the Gulf coast of Texas has many years of recovery in its future.

For those who are interested in donating, I’d like to suggest two other relief/rescue organizations that are in keeping with the theme of this blog post:

Episcopal Relief and Development

Houston Humane Society

Miss Gardner’s House

I took a day trip to Boston recently and if it turns out to be my only excursion out of New York this summer, that would be just fine. Because what a marvelous day it was! I took the train up to Beantown for two reasons: to see my dear friend Bill MacDonald and to visit, finally, the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, which was closed for renovations the last time I was in Boston a few years ago. The phrase “must see” might be overused at times, but in the case of the Gardner Museum it is truly appropriate. For art lovers of all stripes, the Gardner is absolutely a “must see”. What a great place! It is the embodiment of its founder – the flamboyant, eccentric art collector and philanthropist Isabella Stewart Gardner.

Painting of Isabella Stewart Gardner by Anders Zorn:

Bill led me first to the courtyard garden and I was instantly captivated. An exquisitely designed space that combines sculptural, architectural, and horticultural elements in beautiful, serene harmony. As I wandered around, it reminded me somewhat of The Cloisters gardens/courtyards in Fort Tryon Park.

Isabella Stewart was born in New York City in 1840 to a well-to-do family. When she was 20 she married John Lowell Gardner, a successful Boston businessman, and the couple spent years traveling the world collecting art, furniture, objects and antiquities. After John Gardner died, Isabella began to fulfill their shared dream of building a museum to house their treasures and display them for the public. On a marshy plot of land in Boston’s Fenway district, the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum was built. The maverick spirit of its patron infuses the place. Isabella Stewart Gardner served champagne and donuts on New Year’s Day, kept a pet lion, drank beer, was a faithful Red Sox fan, and a devout Episcopalian. She was Boston’s “Bohemian Millionairess”.

Light conditions inside the Gardner are not very conducive to photography, as it leans toward the dim. But I’ll share some pictures I took anyway even though they’re less than perfect. This one will be familiar to many of you. Nestled in its own private nook is this John Singer Sargent masterpiece, his famous El Jaleo:

Beautiful wall tiles around the garden perimeter:

One of the Gardner Museum’s quirks – an endearing one in my opinion – is its seemingly haphazard arrangement of its art and objects. The orderly, heavily curated groupings we usually see at other museums don’t exist at the Gardner. Instead, the randomness of a religious Renaissance painting hanging a few feet from a Degas pastel, or a hunk of medieval stained glass in the near vicinity of a Japanese screen, provides a peculiarly pleasurable experience in which you are not having a structured art history lesson forced upon you. You’re just enjoying Isabella’s treasures and seeing them arranged as she wanted you to see them.

The Gardner Museum was the site of a notorious art heist back in 1990. The thieves got away with thirteen works of art, among them a Vermeer and a large piece by Rembrandt, The Storm on the Sea of Galilee. Bill showed me the empty spaces on the gallery wall where those missing works used to be. But there are other Rembrandts there to see, notably one of his finest self-portraits, along with works by Titian, Raphael, Whistler, and Fra Angelico. Drawings, prints, decorative arts, Islamic, Asian, European, American … a magnificent medley of tastes and genres. The Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum is without a doubt in my top three favorite museums.

After the Gardner, my gracious host and Boston tour guide Bill walked us just a short way over to the Boston Museum of Fine Arts. What treasures awaited us there? Oh just some paintings by a guy named Botticelli, and another guy named Matisse. It was a damn good art day 😉

The icing on the cake of that lovely day was the cooperation of Mother Nature. The weather could not have been more perfect. Sunny, warm but not hot, a little breezy. Warm thanks to Bill for taking the time to spend a few hours with me. You’re my Boston man!

Athena Comes to Town

Hellooooo Museworthy friends! I haven’t forgotten about you or about blogging – never!! I’ve just been – what else? – busily modeling in our fair city, as things are in full swing at our art schools, academies, and life drawing groups. Besides helping me to get my bills paid on time, modeling work has been fortifying me, and restoring me, as it always has.

I’d like to share this short video from The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Anyone who appreciates Hellenistic sculpture will enjoy this. It’s also a superb glimpse at how museums install large marble statues and the diligent process it involves. “Athena Parthenos”, (ca. 170 B.C.), on loan from the Pergamon Museum in Berlin, is now gracing the Great Hall at the Met, greeting visitors as they enter the building, and will remain there until the fall of 2018. Welcome to the Big Apple, Athena. We’re honored to have you 🙂

The Ladies of Liberty

I’ve always found it heartily satisfying that throughout history “liberty” is depicted as a woman. Ladies, how cool is that? 🙂  From the majestically imposing figure of the Statue of Liberty that rises above New York harbor, to Eugène Delacroix’s bare-breasted French flag-waver in Liberty Leading the People, women have provided the allegorical symbol of freedom since the classical age.

One of my personal favorites is the Statue of Freedom in Washington, D.C. A 19 foot tall bronze female figure, designed by American sculptor Thomas Crawford, which stands atop the dome of U.S. Capitol building. This is one badass gal. I’d honestly like to walk around in this get-up; the sword, the eagle-feather headdress, the fringed toga. Fabulous!

The idea to blog about this topic came to me this morning at church, when a fellow parishioner handed me the program for the day’s service. In honor of the 4th of July weekend Fr. Byrne selected this lovely vintage Lady Liberty illustration for the cover:

The church program reminded me of this superb lithograph by Currier and Ives,  again Lady Liberty with the American flag. This is Star-Spangled Banner from the online collection of the Library of Congress. Wonderful composition.

A stunning $20 gold coin of Lady Liberty bearing olive branch and torch, minted 1921, designed by the renowned American sculptor Augustus Saint-Gaudens. From the National Museum of American History:

A happy Independence Day to my readers in the United States, and blessings of liberty, goodwill, and inspiration to all. Let freedom ring …

Pietàs of Passion

The word “pietà” means “pity” in Italian. Its Latin origin translates into “piety” or “duty”. In art, a Pietà is any representation of Mary mourning the dead body of the crucified Christ. It is a scene of powerful emotional import. If other figures from the New Testament are also depicted, the work is often called “Lamentation”. On this Good Friday, a collection of pietas for my readers.

The pietà subject presents many options for artists, both compositionally and stylistically. Some are horizontal, others are vertical. Some depict the body of Christ with blood and wounds, while others omit them in favor of an unscathed figure. Some emphasize the pain, agony, and grief of the moment, while others take an almost serene, quietly mournful approach.

We’ll start with the archetype, the pietà that sets the standard for all others; Michelangelo’s sculptural masterpiece located in St. Peter’s Basilica. Completed in 1499, and carved from a single slab of Carrara marble, it is the only work by Michelangelo that he ever signed. It received much criticism for its portrayal of an impossibly youthful Mary, who appears far too young to be the mother of a 33 year old man. But Michelangelo defended his choice. Designed in a pyramid shape, Michelangelo’s Pietà is considered a foremost example of Renaissance sculpture:

One of my favorite pietas is this painting by Annibale Carracci, 1600. The hand gesture of Mary is an extraordinary detail, and I love the lights and darks:

William-Adolphe Bouguereau’s Pietà, 1876, is presented in the French academic style for which the artist is known. Mary stares straight ahead, surrounded by sorrowful angels:

A striking Pietà by Luis de Morales, 1570. Again, the prominent placement of Mary’s hands.

Andrea Del Sarto, 1524, oil on wood. Christ’s face is barely visible here, as the surrounding figures seem to dominate the composition:

A surrealist Pietà from Salvador Dali who clearly modeled this work after Michelangelo. His works of religious themes are really impressive. I’m a huge fan. I posted his Ascension of Christ here a few years ago:

Sebastiano del piombo’s Pietà, ca 1515, takes a different approach, with Christ lying flat on the ground as Mary prays:

Lamentation Over the Dead Christ, 1485, in tempera by Carlo Crivelli, is a fine example of the early Renaissance style:

Pietà by Moretto da Brescia, ca. 1530. Sorrow and pain come across in the facial expressions and gestures:

The desolate landscape works to great effect here in this Pietà, 1854, by the superb symbolist painter Gustave Moreau:

And here’s something you won’t see in any museum. A “pieta” on the streets of New York. Spring Studio‘s Minerva Durham plays Mary to a Jesus acted out by artist’s model and dancer Magic Distefano, in the middle of Lafayette Street. That’s Andrew Bolotowsky on flute. There wasn’t a music accompanist at Calvary, but there is in SoHo:

To all my readers, a blessed Easter weekend … lift up your hearts in rebirth, renewal, the coming of spring, and light everlasting …

Love you all 🙂

Claudia

Sculpture, Picasso Style

Regular museum visitors know the rules when it comes to photography. At most New York museums, photography (with no flash) is allowed in all the galleries which house works of the permanent collection. Special exhibitions, however, prohibit photography of any kind. Try to take a quick pic on your iPhone and you can expect one of the guards to admonish you. “Sorry ma’am, no photography”. You will then be handcuffed and escorted to an interrogation room <– just kidding 😉 So imagine my delight when I was told that photography WAS allowed at the recent “Picasso Sculpture” show at MoMA. Yay! The show ended its five month run on February 7th, and I saw it in its final few days, which is how I see most of the big acclaimed art shows in town – when the end date is looming! I’m very glad I didn’t miss this one.

Picasso had formal training in painting and drawing only. So his approach to sculpture was motivated by experimental impulses, ingenuity, and his fertile creative mind, all of which were abundantly on display in this exhibit. What we witnessed, from gallery to gallery, was a man engaged in self-taught exploration, working in three-dimensions, letting his imagination run free, salvaging metal and wood scraps, found objects, paper and paint, cardboard, string, nails, plants, plaster, bronze, and anything he could get his hands on. In a wide array of subject matter – women, animals, children, instruments, etc. -Picasso’s sculptural expressions alternate from childlike to muscular, classical to avant-garde, spontaneous to engineered. He worked big, he worked small, and continued to experiment with sculpture for decades – a perpetual student – up to the mid-1960s. It was a truly fun and fascinating show.

This is just a sampling of the works, and among the ones I’ve chosen to post there is surely something for everyone here. I took all the photos in this post, so feel free to download, keep, and share!

Woman with Hat, painted sheet metal:

Maquette for Richard J. Daley Center Sculpture, oxidized welded steel:

Head of a Woman, painted sheet metal and iron wire:

Little Horse, painted metal with wheels:

Sylvette, painted sheet metal:

Kneeling Woman Combing Her Hair, bronze:

Head of a Woman (Fernande), bronze:

Guitar, ferrous sheet metal and wire:

Picasso did six versions of this, Glass of Absinthe, in painted bronze with an actual absinthe spoon. He made the sugar cube also from a piece of bronze. A very popular alcoholic spirit in Picasso’s day, absinthe was prepared by pouring it over a sugar cube and then diluting with water:

Guitar, painted sheet metal, painted tin box, and iron wire:

Composition with Glove, glove, cardboard, plants sewn and glued, coated with sand:

Seated Woman, bronze:

Part of the memorial monument to Guillaume Apollinaire, French poet and friend of Picasso who died in 1918. Head of a Woman, iron, sheet metal, springs, and painted metal colanders:

Also from the Monument to Apollinaire, Woman in the Garden, welded and painted iron:

Head of a Woman, plaster:

One of my favorites, The Reaper, plaster and wood:

And another one of my favorites, this rough but quirky Little Owl, painted bronze with nails:

Woman Carrying a Child, painted wood and section of palm leaf:

Cat, bronze:

The Orator, plaster, stone, and metal dowel:

Man with a Lamb, bronze:

The Bathers, wood and gesso:

I’ll let the man himself sign off this post. Picasso’s signature on the back of one of his sheet metal creations:

Art Around Town

Well hello there friends! It wasn’t my intention to go so long without a new blog post. I’ve just been completing a long sculpture pose at Grand Central Atelier and then jumped right into a weekend workshop with Max Ginsburg. So it’s been modeling duties, and the resulting body rest, that have occupied me for the past several days. I was worried that pilates class on Monday would be agonizing, but it wasn’t! Felt really good actually. My spine was grateful 🙂

My good friend Francisco Malonzo shared something with me that I’d like to share with all of you. It reminded me that artists and models can appreciate the same experience of seeing artwork on the wall – artists delight at seeing their creation on display, and we models delight at seeing ourselves on display. A collector here in NYC took pictures of Francisco’s pieces in his Upper West Side apartment and they’re wonderful to see. A portrait of me is among the collection. You can view them on Francisco’s blog. Francisco’s dazzling work has appeared on Museworthy several times over the years. You can view previous posts here and here .

Also, I thought I’d share a photo from the sculpture class at Grand Central Atelier. It was a terrific gig with a lovely small class. I did a standing pose, which is fairly common for sculpture, and it was well worth it as you can see in this impressive work by fourth year student Charlie Mostow:

Lastly, in keeping with three-dimensional creations, a photo I took last night at a gathering at the Armenian Diocese here in New York, where a new sculpture was unveiled to commemorate the centennial of the Armenian Genocide. Michael Aram designed this stainless steel work called “Migrations”, and on a beautiful moonlit October evening in the city, clergy members, artists, and Armenian New Yorkers were deeply moved by the dedication of this piece. My phone pic is okay but you can see it more clearly at Architectural Digest with an accompanying article.

That’s all for now, friends. I’ll see you soon!