My Life in Art

Woman Reading by Mary Cassatt. Who doesn't love these?

Some of the most important objects by which I track my life are works of art (which are things, after all). Where I've been, what I've seen, what has interested me, who I was with, etc.

I've been very fortunate to have traveled a good amount and to have seen some of the most amazing art collections in the world (living in New York is good for that too).  When traveling in Europe with a friend a few years ago, we even used our art history class's syllabus of important art works as a sort of checklist. Paris? Check David, Ingres, and Delacroix.  Madrid?  Check Velazquez and Goya.  Florence?  Check Michaelangelo, Raphael, and Da Vinci.  Etc.  Discovering these masterworks was really exciting and important to us at the time, as we were eager to take what we were seeing in class out to the larger world.  To live what we'd already learned.

Now over a year out of college, back from another grand adventure in Europe, my perspective has certainly changed.  Art is still a central focus, but I'm trying to steer it towards my future.  Although I'll always love art history, I'm trying to find a more practical niche for this interest.  It's less about what I can learn and absorb from around me than what I can do.  I find the art I'm drawn to now is the ordinary and accessible: the art I see in the streets of New York or on the internet, or the crafts I make and discover on Etsy.

But then it's fun to rediscover works of art I have encountered in the past and reminisce.  Recently I started interning at a company that archives images, and though I am charged with a somewhat tedious task of sorting transparencies (which is how they copy images), it can be fun to discover works that I know or have seen in person or otherwise have a connection to.  Some examples:

Garden of Earthly Delights by Bosch, which I experienced (yes, it's an experience) at the Prado in Madrid

Four Ages of Man by Valentin de Boulogne, which I had seen in my college's museum

The Last Judgement by Van Der Weyden, which I stumbled upon in Beaune, in Burgundy, France

Hopefully there will be many more exciting discoveries to come! But maybe not too many; I would happily cast some of these memories in order to move from the seeing to the doing phases...

Are there any objects--art or otherwise--through which you can track important moments in your life?

Welcome to Bric & Brac!

I am a strong believer in the beauty of everyday life.  For me, art is the little things that make you stop and think and take life a little beyond the ordinary.

This is a blog to record art: made, photographed, exhibited, found on the side of the road, etc.  I hope to share the world as I see it, and eventually to accept submissions from readers.  I want to know, what do you think is beautiful?  If we get a community sharing the unique things we all notice and appreciate--something others might overlook--who knows the possibilities!  I hope we will be able to walk outside and see the world in a new light, question something we've never thought about, and see beauty where before there was none.

This blog is also a platform to promote my new Etsy site, bricandbrac.etsy.com.  After 10+ years of making jewelry for family, friends, and myself, I have decided to take a chance and bring my crafting to the internet.  Jewelry is wearable art, after all, and I love the challenge of taking unique materials and making something functional and beautiful out of them.

Art is not a single, untouchable entity.  It is interwoven with life.  It is the utilitarian and the decorative, what we see and what we create, and the bric and brac in between.

(Also, if all of this seems dreamily idealistic, that's because it's midnight in late summer, and that's just the kind of mood I'm in.)