three things we love

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Kurt Vonnegut Quotes

My father and I shared a love of Kurt Vonnegut. We read all of his books and then talked about them. I came across these words of wisdom from him recently, as he described a conversation he had had as a young boy and remembered...I thought it worth repeating here.

“When I was 15, I spent a month working on an archeological dig. I was talking to one of the archeologists one day during our lunch break and he asked those kinds of “getting to know you” questions you ask young people: Do you play sports? What’s your favorite subject? And I told him, no I don’t play any sports. I do theater, I’m in choir, I play the violin and piano, I used to take art classes. And he went WOW. That’s amazing! And I said, “Oh no, but I’m not any good at ANY of them.” And he said something then that I will never forget and which absolutely blew my mind because no one had ever said anything like it to me before: “I don’t think being good at things is the point of doing them. I think you’ve got all these wonderful experiences with different skills, and that all teaches you things and makes you an interesting person, no matter how well you do them.” And that honestly changed my life. Because I went from a failure, someone who hadn’t been talented enough at anything to excel, to someone who did things because I enjoyed them. I had been raised in such an achievement-oriented environment, so inundated with the myth of Talent, that I thought it was only worth doing things if you could “Win” at them.” - Kurt Vonnegut

And here are a few more Vonnegut quotes to throw in for good measure...

“I believe that reading and writing are the most nourishing forms of meditation anyone has so far found. By reading the writings of the most interesting minds in history, we meditate with our own minds and theirs as well. This to me is a miracle.” – Kurt Vonnegut, Palm Sunday

“We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be.” – Kurt Vonnegut, Mother Night

“Perhaps, when we remember wars, we should take off our clothes and paint ourselves blue and go on all fours all day long and grunt like pigs. That would surely be more appropriate than noble oratory and shows of flags and well-oiled guns.” – Kurt Vonnegut, Cat’s Cradle

“A purpose of human life, no matter who is controlling it, is to love whoever is around to be loved.”

Musée des Beaux Arts

MUSÉE DES BEAUX ARTS
by W.H. Auden

Courtesy New YorkTimes and Elisa Gabbert

About suffering they were never wrong,/
The Old Masters: how well they understood/
Its human position; how it takes place/
While someone else is eating or opening a window/
or just walking dully along;/
How, when the aged are reverently, passionately waiting/
For the miraculous birth, there always must be/
Children who did not specially want it to happen, skating/
On a pond at the edge of the wood:/
They never forgot/
That even the dreadful martyrdom must run its course/
Anyhow in a corner, some untidy spot/
Where the dogs go on with their doggy life and the torturer’s horse/
Scratches its innocent behind on a tree./

In Breughel’s Icarus, for instance: how everything turns away/
Quite leisurely from the disaster; the ploughman may/
Have heard the splash, the forsaken cry,/
But for him it was not an important failure; the sun shone/
As it had to on the white legs disappearing into the green/
Water; and the expensive delicate ship that must have seen/
Something amazing, a boy falling out of the sky,/
Had somewhere to get to and sailed calmly on.

Frank Matheis on Art

I am not a big fan of art critics. In fact, I don't really like reading about art at all. If I buy an art magazine, it is always to just look at the pictures. But then along comes Frank Matheis, German husband of a good friend of mine, who has many accomplishments under his belt in the world of culture: music writing, radio documentaries, and as publisher and editor of thecountryblues.com. He approaches me and tells me he wants to add art writing to his repertoire and could he interview me as his first essay in a new series called In Other Words. I was flattered and of course said yes...I was flattered and of course said yes...

By now, he has written quite a few essays about visual artists and as it turns out, I finally found an art critic I respect...he is down to earth, very observant and intuitive, anything but a snob, and seems to go directly to the crux of a person and his or her art instead of pulling people down. Since his first article, he has written many others and I urge you to check them out here. Most recently, here is a very insightful article about artist Bill Traylor.

Charity of the Week:
Jose Andres World Central Kitchen

Painting of the Week

Pam Smilow Darkness mixed media on canvas 20” x 70” approx. $6500

About The Author

New York City based contemporary artist, Pam Smilow created the creative lifestyle blog “things we love” in an effort to foster a sense of community during times of isolation and reflection. To read more about her and her art, visit her website and check out the essay written by the Hammond Museum's Frank Matheis entitled The Sophisticated Innocence of Pam Smilow. And by the way, let me know in the comment section what you think of the new haircut...