Maybe cut out that slit --- Day 5/10

Walk: Hood
Distance: 1 mile and home yoga

  

   


Lots of nice looking dresses at the Oscars last night, so Ciwt can't have fun dissing.  But she can comment on a few things that do nothing for her. 1. The slit* that goes all the way up to what must by gym shorts or something and reveals a not particularly attractive part of the female anatomy: thighs.
2. Slits that reveals a bare chest - on flat chested stars. 3. Beige lace with black underpants. 4. Pants that draw the eye directly to the crotch.

In a very competitive field, this is Ciwt's choice for Best (ie, most becoming) Dressed:



*Warning: Don't look in Urban Dictionary for current use of this word.

Ciwt's Favorite Holiday (Plus Thanksgiving) --- Day 5/9

Walk: Cinema Club (Remember), Trader Joe's
Distance: 3.5 miles, Home Yoga as watch the OSCARS

Oscars always means a Big day around Ciwt's place.  This year she predicts few surprises: Revenant, its Director, Leo, Brie Larson, Son of Saul, Inside Out, etc.  The only suspense is in the Supporting Actress and maybe Supporting Actor categories.

She hopes Chris Rock is terrific and, as always, that some one will wear or do something amazingly memorable.    The Red Carpet is already on so gotta go.....

Post Oscar Update:

The great thing about the Oscars for us buffs is there are always surprises.  Sometimes bad; sometimes good.  This year they were good: Not Revenant but the much better choice Spotlight and not Sly Stallone but the distinguished actor Mark Rylance.  Or neutral: For the most part attractive dresses and menswear.

Unicorns Everywhere --- Day 5/8

Walk: no (busy with art history cramming)
Distance: 0, Home yoga


Raphael (Italian, 1485-1520), Portrait of a Lady with a Unicorn, @1505-6, oil on 
canvas transferred from board, 26 5/8 x 20 15/16"

First, after years of negotiations this exquisite painting was allowed out of Italy for the first time since it entered Rome's Galleria Borghese collection in 1682.  It was painted by Raphael, considered one of the three greatest Renaissance artists (along with da Vinci and Michelangelo) when he was just 22 years old.  Lady with a Unicorn is considered a treasure on a par with the Mona Lisa, and she comes with a complicated and mysterious past. She's right here in San Francisco at the Legion until April 10 where she has attracted many admirers as well as scholars hoping to finally resolve her mysteries.  



And then in Southern California, the Highway Patrol was getting calls about a unicorn loose on the highways. At first they thought it was a prank, but it turned out to be marvelously true. And because the Highway Patrol is sort of rusty on capturing unicorns, she eluded them for three hours and finally had to be captured by a maiden on a horse. (Don't believe it?  Click on the underlined area)

About all this unicorn, Ciwt says Good; you can't get enough unicorns!!

It's Baaack --- Day 5/7

Walk: de Young Museum (more docent tours), Legion of Honor (Lady with a Unicorn painting)
Distance: 1.5 miles and small home yoga


Ciwt might have spoken a bit too optimistically yesterday about our fogless Spring.  She was just out at the Legion when the you know what blew in; luckily she was wearing her down coat.

 But some poor bride-to-be wasn't.  She - 

 in a sleeveless, low neck gown - and her

           wedding party were there with her professional

photographer.  Brrrr.....

Spring Fever 1 --- Day 5/6

Walk: Marin Driving Day and Hood
Distance: 2.4 miles and smallish home yoga

 



Ciwt is out of the museums and into our glorious, fog free (kind of) Bay Area spring.

Feather Work --- Day 5/5

Walk: de Young Museum
Distance: 1 mile (on those hard museum floors again)


Alexander Pope, The Wild Swan, 1900, oil on canvas

Another day at the museum, today the de Young,  for Ciwt which turned out to be about feathers.

Beautiful featherwork:
 
 Andes robe made of feathers (ca 1500)

   Royal Hawaiian Featherwork

           
Eskimo Down Jacket  
 
 Calot type hat made in Los Angeles, 1940

And the trompe l'oeil  painting above where the artist, Alexander Pope, has painted the feathers so perfectly they 'fool the eye.'  This trompe l'oeil effects was one of Pope's goals with the striking painting, but overriding that was his desire to make his viewers' attention and make them look at the beauty of the bird. Instead of shooting it.  The species was on serious decline in North America, and Pope, an active hunter, had  somehow turned a corner on his love of shooting the wildlife around him and became one of the first active North American spokespeople for conservation.

The Other Twin --- Day 5/4

Walk: Legion of Honor (Bonnard show)
Distance: A Few Blocks (but museum floors can be brutal on feet), small yoga


Pierre Bonnard, Portrait of the Bernheim Brothers, 1920 Oil on canvas

Here are Bonnard's dealer/'friends.' They are twins but Ciwt was interested that one twin is painted prominently with detail about his looks whereas his brother in the rear looks a bit like a diminutive wooden dummy.


Pierre Bonnard (1867-1947), La Loge, 1908, Huile sur toile

Then she saw another of Bonnard's paintings of the brothers - actually commissioned by them for the home they shared.  Look what has happened to that 'dummy' brother in this one!  Ciwt can't help but wonder what Bonnard was up to; whether he had some unspoken problems with this brother. Bonnard was always the psychologist often interested in estranged intimacy and the secrets and hidden things that surrounds it.  

Leaving Ommm --- Day 5/3

Walk: Presidio
Distance: 4 miles



Suddenly Ciwt has many things to unpack, organize, learn and do...Fun!

And So We Begin --- Day 5/2

Walk: Asian Art Museum, Vogue Theater: Mostly British Film Festival (Last Cab to Darwin)
Distance: 6 miles and small home yoga


Gustave Caillebotte, The Sign Painters, 1877, oil on canvas

So, if she seems a little preoccupied as Year 5 begins,  Ciwt is considering starting a new business.....
CIWT readers will be the first to hear if ....

Now We Are Five --- Day 5/1

Walk: Presidio, Mostly British Film Festival (Court)
Distance: 4.5 miles


 to CIWT!!!*


*Thanks Andrea and Rich and Supportive Readers, Ciwt

Cleaning Up the Year --- Day 4/365 (4 Years, Every Day!!!)

Walk: Hi Tech Nails (Finally!)
Distance: 8 Blocks, Just About to Do Home Yoga after today's celebratory post



Pierre Bonnard, Nude in the Bath and Small Dog, 1941-46, oil on canvas, 
48x59 1/2"  (Image copied from MoMA catalogue 1981)

Ciwt went to the Legion's Bonnard show Painting Arcadia expecting an easy viewing.  That is, she has seen and liked - for their colors and easy, patterned intimacy - Bonnard paintings since college and thought she would be simply pleased to encounter a bunch of them together.

Instead the experience unsettled Ciwt.  Bonnard was more complicated - dark, unhappy, starkly realistic if you will.  The life he records is not the warm homebody togetherness his gorgeous colors promise.  Even the cute and nearby pets seem detached.  Hmmm.  Back to the drawing boards with her thinking and research.

Before going ahead with that though, Ciwt wants to share a peculiar association she made at some point in the show, particularly when she came upon its bathroom/bathing section.  Ready?   Bonnard and Bush.  Remember those Bonnard animals from yesterday and today's bather and then remember these images of George W. Bush's paintings (some of which were first released to the world by the hacker known only as Guccifer.

 

    

Bonnard's Intimate Animals --- Day 4/364

Walk: Marin Driving Day
Distance: A Few Blocks, Closet Finale, Home Yoga

Ciwt loves the animals Pierre Bonnard included in so many of his oil paintings of everyday life. Here are a few.

Pierre Bonnard (French 1867-1947) La Femme Au Chat, ca 1912, oil on canvas*

  
Woman with Dog, 1922               Woman with Dog, 1891
 
The Red Checkered Tablecloth

*And here's the actual chat in a photo taken by Bonnard in the early days of photography:


Pierre BonnardLe chat au pelage bicoloré dressé sur un liten 1898épreuve sur papier albuminé à partir d'un négatif sur film souple au gélatino-bromure d'argentH. 0.044 ; L. 0.055musée d'Orsay, Paris, France©ADAGP - photo musée d'Orsay / rmn
                                                            The White Cat, 1894

Non-Stop Transitioning Around Here --- Day 4/363 (3 more days til end of CIWT's 4th year)

Walk: Fillmore 
Distance: 16 blocks, closets, closets, closets, finger walking on PC, home yoga



                                              

Sights and Sounds --- Day 4/362

Walk: CPMC, Fillmore, Union Square
Distance: 3.5 miles

Oh, goodie, another opportunity for Best/Worst Dressed even though Ciwt doesn't know who most of the Grammy people are.  12 more days to the Oscars!!

Ciwt's Best at the Grammys

Common looking uncommon


                      Lady GaGa


Worst is a 3-way Tie:

  
   Denica                   Johnny Depp (frumpy, darn; he's usually so edgy-dapper)
               
                 Joy Villa

Dusting and Plaster Dust --- Day 4/361

Walk: Union Square
Distance: 6 blocks, small yoga and closets, closets, closets

Ciwt is also dusting off her knowledge of the de Young Museum:


Pre-Loma Prieta earthquake de Young with the Asian Art Museum in the left wing.

  
It looked pretty fancy and well-built when you went to it, but i-yi-yi, it was just a bunch of plaster over one layer of bricks and a few wooden beams.

 
The new museum is solid (and controversial - especially that tower).  Ciwt likes it a lot.