Decisions, Descisions --- Days 13/213 & 214

Walks: Hood

Distances: 4 miles average

So those of us who have ever moved know this one: you take something out of a box, look at it and think "now where is this going to go?"  Then another thing and another.  It is exhausting for Ciwt's little brain.  And now there is This Decision - a big one.

The people she bought from surprised her (and maybe themselves) by leaving a quality, large (by Ciwt standards) TV behind in the living room.  Should Ciwt keep it there?  She has always cringed when she has seen TVs in other peoples' living rooms.  But that means they like watching there.  And they invite others over to share broadcast events.  So it is sociable.  Maybe Ciwt keeps it??

Day 16, Sundown --- Days 13/209-212

Walks: Errands galore 

Distances: Average 3.5 miles

End of 16th day in Ciwt's new place, and it is starting to look like a pleasant place to spend time instead of a storage place for boxes.  

Stage One: Finis! --- Days 13/201-208

Walks: Up and down hall, up and down stairs, ripping boxes, carrying stuff, plus hood errands

Distances:  Average 3.5 miles

Every single box emptied!!   Now where to put the things in Ciwt's new home?  

Stage Two begins   ....

Didn't Laugh, Didn't Cry, Didn't Care for Evita --- Days 13/199-200

Walk: SF Playhouse (Evita)

Distance: 5 miles

Ciwt was happy for the opportunity to get away from all her boxes for a few hours today. Thus ends her review of a local playhouse's production of Evita.

Plus La Change.... --- Days 13/190-198

Walks: Up, Down, Round About Old Home then New Home

Distances: 3 miles average

Ciwt's old home:  

Ciwt's new home: 

Even a Monkey.... --- Day 13/189

Walk: Not far; home packing

Distance: 1.5 miles

It seems to Ciwt her move is going as slow as Lucy's 'horse.'  Meanwhile her painter and handyman are working at top speed to get things ready for Wednesday's move.  

Taming Metal --- Day 13/188

Walk: Small errands and organizing for move

Distance: 2 miles 

An art installation featuring wire-mesh sculptures by the Italian artist Carolina Capaccioli is seen on the lake at Parc Montsouris in the 14th arrondissement of Paris, France, on July 1, 2024

So, Ciwt was taken by this photograph of a current art show in Paris.  Not knowing the artist, she surfed the net and found what seems to be the artist's statement (and that she might now be using a different professional name since the statement was written in 2002).

Capaccioli Daniela

It is in Lombardy, in Monza near Milan, that Daniela Capaccioli takes her first steps. Her whole childhood oscillated between Lombardy and Tuscany. As a child, she is already unwillingly a budding artist: having a gift and a taste for observing people, things, and places, she draws tirelessly.
Then, little by little, she quickly experimented with the working of clay. As shy as she is a dreamer, she loves to think that emptiness is inhabited and that solitude is full of discreet and silent presences like thoughtful shadows. This attraction towards the discovery of the invisible in the space that surrounds us leads her to choose scenography as the first stage of her artistic training. Stage art thus allows her to make tangible what the emotional eye perceives.

She dedicates herself to sculpture modeling terracotta figures, deepening the techniques related to clay, and working with ceramics. These artistic paths are taught to her by the sculptors Beatrice Koster and Eugene N'Sonde, the plaster casts specialist Sebastien Nobile and the potters Annick Guillon and Thierry Fouquet.
But it is on the occasion of an exhibition entitled "The body and the air" (2002) that Daniela Capaccioli, led by Beatrice Koster, discovers a particular talent: that of giving body to the wire mesh, of making it malleable like clay.

Taming the metal to provide lightness and meaning is today the ultimate art she has chosen to share with the world.

July 4: So Much to Celebrate, Day and Night --- Day 13/187

Walk: Hood

Distance: 3 miles

Happy Birthday, USA

Movement --- Day 13/186

Walk: Hood

Distance: 4 miles

Edgas Degas (French 1834-1917), The Dance Class, 1874, o/c, 32.7 x 30 "

So, as she packs up for her move, Ciwt thinks of Edgar Degas's paintings of ballet, another type of movement altogether.  In this one, The Dance Class, some twenty-four young ballerinas and their mothers wait in a rehearsal room of the old Paris Opera while a dancer executes an 'attitude' for her examination. Held by the Metropolitan Museum in New York, along with a varient in Paris's Musee d'Orsay, The Dance Class is considered his most ambitious of the many he devoted to the theme of dance.. 

Degas's love of the Paris Opera, the Palais Garnier, and his many visits to its shows and rehearsal rooms is well known.  But not many know that Degas himself loved to dance. He is famously quoted about people calling him 'the painter of dancing girls' as saying 'It has never occurred to them that my chief interest in dancers lies in rendering movement and painting pretty clothes.'

Animaliere Extraordinaire --- Day 13/185

Walk: Errands

Distance: 5 miles

Rosa Bonheur, Two Rabbits, 1840, Musée des Beaux Arts, Bordeaux, France.

If asked to name famous 19th Century French women artists, Ciwt would answer Mary Cassat and Berthe Morisot.  Period.  To her knowledge, these are the only two of great acclaim both in their lifetimes and today.

But, what does Ciwt know?  In fact, as Ciwt just learned, Rosa Bonheur was widely considered the most famous woman artist of the 19th century.  And, though French, her paintings and sculptures were sought after by collectors from all over the world, particularly England.

This makes sense to Ciwt. It is often said the English love their animals above all, and Rosa Bonheur was one of the greatest animalieres, artists of animals, of her time.  Witness the painting of two rabbits above, which was accepted by the all important French Salon jury when she was only 19 years old.  All the more remarkable because she was a woman and thus unable to be accepted at art schools, arriving  this level at through her own study with guidance from her artist father, Oscar Raymond Bonheur.

Rosa Bonheur, The Horse Fair, 1852–1855, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City, NY, USA.*

Bonheur's attention to animal detail was legendary at the highest levels. For instance, she had always wanted to paint a horse fair. She loved horses and had been studying them for a long time. So when the English Duke of Morny approached her to commission a painting, Bonheur saw this as her opportunity.  She might not have painted many horses before this, but she diligently studied every part of the anatomy of live exemplars at the local fair and showed the Duke sketches of proposed The Horse Fair.  Even so, the duke was not confident she could render a good result given her lack of experience painting horses and canceled his commission. Bonheur completed in 1855 anyway and presented it at the Salon where it was widely received then and to this day.

The Duke regretted his choice once he saw the painting’s international success and heard that Queen Victoria herself admired it. Unfortunately for him, when he tried to rectify his mistake, The Horse Fair had already sold to Cornelius Vanderbilt II who donated it to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 1887.

* It is a magnificent 8' x 16' if you have an opportunity to visit it in New York - to google a larger version.

Don't Let the Plot Get in the Way --- Day 13/184

Walk: AMC Kabuki 8 (Horizon)

Distance: 3.5 miles

Well, the plot and acting definitely don't stand in the way of the scenery in Horizon.  But that scenery is breathtaking.  As gorgeous as the wide open, mountainous West can be.  Ciwt can look at that land forever - which it seemed like in the theater.  If three hours of Western US scenery isn't for you, Ciwt thinks don't bother - with this part one or the next three after that.