North by Midwest.

As if life & learning Geography wasn't complicated enough already, 

I then encountered this.

~ My current backstage read is Laura Ingalls Wilder: A Biography,

partially due to childhood bibliophilia & partially because

Or so they should be.  Hurrah!

Welcome Summer!

- Unofficially, of course but Memorial Day is when we're allowed to start thinking summerily.

MD is the other half of what I wrote of last year in Remembrance Day. This one is to honour the dead & so, true to form, the Americans therefore feast & socialise that weekend. 
(Also heard at work, "it's a good day to buy a car." Of course, what else?)

Two invitations =  

Two cheesecakes, twenty-four cupcakes, a handful of strawberries & a whole lot of fun. Done. 

I was justifiably proud of our creative baking endeavours at 7½.  

 

         Red with blueberries; cookie monster blue with strawberries.

 

 ( John: 'So I'll get some PBR...'
  Marcia: 'Oh, Nikki won't drink that...'
  John: 'What kind of an Englishwoman is she?!'
  Marcia: 'A discerning one.'   

                                                          ... Six hand-picked craft beer bottles later....                                                                                                          I  ♥ my colleagues! )

 Booboo & Luna (mother & daughter) came to visit for peanuts too!

 Little bit shy at first....














Decides we're not altogether too scary...

Omnomnomnom.

Grin!

Next, to Newmarket to join with the last bonfire of the season. 

But MD really made me happy as (it being a Public Holiday) I felt that America had finally grasped the joys of the 3-day Bank Holiday Weekend. Yes to a whole delightful Monday for all!  

Following brunch out, 

we checked off a vital MBH tradition with a visit to Lowe's, the garden centre.

Yes!

And then there was the Mini Keg find 

to accompany the evening's Grill offerings. 

  Ginny dampened her feathers with a Shout! bath,
                    cooling off afterwards with Oberon.

                   

(This is also the last photo you'll see of the distant brown-sided shed  ^ ; 
it's gone all out with almond vinyl & a fair bit of sweat, blood & sunburn.)

Aw!

Tom.

We gathered tonight at Popkin's after work to raise our glasses, to clap in time to the Irish tunes from Andy's fiddle & show our respects to a dear & courageous coworker & friend,
who had fought a very good fight. 

Willow Lawn will not be the same without him. 

Barksdale Tom

Monday's Playdate.

I wanted an exhibition fix. BC first required a coffee fix. 
We headed for the most obvious place right on route.

The patio doors were open meaning we got to enjoy VMFA coffee in style outside. 

Pretty blissful.

 

With a wander afterwards around the fountains of the sculpture garden:

before heading next door:

"Fifty years of Life in the White House"

The President's Photographer ~

 Barack Obama, Bo Obama; Bush, Clinton, Bush Snr.;

Nixon, Kennedy, Lyndon B. Johnson. 

There was a variety of moments captured on film, from historic to the everyday with a range of accompanying emotions, such as the captured moment in the Nixon family portrait ahead of his resignation. 

    Notable locations included the West Wing, Ground Zero, Air Force One. Souza's images particularly struck me through his depiction of Obama - Barack's personable self, shared moments with Michelle & White House staff as well as the solitude of Presidency; images of him striding down corridors alone.

On a more local level, photos exhibited from Jack Jeffers documenting a passing way of life
in rural South-Western Virginia, amongst the towns & villages I first visited.

The images depicted were taken in Virginia’s Blue Ridge region in the late 1960s, 1970s & early 1980s.
They showcase Virginia’s rugged mountain people, weather-beaten structures
& well-hidden Appalachian landscapes. ...
The text is taken from stories Jack Jeffers tells about what he experienced when photographing the people & places. Visitors .. learn about the subject of each image through the artist’s own words.

 Good fix. 

Hahahahaha....

.... *groan.

Pop Art & Beyond

THEY'RE TRYING TO KILL ME! I swear to God, they're trying to kill me!
Those presumptuous, counter-jumping, arriviste SONS-OF-BITCHES!
... all that superficial, meaningless sewage right up there on the wall!

 Of course they like them. That's the goddamn point. You know what people like? Happy, bright colors.

-  Rothko, RED sc.iv: John Logan

Guilty, then - as charged. There certainly is something attractive about the Pop Artists in terms of colour though. It's such a leap forward from Abstract Expressionism - much more vibrant & made equally appealing through the often playful social commentary embedded within.

Ken:  These young artists are out to murder you?
Rothko: Yes. (beat)
[...]
K: Roy Liechtenstein.
R: Which one is he?
K: Comic books.
R: Yes! (Beat then the coup de grace.)
K: Andy Warhol.
Rothko doesn't even answer.

Not that Wesselmann actually believed himself to be a Pop Artist but nonetheless, the critics had him cornered & the VMFA's retrospective allows him a nod before applying the label.

Art Museum Day = Awesome. 

I'd been wanting to see this exhibition but had yet to make plans to do so. Seeing it advertised then on a half-free Saturday, going to see it for free along with friends was an altogether added bonus. 

So here's a walk-through of the best bits: 

The retrospective started with Wesselmann's first output after graduation in the 1960s. A room full of collages, utilising everyday imagery taken from magazines & adverts with reference to consumer culture. Faces of past presidents, a range of textures & decor for the domestic settings on display. His early work was heavily influenced by de Kooning as he had yet to truly develop his own style.

Still Life #35, 1963. Oil and collage on canvas, 120 x 192 in.
© Estate of Tom Wesselmann/Licensed by VAGA, New York, NY

In addition to the art on display, there was also an array of accompanying sketches and maquettes as well as correspondence between Wesselmann around the time of his Great American Nudes series in the late '60s. Conversations with Coca-Cola over the best type of glue to use or a written request for a certain section of a billboard to be incorporated into his work; depictions of post-war consumer culture.

From VMFA's regular Pop Art collection:

Great American Nude #35, 1962.
Enamel, polymer, found materials on board,. Gift of Sydney and Frances Lewis.
Photo: Travis Fullerton © Virginia Museum of Fine Arts/Estate of Tom Wesselmann/Licensed by VAGA, New York, NY

From Nudes to Smokers &, I've got to say, an interesting juxtaposition nowadays
between the erotic and the toxic really. Lethally sexy.

My favourite part came in the room dedicated to his "steel-cut drawings" of the 70s & 80s. The accompanying letters here gave a fascinating insight into Wesselmann's understanding of his own art: what seemed to be sculpture in the eye of the beholder could only be a drawing to him, even after he rendered it into 3D & cut away all the unnecessary excess. 
   Correspondence dating back between Wesselmann & the Lewises - old friends as well as the very same people funding the retrospective; the same Rep. patrons & key sponsors of Red. Letters detailing audience responses:
                                                         "4. They were most unhappy" by the definitions at work.

This, I loved.
Quick Sketch from the Train (Italy) No. 2, 1987
Enamel on cut-out steel, 114.30 x 254 cm, The Estate of Tom Wesselmann, New York,
© Estate of Tom Wesselmann/SODRAC, Montreal/VAGA, New York (2012),
Photo: Jeffrey Sturges.   http://arttattler.com/archivetomwesselmann.html

Maybe it was a personal crush from having rendered similar landscapes into fabric previously; it just totally worked for me.

Fast Sketch Still Life with Fruit and Goldfish (3-D) (1988-89)
www.pbaparchive.com

Coming full-circle:

 “Since 1993 I’ve basically been an abstract painter. This is what happened:
in 1984 I started making steel and aluminum cut-out figures... One day I got muddled up with the remnants and I was struck by the infinite variety of abstract possibilities. That was when I understood I was going back to what
I had desperately been aiming for in 1959, and I started making abstract three-dimensional images in cut metal. I was happy and free to go back to what
I wanted: but this time not on De Kooning’s terms but on mine".

- Interview with E. Giustacchini, Stile Arte, 2003, p. 29

I liked the return also in later life, in the early 2000s as he began to playfully allude back again to his predecessors and peers - work by Matisse & Man Ray & that "comic books" guy.

Still life with Lichtenstein and two oranges

www.christies.com: Lot Finder images

SALE 2593 — PRINTS AND MULTIPLES - 31 October 2012  - New York, Rockefeller Plaza

The same time as working Red & visiting the retrospective, I'd also been reading An Object of Beauty, a funny & fascinating novel,

Lacey Yeager is young, captivating, and ambitious enough to take the NYC art world by storm. Groomed at Sotheby's and hungry to keep climbing the social and career ladders put before her, Lacey charms men and women, old and young, rich and even richer with her magnetic charisma and liveliness. Her ascension to the highest tiers of the city parallel the soaring heights--and, at times, the dark lows--of the art world and the country from the late 1990s through today.

          which helps puts another spin on the artwork above:
                                       Price Realized $11, 785. 

 

Ken:  Well, exit stage left, Rothko.
          Because Pop Art has banished Abstract Expressionism.... 

"it's all gravy, baby!"

1) Deconstructing the misnomer, "Sausage, Gravy & Biscuits" 

 à la Brooks Diner:     

I kept hearing of this Southern thing, of "sausage (comma) gravy
& biscuits". I couldn't quite grasp why you'd want to be eating gravy & sausages at breakfast. Gravy, as we all know from experience, is best served warm, at teatime, along with Bangers
'n' Mash, Toad in the Hole or Roast Beef & Yorkshire Puddings. Not really breakfast fare at all.  

Then I went to Brook's Diner for brunch last Saturday. So many biscuit options!  Two plates arrived as ordered. Mine with biscuits at their savoury best: with eggs, scrambled. The other with biscuits & sausage gravy & chipped beef.  

So it's more of a sauce than a gravy, per se. 

Traditional, Southern.

"After loose pork sausage is cooked in a pan and removed, a roux is formed by browning flour in the residual fat. Milk and seasonings, such as salt and pepper, are added to create a moderately thick gravy, to which the cooked sausage is added. Occasionally, ingredients such as cayenne pepper.. are used to make a more spicy gravy. "  - Wiki

                                                                                       Aha! 

It was so tasty to try, I bought a K.Roger packet myself.
Sold on the Southern comforts.

  2) KFC, & then some.

So it materialised a while back that America does KFC but when it happens, it happens in America's way. With biscuits ... & mashed potatoes & gravy (brown! normal!) ... & potato wedges ... & green beans & 'Cole Slaw'.

So when I found a $5 B1G1F voucher, I thought "why not?!"

Review: Biscuits, always!

Mashed potato, nahhh.

I can see how it could work in a Southern household at tea-time, with all the family gathered around the table to eat. But in terms of fast food delivery, it still strikes me as kind of weird.

I also opted to try hushpuppies, a sweet cornbread fried in batter. (KFC also masquerading here as a seafood restaurant, under the name "Long John Silver's".) Second time lucky, I reckon as KFC's were not too tasty, even at the bargain price of 39c for two. 

In a .... CAN?

It's American Craft Beer Week!

So I was going to explain further with regard to the connection between PBR & RVA.

First, let me just dig through my photo archive....  
Ah, here we go:   

Pabst Blue Ribbon at the River, July 2012 ...  Pabst Blue Rabbit at Bandito's, February 2013

Also known locally & colloquially as "the People's Beer of Richmond", 
take it away....

Nice.

In this city, we win prizes for our vast consumption:

Hipster Honors: RVA's Blue Ribbon in PBR Drinking 

It's cheap. 24 pack = $14.69. That's about 40 pence per can.

Style Weekly would like us to believe that PRB is "inoffensive". I'd say it's "drinkable".
Not so sure about the hipsters, I'd associate it more with students, with being broke in the week prior to Pay Day, with that party where you might want to drink copiously but not of any kind of quality.   ~ I'd rather not. By all means, pass me a Yuengling instead. Or a decent Hardywood.

Which is why when my beloved brewery announced their latest, latest release, I was kind of thrown in to a quandry*. Hardywood Cream Ale in a ... can? But their sweet ambrosia is always bottled! 

There was however another perk thrown into the mix: get down to  

 

     on West Broad & you'd get a free Koozie too. 

That so sealed the deal. 

Free merch!  

(For the un-educated.)

Our server was uber-efficient in that he kept trying on to take away my empty can,
which I kept trying to hold onto given that it had a potted history lesson on the back.

IN 1935, RICHMOND, VIRGINIA MADE BEER HISTORY AS THE
FIRST PLACE EVER TO SELL CANNED BEER, A CREAM ALE FROM KRUEGER BREWING COMPANY. A TRIBUTE TO THE ORIGINAL CANNED BEER, WHICH CAME COMPLETE WITH ILLUSTRATED OPENING INSTRUCTIONS, HARDYWOOD CREAM ALE IS AN UNFILTERED EXAMPLE OF THE STYLE. IT EMBRACES ITS EAST COAST ROOTS WITH AN UNBELIEVABLY SMOOTHY BODY AND A REFRESHINGLY CLEAN FINISH FROM EXTENDED COLD CONDITIONING IN OUR LAGERING TANKS.
RAISE A CAN TO RVA, WHERE THE CANNED BEER REVOLUTION BEGAN!

 (I so liked the paintwork in our booth

that I thought I'd take a picture

... adding BC's face into the background shot.)

* That said, Dale's Pale Ale comes canned & isnae bad-tasting either. I love its retro patriotic design. They also stake their own claim as 'the first American craft brewer to can its own beer' since 2002. "We thought the idea of our big, luscious pale ale in a can was hilarious" recalls Dale "& it made our beer immensely portable for outdoor enjoyment & fun".  Mhm.