Day 3 - Moms in Art

This morning I decided to look a bit into mothers portrayed in art, since today is Mother’s Day. I’m very excited about Mother’s Day this year, since it’s my very first one. I was hoping my seven week old daughter would decide to scream and cry a little less today as a Mother’s Day present, but she seemed unimpressed by the holiday and continued on with business as usual. Oh well, c’est la vie.

I simply googled “motherhood in art” and came across this four and a half minute lecture from the Metropolitan Museum of Art. (Find it here: http://www.metmuseum.org/connections/motherhood/). This is the perfect snippet of information to watch over morning coffee. The lecturer, Jean Sorabella, talked a bit about how she rarely sees an image where it appears that the mother has work to do- most of the mothers she comes across in works of art seem to have perfect angel children. These moms have it all together. Of course, this is not reality, and the idealizations of the moms in the works Sorabella presented did irk me a bit. It gave me the same kind of feeling of annoyance I get when someone asks me if my newborn is sleeping through the night yet. People have been asking me this since she was just days old, when of course she was not sleeping through the night. But, everyone seems very concerned that my daughter causes the least amount of disruption in my life. Obviously, anyone who has kids or has spent much time around people who do have kids knows that kids cause a lot of disruption. It’s just the way it is. But the art Sorabella presented seemed to follow the general trend I’ve seen of idealizing motherhood instead of portraying it as the hard work that it is. This kind of annoyed me, but I might be particularly sensitive to this right now since I'm a first time mom with a newborn and a bit overwhelmed with the responsibility.

The lecture did introduce me to Mary Cassatt, whose works mainly portray motherhood. I did a little bit of quick research on Cassatt and I enjoyed viewing some of her pieces. Coincedentally, she was an impressionist, so she fits right in with the works I’ve been looking into over the last few days. Below is one of her works I came across and liked, titled Summertime. With summer looming around the corner, it seemed appropriate and put a smile on my face.

Enjoy, and Happy Mother’s Day to all the moms out there!

Xoxo, 

Diana

Day 2 - The Story Behind the Artist

I decided to spend my coffee time today looking a bit into the Impressionists, at the recommendation of my friend and former professor, “Doc Rose.” Doc Rose was one of my favorite professors in undergrad- I took a linguistics class from her. Linguistics was known as a very difficult, scary class at my university, but it was a required class to graduate if you were an English major. Since I was only an English minor (my major was psychology), I wasn’t actually required to take Linguistics to graduate. Spurred on by a love of all things language (ok, and perhaps a little bit of pride that “just because I was only an English minor and not major, that did NOT mean I was incapable of handling the highly dreaded Linguistics), I took the class anyways. I’m glad I did – the class was challenging but not impossible, and I enjoyed the content. (Yes, even the diagramming sentences part. Grammar nerd alert.) Doc Rose and I still keep in touch via Facebook, and when she read my blog yesterday she told me she likes the Impressionists, particularly Gustave Caillebotte. Since Doc Rose has never steered me wrong on literature recommendations, I decided to take her art recommendation and check out the Impressionists.

So, this morning, I found myself drinking a hot cup of Joe while reading the Wikipedia page for Mr. Caillebotte. By the way, I have a love/hate relationship with Wikipedia. I still (rightly!) refuse to use it for formal research, but I must admit it’s often a good starting place for learning about a new topic about which you know nothing. After reading the Wikipedia page, I was intrigued. I found out that Caillebotte went to law school and was licensed to practice law. I’m always interested when I see someone who was a lawyer pursuing a different career path, since I’m a lawyer but sometimes many times wonder what else is out there for me. Reading Caillebotte’s story made me interested in seeing some of his work. Lucky for me, one of his most famous paintings, Paris Street; Rainy Day (pictured below), is owned by the Chicago Art Institute. I’m going to try to get by there this month and see it. The real take away from this morning, however, is that I enjoyed hearing the story of the artist himself, and this is what made me interested to learn more about and see some of his art. It’s too soon to say, but perhaps it will never be the beauty of a painting itself that moves me, but rather the story behind the artist. Does this count as “liking art,” even if I don’t necessarily have an interest in the mechanics and technique of certain styles of art?

Xoxo,

Diana

Day 1 - Do I even LIKE art?

So, this morning, as I drank my cup of coffee, I took a few minutes to think about what topic I would like to learn more about for the first month of this project. I tossed around a few ideas in my head and decided that I'd like to take the next month to explore the world of art. I'm interested in exploring further the type of art I've found at museums, such as paintings, sculptures, etc. (I know, I know, this is an extremely broad category. Bear with me).

As I thought about this, I realized that I've often listed "Art" as an interest in "About Me" sections of social media sites. But do I really like art? Or do I only say I like it because that's what educated, worldly people are supposed to say? My formal experience with art started with an introductory art appreciation class in college, a requirement for my undergraduate degree. It was a broad survey of pretty much every type of art imaginable, and the only thing I remember is that we watched the movie Babette's Feast as an example of art in film. I thought the movie was okay, but also thought that it was strange that, out of all the movies in the world that we could have possibly watched to exemplify film as art, that movie was chosen. Ladies and gentlemen,  that is all I took away from my 3-credit-hour formal art education.

Apparently undeterred by my failure to actually learn anything about art from my university class, I have continued to say that "art" is one of my hobbies. When I visit a new city, I dutifully visit at least one of its art museums. (See below for one of my favorite pictures from one of these trips - my 2011 visit to the Seattle Art Museum. What's not to love about a giant rodent?!?). I stare at paintings and old pottery and even old beer cans strung across an old fence post (hello, modern art), and I nod as though it moves me and I understand what it all means. But I don't. Should I?

Should I spend time finding ways to actually learn about and explore art? Will this enrich my life and make me happy? This is actually a question that has been bothering me for a while, and my goal for this month is to answer it. I appreciate and respect art in a broad sense, but that's not really enough for me to list it as an interest or hobby. Do I truly enjoy "art" and, if so, which kinds? I might try to visit some of the museums here in Chicago and reflect on that experience, but since I've spent a lot of time in museums I would love other suggestions on how to discover more about art. Are there books I should read, websites I should visit, podcasts that discuss the topic? Is there a type of art that you love or that really speaks to you? How did you discover your love for it? It's time for me to finally decide whether I love art, or just love appearing to be someone who loves art.

Oh, and here's that giant rodent I promised you:

Xoxo,

Diana

My Own Version of a "Self-Improvement Year"

I’ve realized (although this probably does not come as an astonishing revelation to anyone) that it’s popular to take on year-long “self-improvement" projects. I’ve read many of the slightly older books outlining these endeavors, such as Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert, in which Gilbert travels to three different countries over the course of a year to figure out what she wants; and The Happiness Project by Gretchen Rubin, in which Rubin spends a year trying to improve her life and attempt to, well, figure out happiness. I haven’t read Julie and Julia, an account of an author stuck in a dead-end job who finds her escape by cooking 524 Julia Child recipes within the span of a year, but I did see (and enjoy) the movie. There are others, but those three are (perhaps?) the most popular.

I’ve wanted to attempt my own happiness/self-improvement project, but have been unsure of quite how to do so. Cooking hundreds of Julia Child’s recipes isn’t really my thing (although I do enjoy cooking and baking to a certain extent), and I lack the ability to travel overseas for a year for many reasons – time, money, a job, and a newborn baby being the most obvious. I found an article called Eat, Pray, Spend (linked here: http://bitchmagazine.org/article/eat-pray-spend) which categorizes these books about self-improvement projects as “priv-lit” since, let’s face it, these year-long improvement projects are expensive and, for most “ordinary” people, unrealistic. The Eat, Pray, Spend post states that: “If more women become willing to put aside their fears, open their eyes to cost-free or inexpensive paths to wellness, and position themselves as essentially worthy instead of deeply flawed, priv-lit could soon migrate to a well-deserved new home: the fiction section.” This sentence struck me. While I don’t necessarily begrudge those who are able to tackle expensive, time-consuming year-long self-improvement projects (let’s face it, if I had the resources to travel the world for a year, I’d be packing my suitcase right now - and so would you), I feel as though there must be a better way to find happiness, zen, self-improvement… whatever you want to call it. We shouldn’t have to spend a ton of money traveling, or live in a comfortable, cushy New York apartment to feel as though we can improve ourselves. Which brings me to my idea for my own “year of self-improvement.”

I tried to think of something I really enjoy that doesn’t cost a lot or take a lot of time. Topping the list was a morning coffee ritual. Even on days when I am in a rush to get to work, I love pausing for a moment before leaving the house and inhaling the aroma of a good cup of coffee (or tea!). I find closing your eyes and breathing in the scent of coffee while holding the warm mug between both of your palms to be a very calming experience. So, for the next year, I’m going to spend 5-10 minutes every morning drinking a cup of coffee or tea and reflecting on things that make my life better, ways to learn more about those things, and ways to incorporate them into my life. The end-goal is not to “fix myself”, but rather to have a better understanding of what kinds of things I enjoy, what kinds of issues matter to me, and how I can better structure my life around those things and issues. My plan right now is to choose one topic per month and spend my morning coffee-time reflecting on and learning more about that topic.

This project is a work in progress, and I would welcome any feedback on how ways to make my year of self-improvement worthwhile. Just remember, the idea here is to keep things cheap and not incredibly time consuming so that you don’t have to have a fat savings account to participate. (Also, although the priv-lit article focuses on women, this project isn’t intended to be gender specific at all – it’s something men and women can do!)

This blog title, Coffee Beans and Dreams, is recycled from when I was a very tired, very broke law student. I used to tell myself that I could make it as long as I had coffee (read: caffeine) and kept focused on my dreams. It seems an appropriate title for this project as well.

Here I go… a year of coffee beans and dreams. Let’s see where it takes me!

Xoxo,

Diana