folk art

PPAC #59: Public Art in Krakow

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On a recent trip to Poland, we spent a day and a half in the southern city of Krakow. Krakow is a vibrant city with a well-preserved Old Town and full of interesting public art! Here are four of my favorites and most well-known.

In the main square of the old town, was this head. “The artist’s gift to the city of Krakow, 2005” read a plaque (which I translated with the help of Google translator). The artist is Igor Mitoraj and his bronze sculpture (created in 1999) is called “Eros Bendato.”

Nearby was a wooden pole with colorful birds, called “Emaus tree.” A sign in English explains that the Emaus tree “refers to the traditional trees of life” which were found at the stalls of the annual fair in Zwierzyniac on the 2nd day of Easter. The Emaus tree could be a nest with figurines of chicks or a bird mounted on a stick decorated with leaves, usually made of wood. The tradition of making this ornament dates back to pre-Christian times when it was believed that the souls of the dead came back to life as birds who sheltered in tree branches. It also symbolized nature coming back to life in the spring.

A “fire breathing” dragon is a popular site for children, located below the wall of Krakow’s castle. Every evening at 6 p.m., this dragon is supposed to “breathe fire.” I don’t know exactly how it works and our guide didn’t explain it, but the day we were there, no fire issued forth from the dragon’s open mouth, disappointing this crowd of expectant kids.

We visited the old Jewish quarter, where the Steven Spielberg movie, Schindler’s List, was filmed. Nearby is an art installation consisting of tall, stark chairs, each representing 100 Krakow Jews (about 6,700) who were killed in the Holocaust. The artist and the installation’s title are on the sign below.

Marsha Ingrao’s PPAC #59.

CFFC: Colors of That Grand Old Flag

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Cee’s Fun Foto Challenge continues with a color theme, this week the colors of our flag (whatever that happens to be). Here are some photos featuring the red, white, and blue (and sometimes other colors as well!).

Holiday lights display at a house in Niles
Decorative pottery at Hacienda El Sombrero restaurant in Mount Prospect
At Ravinia for festival to celebrate Mexican Independence Day
Back of a Hummer in Glen Ellyn

RDP: Thingamajig or Whatchamacallit

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Ragtag’s Daily Prompt word today is thingamajig. It is a word we’ve always used (or one like it) when we don’t know or remember the name of something. I looked up the word to see how it would be defined:
Merriam-Webster has a good, concise definition: something that is hard to classify or whose name is unknown or forgotten. 
I found the synonyms amusing: dingus, doodad, doohickey, hickey, thingamabob, thingummy, whatchamacallit, whatnot, whatsit (also whatsis or what-is-it)

I am often at a loss for words, so I’m likely to use thingamajig or one of its synonyms more often than most people. However, as I looked in my photo archives, I did find some objects that defied definition or name. These are some of them.

The Bottle Tree Ranch in California, on Route 66, is full of thingamajigs, doodads, and whatchamacallits. In fact, I think that is its entire reason for being. Lots of weird, rusty machine parts that I have no clue as to what they are even used for…
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More such things are on display at the Overlord Museum at Omaha Beach in Normandy, France. If your thing is machines used in war, this is the place to visit.20190620_124504
There was a lot of chaos on the beaches of Normandy on D-Day, June 6, 1944, as these displays attest to, so it’s only to be expected to find plenty of hoojiggies (another synonym!) there.  I trust that the men who were using these pieces of machinery had better vocabulary about them than I do!
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Enough of broken machine parts! What would you call this so-called piece of art, on display at the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam?
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(Yeah, me neither, but scary, for sure…)

But – saving the best for last – I had to take a photograph of this weird whatchamacallit I spotted along a sidewalk in Chicago. I have no idea why it’s there or what it’s used for. (The water bottle adds a nice touch, though! At least it can be used to set things down on, and then forget them!)
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If anyone can clarify what this thingamajig is, I’d be interested to find out!

 

October Squares: Artistic Lines

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Becky’s Month of Squares challenge is back!  Hurray!  This month the theme is Lines & Squares.

In the past month I have visited two museums: the Chicago Art Institute and the Museum of Glass in Tacoma. Plenty of opportunities for lines!! Squares too, probably.

Here are the rules for Month of Squares:
Create your line square post, and include a pingback to one of my daily square posts
You can also add a link to your post in the comments on my post
To make it easy for others to find you and to generate interest across the web do include this month’s tag lines&squares
Preferably post daily but you can also post all 31 in one go at the end of the month, or if it is easier join us weekly.
You can even drop in occasionally with squares if you are away or really busy, and many do.
There is though only ONE challenge rule;
your main photograph must be square in shape!

At the Chicago Art Institute, after seeing the Manet exhibit, we went to the members only preview of an unusual exhibit entitled In a Cloud, In a Wall, In a Chair: Six Modernists in Mexico at Midcentury. The general idea of the exhibit was to show how artists in Mexico (whether they were Mexican or not) were influenced by native art and how they used native art elements in their own work.

My main photo is this one, by  Ruth Asawa, “Untitled (BMC.58, Meander – Curved Lines),” c. 1948, pen, brush and ink on paper20190905_125432 (2)
Here are a few more in the exhibit:

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Ruth Asawa, Untitled (BMC.127, Meander in Green, Orange, and Brown), 1946/49, collage of cut colored and coated papers

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Ruth Asawa (American, 1926-2003), all untitled, hanging forms, brass, galvanized steel, copper and wire

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Pitcher, c. 1950, Purepecha, Michoacan, Mexico, hammered copper

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Cover of a book

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Female Figure with Bold, Geometric Face and Body Paint, 200-100 BC, Chupicuara, Guanajuato or Michoacan, Mexico, terra cotta and pigmented slip

 

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Cynthia Sargent, Linea Musical (Musical Line)

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Sheila Hicks (American, active France, born 1934), Taxco el Viejo (Taxco, the Old One),  1962, handspun wool. this is one of Hicks’ works whose geometry draws from Mexico’s ancient pyramids, as well as from the weave structure itself.

 

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Anni Albers (German, active United States, 1899-19940, Eclat 1976/79, silkscreen on cotton and linen

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Sheila Hicks, Falda (Skirt),  1960, wool

Personally, I did not always see the connection between Mexican native art and the pieces on display, although I did notice style and color, which are very Mexican, from my personal experience. My favorites are the yellow and orange Taxco rug and the hanging wire forms. There were several more pieces in the exhibition not included here.

Blue Squares: Here It Is!

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Becky has her monthlong square challenge this month and the topic is Blue.  (#JulySquare)
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Last summer we took a road trip across 2/3 of the United States on Route 66. Between Arizona and New Mexico, we kept seeing road signs with this rabbit logo which piqued our curiosity (as it was supposed to!). We finally arrived at this store, with a sign saying “Here It Is!”
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And the rabbit was very much an identifying feature even though the store had nothing to do with rabbits per se. Just an advertising gimmick to get you into the store! In fact, although seemingly of dubious quality judging from the exterior,
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the interior turned out to have some very nice things, including Native American crafts, and I bought a couple of kachinas there!
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I blogged about this and other Route 66 discoveries in my series Getting Our Kicks last summer!

Lens-Artists: My Favorite Things

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My Favorite Things is the subject of Lens-Artists’ photo challenge this week.

I love cats, especially my sweet tortie Hazel.
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I love flowers and enjoy taking good photos of them.  There is plenty of this subject matter at Chicago Botanic Gardens! This is their May foxglove display.
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My favorite thing in the world is traveling, and I always take my camera along! I like to take photos of buildings, especially doors and windows,

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Old Jerusalem church door

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Door at Peter of Gallicantu Church in Jerusalem

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Arched entrance, Eskaleh Ecolodge, Abu Simbel, Egypt

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Dome of the Rock, Jerusalem

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Stained glass window, Jerusalem

ruins,

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Archaeological site in the heart of Old Jerusalem

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Jewish graveyard, Jerusalem

everyday objects,
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Tanzanians waiting for a bus in Arusha

landscapes, sunsets,

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Sunset along the Nile, Egypt

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Arches National Park, Utah, USA

wildlife…whatever there is to see!

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Hyena, Tanzania

I also love art, especially folk art. (Below, Nubian folk art objects, Abu Simbel, Egypt)
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Painting by Brazilian artist Tarsila do Amaral, Art Institute of Chicago

 

 

Tuesday Photo Challenge: Round

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Frank at Dutch Goes the Photo’s Tuesday photo challenge this week is round.

circles of ice that formed inside the holes of the mat outside our back door20190222_161104
Sculpture at Dr. Evermore’s Forevertron (near Madison, WI)
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Macy’s Christmas balls
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Ferris Wheel at Navy Pier in Chicago
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A Photo a Week: Contrasting Colors in Nature and by Design

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Nancy Merrill’s A Photo a Week challenge this week is about contrasting colors, using a color wheel which shows which colors contrast with each other.

color wheel

In art, we often see paintings with colors that seem to pop out of the image. An artist may use what are called “complementary colors” (contrasting colors) to emphasize something in an image, such as an orange flower against a blue sky, or to create interest using contrasts. Here is an example by Georgia O’Keeffe, called “Trees in Autumn” (1920/21 oil on canvas, at Georgia O’Keeffe Museum in Santa Fe, New Mexico).
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Here’s a photo I took of a tree in autumn.
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As one can see from the color wheel above, the primary colors (blue, red and yellow) are matched with secondary colors (green, orange and purple) which provide the greatest contrast. Blue is matched with the secondary color that is created by combining the other two primary colors (red and yellow). Thus:

Blue’s complementary color is orange.
Red’s complementary color is green.
Yellow’s complementary color is purple.

Weavers are very adept in using contrasting/complementary colors to create colorful patterns. This is a close-up of a Peruvian woven sling I use to carry my water bottle. Note the green stripe against pink on one side and maroon on the other (both versions of red), or the blue stripe in the middle surrounded by orange stripes.
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Nature is also excellent at creating contrasts:
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We see this same contrasting beauty in architecture, such as Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem, Israel, with its famous golden dome contrasting with the blue sky and with the blues in the tiles on the walls. The artist(s) who created these lovely patterns with tiles had an innate sense of contrast, making the designs of the whole building stand out, impressing viewers.
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The Christmas season is represented by red and green, which naturally complement (or contrast with) each other, making holiday decorations pleasing to look at.
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Open House Chicago-Part 4: The American Toby Jug Museum

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In Evanston is a small museum that most residents don’t even know exists. We didn’t either, until Open House Chicago listed it in the sites to tour in Evanston. In fact, I didn’t know what a Toby jug was. Nevertheless, located at 910 Chicago Ave. in Evanston, IL, the museum hosts thousands of visitors per year and has a collection of about 8300 jugs.  Once you enter the front door, you then go down a flight of stairs to enter the museum.
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The Toby jug and its derivative, the Character jug, is an art form of pottery that dates back to 1760.
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These jugs were made in various European countries and in the United States.

Some are beautiful, some are whimsical, some have the faces of famous persons while others are painted in the style of Delft pottery.
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There are very large jugs which stand on the floor and tiny ones no larger than a thimble. There are jugs representing people in various occupations as well as many in the shape of animals.

 

Why the name Toby? There are a few theories, but the most plausible one is that it comes from a 1761 drinking song composed by Rev. Francis Fawkes, The Brown Jug. The song tells the story of an expert boozer named Toby Fillpot.

After Toby Fillpot dies from excess drinking, his body turns to clay and is found by a potter. So the potter formed a brown jug from a fat Toby!

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Some Toby jugs have been put to other uses, such as an umbrella stand, lamp bases, and decorative spoon handles.

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These photos represent only a fraction of the jugs on display. (Since most are in glass cases, it wasn’t always possible to capture the displays without reflections from the overhead lights.)

Before we left, I had to use the restroom, which was decorated with a Toby jug theme!
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How about a shirt with Toby jug designs?
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After spending about half an hour here, we vowed to return at a later date when we have more time.