Class is spilling over

I am finding more and more my classes are just spilling all over my ‘real’ life.  They are not staying in their nice, neat boxes where I can pull them out when needed to study.  Case in point, Art Appreciation.
Now I consider myself a sometimes artist.  And I genuinely appreciate art.  Well, maybe not Picasso or Warhol, but for the most part, I like art.  So here I am, studying quietly along and there in my text book is a picture of an a piece of art, which I now know is considered Land or Earth Art.  This installation piece is by Alan Goldsworthy, the artist whose photo intrigued me in my textbook.
andy-goldsworthy-2
The picture which had caught my eye was an installation piece with leaves strung together with grass stacks and released into a stream.  The vivid green of the leaves against the dark running water of the stream and the gray of the rocks really pulled me in.  Then I happened to see a mention of a documentary on Alan Goldsworthy’s work, Rivers and Tides.




So off to Netflix where they had it on instant play and I was instantly transported.
First off, if you did nothing but turn the sound off and watch the cinema photography of the documentary, it is an hour and half of breathtaking shots.  All of his materials are pulled directly from nature (there goes my trip to Jerry’s Artrama!) and how he can take a hole in a stone in a stream (or creek if your from my part of the world), fill it completely with the heads of flowers and make it riveting is beyond me.
I do have two complaints about his work.  The majority of it is temporary, only there for a few hours or minutes.  And I really want to hold onto those images.  There is one shot where he manipulated icicles into curves and had them coming out of a rock and then the sun hit the icicles and it just glowed.  And melted.
The second complaint….Alan laugh a bit!  After a while I just wanted to see a chuckle or smile from him.  The aloof, suffering artist was getting to be a bit much by the end of the documentary, so I just concentrated on the work and not the artist himself.  This is definitely one I would say grab a glass of wine, turn it on and let the world go by.  Then get up and go for a walk in the woods.

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