Art and Hockey

It may sound like an odd combination, but I'd like to think of myself as a well-rounded person.

I was going to the game with a friend who was already in DC and headed over to the National Gallery of Art to kill time before I got out there. I ended up leaving work early, so met him there. By the time we got there, we had only about 10 minutes until they closed.

I suppose I have a very casual attitude about art; why can't it be fun?: I am sure art, like beauty, is in the eye of beholder.

While walking through the East Wing - behold: canvases, each painted a solid block of color, arranged in a grid on a stone wall. To me, this looked like someone wanted to paint the stone wall and wasn't sure which color chip to choose, so they tested all of them.

I generally prefer modern art, like painters Pollack, Kandinsky and O'Keefe, to, say, Van Gogh, Monet and Renoir. My friend likes Dali and Chagall. It is MY opinion that I could have painted much like Chagall in first-grade, but what do I know? This is not to say that I do not appreciate the imagination and work that it takes to create many works of art, they may just not be my preference.

During our brief visit, there was one display I found interesting and clever. Andy Goldsworthy, inspired by the stone buildings in DC designed this permanent fixture on the ground level of the East Building. I really like natural materials and have always been drawn to stone. What makes this even more interesting is that a couple of the domes appear to seamlessly peak under the huge plate-glass windows. I like to see nature harmonized with what, the unnatural(?) as in architecture. This reminded me of a couple of images on the AIA site (while I worked there), of homes that were built to incorporate a large tree. The photo of the house on the left does not illustrate this very well, but is amazing! I'll keep looking for the other images. ...oh, here is more fantastic architecture (gotta love surfing the web!): Hotel Marqués de Riscal.

Generally, I prefer the Hirshorn to NGA, but I'll keep an open mind and keep checking back. At the very least, the Hirshorn makes for an entertaining and lively conversation on a first date!

Oh yeah, and I went to the game: Caps versus Minnesota Wild. Good game; Caps won 4-1