colors and concepts

Because I am so cool, I present this on a saturday night. But to be fair, last night was a wine-a-bration that led me to almost stain not only one, but two pairs of pants. However neither pair of pants were permanently harmed and were released back into their respective natural habitats.

http://chillicheesefries.deviantart.com/art/Concept-Art-for-Dro-75690496

so, Alejandro and I were talking and he asked me to do some concept art for this idea he has about an old school martial arts wielding monk who finds himself in New York in the 1980's. And then I thought what if Ziggy Stardust was done in an Edo Print.

http://chillicheesefries.deviantart.com/art/hotties-in-space-75705649

Vasodilation on a raver....in space....maybe.

look for more sticky bug soon


....bed

Winter in Washington

This past weekend was the National Gallery Extravaganza so super museum time = super now. 


The Corcoran Gallery:

   
    Annie Leibovitz : A Photographer's Life

http://img.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2007/04_03/queenALMS0505_468x453.jpg

http://www.pfendlers.com/blog/AnnieLeibovitzTheWhiteStrip.jpg

These are great, however Leibovitz dosent figure out color until 2003, so a lot of her early color work leave something to be desired. Also her landscapes are out of focus and waaay too large.

    Ansel Adams : The Collective Works

http://www.corcoran.org/adams/images/Freeway.jpg

http://www.corcoran.org/adams/images/Monolith.jpg

Adams however is the destroyer of landscapes, nobody can touch him when you put him in a heavily wooded area or next to a mountains...totally sick.

Annie Leibovitz is also doing a whole bunch of pictures for Disney

http://disneyparks.disney.go.com/disneyparks/en_US/index?name=Gallery&bhcp=1

And on that note the following Disney things are awesome:

Enchanted

http://www.cartoonbrew.com/wp-content/uploads/enchantedpic.jpg

They are also making a Rapunzel Movie

http://gallery.awn.com/data/521/Rapunzel-Unbraided.jpg

http://www.jimhillmedia.com/mb/images/upload/rupunzel_swing.jpg (AND YES!!!!!!!! IT DOES LOOKS LIKE FRAGONARD'S THE SWING)

And the Disney Princesses just got a little Jazzier

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17524865/

http://www.cbc.ca/gfx/images/arts/photos/2007/03/09/black-princess-cp-2633827.jpg

The National Galleries



Edward Hopper (1882-1967)

http://members.aol.com/ondinemonet/images/automat%20edward%20hopper.jpg

http://newcritics.com/blog1/wp-content/uploads/2007/05/hopper.ny-movie.jpg

http://www.nga.gov/exhibitions/2007/hopper/hopperinfo_fs.shtm

The only American Surrealist, the lonely dreamer of New England, The Lighthouse of the Soul on the Sea of Desolation

J.M.W. Turner (1775-1851)

http://www.nga.gov/exhibitions/2007/turner/turnerinfo_fs.shtm

http://www.library.cornell.edu/olinuris/ref/tinternabbey.jpg

http://www.bbc.co.uk/arts/images/multimedia/turner/horse.jpg

The Dark Horse of the Empire, A loyal servent turned dangerous traitor, the Darth Vader of the Royal Academy

Simon Schama Power of Art

is amazing. Finally, a documentery that shows Paul Gauguin in his true light:

http://www.booksplendour.com.au/gallery/classics/Gaugin/gauguin_piano.jpg

Merry Post-Christmas everyone and a happy impending New Year.

The Roman Conclusion

Molly McCormick’s Hits List of Rome: 

Top 20 Architectural Sites in Rome:

1. Pantheon
2. The Vatican City (Notably Bernini’s Piazza)
3. The Church of Al Quatri Fontani
4. Parco Della Musica
5. The Roman Forum
6. Castle Sant’Angelo
7. Villa Adriana
8. Catacombs of San Callisto
9. Montemartini Museum
10. Jubilee Church
11. Cerveteri
12. EUR
13. Via Leone XIII (Take the 870 Bus, to get the best view of the city)
14. Sant’ Agnes a Agone
15. Largo Argentina
16. Sant’ Andrea al Quirinale
17. Sant’ Ignazio di Loyola a Campo Marzio
18. Villa Pamphili
19. Grand Mosque
20. Capitoline Museum (Especially the Tabulareum) 

Top 10 Museums in Rome:

1. Villa Borghese
2. Capitoline Museum
3. Vatican Museum
4. Palazzo Della Expositione
5. Montemartini Museum
6. Barberini Museum
7. Museum at Castle Sant Angelo
8. Capuchin Crypts
9. Museo Nationale
10. Girabaldi Museum (Currently in the Monument to Victor Emmanuel II) 

Top 10 Food Joints in Rome:

1. Carlo Mentha Trattoria
2. Ostia Pucci Restorante
3. Super Pizza E…
4. Vocipelli
5. Café Quirino
6. Pizza Simone
7. Ristorante Chinoisese a Largo Argentina
8. La Cisterna
9. Botticelli’s Bar
10. Rosso Bar
    

Top 10 Sculptures in Rome:

1. Apollo and Daphne (Bernini)
2. La Pieta (Michelangelo)
3. Pluto and Persephone (Bernini)
4. David ( Michelangelo)
5. Laocoon (Unknown)
6. David (Bernini)
7. Venus Victrix (Canova)
8. Sleeping Hermaphrodite (Unknown, Not the Canova one…that one sucks. Sorry.)
9. The Boxer (Ancient Greek)
10. St. Cecelia (Maderno)
    

Top 10 Paintings in Rome:

1. Judith Slaying Holofernes (Caravaggio)
2. The Last Judgment (Michelangelo)
3. The Sistine Chapel…All of It ( mostly attributed to Michelangelo)
4. The School of Athens (Raphael)
5. La Fornarina (Raphael)
6. The Glorification of The Reign of Urban VIII (Cortona)
7. The Calling of St Matthew ( Caravaggio)
8. The Conversion of Saul (Caravaggio)
9. Triumph of St. Ignatius of Loyola (Pozzo)  
10. Maroon on Black (Mark Rothko, on loan from the Tate Modern, London) 

Cities (Both Italian and Abroad)

1. Rome
2. Paris/Versailles
3. Edinburgh
4. Venice
5. Glasgow
6. London
7. Munich
8. Florence
9. Cerveteri / Pompeii
10. Tivoli

So right now I’m on the plane heading back home, well at least I was when I wrote this, but let’s not get into technicalities. I’m not going to lie, I cried a little bit on the bus this morning leaving from AUR heading to the airport. But it’s not my fault, the sun was coming up over the mountains and the morning fog was clearing over the city and part of me was crushed in the wake of its beauty.

 I love Rome; I love every rock and every crevasse of that city. It can be so loud and so dirty, but it’s also the most amazing place in the world. I was one time reading a guidebook and it said, “Italy: probably the easiest place to fall in love with and the hardest to leave.” Completely true.

 Don’t get me wrong, I’m glad to be going home, but part of me will always live in Italy. Whether it’s walking in the footsteps of the emperors at the Villa Adriana or getting chided by a nun on the #8 tram, Seeing Bernini’s Apollo and Daphne in person or eating a fried rice ball with mozzarella cheese in the middle, Rome has something for everything, and meant everything to me

The lists aforementioned and aforeseen were really really hard to make. There was so much that I loved that making a list, while fun and interesting for me personally, was completely pointless.
If you haven’t been to Rome, go. If you already been, go again. Now it’s time for me to fill out my customs card and eat this sandwich that has been staring me down for a good 15 minuets. 

With my sincere regards,

Margaret “Molly” Elizabeth-Brendan-Joan McCormick

Back when I was still....I was still in love.

The last day in Rome.

 What a great semester it's been, I don't know yet how to put it into words, maybe time and hindsight will allow me to have an accurate understanding. But right now, I feel like it's in the old movies when the couple is at the station and the woman is leaving and the man is chasing after her but then the platform stops and the train keeps going. I don't know if I'm on the train or the one chasing it, but I think the feeling is close to the same.

This morning I went with some fellow archi-holics to Rome's one and only Mosque. It was a really beautiful building, not because of the plan or the elevation (which were interesting, but not exactly overwhelming), in this case "God was in the Details". Since Mosques can't have any physical depictions of God (statues, paintings, etc.) the arches and the tiles have to serves as decoration. The tiles were interesting, mostly floral arrangements, but the arches are the ones who stole the show. They twisted around into something similar to northern gothic vaulted ceilings,

http://www.dkimages.com/discover/previews/1052/865661.JPG

http://www.nycerome.com/rome-hotels-images/areas-of-rome-images/auditorium-area-pictures/mosque-in-rome.jpg

 but was still mimicing (or perhaps was being mimicked by) the large chandeliers hanging down from them.

http://www.npr.org/programs/atc/features/2003/feb/europe_muslims/five/main.jpg


After that I walked by the Parco Della Musica, which I have talked about in great length previously. This time they had turned part of the building into a ice-skating rink and the other part into a house for "Babba Natale", If you can guess who that is. Hint: Kids were freaking out.
Then onto EUR.

EUR stands for *translated* Universal Exposition in Rome a plan conceived by Mussolini, begun in 1935 finished in 1942. The area is the best standing example of Fascist Architecture in Rome, or anywhere else really. The eerie overly-pristeen nature of the project comes from the combination of two rivaling architectural movements who wanted to get their foot in the door with the growing political party. On one side were the Neo-Classists, people who believed that the only way to be truly great was to embody the past, on the other side were the "Rationalists" who were the Italian students of Modernism.

As a side note, the requirements to be a "Modernist" in the field of Architecture essentially means that you have to follow, or at least respect, the teachings of Le Corbusier.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Le_Corbusier

 However Italian architecture dose'nt really grasp the man who says "the house is a machine for living" so they take several of his ideas but fuse them with abstract concepts from Vitruvius and the Renaissance.

So by the combination of the Rationalists and the Neo-Classists we get EUR. The idea being that yes, we have all this great history, but we also have a great future. However the plan was never completely finished as the Fascists were ousted out of power in WWII. I had been by EUR once or twice before hand and had referenced ideas about it in a presentation I did, but I did'nt get a chance to really explore it until today.

When I was there, the whole area was almost deserted, It was like a sea of travertine and I was the only one there. The buildings (including the famous "square colosseum") had a stiffness to them that was unnatural.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/ae/PalazzodellaCiviltaItaliana.jpg

But as near as I can tell in all the concept drawings I had seen of them, all of the buildings were shown with only a few scale people in them, not a large crowd, so maybe I was seeing them in the right setting it's just you, the travertine and the arches.

You can tell walking around that this is a work in progress, a failed work in progress. Almost like an allegory for Fascism in Italy on the whole. Not that it wasn't  interesting, but rather the area now lacks the sterness that the shapes are meant to convey. The colored apartment buildings of Rome are starting to sneak into this area and the regemented white shapes of EUR don't do well with competition.

People aren't supposed to live like the architects of EUR envisioned, they need to be more human. And in the end that's the problem with the buildings at EUR, they aren't built to Human-Scale. I mean they may have the proportions for doorways and steps, but just walking around you can tell these buildings aren't meant for people, they're meant for an idea.

I like the buildings there as objects, but I'm not convinced about them being livable spaces is I guess what i'm trying to say.

OK, so now it's past 11:20 and I have to be up tomorrow by 5:30..Goodnight all!

It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas

Stu Arbury of L.A. fame made this with the help of the good people at Office Max: It is now my Christmas Card...forever.

http://www.elfyourself.com/?id=1341864237

I think it suits us perfectly.

I have one final left and hopefully I will look deep within my brain's heart to find the power to destroy it. 

Also! 

Final Drawing Series 

http://chillicheesefries.deviantart.com/art/Final-Drawing-Series-1-72008976

http://chillicheesefries.deviantart.com/art/Final-Drawing-Series-2-72009018

http://chillicheesefries.deviantart.com/art/Final-Drawing-Series-3-72009054

http://chillicheesefries.deviantart.com/art/Final-Drawing-Series-4-72009164

Roma E Amore OR I draw me some sluts and virgins

Face Paint and Wisdom

"i feel like i need to write a letter:

dear rome,

you have your art, your history, your food, now give me back my molly.

sincerely,

renee"

-Renee Farrah

Today a mime (you know the kind with the face-paint and the devil-may-care attitude) made fun of me on Via Del Corso when I was finishing up my Christmas shopping. He made a face at me and mimiced my walk while I was trying to ignore him, I saw him farther back on the street and I thought what anyone in my situation would have thought: "dammit...a mime" and tried to devise a way to avoid him. However seeing no other opportunity at the time, I tried to ignore him...failed. If living in Rome has taught me anything it's to never make eye contact with a mime, especially when you're trying to elude them.