Samhain\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Waxing Moon of the Winter Solstice<\/p>\n
So beautiful.\u00a0 The moon floats above our cottonwood trees, a thin sickle, its horns pointing to the east.\u00a0 I’ve never seen any art object that can compare to the sleek curves and understated lighting of a sickle moon.<\/p>\n
When I ran out of sleep a couple of days ago, up for a while in the morning,\u00a0 I set up today.\u00a0 After my two tours at the MIA, I’m worn out, tired, a bit dejected.\u00a0 Losing sleep fiddles with my emotional monitor, I become more sensitive, less able to assess accurately how I’m feeling or doing.<\/p>\n
The Thaw exhibition has proved a puzzle for me.\u00a0 I don’t seem too good at touring it and I can’t quite figure out why.\u00a0 I base this on the flatness of all three tour’s responses to my guiding them, a flatness that is out of character for most of my tours.\u00a0 I love this show and the objects in it.\u00a0 They fascinate me and they shine with a fierce enthusiasm, witness to the powerful visions of people who live close to the land.\u00a0 But somehow what I’m doing doesn’t convey my excitement.\u00a0 I may approach this show too analytically, too much absorbed in the art historical arguments about native masterpieces and how to view native art.\u00a0 Maybe.\u00a0 I just don’t know.<\/p>\n
As I said, when I’m worn out, like today, the negatives surface with ease and have more endurance, that may be an aspect of this problem, but it’s not all of it.\u00a0 Perhaps I need to reconstruct my tour on different grounds, use different objects.\u00a0 Maybe I need to develop actual questions for each object, something I resist doing because I prize the conversational atmosphere, just folks walking through the gallery sharing what we see and what we know.\u00a0 That usually works well for me.\u00a0 Not this time.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Samhain\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Waxing Moon of the Winter Solstice So beautiful.\u00a0 The moon floats above our cottonwood trees, a thin sickle, its horns pointing to the east.\u00a0 I’ve never seen any art object that can compare to the sleek curves and understated lighting of a sickle moon. When I ran out of sleep a couple of days … Continue reading Unthawed.<\/span>