Tag Archives: art

Cy Twombly — American artist, dead

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Cy Twombly, from ‘Lepanto’ series in Museum Brandhorst in Munich


I encountered Cy Twombly’s art for the first time about 10 years ago at the Cy Twombly gallery (part of the Menil Collection) in Houston, TX. It seemed pretty extravagant to me to have a stand alone building just to house a collection of works by an artist I had never heard of. But, I was soon convinced. Twombly’s paintings and sculptures have a calmness from a distance that reveals itself to be anything but as one gets closer and closer.

Several years later I took my son Emery (then in Kindergarten) to the Menil for a morning together. I remember Emery’s fascination with the sheer size and grandeur of the works and the building in which they are housed. It was a wonderful time and a great introduction to serious art for Emery.

Twombly died yesterday in Italy where he has lived for many years at the age of 83.


Related links below

Extremely nice website of Twombly’s works.
http://www.cytwombly.info/index.html

Article about Twombly from ‘The Daily Beast.’
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2011/07/05/modernist-master-cy-twombly-dead-at-83.html

my labyrinth

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I just finished making my first labyrinth. I had thought about it for about a year since we moved into our new house. There was this beautiful clearing about 50 feet in diameter surrounded by seven post oak trees. So naturally I thought I needed a labyrinth. I chose a classical or Cretan seven circuit labyrinth. Seven circuit refers to the seven paths that you must take to reach the middle of the labyrinth. This kind of labyrinth has been around for about 4,000 years and is the type of labyrinth in the myth of Theseus and the Minotaur.

Labyrinths are often confused with mazes. Mazes are all about getting lost–that is the pleasure of making them (to trick the person who will encounter it) and walking them (the pleasurable disorientation of not knowing exactly where you are). Therefore, mazes usually have tall boundaries to prevent peeking and getting clues where to go. Labyrinths are all about finding your way. Labyrinths are unicursal, or single-pathed. You can’t get lost as long as you keep going. Labyrinths are also traditionally made with low boundaries which allow you to see and enjoy the aesthetic beauty of the labyrinth’s construction and see the goal or middle of labyrinth.

In recent times, the labyrinth has been used by new age adherents as a meditative tool. I naturally, being a believer, have more resonance with the Christian tradition of labyrinths as a prayerful space and a visual and kinesthetic allegory for our life as journey or pilgrimage.

I hope to eventually mound up some soil and plant the boundaries with sedums or liriope–maybe even some bulbs for the Spring. I hope those of you who live close to me will come out and walk the labyrinth at your leisure.