life’s not a paragraph

alright… so i am a bit behind on my posts. but i am going to start from the stuff that occurred at the beginning of the weekend and work my way towards today. let’s begin with friday.

so it is the beginning of another month and that means gallery openings. i don’t know how long you have been reading this but i’ll remind you that the first friday of every month is when the new shows/installations open in the south end. i went for the first time in december. so this time around i knew the drill and i lead a bunch of my neophyte friends to the cluster of galleries on and around thayer st. last time, i went a little late. but my design issues and processes professor informed the class that the gallery times were from around five-seven p.m. give or take a hour.

we ended up going around six because some of us had to work and we arrived smack dab in the middle of the excitement. we went to la galería cubana (a cuban gallery with only cuban artwork) because i am currently reading cuban literature (check out edmundo desnoes or reinaldo arenas if your interested) in my spanish class, so even though i had been to the gallery before, i now have a bit of a different perspective and a bit more insight into cuban culture. the paintings and photographs are beautiful and i definitely felt like i had a better ability to analyze the pieces with my new knowledge. i’ve found that it always helps to know some history when looking at any art work whether it’s a painting or a piece of literature; it creates just one more layer of understanding since you’re able to relate some of the events/images to the creator’s life events.

then we went to a few other galleries i had never been before. we saw this great jewelry artist named melissa finelli. her stuff was so interesting and unique while being completely practical (for the most part). then we headed over to the “artist dorms” as i like to call them. haha basically the building seems to be a renovated warehouse filled with artist studios. on first fridays, most of the artists open their doors and welcome people in with some cheese and crackers or little candies. if you have the money, you can buy pieces. i just like to go, look around, and talk to a few of the artists. i spoke to this one woman who called herself a color realist. most of the paintings she had on display were of beautiful country sides viewed through a series of glasses (wine glasses, short liquor glasses, etc). they were beautiful and bright. i was really intrigued by the idea of these glasses and i asked her why she decided to feature glass as her main subject matter. she replied that one day she was in tuscany and just happened to look through her wine glass at the villa she was at and she fell in love the way the images reflected in the glass. i really love being able to ask the artist about their work. if she hadn’t been there i would’ve never known the reason for the glasses!