Photo info: motorola moto g(6), 3.95mm, f/1.8, 1/2100 sec, ISO101 “Sad Elephant” Cedar Park, 2019
こんばんは。Today’s post will just be a list of what I did today:
It’s Work-at-Home day for me, so I get to sleep in a little while longer since I can skip the early morning shower and wash up later.
I picked up my car from the body shop. They repaired the dent in the hood and replaced the broken windshield. And it’s a Subaru windshield which is great because I was so happy with my old one which didn’t completely shatter when the rock hit it.
And that’s it! Today’s photo is of a sad toy elephant I saw on the ground as I was running. It kind of looks like it could be a drone shot from Africa… poor elephant!
Photo info: FUJIFILM X100T, 23mm, f/5.6, 1/40 sec, ISO6400 “Homecoming Curry” Cedar Park, 2019
こんばんは。How’s it going?
Today Mariko and Bay returned from their vacation in New York City, and on the way home from the airport, Mariko said she wanted to make “quick curry”. 🍛 Of course, I thought it was a great idea, especially after eating bachelor meals for the past week. Well, Mariko’s “quick curry” tonight was amazing! Thinly-sliced beef, onion, carrot, and egg made a hearty and filling meal. What a way to celebrate returning home. 😌
Today I dropped Koa off at UT Austin for his third and final band camp of the summer. The dorm he is staying at is right next to the Blanton Museum of Art, so after Koa was squared away, I decided to check out the artwork. As a bonus, I bundled my ticket with parking so I saved a few bucks. 😁
As luck would have it, I bought my admission at about 3 pm, right when a free guided tour was starting. It was “Best of the Museum” and we stopped at nine pieces of art and had discussions about each one. It was very interesting and illuminating! I’ve been interested in art all my life, but I find it hard to understand the purpose of it. Some of the art we saw today from the early 20th century was clearly made to make a social statement, but other Italian art from the 1600s was more of a depiction of a typical everyday scene. They were very different, but both are “art”. I suppose the hangup I’ve always had in understanding art is that for some reason I thought art should have a singular purpose, but that is clearly not the case. Some art is meant as a protest against the status quo, some art is religious and devotional, portraits can simply be a likeness of the subject, etc. I guess the art is more about the artist’s vision, rather than the objects in the art themselves?
Listening to the museum docent describe what the artists may (or may not) have been trying to say opened my eyes as to what art might mean to me. I’m excited to think about it more, and maybe I can use my creativity to make some more meaningful art. The first step is figuring out what I want to say, which honestly could be a challenge.
It’s funny to think that although I’ve been interested in art since elementary school, took classes throughout high school, majored in Art Studio and minored in Art History, then interned at a museum, that finally at 50 years-old I am giving serious thought as to what art means to me. All this time I’ve just been making things just because I liked the aesthetic. But there can be so much more, right?
こんばんは。Today was the final day of the Band and Orchestra Camp at Baylor University in Waco. This was Koa’s second year attending, which means that he enjoyed it enough last year to do a repeat. In fact, a few of his classmates also attended for the second straight year, which says a lot about the quality of the program.
The camp finishes with the “Grand Concert” and Koa played in the Wind Ensemble and Orchestra. I recorded the two band pieces that he performed in, which you can watch below. In the first piece, he plays the timpani on the right side of the screen, and in the second video, he plays the claves and the bass drum on the left side of the screen.
Tomorrow Koa starts his third weeklong band camp – the High School Band/Honors Wind Ensemble Camp at UT Austin. He’s never been to this one before but he’s looking forward to it. I’m looking forward to having a short drive to drop him off/pick him up. 😆 The 3.5-hour drive up to the University of North Texas was a killer, and the 1.5-hour drive up to Baylor was pretty long as well… It usually only takes about 25 minutes to get to UT, but I saw a sign on the freeway that said part of the route would be closed tomorrow, so we’ll see.
