Another Final Friday - Is This Getting To Be A Pattern, Or What?

Still another "Final Friday" has come and gone, and once again I attended the Denver Art Museum's "Untitled Final Fridays" event, this month titled "Stop Motion."  Not to be too critical, but the exhibits were all unchanged from last month and the month before that.  And the 4th floor of the contemporary art wing was closed down completely for an art installation. I therefore had to contend myself looking at a few oldies but goodies, including the Baining artist face mask I am posing next to in the photograph on the left.  It amazes me every time I look at it how an artist from New Britain, New Guinea, working around 1900, could capture the look of my inner soul so completely.  It is truly astonishing.

Although there were on new exhibits at the museum, there were several workshops and talks given that I enjoyed, including several on photography.  The photograph on the right shows a flash demonstration put on by the Colorado Photographic Arts Center (CPAC for short, which sounds like a sister organization to NATO, if you ask me). In any case, the woman in the photograph is the new director of the organization, who replaces Rupert, the former director, who was also an art curator at the University of Denver and from whom I took a photography class at DU.  And I must say, the new director is much more attractive than Rupert (no offense to you, Rupert).  This brings me to an important sociological phenomenon that is taking place here in Colorado.  Rupert moved to Portland, Oregon, where his significant obtained a university teaching position.  Every week untold numbers of Californians, Texans, Chicagoans, and people from numerous flyover states move to Colorado, and every week untold numbers of Coloradans move to Portland, Oregon.  What's the deal with that, and when will it stop?  Probably when Oregon has more people than California and is too crowded and expensive to live in.  Then everyone will probably be moving to somewhere affordable, like Nebraska.  It makes you shudder.

I also attended a talk in the photography gallery on the photographs of Timothy O'Sullivan and William Bell, who took photographs of the landscapes of Colorado, Utah, and New Mexico for a geological survey between 1872 and 1874.  The exhibit has been up for several months now, and each time I viewed it I was not impressed.  However, hearing what they had to go through to take these photographs, it gives you more of an appreciation for them.  After the talk I reflected on all the things I had learned, the more important one being that I am absolutely dead tired on Friday nights after working all week.  I walked down one flight of stairs and saw some couches and chairs in front of a large screen, which was showing a fashion show from 1997.  I sat down and just enjoyed sitting there, mindless watching the film.  The plaque on the side of the screen did not say where the show was taking place, but it was obviously not on earth.  Probably a moon of Jupiter.  No earthling has ever looked like or worn clothes like the models in this show.  And so, after a brief visit to this strange planet, I headed off for home and dinner.