The Arts in NYC Fall 2012

Since I wasn’t able to go to “The Piano Lesson” I went to the American Folk Art Museum with my friend Dave whose also in Macaulay. It was nice to visit a new museum that I had never been to before. The museum was a cute little space with two exhibitions.

First I saw the Tinsel Paintings. They were paintings made of tinfoil, painted in reverse on glass! The artwork was so unique and cool, unlike anything I have ever seen before.  It was created entirely by women. Flowers were a famous theme in the artwork. The artwork was filled with floral imagery. The floral theme was inspired by the botanical prints of the scientist Linnaeus.  The flowers hold many meanings. The red rose symbolizes romantic love and the pink rose symbolizes undying everlasting love. The way the paintings are composed is very interesting, They are reverse paintings on glass and metallic foil backed. They look very shiny and are aesthetically pleasing. (I took pictures but this forum wont let me upload them because it said we “filled our storage quota”) My favorite tinsel painting was “Still Life With Leaves and Fruit.” The pieces of art were all similar because most contained fruits and vegetables. We see how much nature is truly appreciated by these women.

On the other side of the museum there were abstract 3-D pieces of art. One that stood out to me was the “Button Tree” by Gregory Warmack Aka Mr. Imagination. It was a tree made entirely of different colorful buttons! Another really interesting piece of art was the “Baby Blanket.” This blanket consisted of a quilt-like structure made up of aluminum wrapped condemns. Title is ironic isn’t it? Creative though I must say. It shows how there are no boundaries in art.  The artist said she wanted to make her piece masculine and by using aluminum and condemns she was able to do that.

I really liked that this museum was small. It was nice because I wasn’t overwhelmed with a bunch of different exhibits and I was able to see almost everything there while enjoying myself. This is a museum that I will definitely come back to once new exhibitions are up.

-Eleni