The Old Model

Broken record here... but again, I shall blog about art. I LOVE the Blanton Museum. It's a place that I don't frequent enough, but I know I can show up anytime and leave feeling inspired.

I've been wanting to see the "Birth of Cool" exhibit, so I headed to the Blanton yesterday. (It was a rare "off day" where I actually had energy to get off of my couch!) The exhibit was cool, but took me only about 15 minutes to browse through. I was more impressed with the atrium installation, honestly. The entire atrium is a piece called "Stacked Waters" and is just beautiful.

My favorite part of going to the Blanton is climbing the staircase, heading east through the Western paintings, through the "torso/statue" room, and into the grand room of Modern & Contemporary Art. I am always somewhat stunned when I walk in. Every time, it takes my breath away. I will look around, see what's new, then head to the little room to the right which houses some incredible pieces. Yesterday, I fell in love with one that I've seen many times, but never really "seen." The Old Model, by Robert Henri:
What I found really inspiring was the poem written next to the painting. The Blanton is doing a program of displaying poems inspired by certain paintings. The poem was fantastic and really made me look at this piece differently. I just love it. I'm honestly smiling as I write this just thinking about it.

There were so many other great new things to see. I felt like a giddy little girl at a candy store!

We are so blessed to have such an incredible museum smack dab in the middle of Austin. The Blanton is amazing. Just amazing.