NIklas' Room

Yesterday I posted the healthy sea star. Then we left for Seattle and saw Orcas from the ferry! (of course I didn't have my good camera with me, just then little sony but the whales were just swimming along...) a most amazingly lit Mt. Baker with the almost full moon, the border crossing in that wonderful twilight, etc, so I did post those on a small flickr set…..and I haven’t had a chance to do the latest sea star research yet. Too much catch up. And too much terrible traffic to get anywhere here!

I love the story of today’s blip and Nik’s room. Last April, during spring break, H and I took Nik to NYC - we had a wonderful time. One of the places we visited (of course!) was MOMA (Museum of Modern Art) where he could not believe that “Grandma’s room” was hung on the wall there. (I had painted a small bathroom in our condo to look like the The Rousseau painting, the Dream -it was like that forever til it got repainted as the elephant bath this year, blipped earlier) Then he saw other paintings he had seen pictures of (not too many of this caliber in Seattle!) and got excited by the art of Matisse, Van Gogh, Picasso, Pollack etc etc.etc. When he came to this painting by Ad Reinhardt, the abstract expressionist from the 60s, he told me right then and there that this is how he wanted to paint his room! (since he was our first grandchild, I had painted his “nursery” with whimsical figures, such as Winnie the Pooh with a golf club, horses and moose etc) It was definitely time for a new 11 year old “look”! So this is what happened this summer (without me)! They looked at paintings on the internet and picked out colors and his Dad, who is a good painter, did most of the painting with Nik’s direction. I hadn’t seen it. Today we went to Nik’s soccer game in 85 F heat! - (awful!) and tonight we went out to my birthday dinner with them (yum, unfortunately the granddaughters and family couldn’t make it at the last minute ,- so we will have yet another:-)) We went to nearby Nik’s house after dinner - there was a fabulous garden art sculpture birthday present waiting for me, picked out by Oskar - it will go outside at the island! (to be blipped at a future date!) I didn’t have a tripod so haven’t done the best job with this hard to light room, but you get the idea — with the inspiration from Ad Reinhardt’s painting at MOMA on the left. 3 walls like this. The 4th, plain grey covered with poster art and shelves. The Youtube painting he did this summer in the island studio. I think it is so astounding he loved the art we saw so much and followed through with his idea! Isn’t he a cool kid? ( I am just a tad biased I know, but that’s a Nanna’s privilege!)

a couple more views here