Call of the Panther

Panther Valley is not hard to find, just follow the exit signs off the freeway going north from Reno. Panther Valley park on the other hand is not easy to find. Unless you have been there before you could drive around for a while looking for the park. I have been there before so I thought I would go see the panther sculpture, since I must have missed it the first time around. Well the first time I missed it was because I didn't know it was there, this time I was looking for it and couldn't find it. I drove around the park twice and decided to get out and look around on foot. The park is pretty small maybe a little over 2 acres, and walking around took all of 10 minutes. I still couldn't find it so I walked around again, just when hope was lost I started back to my car. Low and behold I found it, I parked not 10 feet from it. The sculpture is a mosaic of a panther, but on one side (the one I happened to be on) it is black with green and brown grasses camouflaging it in the bushes. The other side is quite colorful and the mosaic has smaller panthers inside of the bigger one. It is very well done, and once I stopped kicking myself for not seeing it, I thought it very clever to have it hidden in the bushes. It really is quite a beautiful piece of art you just have to look around a bit to find it.

 That's my car in the background. Ha Ha

My Derive

As I drifted the riverwalk in downtown Reno the way the wind was moving the trees caught my eye. I decided to focus on the movement I saw around me.
 I took several pictures of the leaves caught in the current.

 The leaves reminded me of the movement in our everyday lives, how one minute we are drifting along and the next we get caught up in a whirl wind of activity just to be cast out and calm again.

 Watching the leaves and ribbons dancing in the wind.

 Hearing the movement of water rushing in the fountains.

 Feeling the calm and power of the river flowing beside you.

 All to end up drifting calmly again.

Treaty Signing at Medicine Creek Lodge

In 1867 a treaty was signed between several Native American Nations and the United States government. This treaty signing took place a Medicine Creek Lodge off the Arkansas River. Jon Taylor was hired to make sketches of the treaty signing by Leslie's Illustrated Gazette. Howling Wolf was the son of the Cheyenne chief that witnessed the treaty signing. Both of these men were artists and both made sketches of what happened there. These men were from very different cultures and we can see clearly how this influenced their works. John Taylor was an educated white man that was hired to make the sketches, his work is what we would call sophisticated. you can clearly make out the clearing, as well as trees and faces. both white men and Native Americas are very detailed. you are looking at the scene from Taylor's perspective and feel as if you are there. Howling Wolf's work has the feeling of a child's crayon sketch, it is in a top down perspective and you can see the way the river bends and the tribes colors, but very few faces. you can draw a few conclusions from looking at these works side by side. Taylor saw what was important to his people, the treaty signing an the men involved. From Wolf's work you see the river where the signing took place and you see the tribes that were involved. the cultural differences between these two artists are loud and clear. What one man sees as important is not always what others see as important. that is what makes these two works so wonderful, you can compare the two cultures and artists side by side both showing the same event yet in very different ways.

Ana Mendieta

Ana Mendieta was a Cuban refuge that fled to America when she was a child. Her early art career she experimented with social taboos, and the subject of sacrifice and crime of and on women. Mendieta's later works were her series of 'Silueta' (silhouette) works. These are images of her silhouette imprinted into nature landscapes. Mendieta stated once that" I wanted my images to have power, to be magic." Her work not only shows her personal feelings and spiritual side but since she uses herself in her art that makes it all the more intimate. I have included several sites that will take you to some of Mendieta's works.
 http://hirshhorn.si.edu/visit/in_depth.asp?key=33&subkey=57 
http://images.search.yahoo.com/search/images?_adv_prop=image&fr=yfp-t-701-2&va=ana+mendieta+works

"The Crooked Timber"

     As you look around the Chester Arnold exhibit at the Nevada Museum of Art you cannot escape the reoccurring theme in his work: Waste. Whether that waste is garbage, crumbling landscapes, or human struggles, Arnold's work has them all. One work caught my eye though because it is on a lesser scale than most. "The Crooked Timber" depicts a fallen tree, old and gnarled over grown with moss and lying across a small path cutting through a field. In the bottom corner, Arnold has painted a door, a piece of tin, a rake- just the sort of odd accumulation of trash that bombards his other paintings in the gallery. The crooked tree dominates the picture and as you look closer you can tell it fell from old age, not destroyed by man.
     Arnold was inspired by a quote from the eighteenth century German philosopher  Immanuel Kant "Out of the crooked timber of humanity, no strait thing was ever made."( Idea for a Universal History with a Cosmopolitan Intent" Kant 1784) in which Kant is referring to politics and the makings of constitution and governments and how man is not perfect so there is no way to make a perfect government from man. The whole quote reads " This task therefore is the hardest of all; indeed, its complete solution is impossible, for from such crooked wood as man is made of, nothing perfectly strait can be built." (Kant)
     Arnold grew up in post war Germany where a new government was forming so I think that Arnold related to Kant's observation on politics. We can see that this is relateable  today with so many types of governments and how most, if not all, are flawed. At first, I thought Arnold's panting was nice, there wasn't much waste and destruction, until I read and researched about it. Now I realize it is fitting and quite appropriate in today's society. I respect Arnold's work and find it amusing that such political undertones are placed in a painting of a fallen tree.