Art Meme

Wow. So Vanessa (who's guesting at Feministe, btw) tagged me with the "8 images that amaze you" meme and I was petrified--this chick is not much of an art connoisseur and I wondered what in the hell could I put up? The only people I know more than some customary blurb on are Tanner and O'Keefe! There are a few paintings I like (learned about them mostly as a volunteer in my son's art class) and I tried to include them, but I sorta changed the meme to "8 10 images that amaze me or that I love." Here goes:

Fortitude. I love her for the **obvious** reasons. I'm not really used to seeing her from this angle, though.

Lord this was hard to find. I remembered the name--The Cradle--but nothing else. Still need to find the artist's name. It's sad, I know, but isn't it hopeful, too? Something about the way she's nurturing the children.

Ok, a standard. Midsummer Night in Harlem by Palmer Hayden. I love the sense of community--this is my hometown in the summer. Except we don't have brownstones and stoops--we have wood frames and/or tiny brick houses and porches. And we have to wait til the sun goes down some or we'll bake.


While on photobucket checking out a friend's pics, I stumbled upon this, by an Anthony Rodgers, and I liked it a lot. I'm trying to contact him to convince him to call it "Elle A-Straddle the World."


My mom and her beloved baby brother, mid 1950s. My uncle died a few years ago and my mom has never really recovered.

A history of military service-the first is my dad, all young and slim, in Vietnam. He reminds me (when he will talk about it) that he was old enough to be killed, but not old enough to buy a drink, during his first tour.

The second is the only extant (that we know of) picture of my paternal grandfather. He was a World War II vet.

**picture removed**

For juxtaposition, the first picture is of my paternal grandmother, 6 of her granddaughters and 3 of her grandsons (there are 21 of us in all) circa 1987. The next is of all 9 of her granddaughters (for a limited time. God, we all have the same smile!) circa 2003. Can you tell who the six grew up to be? Hint—the two oldest girls (another cousin and me) are not in the first pic and the youngest wasn’t born when it was taken. Picture number 2 is a hot commodity in my family--grainy, but the only one of its kind as my family is widely strewn and we've had one family reunion in my memory.





This spot is reserved for an image that I saw recently that I can't find. It is in the closing credits of Spike Lee's "When the the Levees Broke," an image of a black woman wrapped in an American flag--I may have posted about this already. That image was startling to me and I had to figure out why. I came up with two reasons-one, perhaps I don't really think of that flag as belonging to us and/or two, when you see people wrapped in it, the message usually is that the flag (or the country) offers support or protection--a gross misstatement in the case of Hurricane Katrina survivors.


Ok, I'ma tag a bunch, in hopes that at least a couple will find the time and desire to do it. I tag (complete at your leisure--if you're a meme person) Quinn, Gwyneth, Evanne, Ragey, Zan, Moksha, Nubian, and Ginviren. I'm too lazy to hyperlink y'all's names right now.

Update: Moksha, I started this Friday and I know you've been tagged by someone else in the interim.