Art Museum Treasures

Being abroad gives me the opportunity to travel and see artwork that I might not find in typical history books. The piece above is titled "Alleluia" and was painted by Thomas Cooper Gotch (1854–1931). It's in the Tate Britain with all of my favorite Pre-Raphaelite artists. Part of the reason that this piece struck me so much was that, unlike the vast majority of the paintings in the Tate, I'd never seen a reproduction of it before.

Adolf Hiremy-Hirschl (1860-1933), Die Seelen des Acheron

Vlastimil Hofman, Madonna

The two paintings above are from the Belvedere Museum in Vienna. Both of the pieces are very large and I truly had an emotional response to them. Again, they are by artists that were previously unknown to me.

Photography in the United Kingdom

all images © 2009 Meredith Hale

Adobe Illustrator

© 2009 Meredith Hale

Ruben Toledo and Classic Book Covers

Ruben Toledo Gives Bronte and Austen Fashion Makeovers

While browsing through books at a Borders with my twin sister I found three classic books with covers completely transformed by the artwork of Ruben Toledo, a well-known fashion illustrator and artist. His covers aren't really a direction I want to go in, but it makes me wonder if this is a new direction for classic book covers in general. Dame Darcy also recently illustrated Jane Eyre in a somewhat similar style.

Charley Harper

The Art of Charley Harper

I found this artist while visiting the Art Institute of Chicago. He is especially known for his artwork of birds. In High School I was a member of the Science Olympiad team and went to the State competition for an event focused on bird identification. Because of that experience I have always had an interest in ornithology.

Tord Boontje

www.tordboontje.com

While at the Indianapolis Museum of Art I came across the work of Tord Boontje. His use of design and pattern, especially under his Tableware, Products, and Textile sections, is beautiful.

The Gateway to the Soul

I made this movie freshman year of college and looking over it now I can definitely tell that I made it a while ago, but I still feel like it brings up an important topic, one that I have especially been thinking about lately, so I'd like to share it. It questions the connection between a person's actions and a person's true self. Although I too love the Batman quote, "It's not who I am underneath but what I do that defines me," I feel that this quote is limited. People do things all the time that contradict their very personhood. Having just lost my very best friend to suicide, I have become overly aware of this contradiction. I feel that my attempts to piece together what our friendship was by writing down on paper the things we did together is simply incapable of capturing who we were to each other. I also think his final action to take his life does not relate in any way to the extremely intelligent and caring friend I knew. We love other human beings not because of what they do, but because of who we know them to be within.

In contrast to the other art I make, this is all about the subject matter and less about the actual visual image. I really enjoyed writing the script. Please enjoy it for what it is.

Note: The music that plays throughout the movie is the inversion of the piano music that my sister plays towards the end of the movie. This is yet another one of my attempts to emphasize the erasure of our physical actions. What is interesting in this example is that the inversion of the music does not leave the listener with nothingness, but instead reveals an entirely new song.

I Eat, I Sleep, I Run

all images © 2007-2008 Meredith Hale

Photography in Florence

Italy was filled with beautiful doors, but this one above has to be one of my favorites. I thought the birds were quite appropriate since the house was in Assisi.

San Miniato

I found this wall in the Assisi train station. I think everyone there thought I was crazy for taking pictures of a wall, but I really thought that the transitions from black to white were interesting.

This was taken from the top of the Campanille in Florence. The building with the blue dome in the background is the synagogue. I found this picture interesting just because of the juxtaposition in size of the two buildings of worship. The Duomo dominates while the synagogue in the background is so small - of course I love the complimentary colors as well.

The above picture was taken in the graveyard of San Miniato which is just past Piazza Michelangelo. The cemetery was one of my favorite places in all of Florence. This is just another example of how art is not only found in museums.

Santa Croce

Nothing is photoshopped in this.

all images © 2008 Meredith Hale