Thursday, March 10, 2016

Catching Up 2

This series continues yesterday's drawings of Egyptian artifacts.  Why are odd little figures -- fertility figures, votives--so appealing?  Every culture seems to have them if you dig around for a while.  I can't get enough of them.
On the left is a spectacular figurative harp from the Mangbetu people, made of wood and hide.  On the right are artifacts from Nate and Abby's bedrooms-- a gold cloth pillow from Nate's gold phase and a plastic hedgehog from one of Abby's collections.
And here are some more or less goofy drawings of N and A, made while they were in constant motion.  Also a demo car bounce seismograph.
On Thursday Nate's other grandparents came up for the day. We four took him to a fine little museum in Morristown.  The delightful 4:1 ratio allowed me to spend a little time drawing alone.  Here are some eerie and enigmatic figurative and goose-like game pieces made of ceramic by a local artist. I wish I had had time to also draw the game board.
Nate and I found a room of Native American artifacts.  We drew together, and below are guest blogger Nate's drawings made while looking at the objects he most liked.
He wrote "amulets" above his drawing on the left. The drawing on the right is of a complex mask at the Met , to which we returned the next day.
On the left is a giant seed pod that Nate found in Mexico when his other grandparents took his whole family and cousins on a grand winter vacation.  On the rest of the double page are little tomb figures from the Met.  I am intrigued by these-- the two on the left are called shawabtys and are workmen for the afterlife.  The five on the right are viscera figures made of mud cores covered with wax and placed inside mummies for good luck.
On Friday E, P, and I brought Nate back to the Met. We focused on the Oceanic and Ancient Americas rooms as well as the Egyptian collections.  Nate's favorite room that day was the one with masks. Here he is drawing with his paper up against a glass case; below are two of his drawings.

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