creative inspo: palm springs museum of art and architecture + design

I spent the morning at the Palm Springs Museum of Art and its Architecture + Design wing about a half mile away.                   

 

I do like this first sculpture I saw.

 

Already this piece was giving me ideas because what is clay anyway but mud? And I do love natural materials like wood. I'd love to do a sculpture of a dog and clad it in sticks.

And I'm disappointed that I didn't get to view closer or do a driving tour on my own of any mid century architecture on this trip, and so I satisfied myself with just looking at this model of one. 

  

And then I started to look at the paintings more closely. I do like the focus of this museum on modern and contemporary art.

 

I was entranced at first glance by this color palette.

    

but I'm even more enthralled by the finger painting. It's a method to consider when applying underglazes or slip, which is just liquid clay, to a clay body. Finger painting would be so apropos if you've pinched a pot with your fingers

And I appreciated an abstract landscape of the surrounding San Jacinto Mountains because I do love the landscape views in this area.

  

I especially loved this sculpture.

  

 

Of course, it's Maya Lin. I know she designed the Vietnam Memorial wall in Washington, D.C., but I wonder where I can view her her buildings. And maybe it's time to find a biography of her and learn about her environmentalism.

I was especially impressed by the glass collection in the museum. I studied this one a lot.

   

This "protrustion" would be cool to render in a quilt.

  

I wasn't sure about the Bourgeois juxtaposed these sculptures together, and I love that 

  

I Googled Bourgeois and learned that she uses the spider, both predator (a sinister threat) and protector (an industrious repairer) to symbolize the mother figure. I couldn't help but think of the myth of Arachne and Athena and their contest of weaving.

Here's a glass sculpture that I loved. It's inspiring me to make a planter of the same nature with stairs inset into the column.

   

I also really liked this glass open orb (but not if you view it from the back and its left and right sides, where it's elliptical rather than round) with its icicle-like sides.

 

 

I totally see the influence of Piet Mondrian on this painting.

I do like the palette of gray and white and yellow, but not so much the purple and blue and celadon.

Quite a few museum-goers studied this installation, and it's only on this computer screen that I can more easily read this text art.

 

Kind of amusing to listen to grandparents and their kids try to read aloud the text. Oh and there was a painting from one of my favorite Southern California artists like Ed Ruscha, but not any of his word art.

This particular glass sculpture for sure evokes Southern California though perhaps not of Palm Springs.

I did like the layered painting of this Mexican artist.

  

Afterward I visited the museum shop, which Judy said was her favorite place to shop. However, there were no particular objects I wanted to give her, something beautiful but utilitarian. I did love the purse below, but I know women are very particular with their accessories and maybe I thought the bag was something I like but maybe she wouldn't like as much.  I sat on the museum steps to get my bearings and decide whether to walk or drive to the architecture + design wing. 

And here’s the irony of me exploring the art and design of a chair, which can as simple as the orange cushions upholstered for the museum steps in the pic above….

But once at the architecture + design part of the museum, which I drove to, I found the sign below so ironic. If a chair is a work of art, can you still sit on it? 

I think of chairs as articles for USE, not so much as works of ART though definitely the design of a chair can be thoughtful and crafted by hand. I used to love a cane seat, and 

 

What's interesting about this chair is its origins in the mid 1800s and that they're still manufactured in both Germany and in the United States. I'm kind of astounded that their bent plywood side chairs look so much like an Eames and are priced about $1,028 each. Jiminy!

Okay here's the chair I know and love. I have a knock-off that I got for free at Ginseng where I bought my leather couch and the furniture store took too long to deliver my $1,000 couch. 

If I ever came into any money, I would get another bent plywood lounge chair at Design Within Reach, where the Santos Palisander finish is $1525.75 on sale. 

I've also been in love forever with the Nakashima chair, a Japanese and modern interpretation of the Windsor chair.

If I ever come into a small fortune, I would replace my 4 Ikea Windsor-style chairs and purchase a set of the Nakashima straight-back chair with its walnut frame and hickory spindles at Design Within Reach which are $1039 each.

Here's an impractical chair if I ever saw one.   Oof never for me .

I finally found a hostess gift that I think Judy would like at the Bradford W. Bates Vault store within in Architecture and Design Center. 

 

Judy said she liked it and commented that I have good taste, and I'm inspired to make a similar-looking tea towel.