.SOMETIMES RAW.

“When I’m painting, I’m not aware of what I’m doing. It’s only after a get acquainted period that I see what I’ve been about. I’ve no fears about making changes for the painting has a life of its own.” – Jackson Pollock

Let’s get lost in the World of Art shall we? If you follow me on Facebook you might have seen a couple of art-links I share; usually from the Whitney Museum, MET or MOMA which are my favorite museums in New York. I love to walk around in museums for hours and read on all the artists that I admire. Usually before I go to a museum; especially the Met, I do a little research online where I want to go exactly and what I want to see given that this particular museum is just breathtakingly huge and you could literally walk for days and still have not seen it all.

I fell in love with Jackson Pollock and his paining after seeing this documentary. I was hooked and wanted to find out everything about him and see all his paintings displayed in museums all over the U.S. The painting shown above is called “Autumn Rhythm (Number 30)” and is currently at The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. If you like abstract expressionists  you will love Jackson Pollock (1912-1956). He was a very influential American painter and is now considered the leading force of the expressionist movement. Pollock was well known for his very special type of drip painting technique on canvas. 

Jackson Pollock studied at the Students’ League in New York and met and worked with Thomas Hart Benton. (Awesome!). Pollock was influenced by Surrealism and Diego Rivera but created his own style nonetheless.  If you watch the documentary you will find out that he was famous; however, his very reclusive and unstable personality mixed with his struggle with alcoholism weren’t the best combination. He kept drinking heavily even though he married the artist Lee Krasner in 1945, who tried to make him stop drinking that much and  who was a very important influence on his career. Jackson Pollock was only 44 years old when he died in a car accident while driving himself under the influence of alcohol. He became very famous after his death with many exhibits all over the world. 

“Jackson Pollock’s greatness lies in developing one of the most radical abstract styles in the history of modern art, detaching line from color, redefining the categories of drawing and painting, and finding new means to describe pictorial space.”

 Most of his painting are huge canvases and were painted on the floor or hung on a wall. He used a this special style of letting the paint drip from the paint can. He usually never used paint brush but instead wooden sticks, knives, towels, you name it. This style is very unique and makes his artwork stick out. I love that his art totally avoids any specific or clear points and structure but it all makes sense when you look at it. Or when I look at it. 🙂 

“There was a reviewer a while back who wrote that my pictures didn’t have any beginning or any end. He didn’t mean it as a compliment, but it was.” – Jackson Pollock

After 1951, he started painting mostly in darker colors, or just in black. This period in his life is called “Black pourings” but he did not sell any paintings. He started using color again afterwards. If you enjoy Pollocks’ work, you might also like paintings by Arshile Gorky, Robert Motherwell, Mark Rothko or Willem de Kooning which are all on my top ten Abstract Expressionists list. 

The only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn like fabulous roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars and in the middle you see the blue centerlight pop and everybody goes ‘Awww!'” – Jackson Pollock

Thank you for reading and maybe you plan a museum visit to see the Abstract Expressionists. 

Advance Reading Copy Disclosure: 

Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for providing me with a free copy in exchange for an honest review. I have not read anything else by Ellis before but what drew my attention to this book the most was the cover. This does not affect my opinion of the content or the book of my review. 

“You are so bad?” is Southern Lady code for: That is the tackiest thing I’ve ever heard and I am delighted that you shared it with me. “No, you’re so bad!” is code for: Let’s snitch and bitch. “She is a character” means drunk. “she has a good time” means slut. – American Housewife, Southern Lady Code – Helen Ellis. 

If you like to pour yourself a glass of wine (or two), you love to laugh and you are basically a woman who stays at home you will love this book. This small collection of twelve short stories all talk about women who either work at home or from home. Some stories as “Dead doormen” have some dark humor and others are hilariously funny – “Southern Lady Code” for example. While I read it I caught myself saying many times that “this is so true, she is right on”. 

Helen Ellis always puts a little twist or surprise at the end of every story and the women are not who you thought they were which keeps you reading and enjoying this book so much. I definitely enjoyed the book and had a smile on my face. The book is not expected to be released until 12 January 2016 but you can pre-oder it here. I will pick up one of her other novels next: “Eating The Cheshire Cat: A Novel”. Ellis has a unique style that is at points imaginative, funny and smart and simply a pleasure to read. There will be also all sort of advice for example if you plan on staying at home to write full- time and let your husband finance it all. Ha! 

“I was surprised, as always, be how easy the act of leaving was, and how good it felt. The world was suddenly rich with possibility.”  ― Jack Kerouac, On the Road

The writer in me I guess chose a quote by Jack Kerouac’s great novel “On the Road” to start this post. If you have never read it I highly recommend that you do. Let’s get to the bottom of this road trip story I want to share. A couple of days ago my son (almost two years old) and I needed to drive to a garage to get our car checked out. It turned out that this specific garage was approximately 64 miles away. One way no less – so it is a mini road trip. My family totally is into long road trips driving all the way up to Canada but these tips I will share work well for any road trip – even smaller ones. My son loves being in the car and does not mind long road trips; however, he can get pretty annoying at points when he is bored, hungry, wet or all of the above. I want to share a couple of tricks and tips how I survive a road trip with my son and make it as comfortable as possible for everybody in the car. 

For us, timing is important. My son loves loves loves to sleep. He sleep currently from 8:30pm until 10:00am without waking up and crying once. (Lucky me for the time being, right?!) So I try not to schedule anything for before 10:00am obviously. The key is to make your child as comfortable as possible – meaning if you can avoid it, let them sleep and schedule the appointments in the afternoon for example. This way they are not fuzzy and getting up on the wrong side of the bed. Then again, if your baby sleeps well in the car simply plan your time with their regular nap time or sleeping cycle. For the road trip to the garage I left two hours earlier simply because of all the traffic, stops, diaper changes etc. You never know. Plan accordingly and keep in mind that you need to stop and make a break. I can drive easily four hours straight without stopping whenever I am alone. My son needs to walk a bit and stretch his legs after driving for 2 hours. 

I always change my son’s diaper before we leave. On this note, make sure to bring enough diapers and wipes!!!! Nothing worse than to run out of wipes!!!  I don’t need a changing table for him while on the road. I simply change him on the backseat which works fine for us. If you do need a changing table, make sure you plan ahead and see where the rest areas are with somewhat clean bathroom and available changing tables. Also bring a set of extra clothing for the baby. Bring some garbage bags or ziploc bags for diapers, dirty clothing etc. 

Make sure you bring enough snacks. My son is into apple juice for quite some time now so I bought these from Trader Joe’s:

They come with a little straw and he loves them. So I always bring a couple of those and keep them in the car just if you are stuck somewhere longer than expected. You should also have at least two bottles of water in the car at all times and some snacks for yourself (Road Safety 101 my husband would say!) As far as snacks, I usually bring sliced apples and some crackers/pretzels in a ziploc for him to nibble on. When he gets really hungry I have to stop obviously. 

I always make sure I take some toys. He has toys that he loves and one stuffed little fox that he takes wherever we go (My sisters’s son Pauli has a stuffed clown called “Siffi” that needed to come along at all times as well!) I never thought I would ever do this but we bought an iPad headrest mount. My son loves to watch Peppa Pig and Maisy Mouse, and lately anything Disney Channel, so I downloaded some of the episodes and I put it on for him whenever he does not know what else to do anymore. Usually he is fine just looking outside the window. (yeah, my son is pretty awesome!) 

This is all we take on a small road trip and so far we had no problems. Is there anything else you would take? Feel free to share in the comment box below. I would love to know how you handle road trips with your toddler(s). 

Safe and sane travels.