Tag Archives: art

On the Street: 5th Avenue at 41st Street

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I was doing some research at the New York Public Library’s main reference branch yesterday, and when I left the library and crossed the street, I spotted this mural. It’s painted on a pair of doors off to the side of the Andaz Fifth Avenue, a hotel that I’d never really noticed before.

The painting is signed by artist Aimee Cavazzi. I looked her up when I got home and learned that she is “artist in residence” at the Andaz. She painted this work just a few weeks ago, and she says,

“I would take the train in the spring time and early summer as a young teenager and felt, just as the picture depicts, inspired, overwhelmed and in awe of the immensity and intensity of the city.”

I know what she means, and I’m glad I still feel the same way in New York sometimes: energized, happily astonished, percolating with ideas, drawing inspiration from my surroundings.

You can see some photos of Cavazzi (and her students!) at work on the mural here.

Image: photo by Tinsel Creation.

Just Because: Venus del Pomo

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From the Museo Nacional del Prado in Madrid: a classical marble statue of the goddess Venus. It is a Roman copy of a Greek original, and it dates to 150 B.C. A seventeenth-century artist added the perfume bottle under the goddess’s right hand, giving the statue its nickname of “Venus del Pomo.”

You can read more about this work of art on the Prado’s website, here.

Image: Venus del Pomo via virgi.pla on Flickr.

Merry Christmas!

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Wishing you a magical holiday!

Image: Illustration by Helen Dryden for VOGUE, December 1920.

Just Because: Winslow Homer, The Country School

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I was about to finish writing another post for today, but the news on the radio has distracted and saddened me.

So, instead of a lip balm review (maybe tomorrow), here’s a painting by one of my favorite artists, with a wish for more American children to be kept innocent and safe in their daily lives, and a prayer for those who were killed in Connecticut today.

Image: Winslow Homer, The Country School, 1871, St. Louis Art Museum.

Just Because: Edvard Munch, The Storm


Hoping that all of us in the hurricane’s path will remain safe and sound.

Edvard Munch, The Storm (1893), Museum of Modern Art, New York. 

(You can read more about this painting here.)