Holy Toledo!

I was lucky enough to have a three day weekend during this unseasonably warm March weather and I took full advantage. My windows are open and the front porch has been heavily in use over the past few days.

While Friday was dedicated to running errands and cleaning the house, and Sunday was spent relaxing, reading, and dinner with friends, Saturday the husband and I took a road trip to Toledo to visit the art museum. It was a perfect day for a drive and our route took us through some areas that were great for viewing wildlife and beautiful scenery.

I'd been to Toledo once, back in 1999 for a special exhibit of the artist Sandy Skoglund. My high school art teacher told my class about the show and I was so taken with the artist's colorful installation pieces, that I pestered my dad to drive myself and a friend to the museum until he relented. That show was spectacular and my visit to the museum this past weekend was just as good. Not only does the Toledo Museum of Art have an impressive permanent collection, their current display was one of the best exhibits I've seen in a long time. The exhibit, called Small Worlds, showcases five contemporary artists working in small scale. The featured artists are: Gregory Euclide, Joe Fig, Charles Kanwischer, Lori Nix, and Tabaimo.

The two bodies of work that stood out the most for me are Lori Nix's post-apocalyptic scenes of abandoned buildings, which aren't real structures at all but sets that she fabricated herself and photographed, and Joe Fig's dollhouse-like models of famous artist's studios, rendered down to the tiniest detail. My litmus test for whether or not I think a work of art is good, is if I'm jealous of the piece, and I was definitely jealous that I hadn't created such brilliant things as, not only Lori Nix and Joe Fig, but all of the artists in the exhibit. 
 
The exhibition runs through March 25th, so if you're in the Toledo area before then, I highly recommend checking it out.  

It was great to have a few days off and to get out of the house. It's always really inspiring to see some art. It makes me start thinking about what I might want to make next. I have too little time for creativity these days, so it's nice to do something that reminds me about that part of myself and prompts me to get working.