Monday, January 21, 2013

cultivating the mind

On Sunday I went to the last showing of Frida and Diego: Passion, Politics and Paintings. To be honest I was never a fan of Frida. I went out of curiosity because she is an all time favourite amongst several art journaling artist I love.

I was deeply touched by the paintings and photos I saw. The immeasurable love she had for her husband, her personal pain due to her bus accident and numerous miscarriages. Frida's true story is reflected in her self portraits, a contrast to her very colorful appearance and style.

Most of the self portrait displayed Frida with a solemn expression, never smiling and looking straight at you, defiant? The only paintings that were different was when she painted her pain shown by tears,closed eyes or painful facial expression and she used a lot of symbols to describe her pain.

Diego had self portraits where he was smiling but Frida, no (I am not familiar w/ her art so I am not sure if it applies all her pictures). A few were focused on her relationship w/ Diego and its importance to her.

There were several photographs and one of my favourite was the one below:

I am definitely grateful to AGO to have helped me discover more of these two amazing Mexican artists and their beliefs and to show glimpses of their life.

Another event I went to in Thursday evening was the Mozart convert performed by TSO. We had the lovely Symphony 40, Serenade 12 in C minor and Sinfonia concertante in E-Flat Major for Violin and Viola.

We had an amazing duo for the Violin and Viola part. It was definitely enjoyable to close my eyes and savour each note played. It was the first time I ever listened to a live symphony and it was lovely.

I was expecting something more grandiose (I guess I watched too much youtube) but I love the TSO performance at the Roy Thompson hall. It was more personal and I was on the balcony on the side of the orchestra. When I was not closing my eyes I was watching the movement of the musicians on their instruments. I am in love w/ the cello. I swear if yoyoma comes to Toronto again to perform, I am SO going to go.

I know he was there in 2012 or 2011 and I missed his performance :( His rendition of Cello suite 1-prelude by Bach is just lovely. It's my preferred version of all as in some, the musicians go too slow or too fast. I love Maisky rendition as well

interesting twist w/ a some notes of ave maria??

I need more time to go and listen to classical music live. I LOVE Bach so I do hope to attend one of his symphonies soon.

It's these types of little things that made me grateful I am in Canada: Van Gogh Up Close in Ottawa in 2012, the dalai lama talk show in toronto 2011/2012?, high park sakura blooms, Cirque du soleil amaluna 2012 etc.

There is so much to discover, to see and I can't wait to get my citizenship and hit the museums in New York city and San Fran although the best for me would be to live in Europe!

goals for 2013: -attend another live symphony -musical book of mormon -go to centre island in summer -hike, hike and hike!! -watch salmon spawn -yoga??? i want to learn the crow pose. so COOL!!!!

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