The Scape Goat of the Family

I thought it fitting to tell my scape goating story after today's double presentations on this topic. And I also learned from another presentation that by telling this story I am making myself immortal in all of your minds....however creepy that may seem....here we go! When I was fourteen years old my family took our annual holiday to Grand Junction Colorado for our ski trip. After our second day of skiing we had a huge dinner as usual and all my little cousins were begging me to take them to the hot tubs at the base of the hill. I agreed and started our walk to take our hot tub. After about twenty minutes of hanging out my little five year old cousin Hannah started to complain about the water hurting her. I was the oldest there, but also helping me watch the younger kids was my brother who was twelve and my other cousin who was Hannah's older sister. We all ignored her and kept on with our game of I spy. Ten minutes went by and Hannah started to cry, we were all upset that she was ending our soak and took her back to the condo. When we got there she was still crying and her mom discovered a rash that had broke out from the chlorine. She was upset that we ignored her crys and although my brother was there, who had begged me to let the little ones go, pleading that he would watch her, and her older sister was there, both had no problem pointing the finger of blame straight in my direction. And I became the scape goat! The End!

Cupid and Psyche

The current assignment was to find a visual representations for the story of Cupid and Psyche. I found this beautiful picture on ART.COM called "Psyche et l'Amour"by Francois Gerard......And now for the who, what, when and where......At the age of twelve Gerard obtained admission into the Pension du Roi in Paris From the Pension he passed to the studio of the sculptor Augustin Pajou which he left at the end of two years for that of the painter Brenet, whom he quit almost immediately to place himself under Jacques-Louis David In 1796 a portrait of his generous friend (in the Louvre) obtained undisputed success, and the money received from Isabey for these two works enabled Gerard to execute in 1797 his Psyche et l'Amour.

Nobody Thinks an Ass is Listening....

The Golden Ass is actually the first version of the Televisions show Mr. Ed, or better known by Dr. Sexson is Francis the Talking Mule. The Golden Ass is the first story of Cupid and Psyche..As well as the first Monster in Law story, all with each owns moral..but of course.....the moral of the story IS the story, taken all the way home by yours truly...Shakespeare, who plagiarized and or channeled OVID'S METAMORPHOSIS. In he Golden Ass we end where we begin...."we shall not stop from exploration, but arrive where we started, and know the place for the first time." A mix of of Disney....Cinderella, Snow White, and Sleeping Beauty. Cinderella must undergo her own trials to get where she needs to be or end up.... she in must clean the entire house and finish all chores before she can go to the ball, and out from all the little cracks comes cute little talking mice....NO! Wait! That's wrong!! Out from the cracks came ANTS!! Or possibly she must obtain sheeps wool, or fetch water with the help of an eagle, or knock on the Avon lady's door and ask nicely "hey lady, just hand over the make-up or the fluffy gets it!!" In other words, the worst Mother in Law in the whole world!!!

Only Five Lines???

How is a person who has been asked to read the entire book of The Metamorphoses of Ovid supposed to pick and choose and narrow down 550 pages full of words into just five lines?? Well, since we were asked...I chose my five lines from my favorite story, Pyramus and Thisbe.
I let you be the first who would arrive.
O all you lions with your liars beneath
this cliff, come now, and with your fierce jaws feast
upon my wretched guts! But cowards talk
as I do--longing for their death but not prepared to act.

I chose these five lines because it is just such an ironic mix up of each of the characters thinking the other had died before she had, and then he killing him self because he let her show up first. Then she finds him and also kills herself. I just really like the end when Pyramus talks about how some lovers say they would rather die then be without their love, but not really mean it, calling them "cowards".....very true I think.

Diego Velázquez Art Work

I searched for the paintings by Velázquez and found many of his works, however I was unable to find the piece called "spinets" which could possibly be because I mis-heard the name of the work. But here are a few of his other pieces:

The Love of Art

The art works of Titian:

Titian or Tiziano Vecellio was born in a small alpine village of Pieve di Cadore, where his family lived for many years. In 1498, at the age of nine or ten, Titian and his older brother Francesco were to Venice to start training as painters in the workshop of the mosaicist Sebastiano Zuccato. Though soon Titian left his workshop and began studying painting in the workshops of Gentile Bellini and Giovanni Bellini. It's said that his earliest surviving work Pope Alexander VI Presenting Jacopo Pesaro to Saint Peter(1502-1512) was influenced by Giovanni Bellini. In 1507, Titian joined the workshop of Giorgione as his assistant and three years which he spent with this amazing master, were a lasting influence on Titian to such a degree, that some works which are now thought to have been painted by Titian used to be attributed to Giorgione, and vice versa. This is the painting called "The Rape of Europe."sorry I couldn't get it any bigger :(

My Pick of the Ovid's Litter

It was a hard choice of course, but the assignment was to pick my favorite story out of the Metamorphoses of Ovid, and I did just that....Pyramus and Thisbe. This story was similar qualities to Romeo and Juliet, being as the two lovers end up killing themselves for the other one. This seems to me to be a creation story, one of the great Mythos if you ask me, about how the Mulberry Berries came to be the dark red color. It was said that in the beginning...(I can always hear Dr. Sexson's deep narrator voice sound in my head when I say that...IN THE BEGINNING)....Anyways, it was said that the berries were white. These two neighbors were head over heels for each other but were forbidden by their parents to be together, and would talk to each other through a crack in the wall their homes shared. One night they had big plans to sneak out and meet. Thisbe arrived early and ran into a lion, as she ran to hide he shawl was dropped which was found and torn to shreds leaving blood from the animal the lion had just sparagmosed. Pyramus found the Shawl and believing the lion ate his lover he blamed himself for making her come in the night and killed himself under the Mulberry, and the blood was soaked up by the roots and changed color of the berries. The tragedy must come into play at some point right?? Well here it comes.....Thisbe finds her lover already dead, prays that there bodies be buried as one, and kills herself as well, and that my folks is how the Mulberry Bush berries turned red. ....."O tree, who now shade with your branches the poor body of one, and soon will shade two, keep the marks of our death and always bear your fruit of a dark colour as a memorial of our double death......." Although this story is rather sad, I must admit that I found it funny to picture these two crazy love birds talking to their walls and asking the wall why is was so jealous, asking the wall to open its crack just a tid bit more so they could give a little kiss :)