Hello CIWT World --- Days 14 141-143

Walks: Hood

Distances: 3.75 miles average

Hello, loyal readers.  Happy May.  Ciwt is thinking of you and just waiting for ideas to show up.  

A Mother in Art --- Days 14/137-140

Walks: Hood and Short

Distances: 2.5 miles average

Joaquín Sorolla y Bastida, Mother, ca. 1895, o/c

When she saw it this morning Ciwt was completely enchanted by this painting by the Spanish artist Joaquin Sorolla commemorating his wife and the birth of their youngest daughter, Elena.  

How perfect that it showed up on Mother's Day.  Happy Mother's Day to all (grand, great grand) mothers around the world. 

Power Suits 2025 --- Days 14/135 & 136

Walks: Housebound with 😷😷

Distances: n/a

Well, darn, once again Ciwt wasn't 'able to make' (read 'invited to'): fashion's biggest night, The Met Gala.  Of course she went right to the pictures, and remembered her 20year old self in NYC nervously dressing for her first post college job interviews. Imagine if she (or her boyfriend) had shown up in one of these 'power suits!'  

Colman Domingo in a Valentino by Alessandro Michele zoot suit at the Met Gala

Teyana Taylor co-created by her and Black Panther costume designer Ruth E Carter

Ooops..Sabrina Taylor in (sort of) Louis Vuitton

 

Same Flight/Different Landing --- Day 14/134

 Walk: T Joe's

Distance: 2.5 miles

Jimmy Butler

So, one of the things Ciwt admires about many elite athletes is their ability to stay focused on winning right to the very last buzzer - no matter how harrowing the circumstances.  A few of her favorite examples are Joe Montana calmly surveying the field for a receiver with less than ten seconds on the clock, and Rafa Nadal throwing himself entirely into every shot after hours of playing.  

And last night, the aging Golden State Warriors winning game 7 of the playoffs.  Throughout the series there were the inevitable newspaper headlines about how unfair the refs were to the Warriors or how brutally guarded Curry was by the Rockets or how punishing their schedule was with all the plane rides.  Poor, poor Warriors.

But, as always,  the players themselves were having none of it. The best of them are not looking for excuses or handouts.  They know winning is up to them and they take full responsibility for - actually seem to look forward to -  the challenge.  When some reporter started down the 'terrible schedule' road with Jimmy Butler the other day, he brushed him off completely:  

“We’ll be all right. I’m 35, I can’t remember how old Steph is, Dray is 35, too. Everybody’s got to travel the same distance. Ain’t like we’re going to go around the world and land in Houston and they got only a five minute flight to Houston. They’ve got to travel just like we’ve got to travel.”

She also Loves! die hard fans - no matter what the team.  Last night's game was out of town and televised.  But  lots of Warriors fans weren't sitting at home watching it.  Instead they came to the stadium, set themselves up in their portable chairs, and cheered for their team.  Wonder if the closed circuit tv worked in reverse so the players could see their fans supporting them.  Probably some people were sending iPhone videos.   

Post-Tour Clean Up --- Days 14/130-133

Walks: Legion of Honor

Distances: 2.5 miles

Joseph Baumhauer (maker), Commode, mid 18th C, Bloodwood, Kingwood marquetry, marble top, gilt bronze mounts
  

So, preparing for for a recent tour of the Legion of Honor Museum, Ciwt got reacquainted with some of her favorite works - this French commode for one. Ciwt is not a fan of the Rococo paintings  (to her too light and silly) that dominate the walls of Louis XIV's (1643-1715)  Versailles Palace, but she loves how Rococo's curvy openess, lightness and sense of movement works with some of the fashionable furniture of that era. 

This commode's easy gracefulness was a remarkably difficult achievement even for the supremely talented cabinet maker Joseph Baumhauer.  For openers the woods used needed to be imported from South America and were some of the most expensive, dense and difficult to work with using the hand tools of the day.  The green marble that complements the wood tones needed to be sought and then also imported, shaped and carved along the rim to its high level of refinement.  In all the commode demanded more than a thousand man hours.

Perhaps most noteworthy is the commode's gilt bronzing, known as ormolu, which blends with the wood tones and complements the gracefulness of the commode without tipping over into garishness. Ormolu is a highly skilled, intensive - and dangerous - process where shaped bronze surface is coated with a mixture of ground gold and mercury and heated over an open fire.  This work so close to intense heat was known to be perilous at the time, but sadly, it wasn't discoverd until years later that the noxious mercury fumes could be and often were fatal.  (Legislation around 1830 outlawed the use of mercury, and electro-plating - a safer, cheaper process began in the mid 19th century).

When this piece was produced, commodes were just being introduced and sought after by the French upper classes eager to outfit their homes in the new fashionable style.  Because of the materials used and the, literally thousands of man hours necessary for such high quality pieces, they were also the only ones who could afford the cost of such works.  But gradually and thankfully because of their usefulness for attractive storage, and with increasing and less expensive methods of  producing of furniture, commodes made their way from royal and aristocratic homes to homes like Ciwt's and yours.  And became known as chests of drawers or bureaus.

Risky Business --- Days 14/126 - 129

Walks: Legion of Honor x 3

Distances: 3 miles x 3

So Ciwt's private art tours business is among the world's least hazardous.  The possible perils include things like:

1. Totally zoning out and not remembering any titles, artists, art facts.  So far so good on that.

2. Not establishing good communication with her clients.  This usually happens when someone brings a (grand)child(ren) with iPhone(s).  And yes it has happened several times to Ciwt.

3. Unexpected rehanging of works Ciwt has included in her tour.

Well, hazard 3 has happened.  Ciwt is booked to give a tour of an entire museum this weekend.  She's done it many times before and has a general plan she usually follows.  To confirm that all was a-ok, she went to the museum in question a couple of days ago.  And 😧😬😮😨😱  

Important works (to Ciwt's tour) have been removed; Unimportant works (to Ciwt's tour) have been taken out of storage and put on the walls.  The chronology of every room is completely different.  So, pardon Ciwt while she reorders her understanding of the museum's collection - so well that she can present it in a couple of days.  Suddenly such risky business....

Some Things Are Always Delicious --- Day 14/125

Walk: Union Square Dentist

Distance: 5.8 miles

Wayne Thiebaud, Bakery Counter, 1962, o/c

Legion of Honor Museum, Bakery Counter, 2025

Rough Fluff --- Day 14/124

Walk: AMC Kubuki (The Account 2)

Distance: 3 miles

Ben Affleck and Jon Bernthal on top of Airstream in The Account 2

Perfect!  A plot-holed, rock em/sock em, buddy movie where (spoiler alert) all the bad people were blown away and all the good people lived.  Ciwt was looking for exactly kind of fluff, and she got it.