it's at a museum parking lot so it must be art

a lot of museums have admission free days. today being the first friday of the month was the free day for the pasadena museum of california art. the first thing i noticed about the place was that even the parking garage features artwork. while at the store i saw posters for an exhibit they had earlier in the year on the works of mark ryden. his work seems familiar though it may simply be the style--a really creepy yet sweet image, which is totally american in my opinion. it just seems to be a commentary on how we try to project ourselves as being and how we actually are; also the two extremes of the spectrum fused together.

the museum was featuring a retrospective exhibit of alson clark who i've never heard of before but that's ok because i can only name a handful of painters and they all have calendars. clark is an impressionist and i hate impressionists, especially french impressionists. his early work was all that french impressionist jazz and it's so tired. how many times have we seen a nude, paris streets, or a field of flowers? too many! i liked his later period when he lived in california because by then he had much more of his own style rather than being just another impressionist. besides, how many times have you seen impressionist scenes of old california?

the other main exhibit was the theme of fun, california style. all in all it was ok. but then i sat on the bench and just stared at them. the paintings improved. most of them were done in watercolor, which i normally don't like. i like when watercolor doesn't look like watercolor. the specials ones had that trait. i also liked the ones that had a darker edge to them because california sunshine is just too obvious of a scene to depict the california lifestyle. i think it's the non-natives who spend their time at the beach because they didn't grow up next to the ocean.

after the museum was a quick tasty snack at orean's and then a movie, "the corpse bride". we missed the last matinee showing by 30 minutes so our free/cheap day didn't turn out to be so cheap afterall. the film was alright. i like tim burton's style, (except for his remakes), especially coupled with the music of danny elfman. they just go together like hitchcock and hermann. however, i never got into "the nightmare before christmas" (i need to watch it again and give it another chance) and this is similar simply because it's also stop-motion animation (something i was never a fan of to begin with). though i did like how the music matched the action on screen, (hinting that some songs were composed before the animation process?), i could've done away with the song and dance routines. it's like the muppet movies would be great if it wasn't for all the damn singing, especially the numbers sung by human characters--the fast forward button exists for a reason.