Avram's journal

Today we took a museum day in Fort Worth and visited the Kimbell and the Amon Carter.

At the Kimbell, we saw the Myth and Marble: Ancient Roman Sculpture from the Torlonia Collection exhibit. The works were Roman statues from the collection of a noble/royal Italian family. The interesting part to me was how many of them had been altered, mostly but not all in "modern" times, to make art that was interesting to collectors in the period that it was altered. (Modern in this case meant the Renaissance and later. One of the sculptures was altered in the workshop of Bernini's father.) My favorites were in the section of the exhibit on portraits of the Imperial family, where I learned that a lot of the statues believed to be of Imperial women were identified on the basis of their hairstyle alone, and now a number of them have been reconsidered. The curation was extremely good, with most of the statues having labels showing which parts were original, which parts were ancient sculpture pieces repurposed as part of the new statue, and which parts were later additions. Also, one of the statutes was left semi-restored so visitors could also see the conditions of the various sections of the works and how they were "restored" in the past.

We also saw Caravaggio's Judith Beheading Holofernes, which was on loan. I like most of the art but I don't care for his depiction of Judith. Spouse and I had a discussion about her wrist positioning: she looks like she's sawing Holofernes' head off but without sufficient force, never mind enough force to lop his actual head off. I prefer Artemisia Gentileschi's Judith, who looks like she's actually killing the guy.

Before we left we also visited our favorites, the Lee brothers and Caravaggio's Card Sharp.

After we were finished at the Kimbell, we went over to the Amon Carter for American Modernism from the Charles Butt Collection. Butt, for those who don't know, is from the family that owns the HEB grocery stores. The art choices were interesting, like the Pollock landscape, but the curation of the exhibit didn't do a lot for me. Instead of contextualizing the individual pieces in artistic traditions or explaining why Butt chose them, the Carter's curation team had reactions from local artists, which were honestly a little banal for my taste. If it drives other folks to the museum, though, I guess it works. I enjoyed the seascapes and the landscapes, but the flat industrial paintings that Butt seemed to like did nothing for me. Probably my favorite from this exhibit was a study for a larger painting set at Broadway and 47th in New York, with a lot of bright signs.

We did look at some other art including a flat industrial painting of oil derricks off Galveston, which I really enjoyed because I knew what I was looking at, and a favorite Childe Hassam which shows flags on the Waldorf Hotel.

We had more than filled our two hours of museum time, which is how long they say you can absorb new art, so we went home after the Amon Carter instead of staying for late hours at the Modern.

ACNW session 1

Lee as GM

Jill as Laila (second youngest child of Akkiz)
Michael as Rayan (eldest child of Akkiz)
John W as Ordille (youngest child of Clarissa)
Thaddeus as Tridath (eldest son of Clarissa)
me as Rhiannon (third child of Nurhu)

( Notes under the cut. )

I haven't been very regular about doing these posts this year, but I've made up my mind for 2026 that I'm going to be more regular. We went to Ambercon Northwest in November and otherwise were super busy but did no shows, including David Byrne, which I have regrets about. But it was cold and I was in a lot of pain and exhausted, so I missed it.

( List under the cut to protect your flist. )

GM Michael

Ian playing Skuld with her AI Gunnar
Sarah playing Inarra Vetari
Steve playing Steve Delikai
Ginger playing Ingrid Bolting

I think this is session 5; I missed a session when I was in Phoenix last month. We'll play again in January.

( Rough notes under the cut. )