Early Art Fascinations

I never considered selling visual art until recently, but I've been making it most of my life, though sometimes intermittently. The other day I started thinking about the earliest pieces of art that fascinated me. When I was four or five, my mother took me to the New Orleans Museum of Art to see the Fabergé eggs. I don't remember them at all, because I couldn't be dragged away from the Dalí precious metal and jewel sculptures that were also on display -- in particular, a pulsing, shimmering piece of anatomy called "The Royal Heart."



It still blows me away. I remember reading one of the Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle books around that same time and feeling for the kid who accidentally drooled on Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle's encyclopedia while looking at the color pictures of precious gems.

Recently, Livejournal commenter alumiere compared my recent New Pope boxes to Cornell boxes, which pleased me greatly. The Ackland Museum in Chapel Hill, where I partly grew up, had a Joseph Cornell box in its collection, and this is the only other piece of art I distinctly remember from childhood. Unlike the Dalí piece, which I only saw that one precious time, that Cornell box was a presence in my life through years of school field trips, idle summer afternoons, and even a few dates. I liked the combination of orderliness and seeming randomness, and the sense of cataloguing something that might not strictly exist. I don't remember the title of the piece, but this one reminds me of it:



Crossposted at Dreamwidth. Comment here or there, as you will.