Art and Such

We haven't had a lot of news to report from our little corner of the world. Despite two threats, thankfully we have not been hit by a tsunami. My heart goes out to those suffering in Samoa and the Philippines. We've had a much needed quiet week and managed to catch up on our school work as well as enjoy a few play times with friends.

On Thursday afternoon the girls and I met our friends the Sheppards at the City Gallery's Yayoi Kusama exhibition. I'd heard and read good things and it seemed like a child-friendly exhibition so we headed over to view it and we were not disappointed - it was fun! We were smiling before we even entered thanks to the polka dots all over the exterior of the gallery.

The girls had a hard time choosing their favorite work - there was a room where you were closed in and stood on a narrow platform surrounded by water and mirrors on all the walls with colored lights dangling from the ceiling, that work was appropriately called "Fireflies". The gallery says of the artist, "Kusama is renowned for her lifelong interest in visual perception and sensory experiences, her fixation with repetitive patterns and forms, her iconic use of dots and her dizzying installations. Mixing Op Art, Pop Art and sculptural practice, her all-enveloping room-installations, mirrored to infinity, are hallucinatory, surrealistic, and utterly unlike anything else you will experience in the world of art."

Later that afternoon we picked up Dugald from work and headed out for a family date to one of our favorite Japanese restaurants. We were celebrating Josie and her decision two years ago to become a Christian, so we let her pick where we'd eat and even let her talk us into sitting on the floor rather than at a regular table. I had my camera with me so we took a snap of me with Jo to mark the occasion.
Not wanting to be left out, but willing to ruin the shot by sticking out her tongue, Ellie jumped in to the picture.
Katie couldn't be left out so she ran over and practically tackled me in order to make it in before Daddy clicked the shutter.
All of this was very disturbing to Meg who would rather have been invited into the picture.
Once I realized her displeasure that is, of course, exactly what I did, and finally we had a nice shot with smiles all around.
After dinner we capped the evening with a yummy gelato from our favorite stop, Cafe Eis. While there the girls and Daddy were joking around and decided to try out their very best mad faces. Once again Ellie just chose to be silly, but we all know she can do a pretty scary mad face when she wants to!!