Another winning manic presentation

Some other Jamie likes cats

detail of Maine Coon Cat by Jamie Wyeth (limited edition prints available in the gift shop)

On Friday with snow flurries dancing gently through the grey December air we once again visited the Brandywine River Museum to see how Christmas looks in a Wyeth mind. Had the opportunity to hear Andrew Wyeth's grand daughter Victoria Wyeth give 2 stage worthy presentations of both Andrews and his son Jamie's work. Amidst a group of attendees with snow on the roof but we're assuming fire in the oven "fellow art lovers" who watched Victoria with her standard stage projection voice, Carnegie Hall back seats could have picked up on her vibe, we like this. The excitement surrounding the presentation of each painting was like being caught up in a Kansas twister, all those around us swayed back and forth moved by the wind of Victoria's manic exuberance, Helga's naked and Nureyev's dead with makeup streaming off his chalky sweat stained face. As the presentations moved on all in the audience seemed sweat stained as well, mouths agape, heads nodding in raptured agreement, captured by the firey demon in red shoes that is Victoria. A good demon. Here's hoping that all those attending the museum can experience this magical capture and be led powerfully through the works of the Wyeth's by someone who witnessed the power that made them.

Visit on a weekday

*And by the way there's a great moonlit train garden with 2,000 ft. of tracks toot toot!

Pumpkin Moonshine

Recently came across Pumpkin Moonshine by Tasha Tudor while visiting The Brandywine River Museum in Chadds Ford, PA. Good stuff. Also check out The Christmas Cat which I almost couldn't resist purchasing but held out for a liverwurst sandwich in the cafe instead- sustenance prevailed. 

Also saw some emotionally disturbing seagull paintings by Jamie Wyeth. Blood, guts, gore, sex, and oversized violent seagulls emerging from a field of flames as if from an Armageddon based movie. So freak show and disturbing, the cute seaside charmer with his sheeps clothing ripped away and the true filthy wolf inside revealed. All of this was punched home by a manic and loud presentation by his niece Victoria Wyeth, Andrew Wyeth's only grandchild. We love the Wyeths, crazy fiends of Halloweenianna who blow up the ashen remains of their dead, not the bucolic barn loving Americana that you think you know- asshole! Read more here A Portrait of the Wyeths

I can only imagine that Tasha Tudor shared the Wyeths eccentricity!

My favorite Wyeth

Andrew Wyeth, On the Edge, 2001, tempera on panel, 48 3/4 x 49 1/8 inches

Christina's World

Farewell Andrew Wyeth

Snow Hill


Wind from the Sea


Curtain Call

Andrew Wyeth died today at age 91. He was America's best known and beloved artist, (I especially love his work!) He painted and lived in Chadds Ford, PA where he lived and worked his whole life (and on his island in Maine). I can never look at the bark of a tree or the wintry landscape of rural PA or New England without thinking of him and his ability to capture the seemingly mundane and everyday so well and with such an imbued sense of presence and life. These paintings are especially haunting in their hint of loss. "Snow Hill" is particularly eerie as Wyeth depicted his deceased friends dancing around the May pole on a snowy hill, I'm certain he'll now be with them in celebration.