Peter Young

Good morning, my favorite small humans!  Happy Thursday to you!

 

Today is “Bring your kids to work day” at my office.  The place is over-run with small people!  I suppose if I had kids I might like this.  But as someone who does not have kids, what it really means for me is that all day long people I work with will be interrupting me to introduce me to their kids.  And the kids will be nervous about it, and I will be nervous about it (since I don’t hang out with kids much & am always worried about saying the wrong thing), so we will say hello and shake hands and all look at our shoes for a minute and then their parents will take them off to meet some other person.  It is a very, very strange custom.

 

And speaking of strange…today I picked Peter Young to be the artist I’m going to introduce you to.  He was born in Pittsburgh, which is a city your dad and I (and GramE and GrampE) lived in for part of the time while we were kids.  He’s considered an abstract painter, and although he’s still painting and showing work today, I think he was probably most famous in the 1970’s.

 

You can see a short video of Peter talking about his work at the link below, but I didn’t watch it, so I don’t know for sure what he says.  I mostly dislilke video clips, so I almost never actually watch them.  A long time ago I taught a class for people who wanted to become teachers, and to teach the class, I had to learn about different kinds of learning styles so I could teach the teachers about them, and there are basically 3 main ways people learn – visual learners learn by seeing (like watching a video), auditory learners learn by hearing (like going to a lecture), and what’s called kinesthetic learners are the people who really learn best by doing something themselves.  I am definitely NOT an auditory learner.  People start talking and I start thinking about the circus, or the moon, or whether or not I remembered to put on deodorant this morning.  So videos where you have to watch someone talk about something don’t do much for me – I’d much rather try to make a painting like Peter Young than listen to him talk about his paintings, and if I can’t do that, I’d still prefer to read about him than to listen to him.  Anyway, here it is, in case YOU are an auditory learner and prefer information that way!

 

http://peteryoung.detritus.net/?q=taxonomy/term/1

 

Some of Peter’s work reminds me of Jackson Pollock (who I will tell you about another week!) – like this one (Peter Young first, then a Jackson Pollock after it)

 

 

But a lot Peter’s work is abstract but very specifically patterned, like these:

They almost look like illusions, don’t they?  Like another picture is going to form itself out of the patterns?  They are strange and very beautiful to me, even as they kind of make my brain hurt, because I really want to find something else hiding in there.

 

So that is some of the work of Peter Young, and I hope you have a fabulous, wonderful weekend!

Know that I love you and think that you’re awesome,

Hugs and Kisses,

Auntie Paula