Starry Night

One of my favorite paintings is Van Gogh's Starry Night. I honestly cannot tell you exactly what it is about it that I love so much, but it's just so striking and unique and beautiful to me. I gained an even deeper appreciation for it after I saw the Doctor Who episode "Vincent and the Doctor." It is, to date, the best Doctor Who episode I have ever seen and my personal favorite. If you haven't seen it, go watch it; it's beautiful.

A few months ago, my mom and decided to go to a studio that has a paint and wine type of deal. You look at their online calendar to find a painting you like and sign up for it. A lot of times people get wine or beer to enjoy while painting but my mom and I decided to skip that part and just paint. They walk you through the steps of painting the piece and at the end of the time period, you've got yourself a completed painting! Starry Night proved to be far more challenging than either my mom or I expected and neither one of us was thrilled with the results. We decided that if we combined our two paintings, it might actually look halfway decent. Guess I better cancel any plans I had of being a famous painter!

The Tear Of Grief

The Tear of Grief also known as the Tear Drop Memorial.  Ever heard of it?  Probably not.  Despite my personal interest in sculptures, provided they are not abstract, I'd never heard of it until a friend of mine posted an article about it on Facebook.  Considering what it was created in memory of, you'd think most people would have heard of it, but I think the "issue" of what country it came from became the focus.  Officially called To The Struggle Against World Terrorism, this 10 story sculpture was created and given to the United States as a gift from Russia as a memorial to the victims of 9/11.  Located in Bayonne, New Jersey it consists of a 100-foot-tall, 175-ton bronze-clad tower with a huge open crack running down the center.  Suspended within the crack is a forty-foot stainless steel tear drop.  Engraved on the eleven sides of the marble base are the names of those people killed on September 11th in New York, Washington, and Pennsylvania as well as six other who were killed in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing.  As you can see in the picture, the memorial is in a bit of a remote location, deliberately placed there so as to have Manhattan as the back drop and to be in sight of where the World Trade Center once stood.