St Louis Art Day

The day could have gone either way.
Thunderstorms and rain overnight led to a day
with heavy cloud cover and no sun in the morning
but cooler temperatures.

I decided to take a chance and go ahead with my date.

Don't get too excited, 

it was with myself;

doing things I love

without having to explain or justify what I like to do with anyone else!

(Now that I think of it, that mindset could explain alot about why I'm still a singleton!)

Anyway,

I first headed down to the Flood Walls

to see what this years crop of #Paint St Louis artists had created.

For those that don't know,
St Louis is built on the Mississippi River
and, as with every river,
it can flood.

Part of the protection system in place are huge concrete 'walls' that hold back the waters;
located in the 'industrial area of town, near the tracks and roadway material storage sites.

Not particularly attractive.

An isolated area just ripe for 'taggers' with spray paint.
Rather than fight the inevitable,
city officials embraced it and
for the past several years
have sanctioned teams of artists to create what they like.

I've been to see this display every year 

and written about them before.

here and here.

I think this years selection were some of the most colorful
and fun ones yet!

 A very Harry Potter-ish portal

and maybe my favorite floodwall of all time

How I hope some urban wedding party gets to pose in front of it before it gets tagged over!

Then it was on to Art Hill to see a display commemorating both 9/11
and the soldiers who have died in the Middle East since then.

7722 American flags: one for each soldier lost.
Each flag has dog tags and a photo attached and they're in chronological order.

Despite the crowd of people attending the event,
there was silence, broken only by the dog tags swinging against the metal poles.

Truly humbling.

The St Louis Art Museum was my last stop
for an exhibit entitled "Self Taught Genius";
a display of creations by American artists with no formal art training -
you know, most of 'us"!

No training clearly doesn't equal no talent.
The works were extraordinary!

From carvings

to textiles

to metalwork

and, of course, paintings.

There are always two things that make me smile at an exhibit:

One, when the audience unintentionally becomes part of the art

and 

when I see a piece and I'm convinced the curator got it wrong.

I'm not sure this is 'art' as much as someone trying to pick up his yard!

My neighbor - and maybe yours - is sitting on a gold mine if this qualifies!

No matter what kind of creativity you prefer

you couldn't have asked for a more perfect day in The Lou!