It Is Not Only Rock Stars.....

...that die young after misuse of substances. I did not know that the French artist Toulouse-Lautrec died at the age of 36 due to alcoholism and syphilis, until I went to an exhibition of some of his artwork at Statens Museum for Kunst (National Gallery of Denmark).

I grew up with posters like this in the late 1970s, where you could find replicas in almost every home you went to (in the 1980's it was Monet replicas that were found in a lot of these home). Fond memories of them, as I remember looking closely at them and dreaming me into a world much like the one depicted. Was too young to realise, that is was mostly Montmartre and Moulin Rouge, that was captured in his works - for me it was some decadent art deco world, where women had astonishing clothes etc. The great laugh here is, that he is not representing art deco but impressionism :o)

Wandering around his works at the museum brought all the memories and fantasies back into my mind - something I thought long forgotten, almost like a déja-vu. Wonderful to get lost for a while in this time-pocket.

Finding The Inner Child....

What is this? Well LEGO, getting back memory lane to my childhood, where only your imagination set the boundries of you creations and not the amount of building bricks. Most of my LEGO was hand-me-down from my older brothers, I did not care about that fact, because I had LEGO that entertained me for hours and hours :o)

LEGO invented in my home country and definately a household name in families with kids. Well it is not just in Denmark, that these bricks/toys brings out the inner child, as you can get these all over the world. A couple of years ago I ventured into one of the big toystores in NewYork searching for a LEGO set for my best friend's son - a set that was sold out in Denmark - the sales assistant asked me if I knew which country that LEGO is from, and when I answered, he looked confused "Not many people know that?!". The confusion went into a big smile when I answered "Well guess you do not have many Danish customers" which generated a gazilion of questions from him.

The LEGO pieces in the photo is not a gift to anybody but for myself.... They have started this Architecture series, and I could not resist this little package - I have already made suggestions in a survey on which building I think that they should include in this series.

The building I purchased as a LEGO set? Well, Empire State Building :o)

Favourite building - does everybody have one...??

Everytime I am in New York, I always make sure that I have the time to visit the following places: the MET's Temple of Dendur, Empire State Building and.... to see the Chrysler Building (the picture is from March 2009).

I remember that my mum at a very early age asked me, which style I liked the most when it came to art - she was surprised that the words "Art deco" came out of my mouth without hesitation. She asked me if I did not mean cubism, as we have just seen an cubism exhibition with paintings by George Braque and Pablo Picasso - to this I simply answered "No Mum. Art deco like the Chrysler Building and Empire State Building. To this day, I still do not know how I knew that the buildings were Art Deco style. Back then I dreaded going to art exhibitions - I thought they were soo boring but later on I started appreciating art and surprised many of my own age about my knowledge about painters, styles etc.

I also remember a conversation with one of my best friends - we were talking about time travel: if we could go back in time or live in a different time, when would it be? For me it was always the 1920's which might be due to my facination of art deco.