Sculptures

We're in Los Angeles right now: Rita got some money from the Brazilian government to study how indigenous children in the Amazon produce and understand music, which gives her the opportunity to do some research with a professor at UCLA.  And gives me a chance to go and find fun things to do with Helena Iara in an unknown city.

Yesterday, as Rita was in class, Helena and I walked the UCLA campus: the Bruin walk, the buildings built to look like something out of Milan, and Helena's great love, the tall flight of stair between the two levels of the Quad.  For the second time, she made it up the whole way.  And then, as we wandered on, we found the campus sculpture garden, full of early and mid-century bronzes by Arp, Maliol, Rodin, and a bunch of artists I had never heard of.

A larger than life nude stands in the center of the garden, a relatively realistic young bather.  At the moment, Helena is very excited about showers, so she imitated the motions of washing her hair, but then touched the statue's foot.  "She's cold," Helena said.  "[Put on] clothes."  Next, she addressed herself directly to the statue: "Tired.  Sit, sit."  There was no response, so Helena returned to touching the feet.  "Beautiful," she concluded, and moved on to the next.

The second nude was reclining, which Helena pointed out first.  "Lying down."  She then found each of the parts of the body, not an easy thing on the barely representative sculpture, but Helena enjoyed the challenge of figuring out what was head and hair and legs and feet.  She didn't stay long, though.  "Ugly," she declared.

A piece by Arp that looked rather like excreted bronze also won a fast "ugly," but a thin, constructivist statue called "Mother and Child," where I could find neither, got smiles and a review of "beautiful," along with several minutes of touching and circling.  She loved a modernist interpretation of a flower, because she found that when she rapped it with her knuckles, it rang with a pure tone.  Plus, she could climb around and under it.

Back to the nudes.  The next one was just a bust, without arms and head: just the chest and then a flowing base to represent a dress.  This one drew Helena's attention directly.  "Breast," she said.  "Nipple."  I looked at Helena questioningly.  "Yummy."  The she touched the base and said approvingly, "skirt."  Finally, though, she gave her evaluation: "Ugly."

"Why?"

"No head."

"Maybe that wasn't what the artist wanted to show."  She pondered, and I looked at the title.  "It's called Victory," I said, and prepared to tell her about the Winged Victory of Samothrace, upon which the statue was surely based.

"Victory?" Helena interrupted me.  "No."

And with that, she walked on to the next sculpture.