you learn something new every day

Read an article titled ‘FBI turns up heat on 1990 Boston art heist’ in the Straits Times (ST) today (Life!, page C11). To sum up the article, I quote its first sentence: ‘The FBI believes it has identified the thieves who stole 13 artworks from Boston’s Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in 1990 in the costliest art theft in United States history and asked for anyone who had seen the paintings to contact the bureau.’ And the missing art is apparently worth US$500 million!

This epic case of art theft was something I had never heard of before, so naturally I googled to find out more about it. This article gives a nice recount of the Gardner Museum theft, while this one describes the current situation with the FBI (which still lists the incident as one of its Top Ten Art Crimes).

The ST article also noted that the Gardner Museum offers ‘free admission to anyone named Isabella’. I checked the museum’s website and confirmed that this was true, as quoted from this page:

Isabellas Free…Forever! provides unlimited free museum admission to everyone with the first name Isabella–forever! Please see the bottom of the page for more details about the program. (Please note that, in order to be true to our founder, Isabelle and other variations and spellings do not apply.)

Seriously how cute is that? :D

army daze

After dinner yesterday, Serena and I went to Jubilee Hall in Raffles Hotel (next to Raffles City) to catch an adaptation of Army Daze (originally written in 1987 by Michael Chiang), presented by Nanyang Technological University’s Hall 13. Joanne had gotten the tickets somehow and asked if we were interested, and we said yes! I haven’t been to a proper stage performance for eons!

Jubilee Hall is a cosy little old-fashioned theatre. Last night, it was about 75% full. I wondered aloud if Serena and I were the oldest ones in the audience! :P

why does fashion matter?

Marc Jacobs, on why fashion does matter:

Let’s see. It’s part of the art of living. Why does makeup matter? Why does fragrance matter? Why does fashion matter? Why does it matter to have beautiful furniture and nice interiors and books to read and good wine to drink and good food to eat? These are all luxuries and it’s human nature to want them, to desire them, to enjoy them, enjoy looking at them, wearing them. I think it’s just human nature. We want things to please us and make us feel good and maybe attract other people to us or just make us feel good about ourselves.

from Jessica Iredale, WWD CEO Summit: Marc Jacobs, WWD, 9 January 2013

affordable art fair

The annual Affordable Art Fair was held at the F1 Pit Building from 15 to 18 November, and I went on Saturday, the third day. It was my first time at this fair! Reached the place slightly after noon, and got a ticket for $13 at the door.

Rushed upstairs headlong into one of the talks I had wanted to attend, on the best ways to frame one’s artwork by a angmoh lady from the Frame Society. Luckily I had missed only slightly less than 15 minutes of the talk, which was quite interesting. The speaker went around pointing to various artworks displayed at their booth and explained their aesthetics. At the end we were all given a small thin glossy booklet of framing tips, which had a recommended retail price was $20.

Later in the afternoon I attended another talk, on how to start an art collection by an angmoh guy from Australian company Art Equity. It was interesting but the speaker just droned on and on without using any visual aids so I tuned out after a while. :P

wedding dresses

photo from here

Took the morning off today to check out The Wedding Dress: 200 Years of Wedding Fashion from the Victoria and Albert Museum, London exhibition at the National Museum. It was the last day of the exhibition! And entrance was free as it was the museum’s open house! :D

I reached the museum at 9.45 am, but it only opens at 10 am daily. So I sat down on a platform in the carpark to wait. It was all quite amusing!

After waiting what seemed like an eternity, the doors of the museum finally opened and everyone outside went in.

sweet teeth

After lunch yesterday, Daphne and I went on a little adventure. After that, we bussed over to Nex shopping mall in Serangoon. Decided to get ice cream from Andersen’s!

Daphne’s Belgian chocolate chip (left) and my rum & raisin ($5.50 each)!

My ice cream was rich, sweet and good, but I thought there wasn’t enough alcohol :P and the raisins had a curious slightly sour aftertaste.

Andersen’s of Denmark
23 Serangoon Central
#B1-09
Nex
Singapore 556083
+65 6634 2308

day at the museum

On Thursday, I took leave from work to visit the Harry Potter: The Exhibition and Andy Warhol: 15 Minutes Eternal exhibitions at the ArtScience Museum in Marina Bay Sands with Ahgong. To see both exhibitions, we bought all-access passes, which were $24 each for Singapore residents.

We decided to see the Harry Potter exhibition first, and were made to join a queue just outside the entrance to the exhibition. Staff draped Hogwarts scarves on us (only Gryffindor and Slytherin colours available so we both chose the Gryffindor ones), and snapped a photo of us standing in front of a green screen. Finally we were allowed in!

A staff member in robes appeared and performed a sorting ceremony. Volunteers were requested to sit on a stool, and the staff member held the Sorting Hat above their heads, and a voice boomed out which house they were sorted into. Three excited children volunteered. Before they were sorted, each was asked which their favourite house was, and all of them got into their favourite houses (as if it could be any other way!). None of them mentioned Hufflepuff, and Ahgong commented that nobody wanted to be hardworking and loyal. :P

in the mood for cheongsam

On 6 May, a Sunday, Zhiqi and I decided to visit the National Museum to check out this exhibition called In the Mood for Cheongsam: Modernity and Singapore Women (which ran from 28 March to 27 June 2012).

According to the National Museum website, the exhibition aimed to tell ‘the story of the changing social roles of Singapore women from the turn of the 20th century to present day by looking at the history and development of the traditional cheongsam, the female wearers, their fashion options and the economic, political and social conditions that dictate their decisions through the decades’.

We got there just before 2.30 pm, which was when a guided tour had been scheduled to begin. The guide was an older female museum volunteer, and we were the only people in her tour, so we got all her attention. :D

something which probably nobody else thought about

I first saw this ad, featuring calligraphy by Tan Jwee Meng, in an MRT train eons ago.  (The ad is from the LTA’s Make it Right for a Better Ride campaign, and the other ads in the series can be found here.)

When I first saw the ad, I found the calligraphy it featured very curious for two reasons.

a bouquet of lilies

My colleague D received this huge bouquet from her husband on Valentine’s Day last week. Sending flowers to the wife or girlfriend’s office is always a great move!

It’s really one of the nicest bouquets I’ve seen this 14 February so I’m sharing its beauty with you! Thanks D for letting me take so many photos of your bouquet!!! :D

A bouquet of lilies!

voyage de la vie

Thanks to my 大伯母’s sister, who works at Resorts World Sentosa, I scored two complimentary tickets to a performance of Voyage de la Vie last Saturday afternoon. So I asked my designer YZ along.

I haven’t been to Sentosa since December 2004, and obviously there’ve been a lot of changes on that little island since then. To get there, we took the monorail from VivoCity.

There was a bit of pre-show entertainment. This loud and fat Australian woman and her husband went around creating a ruckus among the audience, and a security guard went around trying to catch them. All actors, of course.

Usually I’d do a bit of reading up on a show before going to watch it, but I didn’t do so this time. So I had totally no idea what to expect.

three luxuries

Yesterday evening I had dinner at Mos Burger in Raffles City. Fish burger, fries and coke! Love the mayonnaise they use in their fish burgers. It’s extremely addictive; I swear they put crack in it.

After that went window shopping. Passed Ode to Art, an art gallery, and saw that it had a few small Dali sculptures in the window, so I went in.

melting clocks

I don’t think anyone knows this, but my favourite artists are Claude Monet and Salvatore Dali.

While I was out for dinner with Ahgong and Kang Hao recently, I mentioned that I wanted to go for this Dali exhibition. They looked at me quizzically so I announced my favourite artists as an explanation. Ahgong looked pretty surprised, which I assume is because Dali and Monet were really 两个风格迥然不同的艺术家 (two artists with vastly different styles)！Which goes to show that I am really an eclectic person. :)