The Vulva of the Getty

I never realized that the Getty Foundation was a feminist institution, instead of a home for ormolu and excessive ornamentation, but here, starkly and plainly is evidence that J. Paul Getty, despite being the only geriatric multi-billionaire NOT married to Anna Nicole Smith, was a feminist.

The Vulva of The Getty

The Getty center was having a Courbet landscape show so we toddled on off to the top of the mountain after my interview with a recruiter and had a lovely lunch at the restaurant (my asparagus and fennel risotto was lovely and spring like, Cam.'s grilled asparagus salad was dressed beautifully) and polished off a bottle of Duckhorn Sauv. Blanc before we strolled around the grounds and into the actual exhibits of rococo furniture and Louis the XIV's castoffs. It's actually beneficial to understanding the work if you have a little buzz on, because really, there is only so much baroque furniture and ormolu clocks one can look at. I'm surprised that the Frick left any ormolu around for anyone else to collect but I am sad to say that JPG got every darn stick of what was left, and surpassed the Frick. But enough about my tolerance for gilded furniture with tempting shepherdesses lolling about them. The Courbets were lovely, that guy could push paint. Unfortunately he had a fondness for putting does and deers and bambis all over his forest scenes which was hard to take. But some of the paintings were spectacular, his ability to capture that moment in a storm when the wind has chased away half of the clouds and the sun is shining on the craggy mountains. Or the sea at low tide with a scattering of kelp on the beach.

Here is a picture of me, not wearing the nun shoes in a suit at the Getty.

At the Getty one walks around the galleries looking at rich people's furniture from ancient times (Oh those porcelain shepherdesses! Oh those Ladies on Swings!) on the inside and then you wander around outside looking at rich people's landscaping. My my, what a couple billion, a sea side mountain top and a gang of landscape architects who are apparently Fredrick Law Olmstead's kin can do. There is a huge, spiraling garden walk that takes you down to a pond, filled with gorgeous native plants. In a post modern joke, that garden is filled with curry plants and onion flowers so it smells like an Indian kitchen. Here's an onion flower - pretty isn't it? They make good cut flowers, except they smell like onions.

The back side of the descending garden walk is this, no one ever takes a photo of it, probably because it's the back side. But I have a thing for back sides.

Next week I'm going to try and get to LACMA to see the newly restored to their rightful owners after being looted by the Nazis Klimts.