I’ve certainly been known to make eyebrow-raising decisions from time to time, i.e. (1) attempting to do crunches while holding a goblet of red wine – sorry roommate, (2) trying to change into my gym clothes while driving in traffic – sorry West Peachtree drivers…or should I say you’re welcome?, (3) insisting that a friend with a notoriously inaccurate arm/ balance issues toss me my cell phone across a swimming pool – sorry pretty pink Samsung RAZR and (4) asking a stranger on Ponce for a piggy-back ride to The Majestic after a long night out @ MJQ… (Kids – PLEASE don’t try that at home. Only recommended for experienced professionals.)
pretty sure THAT was THIS night
However, one of the greatest decisions I ever made was to study abroad in Spain during the second semester of my junior year at the University of Texas. Hands down, it was the most amazing experience of my life (so far), and such an incredible personal growth period.
For six months, I lived with what just has to have been the coolest host parents who have ever hosted a foreign college student, Maria Jose + Justo, who I’d frequently run into at a local pub at 4:00 a.m. on a random week night, and who were totally + completely laid back (“No pasa, nada, Lindssssssay!”) after I severely cracked (destroyed?) their vanity when I fell onto it from standing on their tub as I was trying to get a good look at my evening’s outfit. Coincidentally, I knew that I was reaching fluency when I had to sit down and have a heart-to-heart with Justo explaining, in his native tongue, that putting my clothes on a clothesline outside in a rainstorm and then letting them dry in the sun wasn’t an acceptable substitute for a wash + dry. Viva Espana!
Granada, Spain
I took classes during the week and traveled every weekend with girlfriends I made in my program. Our classes were all conducted in Spanish, my favorite of which was my Spanish Art History + Architecture class. I had not taken an Art History or an Architecture class in English before, so many of the descriptive + technical Spanish terms I learned and had to use in essays, I cannot personally translate. We studied in great detail the works of Diego Velazquez, Francisco Goya, Joan Miro (my favorite), Pablo Picasso, Antoni Gaudi and Salvador Dali, among others.
Dali
Dali particularly captured my attention, as I found his surrealist approach to art to be incredibly bizarre + fascinating. He was highly imaginative + eccentric, and had an affinity for partaking in unusual + grandiose behavior – all of which I can appreciate…
Meditative Rose - Salvador Dali
Which brings me to…the Dali exhibit at the HIGH! The HIGH Museum of Art in Atlanta is the sole venue for the first exhibition to focus on Dali’s art after 1940.
did I grab your attention?!
The exhibition, comprising more than 100 works, including 40 paintings and a related group of drawings, prints and other Dali ephemera, will explore the artist’s enduring fascination with science, optical effects and illusionism, and his surprising connections to artists during the 1960s and 1970s such as Andy Warhol, Roy Lichtenstein and Willem de Kooning.
The exhibition is now showing through January 9, 2011. Do. NOT. miss. it!
Memory - Salvador Dali
Buy tickets HERE: http://www.high.org/main.taf?p=1,2,1,2 And, I will see you THERE. 
xx, L
