Hummusgirl's Blog

I often think about the arts in America, and why they are so strong.  When you compare them to other art centric countries like Italy, France, Europe in general, Japan, India, they just seem so drastically different.  I don’t think of America as having a strong food culture, but a lot of different cultures that have different cuisines.  Does this mean that our art culture is like our food culture?  Lots of different kinds of art sometimes mixing together to make an incredibly strong art culture? I like to think so…

Now, speaking of cooking, American citizens are not known to cook, but instead go to restaurants or pick up convenient food.  Whenever I think of European cooking, I think of a simple meal, like pasta with a quick sauce, or something in which one part of the dish is done with a lot of care and the rest is easy.  American cooking seems like a baking community.  When we cook, we bake.  Now I’ve visited my local Barnes and Noble bookstore and when I look at the cookbooks, they all seem to be in the so called European mode of simple yet elegant.  Since we are now the wealthiest country in the world (or at least we recently were) we seem to be rediscovering the land to some degree and experimenting with different ingredients.  Maybe this is why whenever I watch the newest food doc I am just so impressed and fascinated with what people are doing out there in nature!!

But back to the arts.  When I think of artists I love, like painters, I do not think of modern American painters.  I think of 20th century painters, but I wouldn’t call them modern.  Whenever I’m at an art museum and I go to the modern art section with high hopes that I’ll be inspired, it’s usually a letdown because I never understand modern art.  It just seems like a psychological experiment gone awry.  I’d much rather look at crafts people at art shows and friends of mine have done because they actually seem like work.  Modern art just seems so crazy.  It makes me nervous for the future of art…