A Bowl of Potatoes and More Old Shoes

The Kröller-Müller Museum’s website comments on van Gogh’s Still Life with Potatoes (1889) that “In Arles, Van Gogh is far away from the artistic milieu in Paris. He embarks, once and for all, on a quest for his own style and is unbound by realism. Thus, the colours in this still life are not ‘after nature.” I might say, rather, “van Gogh captures the essence of potatoes” or “van Gogh could make art out of anything.” Whatever the case, I couldn’t let well enough alone, so set the bowl of potatoes against a backdrop of the moon rising over a field of wheat sheaves.

After several attempts at van Gogh collages, I had a pair and a half of old shoes left from the shoe paintings I worked with in the previous post. Wasting such fine old shoes seemed unconscionable, so here they are:

Meanwhile, my friend Curt went on a shoe hunt and found this gem:

To accompany the post, here’s Alla l’aa ke (1973, arr. 2019) – Alhaji Bai Konte, arr. David Bloom and performed by contemporaneous.

Per contemporaneous, “Alhaji Bai Konte was a prominent griot (praise and storytelling singer) and 21-string kora player from Brikama, Gambia. A regular on Radio Gambia and Radio Senegal, his father and sons were and are also noted kora players. Believed to be the first kora player to perform as a soloist in the United States, Konte played the 1973 Newport Jazz Festival and made several recordings following this debut.”