Suzanne's Mom's Blog

Lot and His Daughters, about 1622, Orazio Gentileschi, at the J. Paul Getty Museum. Recreation on Twitter by Qie Zhang, Erik Carlsson, and their daughters with sheet and yellow dress.

Oh, my goodness! How I loved reading about this yesterday! The J. Paul Getty Museum in California invited fans on social media to use everyday objects from around the house to replicate pieces of art in the museum’s collection. I’m posting a couple of the results, but you really have to go to the site and enjoy everything that the museum has shared.

Sarah Waldorf and Annelisa Stephan wrote at the Getty blog, “On [March 25] we issued a playful challenge on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram to re-create your favorite art using just three objects lying around home. And wow, did you respond! Thousands and thousands of re-creations later, we’re in awe of your creative powers and sense of humor.

“The challenge was inspired by the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam and a brilliant Instagram account called Between Art and Quarantine, but adapted with the invitation to use digitized and downloadable artworks from Getty’s online collection. …

“You’ve re-created Jeff Koons using a pile of socks, restaged Jacques-Louis David with a fleece blanket and duct tape, and MacGyvered costumes out of towels, pillows, scarves, shower caps, coffee filters, bubble wrap, and — of course — toilet paper and toilet rolls.

Cézanne and Vermeer have been a popular source of inspiration, especially Still Life with Apples (done to perfection with household pottery and gin) and Girl with a Pearl Earring (restaged with selfies and grandma, pug, or lab). Grant Wood’s American Gothic seems to capture the current socially distant mood, while Munch’s The Scream is appropriate for all ages and apparently tastes good on toast. …

“Christian Martinez’s 6-year-old daughter Bella has a love of nature that drew her immediately to this page from a Renaissance manuscript. Encountering the challenge over breakfast, the family let their imaginations run wild. …

“ ‘Pasta being life for a 6-year-old, it was first selected, followed by the boiled eggs, which happened to be cooling off to the side,’ Christian told us. Next came a brown paper bag as the canvas, and a basil stem from last night’s dinner. …

“[An] early 20th-century Scandinavian interior spoke to Tracy McKaskle ‘because we are all confined to home,’ she said. … For her re-creation, she stood on a chair and carefully placed some pins to hold the little picture, moved her dining room furniture out of the way, then perfectly placed an easel with a blank canvas. …

“Transforming into an ancient harp player with a vacuum cleaner ‘was the first thing that came to mind when I was looking at your collection,’ says Irena Irena Ochódzka, who posed herself into this amazing sculptural recreation. …

“[A] Baroque masterpiece ‘was the first painting that stood out to me [in the Getty collections] and I thought we could do it pretty easily,’ said Qie Zhang of this family project. Her two girls fought over the yellow dress, she told us, but you can’t tell from the delightful end result.

“Her husband’s pose also made us laugh with its allusion to parental exhaustion.”

More here. Don’t miss the Van Gogh made of Play Doh, carrot slices, and wooden beads! And tell me your favorite.

Male Harp Player of the Early Spedos Type, 2700–2300 B.C., Cycladic. Marble. Recreation via Facebook DM by Irena Ochódzka with canister vacuum.