After Kathryn Bigelow won the Oscar for the The Hurt Locker, we declared a Bigelow marathon. We’ve watched all of her movies, and I went so far as to check a monograph out of the library.

Watching all of the movies together I noticed how painterly and image-oriented her work is. Which makes sense, she started out ass a painter. In one of the interviews in the monograph, she describes her teenage technique of copying Old Masters, expressly so that she could understand their millieu and though, what the subject matter meant.

I was really struck by this approach, partially because K-19 reminded me so much of Bruegel:





But also cause it sounded like a fun thing to do with J.

We’ve painted Jackson Pollock (I never realized how much figurative imagery is actually in his work; Number 1, 1948 has a dog, so many handprints, a bird... or maybe it’s all just a Rorschach!





This week J asked me to copy an illustration from the Zora Neale Hurston book we are reading, and then he asked if the figures were playing or dancing:







I’ve really enjoyed this way of learning, and I think J does to. We’ll keep doing it. I’d love to see his interpretation of Bruegal, some day.