Reviews for Designs on the Heart: The Homemade Art of Grandma Moses

The average rating for Designs on the Heart: The Homemade Art of Grandma Moses based on 2 reviews is 4 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2014-07-08 00:00:00 Brian Ragusa The book is a straightforward account of a road trip to see the earthworks (most notably, Spiral Jetty, Double Negative, and the Lightning Field) with all of the usual nightmarish ordeals that occur on a road trip that you later laugh at. But there are several problems with the book: first, it's a version of City Slickers, wherein a "sophisticated urbanite" who happens to be the public affairs director of the Art Institute of Chicago decides to test her mettle by driving solo out to the west to see the earth works. But just as country bumpkins often get suckered in the city, the same happens in reverse when the urbanite doesn't comprehend how to function out in the country. While comedy was supposed to ensue, the writing fails to deliver: the author just ends up portraying herself to be annoying and foolish without redemption. On top of this backstory, the author's motivations are unclear and vague: she mostly claims that she wants to learn how to be in solitude, which is odd given that it's relatively easy to be in solitude in a city. To be a genuine jerk, I think she means to say that she wanted to learn how to find quietude, not solitude, as that is what I would argue typically occurs when confronting not only a work of art, but of experiencing the vastness of space out in the west. Regardless (and to be more of a genuine jerk), I think her primary motivation is simply to write a book about this road trip and she had already planned to do so. There's nothing inherently wrong with this, except that she never admits this as being a sole motivation. Perhaps it goes without saying that her "experiences" are eventually going to be codified and commodified into a book and so this gripe is meaningless. I don't know. And a final major problem: the book is not even a very good road trip book, particularly in light of what is already out there: Kerouac's On the Road, William Least Heat Moon's Blue Highways, etc. In short, the author was woefully unprepared, had no compass (and failed to buy one after nearly getting lost in Utah), did not seem very bright, and was not very insightful about what she ended up seeing. After seeing Spiral Jetty first and learning from some other pilgrims that she should check out the Sun Tunnels, which was originally not on her itinerary, the author decides to "spontaneously" drive out to see the Sun Tunnels. Now, this is truly crazy and the author is honest enough to admit that she nearly gets lost and never finds the Sun Tunnels. The strange thing is that she later castigates the Sun Tunnels, referring to them merely as "just four concrete tubes out in the desert." Well, if you had actually managed to get to them, you might have found them to be quite powerful and an equal to the Lightning Field (if not better, which is what I think.) She does the same thing with James Turrell's Roden Crater, which she attempted to go see, but was unable to find. One reason that she was not able to find it is that the work is not open to the public at this time because it hasn't been finished! Again, not too bright. To be as charitable as I can, the best parts about the book are the chapters on the Lightning Field (though even here, her thoughts about the work are pedestrian and the chapter contains an excruciatingly bad play on words that's not worth reciting, but if you're an inquiring mind, it's on page 132), a chapter on Juarez (which has nothing to do with earth works and so the question of why it's in the book, let alone why someone would go to such a dangerous place, remains a mystery), and a final chapter on Marfa (again, though, the author's tepid ideas get in the way: she can't seem to handle that humans, including rigorous artists such as Donald Judd, are complicated and might appear to present work that is incongruous with how they actually live. Is that really a radical idea?) But what really ended all hope for me occurred when the author cited John McPhee's Annals of the Former World. There's nothing wrong with it and the quotation is quite nice, though the author's characterization of McPhee as "the only 'geologist' [she's:] ever read" suggests that she is unaware of McPhee being not just a 'geologist,' (which he actually isn't), but one of the greatest non-fiction writers ever. The point of this, though, is that when the author quoted from McPhee in talking about the deep time of geology, it was as if the gauntlet had been thrown down, the author's bluff had been called, the jig was up, etc. Because all I could think was, "how much better would this book be if John McPhee had written it?"

Review # 2 was written on 2008-10-18 00:00:00 Nathan Lundell Would have given this more stars had the writer not been so obnoxious and judgemental! Jeez, she's all judgy on Midwesterners, young people, men in bars.... Plus she drinks four (or five?) beers and then drives and incorrectly states that's Walter de Maria was a drummer for the velvet underground (it was a different band!) and then sometimes she is just dull. I mean - this could have been great, and I like reading about all the land art and how you actually visit it, but she very much comes from the point of view that you can't like or be interested in art unless you are educated and from the city.