A quick photo from Arkansas and the William Jefferson Clinton Presidential Library. I unfortunately missed WHO designed this dress, but it is absoutely exquisite. If you click the photo you can hop over to get a big version and really zoom in. The gold thread weaving is absolutely incredible!
This sight might, for some Disney goers seem unimaginable. A nearly deserted Space Mountain. All I will say is get to the part early. Go deep into the park, ride the things you want first thing. I think I rode Space Mountain three times before lines stated forming and I ventured off to another of the many joys at Disneyland!
This is one of my favorite (very public) hiking places on Oahu. There is a very basic paved up hill path that will really get just about anyone’s heart pumping, including the massive footballer I saw one time doing lunges while hiking up hill! There are also some “not so basic” and somewhat more dangerous, but less populated areas that can be fun if you do your research ahead of time, know the dangers and respect the awesome kill you in a second power of nature. This is one of my favorite spots to just sit and take in the view of the lighthouse.
A quick shot looking up and unfocused into the Rockefeller Center Christmas Tree. This is a more ethereal view of Christmas, in a way how I remember waking up all sleepy eyed, making my way all too early to the tree to see what Santa brought. Happy Christmas Everyone!
It is terrible and wonderful thing to be in the Annex, the place that sustained Anne Frank, her family…several families. The boards creek beneath you feet in a way that you feel, viscerally the fear of movement, of discovery. It is sobering to see through slivers of window to the outside and dream of the normal world before the Nazi’s occupied Amsterdam.
Most everything from the Annex has been removed…was removed right after the families arrest. Otto Frank, the only Frank survivor of the concentration camps wanted the rooms left open, but small accents still exist. Walls, and sinks and wood hold memories long after the people are gone.
I was fascinated by the sink in the kitchen. I stayed there, losing time, just feeling the world of it’s texture. I LONGED to climb the stair to the attic because I knew this was one of the places Anne was able in the early morning to see the world through the high window.
The whole place is suffused with this boredom, isolation and fear, but at the same time it is so terribly wonderful to feel a small bit of this. The atrocities of the past, must never be allowed back into our world. They must be remembered as must the people who’s beauty was taken all to soon from this world.
I love homes, old ones…the one’s people design with intent and artistic panache. Pamela and I first learned an original Frank Lloyd Wright Usonian home was coming to Crystal Bridges on a trip to visit the museum over a year ago, it was a brilliant surprise! Wright, a native of Chicago (Oak Park is a complete Joy) didn’t often visit my part of the country. There are a few notable exceptions like Price Tower in Oklahoma (Wright’s only skyscraper), but the best work is not close…until now! There are obvious restrictions, but you can schedule (you need an appointment before hand complete with time of entry) a tour of the Bachman-Wilson House, either guided or self-guided. The symmetry and detail here are completely thought out and elegantly executed. The engineering feet to completely deconstruct a home and build it a new is also quite impressive. I say it all the time, but Crystal Bridges is a Gem of the Ozarks!
Orchids are one of my favorite flowering plants. They are so unique, so diverse. One of our early trips together, Pamela and I went to Tulsa, OK and visited the Philbrook Museum. If you haven’t been, it’s another of those treats in the mid-west. Anytime you blend the 20’s with Italian Style villa’s and sprinkle a ton of art and nature on top, you will find me having a brilliant time. This orchid was found in bloom inside the greenhouse on the grounds.
Pamela is always been into government. Before we started dating, I had never voted (what was I THINKING!). We took a short trip recently that was coupled with our viewing of the Chihuly exhibit at Crystal Bridges. This is the main public exhibit of some of the documents, a fraction of the total library. It’s a beautiful space complete with a replica of the White House Cabinet Room and The Oval Office. There are also multiple multi-media displays recanting the accomplishments and difficulties of Bill Clinton’s two terms. If you like history (and/or the Clinton’s) it’s totally worth a trip!
Crystal Bridges is an amazing space. It’s not because they have my favorite art. It’s not because of the founders. It is honestly about what appears, at least to me, to be part of their core philosophy around art and nature. The degree to which these two are inextricably tied, how one complements…feeds the other. Both elements speak strongly to me personally. I find the best of humanity though art. I find the best of myself in nature. I think that is what I liked so much about this Chihuly show. The jaring nature of glass in the wild. These delicate creations interwoven among the trees and rocks and fallen leaves.
This is perhaps a more familiar form explored by Dale Chihuly and on display at the Crystal Bridges of American Art. You should go visit the display and the museum if you haven’t been in a while (of have not been at all). The have some wonderful pieces and one of the few museums in the world where you get to listen to people regularly exclaim, “Well I do that”!
(not something you regularly hear in the Chihuly show)
