Category Archives: MY LIFE AND WELCOME TO IT
THE ART OF ART TREKKING – PART THREE
As I did in my two previous posts on my spring visit to the Saint Louis Art Museum, I want to highlight a few of the artworks that caught my eye in some of the newly redecorated and rehung galleries. I walk through all of the museum’s galleries. A lot of them where still being reworked. And also, I was wearing myself out. So here are some of the things I stopped to see.
As I hinted in yesterday’s teaser, the Alexander Calder mobile has a gallery all to it alone. The overhead lighting is subdued and the kinetic sculpture’s elements are highlights with small spotlights.
Personally, I’m not a big fan of Max Beckmann and the German artists, but they are being shown in one of the larger galleries.
I was more impressed with some of the earlier works with a lot more detail in another gallery.
Saint Peter’s in Rome
And these Moorish doors from a Spanish convent were both huge and impressive.
Then I went up to the third floor galleries where the American art is displayed. I have always been a fan of George Caleb Bingham who was a Missouri artist and politician who captured the life and times of the people who lived in the towns around the Missouri and Mississippi River’s in the mid-19th century. That was when my great-grandparents arrived in Saint Louis from Germany and Poland. My paternal great-grandfather from Germany was a brick-maker and made the red bricks that made Saint Louis the red brick city. My maternal great-grandfather from Poland who could speak Polish, French, German and English work as a government land agent who helped newly arriving immigrants to GO WEST and settle in Oklahoma, Texas and other western territories. Looking at Bingham’s paintings, I can discover what some of the things that they experienced.
The next gallery, features some of the early American artwork.
Augustus Saint-Gaudens sculpture
I’ve also always liked the work of Augustus Saint-Gaudens, though most people only remember him as the man who designed the US coins in the golden era coinage.
This statue of Queen Zenobia is the work of Harriet Hosmer who was one of the first American sculptress. It was created in 1859. She lived in Saint Louis and the work was displayed in this building in 1904 at the World’s Fair. The museum displays a photo taken at the time showing the work. Then it disappeared … for over a hundred years. Then in 2007, a member of the museum’s board was browsing in an antique shop in South Saint Louis when he rediscovered the lost work. After it was cleaned, it returned to the museum.
After setting a spell on one of the comfortable leather settees the museum provides for viewers to rest while contemplating the artworks, I headed for home to return another day to take all the galleries I missed.
COMING JUNE 29 – THE NEW MUSEUM ADDITION
A sneak peek of the new sandstone sculpture commissioned for the new addition.
THE FINE ART OF ART TREKKING – PART TWO
Still infected with the infernal Gilbert and Sullivan Mikado earworm, I decided to pick up my art trek in the museum’s Far East galleries with a few items that really caught my eye …
From Japan …
… to India.
Then I moved on to the new gallery which features the art of Imperial Rome …
Sometimes, it’s nice to just contemplate the work of people responsible for the culture we know today.
Also the Roman Gallery will also be the connecting passage from the original 1904 building to the new 2013 addition opening June 29.
TO BE CONTINUED …
Next week we with continue the Art Trek up the magical stairway up to the third floor of the museum and the American Galleries.
EARTH WEEK PLUS
Taking care of the earth should be a 24/365 commitment!
This mural created by school children is installed in the Washington University MetroLink Station.
IT’S SUNDAY …
So I decided to talk about how I spent Wednesday in the park. Naturally, ”the park” in Saint Louis usually means Forest Park which is the largest of the 111 parks within the city’s boundaries. If you want to include the parks in Saint Louis County, you’d have to add 64 more. So in all, there are 175 parks within the land bordered by the Mississippi and Missouri Rivers. But I usually just visit two or three.
Anyway, on Wednesday I went to Forest Park to celebrate the birthday of my oldest friend, Mr. Bill. He’s not really my oldest friend age-wise, it’s just that we’ve been friends for over forty continuous years and we live in opposites ends of the metropolitan area. I live in the north county, and he lives in the south city. So Forest Park, being in the middle, is a convenient place to meet. It’s also the sight of the Boathouse Restaurant.
The Boathouse is located on the largest of the park’s chain of lakes.
That allowed us to watch this gorgeous fellow as he/she fished for his/her lunch.
If you’re wondering, I had fish and chips for lunch, too.
After lunch we strolled the park taking in the masses of blooming flowers.
We also decide to take advantage of the Great Art Free Every Day at the Saint Louis Art Museum. But that will have to wait for my next post.
To be continued …
DECISIONS, DECISIONS, DECISIONS!
Do you know how hard it is to decide on what your morning beverage is going to be?
Thanks to the inventors of modern coffee and tea brewers! And to the suppliers of the many beverage styles and variations.
See, I don’t have to worry that Starbucks closed the local store in my neighborhood three weeks after the opened it.
EARTH DAY 2013
If you’re going to leave an imprint on the earth,
Be sure it’s the right imprint!
EARTH DAY 2013
Keep it green and clean!
PICK DESSERT OF THE WEEK!
Sometimes I like to do something that is totally, uniquely and TASTEfully different. I did not feel like cooking tonight for dinner. And since I have never ordered any type of delivery food in my life and wasn’t going to start now, I heated a can of Cream Of Tomato Soup. Yeah, I did doctor it a little by adding milk, butter and dried basil with a sprinkle of shredded parmesan on top. But that was not different at all. I wanted something SPECIAL for dessert!
So, I unwrapped a Decadent Chocolate Nut Biscotti and crumbled it into a bowl and added two scoops of rich French Vanilla Ice Cream.
Fantabulous!
Nothing goes better than rich chocolate and vanilla combined.
That’s my life,
AND WELCOME TO IT!
ROTTEN LUCK, OR HOW MY EASTER DINNER GOT SQUASHED!
I always go to my brother’s house for Easter Brunch with him and his family followed by an afternoon of playing Farkle or some other table top game. I won the first game with a total score of 11,050 and came in a dastardly fourth place in the second. Evening meal was a light sandwich supper.
But I had a real special dinner planned for today. It is a slow cooked beef round pot roast which is currently in the process of being cooked to melt in your mouth beefy tenderness. Sure, all the favorite veggies are on the menu, too.
And for dessert, I had purchased this special rabbit-shaped iced and decorated doughnut. I carefully placed it in its own cardboard box with protected with bakery tissues. I carted it around the stupidmarket in the fragile-stuff top basket of my cart. And then I made sure it was the last item I placed on the checkout counter. Nothing could harm my special Easter doughnut.
UNTIL I GOT HOME!
Not only had the bag boy completely avoided my planned packing order by putting it at the bottom of the bag, he also put the sack of potatoes on top of it. But then, bag boys are not known for their high IQ, especially when they’re trying to make gaga-googoo-eyes with the nose cone bossism-fronted woman in line behind me. She was much too old for him!
So dessert tonight will consist of a dish of strawberry jello with mango chunks. No whipped topping … there was no way I was going to go back to the stupidmarket.
IT’S MY LIFE,
And welcome to it!
ROUND AND ABOUT IN THE MIDDLE OF A SNOW STORM
Depending on the spot in the yard, the accumulation is somewhere between nine and eleven inches ten hours into the snow storm.
West Walnut Manor Totally Frosted
The flakes were falling so thick the camera couldn’t focus on Mlle. Renee.
Alas, poor tulips!
ORIGAMI SPRING – the only spring in sight in the midst of the continuing snow fall.
The official weather station at STL Lambert International Airport reported an 8.5-inch snow fall as of 4:00 pm. 3/25/13. Many individuals in the metro area reported snow of 12-inches or more. I stuck my yardstick at the side of the front steps and got …
Ok, the wind sort of did cause the snow to drift a bit there. And the tip of the yardstick was broken off about an inch and a half. And there was no way I was going to walk out into the yard to get a true measurement, because I didn’t want to get my new snow boots wet. Based on the accumulation on the back deck, I would estimate a nine to ten inch snowfall here. That was at four pm. and the snow fall is expected to continue through the night into Monday midday.
Midnight Update: Getting ready for bed, and I thought I’d update my Sunday post. As of the News@Ten, the official NOAA snowfall amount for Metro STL for Sunday, March 24 was 12.2-inches. It is also still snowing as you can see from this shot from the back deck.
And from the handle of the shovel, you’ll not that I did clean the snow from in front of the door to the sunporch. That’s so Renee can get in and out of the house without tramping through a snowbank. Since this snow was a widow-maker … very heavy and filled with water … I only removed enough for a Renee-sized path. Besides, it will all be covered again by morning. As for the 2012 Summer Drought, take that you drought!
Monday 4:00 pm update – Total official two day accumulation is now at 12.6″ – the highest snowfall since 1982. Some individual areas have recorded unofficial highs up to 20″.
... a somewhat unknown or perhaps imaginary actor, writer, director, producer, photographer, friend, brother, uncle and all round good fellow that you really should get to know because he lives with that most glamorous fourpaw Mademoiselle Renee. (Mlle. Renee for short)
