Waterlilies and Lotuses in the New York Botanical Garden

My husband and I took a ride to the New York City borough of the Bronx this weekend to visit the New York Botanical Garden.  Like the Brooklyn Botanic Garden, the New York Botanic Garden has beautiful aquatic waterlilies and lotuses. The Waterlily and Lotuses Pool in the courtyard of the Enid A. Haupt Conservatory is a serene and magical place in summer. The colors and lingering aromas of these wonderful exotic flowers are a feast for the senses.

The lilies and lotuses were at their peak.

Their colors and shapes were exquisite!

As I walked around the lily pond pool I had a wonderful time photographing all the beautiful flowers.

They were all delightful....

...and a wonderful array of colors.

Dominating the tropical pool is the Victoria amazonica, the world's largest waterlily, whose leaves can span seven feet across!

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The tropical pond also had a large array of the lotus, Nelumbo nucifera, which symbolize eternal life in Buddhism, and are called "sacred lotus" for that reason.

They shimmered in the sunlight.....

....and their buds and pods were so exotic to see.

Both of the botanical gardens in New York City are gems waiting to be discovered and enjoyed. Come back next post and I will show you the Peggy Rockefeller Rose Garden. 

May I ask a favor? Flowers have been on my mind quite a bit lately, as I'm in the middle of planning my daughter's spring time wedding, and I have also been visiting local florists to look at table centerpieces and floral decorations.  My daughter loves the color purple and wants it to be the predominate color of her arrangements.  If you have some suggestions for beautiful purple flowers, websites that have floral arrangements, or even general wedding websites, I'd be thrilled if you place them in your comments. Thanks!

I'm linking to "Mosaic Monday" with Mary of The Little Red House blog, and My World Tuesday with Klaus and all the My World contributors. Please visit their blogs and enjoy their special blog events!

The Brooklyn Museum - Part One

This past weekend my husband and I visited the magnificent 560,000-square-foot Brooklyn Museum, located at 200 Eastern Parkway, Brooklyn, New York. The Brooklyn Museum is one of the oldest and largest art museums in the country. Its world-renowned permanent collections range from ancient Egyptian masterpieces to contemporary art, and represent a wide range of cultures. (All photos will enlarge if clicked on once and then again when it re-opens on a new page)

The museum is only a 30-minute subway ride from midtown Manhattan, with its own newly renovated subway station located very close to the museum entrance. There is also a paid parking lot next to the adjoining Brooklyn Botanical Garden. You can buy a "Art and Garden Ticket" at the Brooklyn Museum and present your receipt for same-day admission to the garden.

The beautiful Beaux Arts building was opened in 1897 and founded by Augustus Graham. The museum is well-known for its expansive collections of Egyptian and African art, in addition to 17th, 18th, 19th, and 20th century paintings, sculpture, and decorative arts. It hosts many special exhibits as well as long term installations.

Here are a few of my favorite paintings from the American Art Collection:

The Brooklyn Bridge - Georgia O'Keeffe

One of the last works that O'Keeffe painted in New York before her permanent relocation to New Mexico in 1949, is considered her farewell to the city where she had lived and worked for many years. The Brooklyn Bridge is near and dear to my heart and O'Keeffe's image has always been one of my favorites.

A Storm in the Rocky Mountains, Mt. Rosalie - Albert Bierstadt

Mt. Rosalie is now called Mt. Evans. Bierstadt established his artistic reputation with "Great Pictures" of the American West. Having visited Colorado many times since my son and his family live there I am always attracted to Rocky Mountain views.

The Peaceable Kingdom - Edward Hicks 

Self-taught artist and Quaker preacher Edward Hicks painted approximately sixty versions of The Peaceable Kingdom.  I have always found the scene of the "lion lying down with a lamb"  a wonderful symbol of peace and redemption.

An Out-of-Doors Study - John Singer Sargent

Sargent painted compelling landscape and figure subjects, including this image of his friend Paul César Helleu and his wife, Alice by plein-air using an Impressionist-inspired technique. The red canoe, grassy shore and painter hard at work while his wife rest nearby reminds me of a beautiful, relaxed summer day.

Niagara -  Louis Rémy Mignot

The view is taken from the American side of the great Horseshoe Falls, facing the Canadian shore. Looking at this painting I felt as if I could hear the water thundering down the side of the cliff and feel its spray on my face! It brought back memories of trips I've taken to Niagara Falls, where I have experiences just such wonderful things.

Bust of Abraham Lincoln -  Augustus Saint-Gaudens

This bronze bust is a replica of the head of a standing Lincoln completed by Saint-Gaudens in 1887 on commission for the City of Chicago's Lincoln Park. Lincoln in 3D is always the best way to appreciate the features of his interesting face.

George Washington. On the left painting by Charles Wilson Peale on the right painting by Gilbert Stuart

The Peale portrait was commissioned by John Hancock of  Washington as Commander in Chief of the Continental Army in order to flatter and reward him for liberating Boston from the British in March 1776.
Gilbert Stuart portrayed George Washington several times in this stately, full-length portrait format known as the Grand Manner, and filled the painting with many iconic American details.

The differences in Washington from his somewhat youthful face from the beginning of the American Revolution in 1776, to his aged look during the years of his presidency beginning in 1789 are fascinating to see side by side as the paintings are displayed in the Brooklyn Museum. It seems from the office of our first president, being the president ages a man!

One area of interest in the Brooklyn Museum is the Luce Center for American Art on the 5th Floor. It is a 5,000 square-foot dense display in the Visible Storage and Study Center which offers an inside look at how museums work and provides a glimpse of the breadth and scope of the Brooklyn Museum's extensive American collections. Whereas only about 350 works are on view in the adjacent American Identities exhibition, this facility gives open access to some 2,000 of the many thousands of American objects held in storage, which are now available for viewing and research by students, scholars, and the general public.

Glass display cases contain a selection of archived objects from the American decorative arts collection: pewter, commemorative pressed glass, Tiffany glass and lamps, examples of contemporary industrial design and furniture, silver, eighteenth-century furniture, nineteenth-century seating furniture with original upholstery, and Brooklyn-made ceramics.

It is fascinating to think that as large as the Brooklyn Museum's building is, just a small fraction of the permanent collections can be displayed in its limited exhibition gallery space! To open some of the storage space for a glimpse of it's contents in this way was wonderful to explore.

It was also wonderful to see so many students and artists hard at work copying artwork in the museum and enjoying the galleries.

There is a lot more to show about from Brooklyn Museum and I will be doing a few more posts about it this week. In my next post I'll show the special exhibit we wanted to see at the museum before the show closed.


Linking up to My World Tuesday hosted by Klaus, and the My World team, Ruby Tuesday by Mary's The Work of the Poet blog, Outdoor Wednesday on Susan's blog A Southern Daydreamer and Rednesday on Sue's blog It's A Very Cherry World

Please visit their wonderful blogs next and join in all the fun!

Three Museums in San Francisco

On our recent trip to San Francisco I had the opportunity to visit three very interesting and diversely themed museums. This is the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA) which is located at 151 3rd Street, between Mission and Howard. Their web site states: "Founded in 1935, SFMOMA was the first museum on the West Coast devoted to modern and contemporary art. From the outset, the museum has championed the most innovative and challenging art of its time, and we continue to exhibit and collect work by both modern masters and younger, less-established artists."

Of course I'm a fan of New York's Museum of Modern Art and I was curious to see our western partner's collection.  (all photos will enlarge if clicked on once, and then again)

The SFMOMA building is, in itself, a work of art!  Designed by architect Louis I. Kahn, the interior is flooded with natural light and offers generous open spaces. The full-height central atrium court is illuminated by the enormous circular skylight turret and features a dramatic bridge crossing the space at the fifth-floor level. The Rooftop Garden was designed by architect Mark Jensen, and connects to the museum's fifth-floor galleries via a glass-enclosed bridge.

The five floors of galleries are filled with light and easy to navigate.

A collage of some of the many paintings and a Calder mobile which I found interesting.

From left to right on  top:

Jackson Pollock - "Guardians of the Secret"

Henri Matisse - "La Fille aux Yeux Verts"

Andy Warhol - "Self-Portrait"

Bottom, left to right:

Chuck Close - "James" 

Alexander Calder - "Eighteen Numbered Black" 

Frida (Frieda) Kahlo - "Frieda and Diego Rivera"

Much more of SFMOMA's permanent collection can be viewed online using their interesting "Artscope" feature.

 I was fortunate to be able to see the Calder to Warhol exhibit that was on the entire top two floors of the museum, including the Rooftop Garden, which feature more than 160 paintings, sculptures, photographs, and video works by Alexander Calder, Chuck Close, Anselm Kiefer, Roy Lichtenstein, Agnes Martin, Gerhard Richter, Cy Twombly, Andy Warhol, and many more.

This past February the SFMOMA formed a partnership to house and display the collection of Gap founders Doris and Donald Fisher.  Their collection consists of more than 1,100 works by iconic 20th-century artists, many of which have never been seen by the public!  This exhibit runs until September 19, 2010.

One Fisher collection on display contained 23 paintings of German artist Gehard Richter.  Their collection consisted of a full range of his styles and is considered one of the finest concentrations of his works in the world. This collage shows four of his works.  Upper left is "Abstraktes Bild 1987," and "256 Farben - 1974." Lower left is "Abstraktes Bild 1992," and "Janus 1983'

I thought this work called "5,377,183 Suns from Flickr (partial) ( 2006-2009)" by Penelope Umbrico would be of interest to bloggers and photographers.  The artist culled and cropped pictures of sunsets from the public photo sharing site Flickr.  It is part of SFMOMA's "Living Histories" exhibition that is part of the 75th anniversary show which runs through Jan 2011.  You can view some of these photographs up close of the artist's Flickr site, and read her fascinating description of how this art work came into existence in her statement.

The next museum I visited was the de Young Fine Arts Museum located in Golden Gate Park at 50 Hagiwara Tea Garden Drive. The de Young showcases American art from the 17th through the 21st centuries, international contemporary art, textiles and costumes, and art from the Americas, the Pacific, and Africa.

I was extremely fortunate to see this special exhibit! Unfortunately no photographs of the exhibit were allowed, and I just read on the museum website that this special exhibit, which runs through September 6, 2010, is completely sold out.

The de Young's web site about the exhibit states: "Birth of Impressionism: Masterpieces from the Musée d’Orsay presents nearly 100 magnificent works by the famous masters who called France their home during the mid- to late-19th century and from whose midst arose one of the most original and recognizable of all artistic styles, Impressionism. The exhibition begins with paintings by the great academic artist Bouguereau and the arch-Realist Courbet, and includes American expatriate Whistler’s Arrangement in Gray and Black, known to many as “Whistler’s Mother.” Manet, Monet, Renoir, and Sisley are showcased with works dating from the 1860s through 1880s, along with a selection of Degas’ paintings that depict images of the ballet, the racetrack, and life in the Belle Époque."

Part two of the Musee D'Orsay collection to be displayed in exhibit called "Van Gogh, Gauguin, Cézanne and Beyond: Post-Impressionist Masterpieces from the Musée d'Orsay," opens September 25, and if you live in the San Francisco area I urge you to purchase tickets immediately for the chance of a lifetime to see these works!

The museum's regular collections were allowed to be photographed and I thought I'd show a couple of my favorites. Above is Edward Hopper's "Portrait of Orleans."

Georgia O' Keeffe's "Petunias"

The last museum I was fortunate enough to have time to visit was the new Walt Disney Family Museum located in the Presidio at 104 Montgomery Street.  No photography was allowed inside the museum, but you can view a synopsis of the galleries collections online, and see photographs from the Disney collection and read the history of Walt Disney's life. 

The museum's web site states: "The Walt Disney Family Museum was conceived to present the real story of Walt Disney, the man, told by him and others who knew him well. The Museum is located in the Presidio of San Francisco, a former U.S. Army base and now a National Park. The three buildings that house the Museum are on the National Register of Historic Places."

For any fan of Walt Disney -- his cartoons, movies, theme parks and brand -- it was a fascinating journey to walk through the galleries of this new museum devoted to his life and to read, listen and watch film clips abut him from his birth to death.  I would say it is not exactly a place to bring very young children, because as of now the exhibits required mush listening and reading activity, but a child 10 and over would probably find it enjoyable.  It certainly made me reminisce about the many ways the Walt Disney brand touched my life as a child.

There was also this wonderful view of San Francisco's Golden Gate Bridge from a large glass window near the Disney museum's upper floor restrooms, that I could not resist taking a photograph of! The top of the bridge is covered in the iconic fog that often lingers in the bay. I'll be showing many more photos of this beautiful bridge when we go over it on our way to visit Muir Woods, but next blog post I'll take you along on our day trip to the beautiful town of Sausalito.

I hope everyone is having a safe and happy Labor Day Weerend!

Roses of Every Hue

I blogged about the plethora of pink roses in The Cranford Rose Garden in the Brooklyn Botanic Garden for Pink Saturday, on this post", and now I'd like to show you some of the other beautiful hues of roses that I saw there

(all photos and mosaics may be enlarged by clicking on them once, and then again when it opens on a new page.  Please use your browser's back arrow to return to the post)

The Cranford Rose Garden had riotous red roses in every shade and shape...

...and the palest of peach and the yummiest of yellow roses...

...but my favorite color was the luscious lavender colored roses ...they looked so delicate and rare!

What is your favorite rose color?

Marmite, Smiles and Surprises!

Have you ever eaten Marmite?  It is a British product made from yeast extract, a by-product of beer brewing, and it is enriched with B vitamins to make it a healthy product.  It is a sticky, dark brown paste with a distinctive, powerful flavor, which is extremely salty and savoury with umami qualities, somewhat comparable to soy sauce. This distinctive taste is reflected in the British company's marketing slogan: "Love it or hate it."

I've been curious for a long tome about Marmite ever since I first heard about it, yet it is hard to find it here in the USA and when I did come upon it in a specialty store it would be very expensive.  I decided my first taste of Marnite would have to wait until my first visit to the United Kingdom.

But yesterday a friend and I were shopping together in a discount store and she came upon this cute little box shaped like a suitcase on clearance that contained a miniature Paddington Bear and a squeezable jar of Marmite!  It seems at one time Paddington bear was promoting Marmite in commercials but now has returned to his love for sweeter marmalade. Knowing of my Marmite curiosity, my friend  bought the box and surprised me at my birthday lunch with it along with her other gifts! We had  a lot of giggles squeezing a bit of it onto our fingers to try it.  We decided the odor reminded us of liquid baby vitamins and the taste .... well it really is indescribable!  Strong, piquant, definitely unusual.  She did not like it but I think I did.  I will have to try it as it is traditionally served as a condiment on a cheese sandwich before I make my decision.

Have you ever tried Marmite?  Do you love it or hate it?  What is your favorite way to serve it?

Today is my birthday, but the whole month has felt like a celebration for me!  At my age I feel as if I could not ask for anything else in my life as I feel very blessed, but happy little surprises that make me smile are always welcome. It's the little things in life that count the most.

With that thought I would like to show some wonderful things I have won in blog give aways recently....

A very belated thank you is due to JoAnn, of the blog A Gathering Place, as I won these charmingly whimsical greeting cards by Mitchell Avenue Designs on her blog a few months ago.  JoAnn is a third grade teacher, Mother of 6 and Grandmother of two, with another grandchild on the way.  She has a warm welcoming and delightful blog and I'm sure you'd enjoy visiting her!

This fun trio of vintage kitchen items was a surprise package that came in the mail while I was away in Colorado from Lisa of Lisa RetroStyle blog.  Lisa is an antique restorer and dealer, and was going to be a vendor at the Brimfield Antique Show.  Lisa offered to buy something at the show as a give away on her facebook page, and I won!  I had asked her to look for something made of copper or a vintage book. She found the cute copper coasters and salt and pepper shakers and added the vintage fabric apron. Thank you Lisa -- they are all such wonderful retro items that bring back memories!  If you love middle 1900's vintage you'll love Lisa's blog and her ETSY stores where she sells her finds.

I won this beautiful hand crocheted table topper  made by Marilyn of Our Victorian Cottage on a give away she had last week.  Marilyn lives in a circa 1860's home in a beautiful town in Pennsylvania and has the most magnificent gardens.  She is also a wonderful hobby crafter as you can see by her beautiful work!  Marilyn just finished treatments for cancer and thankfully has a good prognosis.  I'm sure she'd love if you came by her wonderful chatty blog full of cute graphics and fun photos and stop and say hello!

photo source: Alice In Paris Loves Art & Tea

Finally, here is a gift that you can give yourself that will make you smile!  Shelagh, of the blog Alice In Paris Loves Art and Tea is having a second round of her special Artful Pen Pals blog.  Hurry if you'd like to join, as registration ends midnight of June 14!  Shelagh had over 50 participants last year and everyone received at least one penpal letter and some formed lasting pen pal relationships.  If you'd like to receive something other than bills and ads in your mailbox and enjoy the almost lost art of letter writing, why not join in this year?  Shelagh is a folk artist who lives in Nova Scotia and she is a photographer extraordinaire! I was sorry to miss her on her recent visit to NYC as she arrived the week I was away, but I hope to meet her someday as I've been reading her blog long before I began mine and I've always enjoy my visits to her.

Another thing that always makes me smile is my blog visitors and reading blog comments.  You have all added so much to my life and being a part of the blogging community has been such a positive experience for me.  Thank you all!  You have helped to make this day the happiest of birthdays!