day at the nc museum of art, pt 2

Perfect way to spend a Sunday: wandering the art museum, hearing stories from the docents, looking at pretty, curious, and awesome art.

Rembrandt etching on copper plate

Rembrandt etching on copper plate

Dave challenging Rodin sculpture

Playing at creating my own Monet via my camera and captured garden reflection

Georgia O'keefe!

1st official portrait of King Louis XV of France, created to assure France & the rest of Europe that the 5 year old was up to the job. Three paintings exist, one hangs in Versailles, one in the Louvre, and this one in Raleigh, NC.



Monet

day at the nc museum of art, pt 1

 

Perfect way to spend a Sunday: wandering the art museum, hearing stories from the docents, looking at pretty, curious, and awesome art.

 

Rembrandt's etching on copper plate

one of the many Rodin sculptures

corner view: bright

Corner View is a weekly appointment - each Wednesday - created by Jane (Spain) and curated by Francesca (Italy), where bloggers from all corners of the world share their view on a pre-arranged theme. The theme this week is "bright."

I can see clearly now, the rain is gone.

I can see all obstacles in my way.

Gone are the dark clouds that had me blind.

It's gonna be a bright (bright) 

bright (bright) sunshiny day!

~ Jimmy Cliff

things worth sharing: 4/20/15

Some things I thought were worth sharing this morning. Grab a cup of coffee and enjoy!

1. Why we loved Gilbert Blythe. Your fans are in the "depths of despair." RIP Jonathan Crombie.  

2.  In her Grammy acceptance letter, Annie Clark gets real with her fans about what it took to become St Vincent. A refreshingly honest account of getting started in the music biz.

3.  On what food porn does to the brain. What's the psychological appeal?

4.  And now that the food porn link above has your attention, here are 5 amazing vegetarian main-dish salad recipes for summer. Yummy!

5. Quote:  "Media voices, politicians and others that create panic for a living need to own responsibility for the way their actions dramatically magnify the cost we all pay." ~ Seth Godin.

on remembering childhood wonder

The weather has turned warm again, at last. We’ve thrown open the windows and can once more hear the excited cries of children at play. The mere sound of them takes me back to a time when great happiness could be found by exploring the woods, precious treasures found just by turning over a large rock or rotting log, music heard when sitting next to a swiftly running creek. We tend to lose that sense of wonder as we get older but maybe we should be making a little time each week to rediscover our own inner child. It just might make all the difference.  

corner view: hunger

Corner View is a weekly appointment - each Wednesday - created by Jane (Spain) and curated by Francesca (Italy), where bloggers from all corners of the world share their view on a pre-arranged theme. The theme this week is "hunger" and comes from Kelleyn (US). 

I think that Django has an internal body-clock. Twice a day he'll herd us over to his food bowl and quietly sit at attention until he's fed. Good boy!

things worth sharing: 4/6/15

Some things I thought were worth sharing today. Grab a cup of coffee and enjoy!

1.  Quote: “As a songwriter, it’s just a wonderful thing when a song leaves your hands and you get to see what can happen to it — the way it gets used by people. When an artist tells you that they used your song to paint with or someone says they got through a painful period thanks to one of your songs, it pays you back. I happen to think that one creative act creates other creative acts. You drop a pebble in the well and it’s quite astonishing what happens to those ripples. They go out and sometimes they come back to you.”

~ Mark Knopfler  Read the whole interview here.

2.  19 great photos of "women's work" 100 years ago.

3.  Quote: "Those who choose not to empathize enable real monsters. For without ever committing an act of outright evil ourselves, we collude with it, through our own apathy."
 ~JK Rowling  Read more of her words of wisdom and life advice here.

4. From 1953 to 1960, the wonderful Edward Gorey oversaw the creation of paperback book covers for Doubleday Anchor books.

5.  Margaret Wise Brown wrote under 3 noms-de-plume and in just 10 years published 53 books. Ironically, the miniature volume, Little Fur Family, was originally bound in rabbit fur. Yikes! Step back in time and read this1946 Life Magazine article about this quirky author. (the point-in-time article is a hoot and unlikely to be written this way now). While you're at it, enjoy a peek at the entire issue. You're sure to be entertained.

corner view: in bloom

Corner View is a weekly appointment - each Wednesday - created by Jane (Spain) and curated by Francesca (Italy), where bloggers from all corners of the world share their view on a pre-arranged theme. The theme this week is "in bloom" and comes from me (USA)!

I choose the theme of "in bloom" for this month because I thought it would be fun to see what's blooming around the world and in the yards of all the corner view participants. Here in my area, it's all about daffodils, forsythia, and the fruit trees. Apple, cherry, plum, peach, pear...they're dressed in all their glory and it's simply beautiful.

 

things worth sharing: 3/30/15

Some things I thought were worth sharing today. Grab a cup of coffee and enjoy!

1.  Remember when people wrote actual letters instead of communicating by e-mail? A fascinating book of curated letters by various artists, each one with hand illustrations and other things creative. More Than Words: Illustrated Letters from the Smithsonian's Archives of American Art, by Liza Kirwin.

2. The power of two: how Lennon/McCartney demonstrated the brilliance of creative pairs.

3. A few tidbits of insight from David Sedaris.

4. Stomping out the myth of the "crazy cat lady."

5. The completely ridiculous copyright case regarding the monkey selfie.

deciding against the age-related funk

I never imagined that at this point in my life I'd still be in decision-making mode. As a kid and young adult, I figured that by the time I got here I'd have my home, my career, my life in order. Turns out those ideas just weren't realistic. So here I am, searching out different paths, trying new things and reinventing my life, but now with the realization that I don't have all the time in the world. This is a misconception that we all buy into when we're young. How lovely an idea though: to be able to create one's own life. I get to decide which trail I'm taking or even if I'm going to blaze a brand new one for myself. I get to follow my intuition, pay better attention to my own desires and if along the way I decide to switch paths because something doesn't make sense then I'll give myself permission to do that. I don't have to climb someone else's ladder or work to earn someone else's job title. There's no more "keeping up" with the Joneses. There's just too much else to focus on. I have no idea where I'm going to land in this adventure, and there sure are a lot of unknowns and pitfalls, but what I do know is that the passionate leap is always worth taking. I have now lived more years than my grandfather was given. I've surpassed the age where my father was diagnosed with his first cancer. I can either let those facts drag me into an age-related funk or I can use those milestones to energize me to make inspiring decisions about how I'm spending my time. I wish I'd figured this out a long time ago. It's a lesson we need to teach to those young people that will listen. Our time is precious. We must use it well.

corner view: imagination

Corner View is a weekly appointment - each Wednesday - created by Jane (Spain) and curated by Francesca (Italy), where bloggers from all corners of the world share their view on a pre-arranged theme. The theme this week is "imagination" and comes from Dorte (Spain).

If you want a terrific lesson in imagination, just watch the children.

To them, it comes naturally.

 

 

things worth sharing: 3/23/15

Some things I thought were worth sharing today. Grab a cup of coffee and enjoy!

1.  Words of wisdom from Seth Godin: including thoughts on what to do when it's your turn (and it's always your turn), fear, change, industry, television, what it means to be an artist, and why Neil Young is just like Pythagoras's 5th hammer.

2.  Artist Maria A Aristidou loves her morning cup of coffee like no one else does.

3.  Pushing the boundries, REM creates an interactive floppy disk to promote their album Monster, in 1994.

4.  Seven (really) strange questions that can help you find your life's purpose. 

5.  Stevie Nicks on journaling and songwriting: "On the right-hand side of the page you write what happened that day, and on the left-hand side you write poems, so when you have an evening where you’re like, “I’m gonna light all the candles and I’m gonna put the fire on, and I’m gonna go sit at the piano and write,” you can dip into your diaries and instantly find a poem and begin."

and then there are the people

For me, half the fun of being at the carnival is getting to watch the people.



These two were not too sure they were going to like this ride. I'd be nervous too!

 

This little guy wasn't too happy about the noise, holding his hands over his ears from one end of the park to the other.

Little man looks a bit envious of the princess with all of her winnings. Her court had to help carry them all!

But not all of the interesting people were on the ground. Looking up, I found these daredevils doing a little maintenance. Yikes!