Midwinter

This weekend is Troy High School's Midwinter dance. While it is a formal, the tradition is that is it sort of a Sadie Hawkin's dance...the girl's ask the guy to go with them.

My daughter said that they all try to do it creatively. Here's how she asked the original guy. She baked little cupcakes and frosted them with her trademark home-made chocolate frosting. She picked out the sugar decorations to spell out "Midwinter?" She handed the plate to the guy in order to ask him.

We purchased a deeply discounted formal last year in her favorite color. The only problem was that although it was marked a size 7 (and she is a 6), it is more like a 10. I have had to take it in 2" on the sides and 1 1/2" off the strap length. I'll also have to shorten it. The issue is that it is fully lined. I've been ripping and re-sewing and struggling. The correct thing to do would be to take the whole thing apart, take in the side seams and cut the underarms deeper and then put a new zipper in it as I am sure it wouldn't survive it. Only I really don't want to do this. So...I just decided to take the coward's way out and I just basted it...right through the lining. She'll never wear it again, and at this point since I only have $30 into it, that's how I'm going to do it.

It's hard to believe it is really almost midwinter, but the thermometer tells us it is. It has been in the teens during the daytime. This is still last weekend at the Franklin Park conservatory. I don't think this is actually a Chilhuly, but merely a garden ornment. I might be wrong. It is in the little area which is usually filled with plant material in the summer time. You can't get in there at the moment as all the doors are shut.



This snow covered ball, however, is a Chilhuly.

















When we woke up this morning, the world was covered in hoar frost. It was gorgeous. Our neighbor called at 8:00 to make sure we were up and had taken notice.

Even though it was 10 degrees, while Carlos went to church, I went outside and started taking photographs. I must say that the camera began to balk a little.

This is my neighbor's blue spruce which now has frosting.



I thought my sedums had a really cool look. I look around at my yard with all the plants other folks quickly cut down in the fall, but I leave up for winter interest and am satisfied that although I'll have a ton of work to do in the spring, indeed as soon as it warms enough that I can do some of it, I still have the better part of interesting things to look at.

More from the Columbus Art Museum

I guess once a museum professional, always a museum professional. I was impressed by the Columbus Art Museum's children's/interactive gallery. But then, I was also impressed by the Dayton Art Museum's as well. It seems that here in Ohio there is some attention paid to having people experience art, not just "find the bird" activity sheets, although they have those too if you want them.

Here you see the gallery set up with tables and seating. The tables hold various activities for you to work with.









A Georgia O'Keefe painting of leaves might inspire you.




















Here's Middleton Manigalt's "The Zoo (Menagerie in Central Park)" an oil on canvas dating from 1911. I enjoyed this as I have been here several times and the colors and movement is wonderful.

Not far away is a table with small pieces of paper and colored pencils for you to make your own drawings of zoo animals. You drop them in a little collection box made plexi-glass and some of them are put up.


Here you can see some of the examples of visitor's work.











Not far from the Georgia O'Keefe is a table with this wonderfully shaped blocks for you to make constructions. I was really taken with them and think I should put them on my Christmas list for next year. I can see all sorts of applications for this with quilting.


















I was also having fun looking at the shadows that the Chilhuly chandeliers cast on the walls.









Downstairs were two of the Chilhuly neon works. I love the blue violet dance that they did.










I have to show you this installation in the Koi pond at the Franklin Conservatory...home to the fattest, most sluggish koi I have ever seen in my life.

















I love the shapes of the staghorn fern fronds. I think that these very easily could be Dale Chilhuly's inspiration for some of his glass chandeliers.

Chilhuly Columbus: Columbus Art Museum

The next stop for us, and I recommend that you do it in this order as well was the Columbus Art Museum. I make this suggestion because if you go to the Franklin Park Conservatory first you can get $2.00 per person tickets to the Art Museum.

Much of the Art Museum is closed as it is undergoing renovations. As I have managed to go through two museum renovations in my career, I really feel for the staff. While much of the permanent exhibitions were closed, the Chilhuly exhibition was wonderful. I also have to applaud them for coming up with great interactive elements to the exhibition and a fantastic children's area. More on that tomorrow.

This is the entrance to the exhibition. With its subtle color palette it hardly prepares you for the riot of what is to come.




For me, the most magnificent part of the installation was the Mille flore garden. No matter how many times you walked around it, you saw new things, wonderful angles and much more to appreciate the combination of color and form.

The room was completely darkened with the light focusing on the works....absolutely stunning!





I think I could have shot photographs of this all day. Hats off to Dale Chiluly and his team and the Art Museum for this installation.
















One of the fun things about this portion was that they had "Glo Pads" for the visitors to sketch out what they saw, or outline the various shapes and the interplay as they looked through the pad.

A Glo Pad is basically a hi-tech etchasketch in a way. The frame has lights in the sides and there are two sheets of some plastic film. A stylus transfers the shape on to the film. You can see the mysterious green glow in the back in this photo. The two squares and people using the Glo-pads to experience the installation.



Several of Chilhuily's chandeliers are also included in the exhibition.





Here, you can see some of Dale Chihuly's Native American Trade Blanket collection. Some of his blankets inspired glass interpretations. This style of his work and his collection were previously highlighted at Lowell, Massachusetts in the Textile Museum. I saw it there years ago and was impressed.





















Happily for me, the Art Museum included examples of his Native American basket collection. You can see the baskets with the glassworks inspired by the artifacts next to them. I love how the glass has the organic shapes which the grass baskets take on over time.








Many of Chilhuly's sketches--paintings really -- which lay out areas he wants to work with were also on exhibiton.

Not to worry, while it looks like the woman is touching the images, she is standing about three feet away. I watched them for a while as this couple really were interacting with the exhibition and as a former curator, it did my heart good.

More tomorrow....

Chilhuly Columbus!

Yesterday, my husband and our neighbors went to Columbus, Ohio to see the Chilhuly exhibition. I have seen the glass works of Dale Chilhuly in Washington state as well as his trade blanket collection and exhibition of works inspired by the blankets at the American Textile Museum in Lowell, Massachusetts.

Currently, three locations in Columbus are highlighting his works. You can find the details here. We visited the Franklin Park Conservatory and the Columbus Museum of Art. If you are anywhere in the area, I encourage you to visit them.

Conservatories are great places to spend a winter day. I had never been to the Franklin Park Conservatory and as we drove up, I was enthralled by the wonderful patterns made from the great "bones" of any good garden--the bare limbs of trees, grasses and spent flower heads left for interest. Evergreens lent their own charm and the wonderful pattern of light and dark against the snow with the highlights of buff from the grasses and incredible blues, greys and whites of the cloud broken sky was just fabulous. I can't wait to come back and see the grounds in better weather. 23 degrees isn't exactly the temperature in which you want to walk around taking pictures.

I wished I could have found a better vantage point to show these wonderful glass sculptures, but it was pretty much enclosed by building. I would have prefered to be able to see them against the snow and the sky. Even so, I think you can get a sense of the wonderful pattern these showed.


Inside was warm and wonderful. As you walked through, not only were you taken by the great horticultural examples, but nestled amongst the green were shots of Chilhuly's pieces.

Some were fairly obvious and were placed so that the lights in the conservatory hit them. Others weren't so as when we entered the conservatory, the sun was hidden.

Chilhuly himself noted in DVD which was playing how much greenhouses inspired him. I have to agree. I took over 200 photographs yesterday between the Conservatory and the second location we visited, the "Chilhuly Illuminated" exhbition at the Columbus Museum of Art. I'll highlight that in it's own post and no doubt over the next months I'll return to show more photographs of the Conservatory.


These wonderful "flower baskets" were at the beginning of the Conservatory's show. They're huge, I think most about a yard across at the top.