Becky's photoblog

Another magical evening at the Gardner Museum!

I finally got the chance to pop over to the Gardner Museum since they started allowing visitors to go inside the greenhouse, not just look in through the glass corridor. It was such a wonderful treat to smell the flowers and get right up close to see all of the beautiful details.

The warm orange lights brighten the courtyard at the Gardner Museum as the sun sets around closing time (5pm) on the first day of daylight savings. If it has to get dark early, it might as well look like this:

I had a wonderful morning at the Gardner Museum attending a training session for the brand new gorgeous exhibit Ornament and Illusion: Carlo Crivelli of Venice, and I got to take some fun close-ups of beautiful details in the exhibit, and in the courtyard.

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For tonight’s theme of Myths and Monsters, four storytellers stood at the four corners of the courtyard and performed three stories from Greek Mythology while a cellist played! It was pretty spectacular!

The tiger lilies looked amazing in the Gardner Museum’s Monks Garden at the first Neighborhood Nights of Summer 2015

I had an awesome time volunteering at the Gardner Museum’s Third Thursday. The theme was Garden Party, and we had a full house of summery, pleasant, inquisitive visitors!

Where else would we go on a chilly Easter afternoon when we had a few hours to kill after church and before dinner? Apparently, a few other people, including our cousins (!), had the same idea. Yes, I know, I was just at the Gardner last weekend to see the nasturtiums, but the flowers in the courtyard have changed since then and it was a treat to see the lovely oranges and blues.

Every year in early Spring, the Gardner Museum’s courtyard features gorgeous hanging nasturtiums, and I finally got to take photos of them! The Gardner’s nasturtiums are my favorite sign that spring is here! Actually, this year, they’re a sign that spring really is coming soon …

I spent most of a personal day (which I scheduled before I had 5 days off for snow) at the Gardner Museum, chatting with families on school vacation week, giving an intro talk about the collection and the collector, and soaking in the beautiful sun-lit colors of the courtyard.

A few glimpses of the snow-covered greenhouse, and the courtyard at the Gardner’s Third Thursday

Started a lovely Saturday by attending a lecture at the Gardner Museum about an ancient epic tale, then snapping this lovely shot of the Gardner’s much-need mid-winter oasis of greenery, because I can! I do love me some ancient epic tales …

The Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum recently changed its photography policy to allow visitors to take photos of the courtyard (photography is still prohibited in the rest of the museum). This means that after ten years of volunteering and ten years of enjoying this incredibly unique and magnificent space, I can finally take pictures of it!

A glimpse of lovely purple flowers at the Gardner Museum’s greenhouse before heading out in to the cold after a fun evening of volunteering!

I volunteered at the Gardner Museum for the third of three Neighborhood Nights … a summer tradition of fun, games, art and music at the Gardner on lovely summer evenings, all for free. I’ve been volunteering at this event for many many years.

I gave a tour of the Gardner Museum to Courtney and a few of her friends who were in town for the weekend – I love meeting my friends’ friends because they are always, without fail, awesome people!

And, we got to see this year’s hanging nasturtiums in the courtyard … and they are truly gorgeous this year!

The Gardner Museum’s new wing is now two years old, and after two years of encouraging guests to take photos in the new wing (because that’s the only area of the museum where photography is permitted), I finally got around to taking my own photos! The morning light was absolutely gorgeous, especially with all of the light reflecting off of the snow.

The new wing starts with the front entry hall and the admissions desk. Beyond that is greenhouse which guests can view from a long corridor. Across from the front hall is the coat check and the gift shop, and then beyond that is the main staircase. To the right of the main stairs is the Living Room, to the left is the cafe and the art studio, and between the stairs is the corridor that leads you to Mrs. Gardner’s spectacular museum.

I went to the Gardner Museum this morning to hear a wonderful lecture about the Sargent exhibit. As I was leaving, the light was pouring in to the Living Room, one of the most wonderful spaces of the Gardner Museum’s new wing.

Mrs. Gardner loved gardens, and in addition to her spectacular indoor courtyard, she included a lovely little outdoor garden just outside of her palace. When the museum’s annex was torn down to make way for the gorgeous new wing, the Monks Garden became a part of the construction site. Now, a year and a half after the new wing opened, the newly redesigned Monks Garden is finished!

The landscape architect created a space for visitors to meander through the greenery much like the way visitors meander through the galleries exploring Mrs. Gardner’s eclectic collection. Similar to the galleries, your experience has everything to do with the lighting conditions.

I visited the new Monks Garden for the first time around 4:30pm. By that hour, the late September sun was hitting the tops of the trees, and the high-walled garden was mostly in the shade. I can’t wait to visit the garden at other times of the day, in other seasons. I’m told that some of the stones in the path come alive in the morning light!

The plants in the garden are from all over the world, just like Mrs. Gardner’s gardens in her own time, and it promises to be an absolutely gorgeous spring when the new plants are in bloom.

I had some time to kill before an evening meeting for the volunteers, so I sat in a comfy chair in the museum’s living room (last 2 photos) and read a book on Venetian Renaissance painters.

I love giving tours of the Gardner Museum to people who have never been before, and this week, I got to do that twice!

Our cousins were passing through Boston on their vacation, and they came to Third Thursdays at the Gardner while I was volunteering. The joint was jumping by the time they got there, and I gave them a whirlwind tour of the whole museum before heading out for a late dinner. It was so great to see them!

I love it when friends have family in town, and they ask me to give their family a tour of the Gardner Museum. I’ve done this a gajillion times, and each time, it’s such a treat to show the museum to a group that has never been before, and to see the museum fresh through their eyes.

Here’s yet another photo of the flowers in the Gardner Museum’s greenhouse:

Every year, the Gardner Museum’s talented gardeners grow long vines of nasturtiums and hang these bright orange beauties in Mrs. Gardner’s gorgeous courtyard. Why? Because Mrs. Gardner did it, and it’s a wonderful tradition that the museum keeps up. It’s not Spring in Boston without the nasturtiums or the return of the Red Sox. These delicate flowers will hopefully hang in the courtyard until the annual celebration of Mrs. Gardner’s birthday on April 14th.

No photography is Isabella’s palace, but her brand new greenhouse in the new wing is fair game.