Becky's photoblog

We drove from Raleigh to DC, and decided to stop in Richmond for lunch at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts. We figured we would eat, see a few galleries, then get back on the road. We probably should have known we’d end up there for 3 hours.

After a delicious meal, we wandered the galleries, starting with an incredible collection of Art Deco and Art Nouveau. The VMFA really does have a great collection, and it was a real treat to find that the VMFA has copies of not one, not two, but three of my most favorite sculptures!

We had a quick visit the DeCordova Sculpture Park, just long enough to enjoy a meal with some relatives we rarely get to see, wander a few galleries and see some giant outdoor sculptures.

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!

Art in the Bloom at the MFA is a feast for all of the senses (except touch of course!)

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.

It’s always so nice to go from a long day at work straight to the MFA. We were there for a lecture, but before that, we visited the brand new Hokusai exhibit. We barely scratched the surface of an absolutely spectacular exhibit.

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 …

What to do after visiting a museum? How about another museum! We took a short drive from Nothampton to South Hadely and visited the art museum at Mount Holyoke College. I had been there before many years ago, and Brian had never been. It’s a lovely little museum with a handful of beautiful exhibits.

We needed to get out of town, so we took a little day trip out to the Berkshires to hang out in a town we both enjoy. Northampton has lots of cool shops, galleries and restaurants. We also revisited the Smith College Museum of Art which had recently redone some of it’s galleries.

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!

We have been out to Worcester several times in the last year or so, and yet we haven’t been to the Worcester Art Museum in a long time (since we first got together). What else is there to do but go to a museum on a rainy three-day weekend when football isn’t on til later in the afternoon?

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!

In mid-November, the Harvard Art Museums reopened after several years of renovations. Harvard has spectacular collections and a gorgeous museum, so I’ve been looking forward to this reopening for many years. I’ve been a little distracted since mid-November, but we finally got over there this afternoon and it was fanastic!

While we were near Dulles for a lovely family occasion, we spent the afternoon at the Udvar-Hazy Center, a companion facility to the National Air & Space Museum. I’ve never been to the actual Air & Space Museum in DC, but this place is absolutely enormous, with a gajillion vehicles that have actually traveled in air and in space and it was absolutely spectacular.

Three highlights: seeing the actual Enola Gay, seeing the actual Discovery Shuttle, and seeing the look on my husband’s face when he saw the SR-71 Blackbird.

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.

The Norton Simon Museum in Pasadena, CA

On our last day in LA, we headed out to Pasadena so I could show Brian the Norton Simon Museum. We had also heard that the Huntington Library, Art Collections, and Botanical Gardens was lovely, and it was open earlier, so we headed there first.

This place is absolutely gorgeous! Henry and Arabella Huntington amassed an enormous collection of rare books, art, and plants from all over the world, and it was an incredibly pleasant and peaceful place to wander around. In the library, we saw a Gutenberg Bible (among many other fascinating things). In the art collection, we saw the usual array of lovely paintings and interesting sculptures, and the gardens truly knocked our socks off. The rose garden was spectacular, and the Japanese garden, with the lily pads, the bridge and the colorful fish swimming in the pond was really breath-taking!

After the Getty Center, we headed down to see the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. We mixed up the timing, so we only had an hour, but that gave us enough time to breeze through a lovely exhibit on Calder, a Japanese collection of Chinese paintings, and an exhibit of weird modern art, plus one whole floor of the permanent collection … a bit rushed, but a really great hour!!

After wandering around LA in the morning, we headed up to the Getty Center. This was the first of the five museums that we visited in our three days in Los Angeles. As with almost of the museums in the area, it’s an amazing place to enjoy the outside spaces, then head inside to check out some galleries, then pop back outside to admire the view, then head back inside for more art, and so on. We had both been to the Getty before, but never together. The Getty has a handful of my favorites, and it’s like visiting old friends! We could have stayed all afternoon, but we were also eager to head to LACMA.