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!
It’s winter break and I’ve been painting up a storm … stayed tuned!
The Old South Ringers is Old South Church’s handbell choir, and the put on an amazing Christmas concert. It’s incredibly beautiful (the music and the setting), and this has become one of my favorite holiday traditions.
I’m going to be doing a painting of a bride on her wedding day, and her big day finally arrived! I had a wonderful afternoon walking through the North End to Battery Wharf, which happens to be one of my favorite places in Boston (and not just because it has a wonderful view across the harbor to the Hyatt where we were married). The bridal suite at the Fairmont Battery Wharf is literally right at the end of the wharf, and it has some really incredible views. I had the honor of hanging out with the wedding party during some of the formal photos, as well as with my friend, the mother of the bride. We took some really wonderful photos for the painting, and I can’t wait to get started!
After we were done with the photos, I walked back through the North End to head home for a quick change before heading back out again to see Fitz and the Tantrums at the House of Blues! Great show.
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.
We wandered through the Boston Arts Festival in Columbus Park (a favorite open-air art market, which we he hadn’t checked out in a few years) before heading back to the car and heading up to New Hampshire for the evening. A little dose of inspiration in the middle of a lovely day!
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.
Second date-night in a row this week! Delicious dinner in Mission Hill with Deanna, then a lovely walk past the gorgeous Mission Church to her car.
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.
Every year on Mother’s Day weekend, Harvard’s Ceramics Program hosts a spring sale, and we’ve gone to see it a few times before. This year, they were in a beautiful new light-filled space, and we saw some really gorgeous pieces.
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!
I have visited just about all of the gorgeous churches in Back Bay, taken a lot of pictures, and added them to my ongoing project, Architectural Landmarks of Boston’s Back Bay. When my cousin recently mentioned his upcoming visit to Arlington Street Church for a friend’s ordination, it reminded me that I haven’t been to see ASC’s gorgeous Tiffany windows in a very long time. And the last time I was there, I didn’t have my camera!
Most churches are open during the day for prayers and tourists, so it’s easy to wander in off the street, drop your jaw over the gorgeous architecture and windows, snap a few great photos to savor the details, and enjoy a peaceful moment of reflection. ASC seems to operate on a weird schedule, and I have the door to be locked the last few times I tried. Not this time.
Arlington Street Church is a Unitarian Universalist Church at the corner of Arlington and Boylston Streets, at the edge of Boston’s Back Bay, right across from the Public Gardens. It was opened in 1861, and it was the first public building in Back Bay. Its spire is 190 feet tall, complete with a bell, weathervane and clocks. The church has an incredibly gorgeous collection of Tiffany stained glass windows, and their collection is among the largest and finest collections of Louis Comfort Tiffany’s work.
I know I take a lot of pictures of the Gardner Museum’s greenhouse … and here’s some more! One of the gardeners saw me taking pictures (and he saw my badge), so he offered to let me in to the greenhouse for a closer look. What a treat!
It snowed today, again. The MBTA has a lovely habit of terminating my train about 6 stops before my house when the weather is bad because the street-level trolley just causes more traffic. So I took a different route home, and it took me through Copley Square … my favorite part of Boston. Absolutely gorgeous snow-covered churches, in that perfect hour when the sky is still light, but the street lamps are on … everything glows just a bit.
The first two photos are of Old South Church, and the second two are of Trinity Church.
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 had a much needed museum-day, wandering around the MFA with my sketchbook and my camera. It had been too long since the last time I brought my pencils to the galleries.
In one of the galleries, there’s a beautiful sculpture that has caught my attention before, and this time, the most magnificent light was shining on it from the nearby foyer. My photos don’t do it justice, but the light made this gorgeous marble sculpture look like it was made out of fresh snow. I couldn’t get enough of it!
The sculpture is called Blind Cupid, because it depicts Cupid hiding behind Venus, playing a little game of hide-and-seek (so the card says), and Cupid’s eyes are closed. It’s by Bela Lyon Pratt, whose name rang a bell. I ran in to Gardner friends who helped me figure it out – Bela Lyon Pratt is also responsible for the gorgeous sculptures in front of the Boston Public Library.
Please click here for the MFA’s page on Blind Cupid
Bela Lyons Pratt created two grand sculptures for the main entrance to the Boston Public Library. The sculptures depict Art and Science (this photo shows Art), and they are each displayed between pedestals inscribed with notable names from each field.
The MFA also has Pratt’s miniatures of these sculptures: Art and Science.
