Becky's photoblog

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

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 …

It’s still pretty chilly out there, but we’re trying to welcome in Spring with some brightly colored house plants.

After wandering through the galleries at the Mount Holyoke College Museum of Art, we popped in to the greenhouse next door for a truly wonderful treat! We were in desperate need of beautiful colors and incredible smells, and the greenhouse did not disappoint. It’s always amazing to see such an enormous variety of plants all in one place. We both took lots of pictures!

My sweetie gave me orange-yellow roses (my favorite!) for Valentine’s Day, and they are keeping our house bright and cheery during the gajillionth winter storm. The sun came out, so I could take artsy photos of the roses in the front window, with the snow swirling around in the wind in the background.

I have new orchids in my office, and they make me happy.

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!

Brian picked up some gorgeous flowers for our fall feast! I so love these colors

The Kelleher Rose Garden in the Back Bay Fens on a gorgeous sunny late afternoon.

I had about an hour to kill before our pre Yom Kippur dinner, and I needed to clear my head after a long week, so I took a walk around the Fenway neighborhood and found myself wandering through the Fenway Victory Gardens: “the oldest continuously operating Word War II Victory Gardens in the United States, spanning 7.5 acres with over 500 gardens.” Who knew?

The gardens are part of a park that’s about half way between Boston University and the Gardner Museum … two places that are a 15 minute walk apart, and where I have spent a lot of my time in the past 8 years … and yet I have never wandered yet another one of Boston’s incredibly little hidden gems.

The Fenway Victory Gardens are truly beautiful and bizarre. It’s one little secret garden after another along narrow dirt paths, each garden with it’s incredibly unique and often strange qualities. You can feel like you’re alone and lost (in a good/peaceful way) among the endless rows of gardens, and yet you can hear traffic not too far away, you can see nearby apartments, and you can see nearby landmarks such as the Prudential Tower. The contrast made this oasis of calm and quiet even more beautiful. In many cases, it’s clear that the gardens are not just places to grow plants and produce, but also places for peaceful personal reflections. Many of the gardens featured wandering paths, sitting nooks and an enormous variety of personal touches.

My parents set a beautiful table (as always) for our first Rosh Hashanah in the new house.

I love love love fall flowers, and the sweetheart who brings them to me 🙂

Really good light on really really thoughtful flowers

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 bought myself pretty flowers in honor of … going to the grocery store

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 wedding on Saturday, we wandered around the downtown Campbell area, which we got to know a bit when we were out here last summer. It’s a fun area, and the water tower looked cool in the setting sun, but it was way too crowded for dinner! On Sunday morning, we headed back to the same neighborhood to meet up with the grooms and enjoy Campbell’s Farmers’ Market for a quick hour before heading north to San Francisco.

We got rhododendrons for mom for mother’s day because we used to have them in our front yard. Gorgeous day!

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!

We finally got around to using one of the gift cards that we received as a wedding gift (yes, I know our wedding was two years ago). Family friends gave us a gift certificate to Maine Lobster Direct — a great idea in theory, but we were both slightly terrified of the idea of cooking lobsters (it’s a bit brutal), so we had them sent to my parents’ house. Two lobsters, and two servings of jumbo shrimp, clam chowder and cherry cheesecake were delivered to my parents’ house, and the four of us enjoyed a long delicious meal after a long week. Mom made extra portions of clam chowder, plus steamed mussels, and steaks to round out our feast.

Out of respect for those who are thoroughly grossed out by the sight of a bowl full of mussels or lobsters shells, I won’t share a few of the photos I took. Instead, here’s a lovely photo of the tulips in my parents’ dining room.

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!

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.

My sweetie knows that I love orange roses.